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.
The suddenly achieved result was that Sienkiewicz sailed for America
in a few months, and the others arranged to follow. Modjeska obtained
leave of absence from the president of the theatre, who cheerfully
expected her to come back, but fixed a forfeit of six thousand roubles
if she did not. In June, 1876, she appeared in Warsaw for the last
time. There was a great popular demonstration. The house was crowded
and to the highest degree enthusiastic. After the performance the
audience formed a double rank to the gates of the theatre grounds and
shouted their farewells and praises. The public, at least, was with her
to the last.[57]
In July, 1876, she sailed from Bremen for New York, with Count
Chlapowski, her son Rudolphe, Jules Sypniewski, his wife and two
children, and Lucian Paprocki,--a strange band of pilgrims, artists
with little but their ideals and comradeship to fit them for pioneering
in a strange country, headed by a woman who was giving up a career of
_grande dame_ and _première artiste_ for the prospect of life on a farm
eight thousand miles or so from the scene of her triumphs!
Modjeska had never seen the ocean, and the voyage of thirteen days
was invigorating. Her party spent about a month in New York, making
excursions to Philadelphia to see the exposition, where she admired the
vegetables and fruits from California, experimented with those dainties
new to her, pop-corn and peanuts, and found them tasteless, and
visited the art exhibits. New York of 1876 she thought a “monstrous,
untidy bazaar.” In August they started for California, taking ship for
Panama. She found charming her first glimpse of the tropics, during
the railroad trip across the Isthmus, and the three weeks’ voyage on
the Pacific went far to restore her vigor and peace of mind.
The impression has been that Modjeska returned to the stage because of
the failure of the farming experiment which was now to be made. To a
certain extent this is true, but even before she reached California she
certainly had vague plans to act again. In a letter from New York she
had said: “It seems that I may be able to play in English, but first we
must go to California, according to our original plan.... Perhaps after
we get established in this new paradise I may pick up enough English to
play there, and when I get more mastery over the new language, I may
come here; for, however unattractive New York seems to me, it is the
metropolis of America, and it will give me pleasure to conquer it.”
This was surely forecasting the future. When she reached San Francisco,
Edwin Booth was playing there. It was proposed that she act Ophelia in
Polish, to his _Hamlet_. Rather to her relief, Booth, who had never
heard of her, declined. She saw him as Antony and as Shylock and of
course recognized him as the great actor that he was, though as yet she
could not understand English.[58]
As for the community farming experiment at Anaheim, it was a failure
that would appear ludicrous if it were not for its element of tragedy.
All of the experimenters were desperately homesick, and none of them
had the least practical notion of the task they had set themselves.
They talked more than they worked, quarreled and made up, and were
generally helpless. Modjeska, the queen of the Warsaw stage, did the
cooking, with the frightened assistance of a Polish maid they had taken
from a convent to be a helper with the children.[59] They had several
cows, but no one knew how to milk them, and their butter and milk
they had to buy. The orange trees were too young to bear, the season
was dry, the neighbors’ cattle ate the barley, the dogs ate the eggs,
and the ready money was fast disappearing. The unfortunate town-bred
would-be farmers were doomed to failure from the start. So Modjeska
determined upon the courageous and difficult course which brought
in time so great an addition to her fame. She decided to go to San
Francisco, learn English, and go upon the American stage.