ANASTASIA.

Observer, Volume 6, Issue 156, 8 September 1883, Page 11

ANASTASIA.

Me Frederick Houston entered the world at an inopportune moment, -while his father was having dealings with the bankruptcy courts. One or t-wo i';ii!i!U3, however, were in Clayville among ■■ha aornuJ incidents of a well-regulated existence, and v ere not even remotely associated with uuvk ■> ittor-j of ruin and despair. The unfortunate merci.aut shut his shop with a jolly bang, rfold out bis old goods at auction prices, closed v.;th hi? f reditors at ten or fifteen cents on the dollar, ad within a month or two was ag.iin j -tartccl on the high road to prosperity. The j arrival of a son at tliia juncture seemed to 3Mi- | Houston rather a happy omen ; it roused his ambition by- reminding him that he had a stake in the future. The first memorable incident in the career of the youthful Frederick was a concert which Ole Bull chanced to give in the town of which he had the misfortune to be a native. The musician, who knew nothing of this western town except that it was named Clayville and had two thousand inhabitants, succeeded in mustering a sober and stolidlooking audience of about fifty persons, and who sat staring before them in apathetic silence, and seemed as unmoved by the alluring melodies as if they had been figures carved in wood or stone. His' agent was heard to say next morning, at the Tomkins House, that they were out of pockets, and that his "boss" was in ill-humour. Nevertheless, I venture to believe that the famous violinist would not have regretted his visit to Clayville if he had known that he had awakened the' immortal spavk in one youthful bosom, and lifted a humdrum life into a noble and purer atmosphere. Frederick Houston, v\ho had been admitted to the concert-hall by the special favour of the door-keeper, lay awake all night rehearsing the " Carnival de Tenise." Frederick was then fourteen years old, and had jusb quitted the public school for the purpose of learning business in his father's store, where all the commodities of life, from dry-goods and ready-made clothing to drugs and groceries, were exchanged for cash, or for gram, Hour, pork, or any merchantable product of the surrounding country. Now, however, he took a sudden dislike to " business," and could not be persuaded to entertain the thought of a mercantile career. He devoted himself with greater energy to the construction of certain enigmatical musical instruments, and finally composed a harp which became the dread of the neighbourhood. It was, therefore, purely in self-defence that his father bought a harmonium of three octave 3 and a-half, which to him represented the final achievement of the race-in the way of musical perfection. It was about this time that Mr Houston, senior, surprised the community by erecting a palatial residence with a mansard roof, G-othic windows, ..and a spacious porch supported on Corinthian columns. Possibly this unwonted exertion, and the restless anticipation of his triumph, exhausted his slender vitality, for he had hardly, time to move into his new palace before death overtook | him. His eldest son was then, at his own request | and by the advice of the minister, sent to the j East to prepare for college. Mrs Houston and the eldest son, Joshua, who for some indefinable reason had accepted the nickname " Bruin," continued the business, and, 1 by shrewd and forfcnnale investments, rose rapidly. in prosperity ;md social importance; Frederick, in the meanwhile, Jeatned. to scan Aram virumuque cano and Tmegv.v vi'-ry, perspired profusely over dactyls, unapest?, :uid other metrical intricacies, but tatlod. to extra*-;, either comfort .or ftdificatio)' tVrsm V>i* Tjn-v-,>! •*.■>. complishments. After all, •. .- ' - •-..' :•(■ allegiance he could offer to ftw hie jr. ,■■■... • classics. He never spent an hour over a book without feeling thnt it was a loss of time which. asiijh,b be more profitably employed afc the pin no.

Themes for sonatas, nocturne 3, and impromptus were continually humming in the background of his mind, and he sometimes found himself unconsciously intoning the text of Levi or Cicero to the air of a Mendelssohnian. oratorio. He took two mii9ic lessons daily, and on Sundays three, composed tremendous conglomerations of sound, which he very appropriately styled " fantasias," and made himself an affliction to everyone who had the misfortune to reside under the same roof with him, when finally he departed with his piano for Harvard. There was some talk among his fellow-boarders of accompanying him to the depot with a brass band, but the project was in the end abandoned, probably because there was not a person in the house who did not at heart have a liking for the guileless and generous enthusiast. After a five years' residence in Cambridge, during which he organised all manner of musical and dramatic diversions, and even composed an overtui'e to JEschylus' " Prometheus," Houston scraped through his examinations and received the long-coveted diploma. He then obtained his mother's consent to visit Europe, where he hoped to spend three or four years and complete his musical education. After a long and not unprofitable sojourn in Leipsic and Paris, he was one day seized with a yearning for Italy, and, Having convinced himself that Prance had nothing new to teach him in this art, he packed his trunks hastily, and took the first train for Marseilles, whence again he embarked precipitously for Eome. The palazzo opposite to the house in which Houston had installed himself for the winter excited his liveliest curiosity. It had a severe and forbidding air, as if it were gathering up its skirts to avoid contact with its plebeian neighbours. There was a cont-of-arms (and, as he soon learned, :i very famous one) carved in stone over the portone, and there were heavy iron gratings before all the windows on the first floor. In a niche in the wall stood a weather-stained marble statuette of the Madonna, with two swords (whose gilded I hilts were much tarnished) piercing her heart ; j and at her feec burned a feebly flickering lamp, ! whose yellow flame was completely drowned in the broad glare of the sun. The stucco of the wall, where it had not fallen off, was of a dirty yellowish colour ; but it had a certain rich tone of venerable decay, which would have made the house an object of benevolent interest if it had not been for the sinister stare of the upper windows, which, immediately chilled one's neighbourly sympathies. Houston was fully conscious of the look of haughty reserve which he received in return for every friendly glance which he sent across the street ; but he was not in the least discouraged, and always returned with persistent good-humour to his post of observation after his daily excursions among the ruins of the Forum and the Campngna. He became possessed with the idea that this very intangible look which haunted him i early and late, might be expressed in music, and lie forthwith resolved to embody it in the introduction to an immortal sonata. It must be an andante movement full of vague and remotely expressive chords in some grave and not too complex major key ; then, as the theme gathered intensity and fulness, a transition might be made into a more tangible emotion — a proud and solitary grief which nurses its own misery and scorns the comfort of human pity and fellowship. Whether in the end this frozen sorrow should be dissolved in penitential tears was a.s yet undecided. Houston believed in a very sparing use of the minor keys, and was inclined to guard the honour of his palace by according it a tearless and unrepentant decay. One evening, in the middle of November, Frederick wt's walking up and down in the street in front of his lodgings, labouring desperately with the opening bars of the immortal sonata. His chords, which now and then he stopped to jot clown in his note-book, persisted in assuming an air of mere commonplace and ostentatious hauteur ; and when occasionally 1 found a combination of notes of a sufficiently etliereal quality, he remembered in the next moment that he was unconsciously echoing Chopin. It was in one of these moments of despairing humility that he turned about and east a glance of hopeless appeal at the fagade of the palace, which rose culm and stately in its decay (like a monarch in a ragged toga) out of the misty, shimmering moonlight. A "breath of wind stole' down the street, and the Ion", fine grass which depended from the crevices of the coat-of-arms and half draped the cornice of the portone, waved him a silent greeting. The wansies, too, which grew on the ledges of the window-caps, shook in the wind and looked as if they took a modest pleasure in the motion. Houston stood long questioning the unresponsive walls ; he felt their character intensely ; but the gate of communication between the realm of vision and that of sound seemed absolutely closed. He could not translate the language of the one into that of the other. Suddenly he became aware of a presence near by; ho turned his head and saw a young girl stand- . ing at the great gate of the palace, and apparently trying to raise tho enormous brass knocker, whoso grotesque features smiled grimly at her in the moonlight. Houston, without much ceremony, approached her and offered her his assistance, which she readily accepted. Ho gave two emphatic raps, which startled a mighty resonance from within and rumbled away through tho empty halls and corridors. Tho girl in the meanwhile had stepped into the middle of the street, and stood gazing with a look of anxious expectancy toward tho upper windows. She was of middle height, not ungracoful, but almost pretornaturally slender. Her face, which was pale and thin, but showed tracos of exquisite modelling, wore an expression of pathetic' helplessness which could not fail to touch our sympathetic traveller. There was in her largo black eyes something of that ethereal and rather unhealthy glow which he had observed in Carlo Dolce's madonnas. The contrast, moreover, between the refinement of her features and the extreme shabbiness of her attire stirred all tho romantic possibilities of his nature. j Presently foqtstdps were heard from within, " ■"•3 heavy^gate creaked on its hinges, ogxd/a stout, . rere-vlooking domestic with a powdered wig ' .• . '■ a lantern in, Ms hand, appeared in the j .jpt'Titng. , . .•• ; ; • Houston. mpy^d discreetly away, while the girl tirtw timidly nearer* , . ,■ . ■ . '

'^Mo.nsjgnpre is -n^t at'fconTej" $1$ ?Bfe"Bfrd the servant ssiying,.'";fl,nd; moreover, he dpeanbtlike to be distilled at this hour." * *""" * " But I must see him, Pietro," the girl pleaded with a pitiful quiver . in her voice ; "ifhe is not at home, I shall wait until he, arrives/' , . ' . "A curse on your, impudence, wench V* grumbled the servant. " Hare 1. not told you that Monsignore does not wish to be disturbed?" Ths girl made hastily the Bign of the ,cross on her forehead and breast, to counteract the effect of the curse." . . "We are dying of. hunger," 9he said, buratihg into tears. "Monsignore has been away for five months, and he has sent us nothing." " Why don't you go a-begging 'then ? , Better folks than you have taken, to-it. Bind up one. of your legs under your dress, and get a pair sof crutches, and nobody will guess that you are not a born cripple. Take your station on the road to San Pietro' in Montorio, where all the foreigners go in their carnages. . Cry to every carnage that passes, 'Muoro di fame,' and with your, big eyes and piteous face you will make an easy and honest livelihood. Now you must hurry away. Ecco, I have counselled you well." The girl stood weeping silently, but did not stir. " Quick now, I must close the gate." " Have pity on me, Pietro, and allow me to speak to Monsignore." " Santissima ! A thousand devils have possessed tou. If you do not go I shall strike you — I shall fling you out into the street !"

The words were accompanied by a threasening gesture ; and the girl, expecting a blow, gave a shriek, which resounded sharply through the still and empty street. Houston, who was only a fewfeet distant, turned abruptly about, and, yielding to his chivalrous impulse, rushed against the portly figure at the gate. " You contemptible coward !" he cried/clutching the powdered gentleman by the thi'oat. " Grot down on your knees, I tell you, and beg the child's pardon." There was an animated scuffle, which lasted several minutes ; then the assailed, in M 3 enforced backward march, stumbled over a stone and fell on the marble pavement. His lantern, which v had fallen from his hand, had burst open and lay faintly flickering at his side. He breathed heavily and fixed a terrified stare on Houston, whose features where but vaguely defined to him under the dusky archway. Then with a startling suddenness he found his voice, and gave a yell which went careering with increasing violence under the vaults of the stairway and the upper galleries. " You are at liberty to rise," said Houston quietly. "I don't want to kill you; I only wished to give you a lesson, which I trust you will reinombcr, not to veut your brutal strength, on defenceless women and children." The. servant, with a shamefaced air, picked himself up, rubbed his hand over bis closecropped scalp, which he now found to be minus its wig, stooped to readjust the wick iv his lantern, and finally turned to mount the stairs. But at that moment the glare of a lamp, fell from above, and a tall, thin figure in kneebreeches and a short ecclesiastical talare was seen slowly descending. ITe held in one hand a Roman brass lamp of the Pompeian pattern, and in the other a gold-headed cane, upon which he leaned heavily. He moved with difficulty, and with a certain worldly elegance, and there was was something extremely genteel in his very decrepitude. " Pietro," he cried, in a voice which resembled the creaking of a door, "I heard a. scream as of one in distress. What has happened ?" He had stopped at the foot of the broad staircase and had lifted the lamp to the level of his head, in which Rembardt-like illumination the sharp lines oi his face became doubly emphasised. '' Pardon me, Monsignore," said Houston, stepping forward and politely lifting his hat, "if I I address you without your invitation. I was passing your house by. accident, when I beard the shriek of a young girl, and, supposing thafc your servant hero had struck her, I took upon myself the duty of chastising him. My name is Mr Frederick Houston, an American, and I live in ISo. 131 of this street. If you desire to call^ me to account, I shall be at your service." " I desire to have nothing whatever to do with you, sir," answered Monsignore, with a snarl ; "If you have no objection, I wilL bid you good evening." Houlston lifted his hat once more, and was about to retire when the young £"'l. of ""'hose 2>resence he had not been aware, stepped out of the dark and tremblingly approached the ecclesiastic. " Eecellenza," she said, seizing him by the hem of his robe, "we are dying of hunger. We have been quiet as long as we could, but now death is stealing upon us, and we have no strength or courage left." A cioiid gathered on Monsignore's forehead,, the deep wrinkles of his brow grew deeper, and his lips assumed a fixed and inexorable look. Then, as if by chance, his eyes strayed towardsHouston, who had taken his station at the girl's side. "You have not yet dore me" the favour to betake yourself away," he said with studied courtesy. ■ ' ■_:,, "Nor do I intend to do you that favour,"" replied the American firmly, " until I see what becomes of this child. If you do not help her, I shall myself see that she suffers no want." •' It would be cruel to question the probity of your intentions," remarked the other witk a sneer. " But you may safely leave this girl's future to me. A worthy pauper never calls upon me in vain." " . .'•.■,■ So saying, he pulled a very elegant ppcketbook from an inner pocket and handed two .fivefranc notes to the girl. She kissed' his Hand dutifully and moved away, followed by Houston. He hailed a fiacre from a neighbouing -streot corner, paid the coachman, and, as sho shotted , somo reluctance to enter' the l vehicle, i almost lifted her into it: He. listened intently to'. itho address she gave to the driver,. made a memorandum of it in his note-book, bade his ■ prpir^i^, a friendly goodnight, and crossed tKe sfroofc'.to^is. lodgings. .. _. . , ..,' ...-, ...., » .I', • ■'-. ■ M (Concluded next- week.)' .. ■ - 1 .