Her departure was brought about by several causes. It was not long before she became the moving spirit of the whole vast organization. As the extension of the repertoire was largely in her hands, it was to her that translators and authors had to apply. She therefore had considerable responsibility, which she appreciated, concerning the development of the Polish drama. The management found itself deferring to her in all kinds of matters. Moreover, her husband, forced to a choice between his own career and hers, had given up his Cracow interests, and together in Warsaw they soon found themselves the center of social interest. Their _salon_ became an established and brilliant affair. Her domination of an artistic and social world to which she was a newcomer naturally aroused envy, and resulting attempts to make her uncomfortable had their part in wearying her of Warsaw. Then, in her ambition to enlarge and enrich the theatre’s repertoire, she had constantly to combat the autocracy and unintelligence of the Russian censorship. When she wished to produce _Hamlet_ the censor objected to a play in which a King was murdered, as a possible suggestion of disloyal ideas, and it was only when he was shown that the murder was a family affair, not a public assassination, that he reluctantly relented. To another play he objected on the ground that it contained a Polish king, to a Russian an unthinkable person. The king had to be changed to a prince. Covert allusions to the wrongs of Poland were suspected where none existed and even certain words were taboo. A love passage might be suspected to be an apostrophe to the oppressed mother country; the word “slave” was considered objectionable, and “negro” substituted; if a character said: “I love my country and my people,” his affections were transferred by official order to his wife and children, and, in one play the words: “He walked arm in arm with the emperor and whispered in his ear,” were changed to “He walked three steps behind the emperor and whispered in his ear”! Such obstructions to Modjeska’s plans, though often amusing, were oftener maddening. In 1875 Madame Mouchanoff, the wife of the president of the Warsaw theatre, died. A woman of great refinement, intellect, and force, she had befriended and inspired Modjeska, and the loss of her was severe. In the same year Felix Benda died, another blow, for her half-brother had been a good friend and wise counselor. In the meantime Modjeska had herself had a severe illness. Now, in the spring of 1876, the nervousness induced by her strenuous career on the stage and in society combined with sorrow over the attacks on her and irritation with the censor to induce a melancholy, a pessimism, that brought her to a dangerous state of discouragement and ill-health.