The director almost went crazy, for he was not prepared for such a thing. He tried to squirm out of it as best as he could, made promises, gave orders on the treasurer to all who wanted them and, spying Janina called aloud to her with the object of mollifying somewhat his previous conduct: "If you want something from the treasurer, I will give you an order, for I must leave right away." Janina asked for five rubles. He did not even so much as make a wry face but gave it to her and immediately ran off to Pepa, but on the way he was again tackled by that amateur and his cousin and things began to grow so noisy behind the scenes that the public listened uneasily, wondering what was the matter. The performance was concluded amid the silence of the audience; not one handclap sounded. Janina, on leaving the box office with the money, met Niedzielska hobbling slowly along. She stopped and wanted to greet her, but Niedzielska looked at her threateningly and barked: "What do you want, you! you!" She coughed violently, threatened Janina with her cane with which she supported herself, and dragged herself on. Janina unconsciously looked about her, to see if she could spy Wladek anywhere, but he had already vanished. She had not seen him since that morning. Wladek purposely avoided her, for he had reached the decisive conclusion that it was better to have intercourse only with ordinary women, for with them it was not necessary to restrain one's self, to pretend, and to be continually forced to take everything into account. Moreover, Janina had made a fiasco as an actress and continued to be nothing but a chorus girl, and his mother had threatened to disinherit him because of her. Janina gazed for a long time after the old woman, who, no doubt, was going to seek her son, and then she went slowly home. CHAPTER X Janina lay sick in bed. It seemed to her as though she were at the bottom of a well and, from those depths into which they had shoved her she could see only the pale, distant blue of the sky, sometimes complete darkness, sometimes the twinkling of the stars, then again some wings, flying past, would cast a shadow over her eyes so that she lost knowledge of everything. She only felt that those eddies of life without, its voices, noises, cries, fears, and despair oozed down the smooth sides of the well and flowed into her soul as into a reservoir, penetrating her whole soul with an unconscious pain which she, however, felt with every fiber of her being. The days dragged on as slowly as though they were strung on the chain of ages, as slowly as they drag on for those who have lost everything, even hope. Janina sent word to the director that she was sick, but no one came to see her. Cabinska merely sent Wicek to say that Yadzia was longing for her piano lessons, and nothing more.