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.