Note 69 — HELENA MODJESKA

“During her long professional career, though Modjeska was ‘presented’ by various managers, her personal representative was her husband, Bozenta,—one of the kindest, most intellectual, and most drolly eccentric men it has been my fortune to know. Neither he nor his wife was judicious in worldly matters, while—as is not unusual in such cases—both thought themselves exceptionally shrewd and capable. Their professional labors were abundantly remunerative, but, being improvident and generous, they did not accumulate wealth. The close of Modjeska’s life, contrasted with the brilliancy of her career, was pathetic and forlorn. I called on her, a few months before her death, in the refuge, a little cottage, she had found, at East Newport. The great actress greeted me with gentle kindness and presently, as though my coming had reminded her of other days and scenes, she looked about the small narrow room in which we were. ‘Ah, it ees small,’ she said, ‘very small, this place of ours. But, what of that? It ees large enough for two old people to sit in—and wait.’ As I came away her lovely eyes were suffused with tears. She looked at me long and fixedly. ‘Good-by, my good friend,’ was all she said. She seemed to foresee that it was our last parting.”—(William Winter, The Wallet of Time.) It is not to be thought from this that Modjeska died poor. Of the vast sum (said to be $800,000) that she earned on the American stage, she left at her death something over $100,000, in California real estate, stocks and bonds, and jewelry. It is true, however, that she was lavishly generous, and that her bounty was bestowed in many places, private and public. She was the founder of an industrial school for girls in Cracow, for which she gave $100,000.