rived, the lights were not yet up. I remember with what respect, almost reverence, I entered "the temple." I do not remember exactly what thoughts whirled in my brain at my entrance to the theater, but I know that my whole being was filled with a kind of rapturous awe. Schiller's "Kabale und Liebe" ("Intrigue and Love") was the play, and it fascinated me completely. I sat like one petrified, drinking in the words I did not understand, and feasting my eyes on the somewhat stiff and ponderous players. In the dramatic passages, however, their actions were impressive and clear. By the force of the acting, and the help of Mr. Modjeski, who translated to me several scenes, I succeeded in understanding the plot. When we returned home, I sat without a word at the tea-table, ruminating over the wonderful masterpiece I had just seen, until, jeered at as a lunatic, I was sent to bed. That evening created a revulsion of feeling in me. I thought better of Germans. One afternoon, thinking that no one but my sister was listening to me, I recited a snatch from the poem "Maria" by Malczewski. When I finished, I saw Felix standing in the door and smiling. I was terrified as if I had been caught in some naughtiness; but he asked quietly: 'Who taught you to recite?" 'Nobody," I murmured. "Would you like to go on the stage?" he asked. to engage different stars from Vienna and Berlin. After the financial failure of several stars, a bill appeared at the corners of the street, announcing Fritz Devrient in the part of Hamlet. I had heard of Shakspere, but never had read or seen any of his plays, and naturally enough my curiosity was aroused. "Hamlet" made an overwhelming impression on me, and I worshiped at once the great masterwork of that mysterious spirit ruling over human souls, the wonderful wizard, reading human hearts and God's nature, the great, inimitable Shakspere. He became my master then and there, and remained so through my theatrical career. I never took better lessons in acting than those Hamlet gives to the players; I never enjoyed acting more than when I played those wayward, sweet, passionate, proud, tender, jolly, cruel, and sad heroines of Shakspere's dramas. 66 I lived weeks afterward in continual enchantment. The translations of Shakspere were scarce, but Mr. Modjeski succeeded in getting "Hamlet" in Polish translation, and also "Two Gentlemen of Verona," "The Merchant of Venice," and Timon of Athens," which I read greedily. I had given up all aspirations in the direction of the stage, but my desire for achieving a name for myself had never left me, and I thought for a while I might gain it as a writer. At the same time my good mother wanted me to pass. a teacher's examination, believing in selfsupport for women. To me learning was the highest pleasure. Endowed as I was with an exceptionally strong memory, it did not cost me any effort. I enjoyed it. I also went steadily to. Mr. Mirecki's music school for three months. My only ambition and desire then was some day to become a church and concert singer; but the master insisted on making of me a prima donna, and again the vision of my treading the stage boards stood before me by day and by night. Alas! the dear old man died in a few months, and I never took another lesson. INTRODUCTION TO SHAKSPERE THE German manager, in order to attract the Polish public, which obstinately kept away from the German theater, used DETERMINATION TO BECOME AN ACTRESS AMONG my letters I have found the following letter I wrote about that time to my brother Simon: Dear Brother: I would have written to you oftener, but I was and am very busy all the time. . . . First of all, I help mama in the house, for we have no servant; only old Kazimierzowa comes twice a day to wash the dishes. She also does our laundry, but ironing belongs to mother and me. I have also to help Stasia1 with her lessons. am the only one that can manage her, because she loves me and I talk to her as to a grown person. . . I ... All my days are taken with sewing, studies, and a thousand little things. The evenings I spend in reading, sometimes prolonged until three o'clock in the morning. And now I have very important news for you, but I am afraid you will scream. Yet I am going to tell you, for I have more courage to write than to speak: I am to become an actress! This is not all. I am to become a German actress. Please do not swear! Mr. Gustave [Modjeski] says I shall have better opportunities on the German stage, and though I do not like the idea yet, I think I have to please him. You see, dear brother, I want to do something in the world, and though I may not get an engagement, yet I study, study, and study. It may be useful to me some day, and if not, well, at least it gives me a great deal of comfort at present. I know you will say that I always live in the clouds. Alas! it is so. And I think I shall never have peace until I am really up there among the clouds. I wish spring were here. But it is only autumn now, and a long, heavy winter is coming. Adieu. Mr. Gustave sends hearty greetings to you. Mama, Josephine, and myself send you a thou sand kisses. Your loving sister, Helena. MARRIAGE TO MR. MODJESKI ABOUT that time happened this great event of my life. Mr. Modjeski, knowing my great love of reading, always thoughtfully provided me with books. I read brothers, and, besides, my imagination had adorned him with the attributes of all possible and impossible heroes about whom I had read in poetry or prose. In 1861, in the month of May, Mr. Modjeski, my little son Rudolphe, then four months old, and I were living in Bochnia, where my mother and my little niece had moved previously. One day at a May festival, while the young men and girls of Bochnia were trying their feet in a quadrille on the uneven ground of a meadow, Mr. Modjeski and I perceived the figure of a man coming toward us with dancing steps. We both exclaimed: "Mr. Loboiko! What are you doing here? Have you left the stage?" "Oh, no; but there is little chance to draw a good salary during the summer months." Then addressing me, he exclaimed: "Ah, your sister is here, also! She is a Juno." And he strolled toward the dancer's circle, where my tall sister, with her dazzling complexion, her beautiful figure, and her immense crown of golden hair, was queening it over the countrified, stooping, and tightly laced country girls. AN AMATEUR BENEFIT AND FIRST ONE afternoon Mr. Loboiko brought This prospect transported me into the seventh heaven. The poor would be relieved, and, moreover, I should act on a real stage. Mr. Loboiko at once offered his services as instructor and artistic director. He obtained the casino hall, in which he built a stage about ten feet deep. Then he manufactured some scenery out of wall-paper and canvas, and made a curtain of red calico, painted all over with golden stars. with him Goethe, Wieland, and Lessing. He also made me memorize selected verses from the "Nibelungenlied." It was during those readings that one day he asked me to become his wife. I answered "Yes" without hesitation, because he had already become as dear to me as my own 1 My niece, Joseph Benda's daughter, whom he placed in my mother's care before leaving for Russian Poland. We selected two plays for the performance: "The White Camelia," a comedy in one act, and the "Prima Donna; or, A Foster Sister," a play with songs, in two acts. We had eight rehearsals, and the actors were, speaking in theatrical slang, "dead letter perfect," yet, when I heard the curtain bell I nearly fainted. I tried to recollect the first lines of my part, but could not. My hands became as cold as ice, thrilling, acute shivers ran up and down my spinal column, and altogether I had a feeling of sinking slowly into the ground. I do not recollect how I found myself on the stage, but once before the footlights, I recovered my presence of mind and never made a mistake or forgot one word of my part. Toward the middle of the performance I was completely at ease when, just at the beginning of a long soliloquy, my niece, in the prompter's box, dropped the manuscript. The leaves went scattering over the floor, and the poor child began to cry, asking me in a desperate whisper: "What shall I do now?" I answered composedly: "Pick up the leaves," and continued my part. My inborn shyness had totally disappeared when at work, and it came back to me only the next morning, after the performance. The audience was more numerous than we expected. All the authorities of the district and city, several country gentlemen of the neighborhood with their families, a few occasional visitors to town, the teachers, and the local schools; in fact, everybody who dressed in Occidental fashion, and even a thin scattering of Jews, in their long silk gabardines, filled the casino hall, and represented what is called in the American theatrical language "a full house." We presented several new pieces, rehearsing the whole week each time, and playing Saturdays. One evening a stranger came behind the scenes after the performance. He was very pleasant, and rather amused at my "childish appearance," as he called it. He asked me, nevertheless, how long I had been on the stage, which I considered a flattering mistake. "I never was on the stage,' I answered, “and I am not an actress. We act only for our pleasure, and we are only amateurs, except Mr. Loboiko." Mr. Chencinski,1 a well-known actor on the Warsaw stage, a stage-manager, and It was said something complimentary, which I do not remember, and then, in taking leave of me, concluded: "I hope to see you in Warsaw soon." These words engraved themselves in my memory, and turned my head completely. All the doubts concerning my abilities were dispelled. I knew now that I had talent. I knew I had to become an actress or die. And I wanted to be not a German, but a Polish, actress, and go some day to Warsaw to play at the imperial theater before a brilliant audience-poets, artists, learned men, and refined women, and with great actors and actresses. In a few hours it was decided that my little experience had opened the way to a career, and Mr. Modjeski advised Mr. Loboiko to go to Cracow and obtain a license for a traveling company. Thus we started on the road under Mr. Loboiko's management. In a short time, however, he handed over the direction to Mr. Modjeski. FIRST PROFESSIONAL ENGAGEMENT My THE picture of this first professional trip stands vividly before my eyes. The weather was glorious. From the road which led uphill almost all the time we saw villages, with luxuriant orchards, golden fields, and diminutive white huts, all flooded with warm sunlight, and far ahead of us the Carpathian Mountains. My joy was so great that I sang. sister caught the tune, and the others followed. Absorbed by our own merriment, we did not notice that we were traversing a village until our wagon stopped and we saw peasants gathered about us, girls with pink cheeks looking at us from the windows and the garden gates, and little Jews yelling: "Circus! Circus!" Amid laughter and jokes we descended from our Noah's ark at an inn. When we were established in New Sandec town, Mr. Loboiko wrote to several actors and actresses, who soon joined a famous dramatic author as well. He but I wanted to play parts of various kinds 1 Pronounced Hencinski. |