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.