The local garden-theaters were all closed for the season and a deathly silence reigned over them. The stages were boarded up and the dressing-rooms and entrances locked. The verandas were strewn with broken chairs and rubbish. The autumn leaves fluttered from the trees and torn scraps of programs of the last performances rustled about sadly in the breeze. The season was over. Nobody visited the theater any more, for the migratory birds were preparing for their flight, only Janina from force of habit, still would come here, gaze a moment at the deserted haunts and return again. Cabinska wrote her a very cordial letter, inviting her to her home. Janina went there and found that they were already packing up for their journey. Immense trunks and baskets stood in the middle of the rooms, a large pile of various stage paraphernalia together with mattresses and bedding lay on the floor the entire outfit of a nomadic life. In Cabinska's room, Janina no longer found either the wreaths or the furniture, or the canopied bed; there shone only the bare walls with the plaster broken here and there by the hasty removal of pictures and the pulling out of hooks. A long basket stood in the middle of the room and the nurse, perspiring from her exertion, was packing into it Pepa's wardrobe. Cabinska, with a cigarette in her mouth, directed the packing and continually scolded the children, who were tumbling in great glee over the mattresses and the straw strewn about the packages. She greeted Janina with exaggerated cordiality and said: "There is such a dust in here that it is unbearable. Nurse, be careful how you pack, so that you don't crush my dresses. Let us go out on the street," she said to Janina, putting on her coat and hat. She pulled Janina along to her pastry shop and there, over a cup of chocolate, began to apologize to her for the discourtesy that Cabinski had shown her at the box office. "Believe me, the director was so excited that he really did not know what he was saying. And can you wonder at it? He was giving his best efforts and even pawning his personal effects, only that the company might lack nothing and, in the meanwhile, along comes Topolski, creates a rumpus and breaks up his company. Even a saint would lose patience in those circumstances and, moreover, Topolski told my husband that you were going to join his company." Janina answered nothing, for she was now entirely indifferent toward the whole matter, but when Cabinska told her that on that very afternoon they were leaving for Plock and that she should immediately pack her things, for the expressman would call for them directly, she answered with decision: "Thank you for your kindness, Mrs. Directress, but I shall not go." Cabinska could scarcely believe her ears and cried out in amazement: "Have you already secured an engagement and where?" "Nowhere, nor do I intend to," answered the girl.