Note 59 — HELENA MODJESKA

The entire party would leave their farm and go on short vacation trips. Of one of these, Modjeska says: “I listened and looked at everything, but I grew quite sad when I turned my eyes toward the ocean. The blue waters of the great Pacific reminded me of our first sea-voyage when we left our country. The recollections of the happy past, spent among beloved people,—Cracow, with its churches and monuments, the kind friends waiting for our return, the stage, and the dear public I left behind,—all came back to my mind, and I felt a great acute pang of homesickness. I stepped away from the rest, threw myself on the sand and sobbed and sobbed, mingling my moans with those of the ocean, until, exhausted, I had not one drop of tears left in my eyes. A sort of torpor took the place of despair, and the world became a vast emptiness, sad and without any charm.”