"Beware of dreams! Beware of water!" she repeated to herself, remembering with difficulty who had told her that. And suddenly, Janina became pale and reeled back for such a chaos began to whirl in her brain that she thought she would go mad . . . . For a long time she sat in a senseless torpor and wept without being able to restrain herself, for after partly regaining her consciousness the memory of all her sufferings and disappointments came back to her again. At last utterly worn out, and, lulled by the silence that enveloped the theater after the rehearsal, she fell asleep. She was awakened by Rosinska who on that day had come earlier to the dressing-room, for she was to begin the play. When she saw the sleeping girl, the older actress was moved to pity. The remaining shreds of her womanhood covered by the artificiality of theatrical life, awoke in her at the sight of that pale face, worn by poverty and dejection. "Miss Janina--" whispered Rosinska tenderly. Janina arose and began nervously to wipe away the traces of tears from her face. "Have you not seen Mr. Niedzielski?" she asked Rosinska. "No. My poor child, so that is what they have done to you! But you must not take it so much to heart. If you want to be an artist you must bear a great deal, suffer a great deal. My dear, if you only knew what I had to go through and still have to. If you wanted to grieve over all the afflictions that come to you, become irritated over all the gossip they spread about you or weep over every intrigue in which they try to entangle you, you would have neither any tears, nor eyes, nor strength left! There's no use crying over it, for things can't be any different in the theater! Moreover, you haven't lost anything by it! That one disappointment makes you richer by one more experience." "Perhaps they are right, after all. I must have no talent whatever, if Cabinski took away the role from me . . . ." "It is just because you have a talent that they played this trick on you. I heard what the cousin of that amateur said at the first rehearsal." "What good will all that do me, when I can't play and have nothing to live on." "That is all the doing of Majkowska. She forced Cabinski to take the role away from you." "I know she bears me a grudge, but I can't conceive why she should revenge herself in such an inhuman way!"