Part 4

Madame Opid, for one, was not disappointed. The family was not so well off as it was before the fire and to Helcia fell a large share of the housework. But she studied and read and thought, with unsettled mind and changing purpose. At one time she thought she would try to achieve fame as a writer; again, at her mother’s wish, she studied furiously with a teacher’s examination in mind; again, to become a nun seemed the only thing worth while. But shortly there came a rude shock to all these plans. Fritz Devrient, a German actor of great talent, played _Hamlet_ in Cracow, and Helena was taken to see him. She had heard of Shakespeare, but had never seen or read any of his plays. The effect on her was overwhelming. Shakespeare became her master then and there, and she never deserted him. She spent a sleepless night, and the longing to be an actress returned with redoubled strength. She greedily read the plays of Shakespeare in Polish translations, and his bust speedily replaced that of Schiller. The family friend, Gustave Modrzejewski, to her great delight seconded her in her renewed ambition, recommended that she study for the German stage as offering a wider field than the Polish, and arranged for lessons from an excellent actor, Herr Axtman. Indeed, his interest extended further, for when Helcia was seventeen he urged that their marriage, which had come to be an understood thing, take place at once. She had seen much of him; they had read together Goethe and Lessing and the northern sagas; he was her guardian and the kindly counselor of the family; and she looked on him, a man more than twice her age, with real affection; and so they were married at once.

After Helena had taken the name which she was to make so famous, there followed a few quiet years during which her ambitions lay in abeyance. When she was twenty her son Rudolphe was born. The little family, and Madame Opid as well, moved to Bochnia, a little town in Austrian Poland. Here it was that, owing to the circumstance that Bochnia possessed salt mines, Mme. Modjeska had her first opportunity to appear on a real stage. Some of the miners had been killed in an accident. It occurred to the Modjeskis to give, for the benefit of the bereaved families, some amateur theatricals. They met a friend, a dancing master named Loboiko, who obtained a hall, hastily built some scenery and acted as leading man of the company. There were but three others--a young man who was the dancing master’s pupil, Helena as leading lady, and Josephine, her younger sister. Stasia, their nine-year-old niece, was prompter. The plays were two pieces now forgotten--_The White Camelia_, in one act, in which Helena was a countess, and _The Prima-Donna_, in which she was an Italian peasant girl who became an actress. Delighted as she was to realize her cherished ambition to appear on the stage before an actual audience, when the bell rang for the rise of the curtain she was thoroughly frightened. Before she went on she could not think of her lines, and she fairly shook with nervousness. Yet once on the stage her words came to her and she found herself, much to her surprise, quite at her ease. The dignitaries and the country gentlemen of the district and the townspeople all turned out for the performance, and for the two others that followed it, in unexpectedly large numbers. Madame Modjeska’s acting, at this her first opportunity for showing it, attracted attention. An actor and stage manager from Warsaw, who happened to be in Bochnia and saw her act, asked her how long she had been on the stage,--an amusing and pleasing question,--and urged her to turn her eyes toward Warsaw. Such men do not pay empty compliments, and Helena’s confidence now took new hold. The prospect of going to Warsaw drove from her mind any idea of becoming a German actress. It was Warsaw and the Imperial Theatre, or die!

Such was the modest beginning of a career. Mr. Modjeski, so far from objecting to his young wife’s being an actress, saw in the new turn of affairs a chance to retrieve the family fortunes and to get a living for them all. A license for a traveling company was obtained from Cracow, Mr. Modjeski constituted himself manager, and the little band of players, travelling in a peasant’s wagon, went on to New Sandec.[46] Here the company was gradually enlarged until it had nineteen members, and here they stayed all summer. Helena was from the beginning their star. She and her comrades were but strolling players, living in poorly furnished quarters and eating frugal meals. She had but two dresses, one black for tragedy, the other white for comedy. Yet she was happy as never before or perhaps since. Long afterward she thrilled with the recollection of the enthusiasm and joy of those early days. To live in her own world of youth and eager beginnings and at the same time in the imaginary world of her heroines, was a happiness that outweighed all lack of comforts.

For more than a year the company traveled about in Austrian Poland. It was during this period that the Polish insurrection of 1863 was brewing. The oppression under which Russian Poland suffered found sympathy in Galitzia and indeed the entire Polish people was in mourning. Every one, at least in the towns, wore black, for the wearing of colors was practically forbidden by public feeling. Yet people contrived to go to the theatre, and “The New Sandec Combination,” as it was called, prospered. Their Polish historical pieces roused the patriotism of their audiences and did their share in maintaining the spirit of the people in the face of the Russian outrages.

Madame Modjeska was the favorite of the provincial public to which her company addressed itself. The popular demand for her was such that the audiences fell off when she was not in the cast, and she consequently was forced to appear constantly. When her daughter was born[47] she had finished acting her part in a five act tragedy only two hours before; and in ten days she was again appearing. The company grew in size and improved in quality, and their repertoire was enlarged to include such plays as Schiller’s _Die Räuber_ and _Sheridan’s The School for Scandal_.

This year and a half of “barnstorming” was invaluable experience for Modjeska. It gave her confidence and technique, and, finally, recognition. One of the managers of the endowed theatre of Lemberg[48] had seen and liked her acting. In the autumn of 1862 the Modjeskis retired from the strolling company, and after a few probationary performances Helena, then twenty-two, was enrolled a member of the resident company at Lemberg. With her first opportunity to play on a well-equipped stage, with good actors, and before a city audience, she felt that she had made a distinct step upward. She played a wide variety of characters, ranging from great ladies to pages, _ingénues_, and the soubrette parts in operetta. She profited by the example and the friendly advice of Madame Ashberger, who was the leading lady, but the younger women of the company were jealous of the upstart newcomer with the pretty face. They influenced the management to give Modjeska only small parts, and this, with the insufficiency of the salary, so discouraged her that after a year at Lemberg she and her husband returned to try their fortunes again in the provinces.

Mr. Modjeski established in the town of Czerniowce a stock company that was largely a family affair. Joseph and Felix Benda, Helena’s half-brothers, her sister’s husband and Josephine herself, all were members, while Simon Benda led the orchestra. There were more than twenty actors altogether, some of whom afterwards became famous in Poland. The two years at Czerniowce Modjeska filled with hard work. 1863 marked the crisis in the affairs of unhappy Poland. The Galitzians were only less stirred by the tyranny and bloodshed in Russian Poland than their kinsfolk, the victims. Excitement and patriotic feeling ran high and troops were being raised everywhere; yet throughout this troublous period the theatres prospered. As for Modjeska, with admirable energy and ambition she studied and worked. So far she had not played in tragedy. On a visit to Vienna, a brief vacation she took to see a bit of the world with Mr. Modjeski, a manager before whom she tried her powers in a scene from _Marie Stuart_ advised her to cultivate her voice and her German before essaying the more serious rôles. Accordingly she practiced faithfully in the midst of a busy career at the theatre. She had attained a considerable reputation in Galitzia, and, as before, appeared constantly, not only in the company’s home town but in towns about the province. She was happy in her work, but her health was suffering, and for a while consumption threatened her. Other troubles soon came. In 1865 her two year old daughter died, and soon afterwards other misfortunes, of a domestic nature, ended in her separation from her husband, whom she never saw again.

Moving now to her birthplace, Cracow, with her mother, her little son and her brother Felix, she was soon a member of the company at the old theatre where she had been taken, years before, to see the plays that had so greatly excited her.

Modjeska began her three years at Cracow when she was almost twenty-five. She had attained genuine popularity in her own province and her reputation was beginning, among those particularly interested in the drama, to extend to other parts of Poland. As the able stage director at Cracow, Mr. Jasinski, told her, she had been petted by the public and spoiled by the critics.[49] The Cracow theatre was beginning a new era just at this time and with the importation into its management of a group of enthusiastic and artistically well-equipped men it set for itself a standard equal to that of the national theatre at Warsaw. It was natural therefore that her term of service here taught Modjeska much. First she learned from Mr. Jasinski for the first time the proper delivery of blank verse. At his earnest solicitation, and under the sting of remarks by a jealous fellow actress, who advised her to leave serious parts alone, she resolutely undertook tragic characters for the first time. Her parts were sometimes small, sometimes important.[50] After her performance in _Don Carlos_, which came a few months after she joined the company and for which she prepared herself (since Mr. Jasinski had returned to Warsaw), she felt that she had to a degree realized her ambition. She had succeeded in a serious part, and was a recognized member of an important company. She was absorbed and happy in her work and thought of little else.[51] The political troubles of Poland, if not settled, were at least stifled. There was outward calm to match the content with which Modjeska labored during these important years. Those who consider success on the stage easily achieved have only to look at such a period as this in the life of a great actress. She frequently arose at five in the morning and studied and rehearsed all day. She and her brother Felix would go over scenes at all hours and in all places. She carefully worked out the last detail of costuming, of pose or intonation, developing her impersonations to her utmost. And when the time for performance came, she threw herself into her work body and soul. There has always been much discussion as to whether or not an actor, for the best effect, should “feel his part.” Modjeska was always one of those who did. “I really passed through all the emotions of my heroines,” she afterwards wrote. “I suffered with them, cried real tears, which I often could not stop even after the curtain was down. Owing to this extreme sensitiveness I was exhausted after each emotional part, and often had to rest motionless after the play until my strength returned. I tried hard to master my emotions, but during my whole career I could not succeed in giving a performance without feeling the agonies of my heroines.”

It was during a visit of the Cracow Company to Posen, the capital of Prussian Poland, that Madame Modjeska met Count Karol Bozenta Chlapowski, who was soon to be her second husband.[52] He came of a noble Polish family and had served in the revolt of 1863. At the time he met Modjeska (1866) he was a writer on politics and the drama for one of the newspapers of Posen. In this capacity he commented frankly on the shortcomings he found in Modjeska’s acting, but his candor did not prevent their becoming good friends. He coached her in French, and they read and talked much together. It was here, when romance was coming into her own life, that she read for the first time _Romeo and Juliet_. It carried her to the highest pitch of enthusiasm for Shakespeare. At her earnest wish, it was played successfully with Modjeska as Juliet, while the company was in Posen.

Before she returned to Cracow to act, Modjeska was granted leave of six weeks, with the suggestion that she go to Paris and study the best French actors. Paris charmed her, while her visits to the theatres--and every evening found her in one or another--were inspiring to the sensitive young woman on the threshold of her own career. The restraint of the French actors’ methods, their admirable grace and precision, their imaginative identification with their characters, and the _ensemble_ which is the mark of the French stage at its best, were noted for her own good by the rising Polish star.

She was given an ovation when she reappeared at Cracow. _Romeo and Juliet_ was repeated and, to her delight (for Shakespeare was her constant enthusiasm), she had an opportunity to appear as Lady Anne in _Richard the Third_, as Titania in _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_, and as Desdemona in _Othello_. Many plays from the French and German were also given, but the basis of the Cracow theatre’s repertoire was naturally Polish.

This was to Modjeska a happy and successful period. As was her custom, she threw herself into her work with all her energy, and besides her parts studied hard her French, her music, and even an elaborate course in history. Indeed she worked so during this year (1866–7) that one day, during a rehearsal of _Kabale und Liebe_ she suddenly lost her memory; she could not think of a word of her part. In two weeks, however, she had recovered and was at work again.

In 1868 she married Count Chlapowski and thereby became a member of the aristocracy. She was not the first actress to marry into the Polish nobility, but in her case, as in none before, the husband’s family and society in general welcomed her with open arms. And indeed, in receiving into their number a woman of her personal worth and attainments, they were accepting rather than bestowing honor.

Now came the moment that Modjeska herself always believed to be the turning point in her career. Seven years before, when she and three other amateurs were giving their little plays for charity in Bochnia, she had been seen, it will be remembered, by one of the staff of managers of the Warsaw Imperial Theatre. He had told her that one day he hoped to see her in Warsaw. Now, in 1868, her reputation as one of the leading actresses of the Cracow theatre brought about the fulfillment of his hope, for she was invited to Warsaw to give a special series of performances. As for her, this was the realization of a dream. She did not then even think of the career she was to have in foreign lands in a language other than Polish. She was intensely patriotic, and the utmost reasonable limit of her ambition was to act in the Imperial Theatre at Warsaw. It was one of the great state theatres of Europe, controlled and subsidized by the Russian Government, and, with its various companies for serious drama, comedy, opera, and comic opera, its ballet, choruses, orchestras, schools, officials and employees, enrolled something over seven hundred people. It was extraordinary for an actress who had not gone through the school and waited her chance of gradual promotion to appear on its stage; and the innovation aroused the keenest hostility among the members of the company. The husband of one of the actresses was an editor, and before Modjeska appeared, attacked her in print. When the newcomer rehearsed for the first time attempts were begun to discredit her. The rehearsal of her part in _Les Idées de Madame Aubray_ went so well that she was jubilant until it was suddenly announced that owing to the sickness of one of the actors (who up to now was apparently in perfect health) the play would have to be changed. In the rehearsal Modjeska had shown such ability that the clique arrayed against her knew their point would be lost unless some play were put on that would test her powers more severely. So _Adrienne Lecouvreur_ was suggested, a play in which Rachel had been the only one thoroughly to succeed. Modjeska saw the danger, but agreed to play Adrienne. At rehearsal she little more than “walked through” her part, taking care not to reveal her best powers, lest the unpleasant incident be repeated. The cabal succeeded, however, in playing her another trick: at the last moment another actress, the wife of the hostile editor, was given Modjeska’s part of Adrienne for the first performance of the play’s revival. This was intended to decrease the interest in Modjeska’s first appearance; yet when her night arrived the great house was filled. The controversy over her invitation to Warsaw, and the unusual spectacle of a nobleman’s actress-wife continuing to act after her marriage, combined to arouse the keenest interest.

The audience received her cordially, and listened attentively. At the close of the fable of the two pigeons, a passage which she delivered with much charm and tenderness, there was such applause as she had never heard before. After each act she was called out again and again, and at the end of the play received an unprecedented ovation. Even those members of the company who had tried to prevent her appearance were won over by her power, her grace, and her immediate success, and appeared in her dressing-room to congratulate her. Next day all the papers praised her, and during the next week the cards and invitations that formed the tribute of Warsaw society poured in upon her.

Within a few days Modjeska had signed a contract to play at the Imperial Warsaw Theatre the rest of her life, the term of her service to begin in the autumn of 1869, for she had still (in 1868) to complete her season in Cracow. In view of the conditions under which American and English actors, even those of the first rank, are to-day obliged to work, it is interesting to note the terms of Modjeska’s contract at Warsaw. She was to have twenty-five thousand florins[53] a year, four months holiday in each year, eight hundred roubles[54] yearly for gowns, and an annual benefit performance. She was to be permitted to act each year in six new plays of her own choice (a great concession on the part of a conservative management) and was to be expected to appear only three times a week! When she departed for Cracow, the people of Warsaw crowded to the station, throwing flowers into her carriage, and shouting their farewells. The visit to Warsaw had indeed been a triumph.

Count Chlapowski’s interest in a new political party and his editorship of its daily paper in Cracow brought about him and his wife, who after the end of the season in the spring of 1869 laid aside for the moment her theatrical work, a political and literary _salon_. Poets, patriots, scientific men, artists, all were found at the house of the charming actress and the nobleman-editor[55]. During her three seasons at Cracow she had played one hundred and thirteen parts--an impressive achievement in itself. Modjeska was now expected to act in Warsaw for the rest of her life. Instead, she remained less than seven years.

Her departure was brought about by several causes. It was not long before she became the moving spirit of the whole vast organization. As the extension of the repertoire was largely in her hands, it was to her that translators and authors had to apply. She therefore had considerable responsibility, which she appreciated, concerning the development of the Polish drama. The management found itself deferring to her in all kinds of matters. Moreover, her husband, forced to a choice between his own career and hers, had given up his Cracow interests, and together in Warsaw they soon found themselves the center of social interest. Their _salon_ became an established and brilliant affair. Her domination of an artistic and social world to which she was a newcomer naturally aroused envy, and resulting attempts to make her uncomfortable had their part in wearying her of Warsaw. Then, in her ambition to enlarge and enrich the theatre’s repertoire, she had constantly to combat the autocracy and unintelligence of the Russian censorship. When she wished to produce _Hamlet_ the censor objected to a play in which a King was murdered, as a possible suggestion of disloyal ideas, and it was only when he was shown that the murder was a family affair, not a public assassination, that he reluctantly relented. To another play he objected on the ground that it contained a Polish king, to a Russian an unthinkable person. The king had to be changed to a prince. Covert allusions to the wrongs of Poland were suspected where none existed and even certain words were taboo. A love passage might be suspected to be an apostrophe to the oppressed mother country; the word “slave” was considered objectionable, and “negro” substituted; if a character said: “I love my country and my people,” his affections were transferred by official order to his wife and children, and, in one play the words: “He walked arm in arm with the emperor and whispered in his ear,” were changed to “He walked three steps behind the emperor and whispered in his ear”! Such obstructions to Modjeska’s plans, though often amusing, were oftener maddening.

In 1875 Madame Mouchanoff, the wife of the president of the Warsaw theatre, died. A woman of great refinement, intellect, and force, she had befriended and inspired Modjeska, and the loss of her was severe. In the same year Felix Benda died, another blow, for her half-brother had been a good friend and wise counselor. In the meantime Modjeska had herself had a severe illness. Now, in the spring of 1876, the nervousness induced by her strenuous career on the stage and in society combined with sorrow over the attacks on her and irritation with the censor to induce a melancholy, a pessimism, that brought her to a dangerous state of discouragement and ill-health.

One night the Chlapowskis and their guests were discussing America and the coming Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia. At first in jest, a general emigration to America was suggested. They would have there an ideal community, a care-free natural life far removed from Russian oppression, and Pani Helena[56] could have her much needed rest. The idea took root. The would-be emigrants were thought foolish by most of their friends, but Henryk Sienkiewicz (afterwards the famous author of _Quo Vadis?_), Count Chlapowski himself, his friends Jules Sypniewski and Lucian Paprocki, were all soon in deadly earnest. California they had heard of as an earthly paradise, where life was idyllic and the earth yielded up not only an easily won living, but fortune.