She went to the rehearsal, trembling with fear, but on seeing the person who was to play "Garrick," she quickly mastered herself. This amateur was hardly more than a boy, skinny, awkward, and simple-minded. He lisped and waddled about like a duck, but since he was the cousin of one of the influential journalists who backed him, he regarded everybody at the theater with a haughty expression and treated them with an air of condescension. The members of the company delicately ridiculed him to his face and laughed loudly at him behind his back. Everybody was present at the rehearsal, as though they had all agreed upon it beforehand. No sooner did Janina enter upon the stage than Majkowska ostentatiously withdrew behind the scenes, while Topolski did not so much as nod his head to her in greeting. Janina realized that relations with them were severed for good, but she had no time to think about it, for the rehearsal began immediately. Despite the fact that she had at first intended merely to recite her role, Janina could not now refrain from marking it, at least in its broad outlines. She was irritated by the fact that everyone was looking at her and that from all directions numerous eyes were fixed upon her. It seemed to her that she saw ridicule in their glances and derision on all those lips, so at moments she would start nervously and break out with all the force of her temperament, or again, she would speak too softly. Majkowska stood there hissing and laughing together with Zarnecka and loudly voicing her opinion of Janina's acting. Topolski, the stage-manager, made her leave and reenter the stage several times, for in her excitement, she did not enter properly. Janina knew what they were doing, so she did not take very much to heart Mela's ridicule or Topolski's pedantic instructions. She played on and rendered her role forcibly, if a little unevenly. There followed a characteristic silence; nobody laughed nor jested loudly. The stage-director walked up and down behind the scenes contentedly rubbing his hands and grunting: "Good, good, but she does not yet put enough pathos into it!" "Why, don't you hear she is already shouting, not speaking!" Majkowska jeered at him. "My dear madame! You go into convulsions on the stage, and none of us, out of politeness, blames you for it," answered Stanislawski for his friend. "Not that way! Who waves his arms in that manner? Are you trying to make a windmill of yourself?" cried Topolski. "Don't discourage her, remember it is her first rehearsal!" cried Cabinska from the seats. "You walk about the stage like a goose!" again remarked the irritated Topolski to Janina. "She wouldn't be at all bad as a washerwoman!" hissed Mela. In spite of all, although she felt tears of wrath rising to her eyes, Janina played on, without letting herself be confused and never for a moment losing her presence of mind.