A few undressed actors with their make-up half-completed were playing a game of poker. Stanislawski alone sat in a corner of the dressing-room before his mirror and was making up his face. Already for the third time he was rubbing off the paint with a towel and making up anew. He gymnasticated his mouth, contracted his brows in anger, puckered his forehead and cast all sorts of glances. He was rehearsing a character and with each change of his physiognomy, he mumbled beneath his breath the corresponding parts of his role, only now and then tossing in the direction of the card players a ten-copeck piece and two words: "A four . . . ten coppers!" "The public is starting a rumpus! It's time to ring and begin!" pleaded Cabinski. "Don't disturb us, Director. Let them wait. . . . A trump! . . . Shell out the coin!" "A jack . . . you pay!" "A queen of hearts . . . hand over five shekles!" "All's ready! Stake something on Desdemona, Director," cried one of the players, shuffling and stacking the cards. "She will betray me!" hissed Cabinski. "Doesn't she betray you anyway?" "Ring!" shouted Cabinski to the stage-director, hearing a stamping of feet in the hall. For a few minutes nothing was heard but the rustling of cards, falling with lightning-like rapidity upon the table. "Four aces . . . you're done for!" "Shell out!" "A jack!" "A five . . . that's good. I'll at least make something." "A queen of hearts." "Have some consideration for the ladies!" persisted Cabinski. "A queen of spades. Shell out!" "Enough of that! Hurry and dress yourselves! The audience is already beginning to howl." "If that amuses them, why interfere?" "You'll change your minds about it, if they leave the theater and demand their money back!" cried Cabinski, rushing out in utter desperation. The actors threw down their cards and all began to dress themselves in feverish haste and to complete their make-up. "What do we play first?" "The Vow." "Stanislawski!" "You can ring, I am coming!" called Stanislawski, as he slowly made his way to the stage. "Hurry! or they'll wreck the theater!" cried Cabinski in the doorway. They were giving a so-called "dramatic bouquet," or "as you like it," that is: a comic sketch, a one-act operetta, a scene from a drama and a solo dance. Almost the entire company took part in the performance. Janina sat behind the scenes and watched the stage, waiting for her turn. She felt greatly overwrought by the happenings of that entire day. She closed her eyes and became rapt in a quiet meditation of the words of Grzesikiewicz, who had again recurred to her memory, but suddenly, she started with a shudder, for behind his face she saw emerging the satyr-like face of Kotlicki with its mocking smile; then, there passed before her mind a vision of Glogowski with his large head and kindly look. She rubbed her eyes as though to drive those visions away from her, but that smile of Kotlicki would not leave her memory.