"My God! How can you ask such a question? Are you joking, or haven't you a spark of feeling in you? . . . Why is he worrying? . . . Because you are away . . . because he, like all of us, is dying with longing for you! . . ." "And what about Krenska? . . ." Janina asked with apparent calmness, although stirred deeply by what he had told her. "What has Krenska to do with this? . . . He threw her out the very next day after your departure, afterwards received a few days' official leave from his duties and left Bukowiec. . . . In about a week he returned so woebegone and haggard that we scarcely recognized him. Even strangers are crying over him, but you had no pity on him and went forth into the world . . . and what kind of world, besides? . . ." Janina sprang up violently from her chair. "Yes, you may be angry with me if you will, but I love you, I love you too well, and we all love you too well to be denied the right to speak what we feel. Have me thrown out of here if you will, and I'll not complain, but I'll wait for you at the street door or meet you anywhere else and keep telling you that your father is dying without you and that he is growing sicker and weaker every day! My mother came across him not so long ago in the woods: he was lying in some bushes and crying like a child. You are killing him. Both of you are killing each other with your pride and unrelenting stubbornness. You are the best woman in the world and I feel that you will not leave him alone, that you will return and give up theatrical life. . . . Aren't you ashamed of associating with such a band of scoundrels? . . . How can you possibly exhibit yourself on the stage! . . ." He broke off and breathing heavily, wiped his eyes with his handkerchief. Never before had he said so much at one time. Janina sat with bowed head, her face as pale as a sheet, her lips set tightly and her heart filled with a storm of rebellion and suffering. That sharp voice which she had just heard had in it such a tearful, deep and soul-stirring expression and those words: "Your father is suffering . . . your father is crying . . . your father is longing for you!" penetrated her with so sharp a grief and harried her so painfully, that at moments she wanted to spring up and go to him as quickly as she could; but then again, memories of the past would flood her brain and she would become cool and hardened. Finally she recalled the theater and became entirely indifferent. "No! He has driven me away forever. . . . I am alone in the world and will remain alone. I could not live without the theater!" Janina said to herself and there arose in her again that mad desire for theatrical conquest.