Phases of an Inferior Planet. Glasgow Ellen Anderson Gholson
troubles were the only troubles, how many tortured hearts would be uplifted to the hills. And Mariana's mystical romance was a daemon that lured her in a dozen different disguises towards the quicksands of life.
But this passed also and was done with.
Her mother died, and her father married an early love. Mariana, who had been first, declined to become last. Dissensions followed swiftly, and the domestic atmosphere only cleared when Mariana departed from the paternal dwelling-place.
From the small Southern village, under the protection of an elderly female relation, she had flown to New York in search of theatrical employment. Failing in her object, she turned desperately to the culture of her voice, living meanwhile upon a meagre allowance donated by her father. The elderly female relation had remained with her for a time, but finding Mariana intractable in minor ways, and foreseeing a future in which she would serve as cat's-paw for the girl's vagaries, she had blessed her young relative and departed.
"One must either worship or detest you, my dear," she remarked as a parting shaft. "And to worship you means to wait upon you, which is wearing. Your personality is as absorbent as cotton. It absorbs the individual comfort of those around you. It is very pleasant to be absorbed, and you do it charmingly; but there is so much to see in the world, and I'm getting old fast enough."
So she went, leaving Mariana alone in a fourth-story front room of The Gotham apartment-house.
CHAPTER III
Mr. Nevins once said to Mariana: "You are as elusive as thistle-down whipped up with snow."
Mariana smiled that radiating, indescribable smile which dawned gradually from within, deepening until it burst into pervasive wealth of charm.
"Why snow?" was her query.
Mr. Paul, who apparently had been engrossed in his dinner, glanced up grimly. "The only possible reason for a metaphor," he observed, "is lack of reason."
Mr. Nevins dismissed him with a shrug and looked in sentimental perplexity at Mariana.
"Merely because it is impossible to whip up ice with anything," he replied.
"I should have supposed," interrupted Mr. Paul, in unabashed disapproval, "that the same objection would apply to thistle-down. It would certainly apply to a woman."
Miss Ramsey, who sat opposite, turned her tired eyes upon him.
"Life is not of your opinion, Mr. Paul," she said. "It whips us up with all kinds of ingredients, and it never seems to realize when we have been reduced to the proper consistency."
She looked worn and harassed, and had come in to dinner later than usual. It was the first remark she had made, and, after making it, she relapsed into silence. Her small red hands trembled as she lifted her fork, the rebellious lines between her brows grew deeper, and she ate her dinner with that complete exhaustion which so often passes for resignation in the eyes of our neighbors. Nervous prostration has produced more saints than all the sermons since Moses.
Mariana watched her sympathetically. She wondered why the gravy upon Miss Ramsey's plate congealed sooner than it did upon any one else's, while the sobbiest potatoes invariably fell to her share.
"A false metaphor!" commented Mr. Paul. "Most metaphors are false. I don't trust Shakespeare himself when he gets to metaphor. I always skip them."
"Oh, they have their uses," broke in the cheery tones of the optimist. "I'm not much on Shakespeare, but I've no doubt he has his uses also. As for metaphor, it is a convenient way of saying more than you mean."
"So is lying," retorted Mr. Paul, crossly, and the conversation languished. Mariana ate her dinner and looked at the table-cloth. Mr. Nevins ate his dinner and looked at Mariana. He regarded her as an artistic possibility. Her appearance was a source of constant interest to him, and he felt, were he in the position of nature, with the palette and brush of an omnipotent colorist, he might blend the harmonious lines of Mariana's person to better advantage. He resented the fact that her nose was irregular and her chin too long. He wondered how such a subject could have been wilfully neglected.
As for himself, he honestly felt that he had wasted no opportunities. Upon their first acquaintance he had made a poster of Mariana which undeniably surpassed the original. It represented her in a limp and scantily made gown of green, with strange reptiles sprawling over it, relieved against the ardor of a purple sunset. The hair was a marvel of the imagination.
Mariana had liked it, with the single exception of the reptilian figures.
"They have such an unpleasant suggestion," was her critical comment. "I feel quite like Medusa. Couldn't you change them into nice little butterflies and things?"
Mr. Nevins was afraid he could not. The poster satisfied him as it was. Miss Musin could not deny, he protested, that he had remodelled her nose and chin in an eminently successful job, and if the hair and eyes and complexion in the poster bore close resemblance in color, so did the hair and eyes and complexion in the original. He had done his best.
Mariana accepted his explanation and went complacently on her way, as enigmatical as a Chinese puzzle. She was full of swift surprises and tremulous changes, varying color with her environment; gay one moment, and sad before the gayety had left her lips – cruel and calm, passionate and tender – always and ever herself.
Twice a week she went to Signor Morani's for a vocal lesson. Signor Morani was small and romantic and severe. In his youth he had travelled as Jenny Lind's barytone, and he had fallen a slave to her voice. He had worshipped a voice as other men worship a woman. Unlike other men, he had been faithful for a lifetime – to a voice.
When Mariana had gone to him, an emotional and aspiring soprano of nineteen, he had listened to her quietly and advised patience.
"You must wait," he said. "All art is waiting."
"I will not wait," said Mariana. "Waiting is starvation."
He looked at her critically.
"More of us starve than the world suspects," he answered. "It is the privilege of genius. This is a planet, my dear child, where mediocrity is exalted and genius brought low. It is a living fulfilment of the scriptural prophecy, 'The first shall be last and the last shall be first.'" Then he added: "Sing again."
Mariana stood up and sang. His words had depressed her, and her voice trembled. She looked at him wistfully, her hands hanging at her sides, her head thrown back. It was an aria from "Faust." He shook his head slowly.
"You will never be great," he said. "I can give you technique, but not volume. Your voice will never be great."
With a half-defiant gesture Mariana broke forth again. This time it was a popular song, with a quick refrain running through it. As she sang she acted the accompaniment half unconsciously.
Signor Morani frowned as she commenced, and then watched her attentively. In the fragile little girl, with the changeable eyes of green and the aureole of shadowless hair, he scented possibilities.
"Your voice will never be great," he repeated; "but you may make men believe so."
"And you will take me?" pleaded Mariana. She stretched out her beautiful hands. Her eyes prayed. Her flexible tones drooped.
Signor Morani took her hands in his with kindly reassurance.
"Yes," he said – "yes; it will keep you out of mischief, at least."
And it had kept her out of mischief. It had opened a channel for her emotions. Like a tide, the romanticism of her nature veered towards art. She became the most fanatical of devotees. She breathed it and lived it. In her heart it transplanted all other religions, and the æstheticism of its expression gained a marvellous hold upon her faith. Above the little mosaic altar at her bedside she enshrined a bust of Wagner, and she worshipped it as some more orthodox believer had once worshipped an enshrined Madonna. At midnight she held devotional services all alone, sitting before the piano, bending to the uses of a litany the intellectual rhapsodies of Beethoven or the sensuous repinings of Chopin, while the little red flame sent up praise and incense from dried rose leaves and cinnamon to the memories of dead musicians. She introduced a rare, sensuous beauty into