PART II

I

"_'Twas now the hour that turneth back

desire

To those who sail the sea; and melts the

heart_,"--

of those about to visit unknown shores. Among these was Anania. The

train had carried him to the coast. It was evening, a clear, still

autumn evening heavy with melancholy. The dented mountains of Gallura

were faintly visible in the violet distance. The air was scented with

heather blossom. A far off village with grey _campanile_ against the

violet sky came into sight. Anania looked at the strange outline of the

mountains, at the quiet sky, at the cistus bushes among the rocks, and

nothing kept back his tears but the fear of ridicule from his

fellow-travellers: a priest, and a student from lowland Campidano who

had once been his school-fellow.

At last he was a man! True he had thought himself a man ever since he

was fifteen, but then he had thought himself a young man, now he was an

"old young man." Youth, however, and health shone in his eyes. He was

tall and slim with a seductive little gold-tipped chestnut moustache.

Now stars came out above the Gallura range, here and there fires shone

red among the dark tufts of heath. Good-bye, then, native land, sad

island, aged Mother, loved but not loved enough. A powerful voice from

beyond the sea draws your best sons from your warm lap, even as the wind

calls the young eagles, inviting them to leave their nest among the

lonely crags. The student looked at the horizon and his eyes darkened

with the sky. For how many, many years had he not heard the voice which

was calling him away!

He remembered the adventure with Bustianeddu, the childish project of

flight; then the ceaseless dreams, the inextinguishable desire for a

journey towards the lands beyond the sea. Yet now that he was leaving

the island he felt sad, half repenting that he had not gone on with his

studies at Cagliari. He had been so happy there! Last May, Margherita

had come for the fantastic splendours of the Feast of St Efès. He had

spent never-to-be-forgotten hours with her among merry companies of

fellow citizens. Margherita was charming, very tall and well-formed. Her

beautiful hair, her dark blue eyes shadowed by long black lashes,

attracted the attention of passers-by who turned their heads to look at

her. Anania, slighter and shorter than she, walked by her side trembling

with jealousy and joy. It seemed impossible that this beautiful

creature, so regal, so reserved, in whose disdainful eyes shone the

pride of an imperial race, should abase herself to love, even to look at

him. Margherita talked little. She was no flirt, and unlike the

generality of women did not change look or voice when a man admired or

addressed her. Was this superiority, simplicity, or contempt?

"Am I enough for her?" the lover asked himself. "Yes, surely, for she

feels that no other love can equal mine."

He really did love her very deeply. He had eyes for no one else. He

never looked at a woman except to compare her with Margherita and find

her inferior. The more he became a man, the more she a woman, the more

their love took flame. Anania had days of delirium in which he thought

of the long years that must elapse ere he could have her, and felt the

waiting an impossibility, felt he must die consumed by desire. But on

the whole he loved her calmly, with patience, with constancy, and

purity.

During the last vacation they had often been alone together in

Margherita's courtyard, under the chaste eyes of the stars, the

impassive face of the moon. Their meetings were facilitated by the

servant who was also the medium of their correspondence. For the most

part they were silent, Margherita trembling lightly, pensive, and

vigilant. Anania panted, smiled, and sighed, oblivious of time and

space, of all the things and affairs of men.

"You are so cold!" he would say. "Why don't you speak the same words

that you write?"

"I'm afraid."

"Of what? If your father surprises us, I will kneel to him and say, 'No,

we are doing no harm. We are united for eternity.' Don't be afraid, my

dearest! I will be worthy of you. I have a future before me. I intend to

be _somebody_."

She made no answer. She did not say that if Signor Carboni were to find

out, the future might be shattered. But she continued vigilant.

At bottom her coldness was not displeasing to Anania, and only augmented

his ardour. Often seeing her so beautiful and so frozen, her eyes

shining in the moonlight like the pearl eyes of an idol, he dared not

kiss her. He gazed at her in silence, and his breast heaved with

felicity or with anguish he knew not which. Once he said--

"Margherita, I feel like a beggar on the threshold of a wondrous palace

given him by a fairy into which he dares not enter."

"God be praised, the sea is calm," said the priest, Anania's

fellow-traveller. The young man started from his memories and looked at

the gold-green sea, which in the dusk suggested a moonlit plain, at the

ruins of a little church, at a path through the thickets, lost on the

extreme verge of the shore, as if traced by a dreamer who had hoped to

carry it on across the velvet ripples of the sea. He thought of

Chateaubriand's Renato, and fancied he saw that melancholy figure on a

rock which overhung the waves.

"No, it's not Renato. Perhaps its Eudorus, who on the sea rocks of wild

Gallia dreamed of the flowers in his distant Hellas. No, it is not

Eudorus; it's just a poet thinking--"

"'This granite rock supreme above the sea

What does it here?'"

But the rock and the church and the path and the silhouette of the

uncertain personage have all disappeared. Strange questions are still,

however, troublesome in Anania's mind, falling without answer like

stones thrown into the sea.

Why should he not stop on this wild, gently melancholy coast? Why should

not the half seen figure on the rocks be his own? Why not build a house

on the ruins of that church? Why waste himself in this stupid

sentimentality? Why was he going to Rome? why studying Law? Who was he?

What was life? Nostalgia? Love? What was Margherita doing? Why did he

love her? Why was his father a mere servant? Why had his father told him

to visit, the moment he got to Rome, those places where gold coins were

kept which had been found among the ruins? Was his father a criminal or

only a monomaniac? Had he inherited monomania from his father? Monomania

in a different form? Was it monomania, a mental disease, this continual

thinking of his mother, of that woman? And was she really in Rome, and

would he find her?

"'Anninia,'"[14] said the drawling tones of the mocking student from

Campidano, using the nickname which Anania's companions had fastened on

him, "are you asleep? Wake up! Life's just this, a circular ticket

giving the right to stop longer or shorter time at definite places. At

least give thanks that sea-sickness won't interrupt your love dreams."

The priest, who was young and narrow-minded, also had his gibe. "Don't

be so gloomy, man. '_There's trout even in hell_.' We are leaving our

beloved fatherland, but at least we shan't be sea-sick!"

The sea was certainly smooth, and the passage began under the best

auspices. The moon was near setting and threw strange gleams on the rock

of Capo Figari, which suggested a cyclopean sentinel guarding the

melancholy sleep of the abandoned isle. Good-bye! good-bye! island of

exile and of dream!

Anania remained motionless leaning on the rail of the deck till the last

vision of Capo Figari had disappeared and the little scattered islets

which rose blue from the waves like petrified clouds, were absorbed into

the vaporous distance. Then he sat on a little bench, and scornfully

rubbed tears from his eyes. Battista Daga, his companion, who was always

sea-sick no matter what the condition of the sea, soon retired. Anania

remained alone on the deck, numbed by the damp breeze, and saw the moon,

red like molten iron, sink into a turbid and sanguinous distance. At

last he too turned in, but was long ere he slept. He felt as if his body

were incessantly growing longer and shorter. An interminable line of

carts seemed crossing over his torpid person. The most unpleasant

recollections of his life came into his head. The clashing of the waves

cut by the keel seemed the wind in the widow's cottage at Fonni. Oh what

a vain, useless, odious thing was life! What was the good of living at

all? However at last sleep vanquished his sufferings.

In the morning he felt another person, agile, strong, happy! He had

closed his eyes on a gloomy grief-stricken land, on livid waves and a

bloody moon. He awakened in a sea of gold, in a land of light. He was

close to Rome.

Rome! His heart beat with joy. Rome! Rome! Eternal country, mother and

lover, siren and friend, healer of all sorrows, river of oblivion,

fountain of promise, abyss of every ill, source of every good!

Anania felt ready for the conquest of the world. Civita Vecchia was

black and damp under the morning sky, but it seemed picturesque and

beautiful to him.

Daga, who had been on the continent for a year, smiled at his

companion's enthusiasm.

The noisy arrival of the express train gave the Sardinian youth an

electric shock, a sense of terror, the first giddy impression of a

civilization, violent, even destructive. The red-eyed monster would

ravish him away as the wind ravishes the leaves. He would be pitched

into a cauldron of new life, boiling over with terrible joys and griefs.

Ah! that would be life in reality! dreamed of but never known I

civilization! the human ebb and flow! the omnipotent palpitation of the

great collective heart! Then he looked out of the train and watched the

long melancholy lines of the Campagna Romana, warm green under the

autumnal sun, reminding him of the tablelands of his home; but the new

life upon which he was entering usurped all his thoughts obliterating

the landscape, putting memory to flight. Everything, the walls, the

trees, the bushes, the air itself, seemed in motion flying madly by, as

if terrified, as if pursued by some unseen monster. Only the express

train, itself a monster but beneficent, protecting, the immense warrior

of civilization, advanced violently towards the persecutor dragon to

fall upon and destroy it.

In Rome, the two students lived on the third floor of a huge house in

Piazza della Consolazione, kept by a widow with two pretty

daughters--telegraphists at a newspaper office. The companionship of

Daga, a chameleon-like personage, sometimes merry, sometimes

hypochondriacal, often choleric, often apathetic, always egotistical and

sarcastic, was a great solace to Anania during the first days of his

residence in the capital. The pair slept in one room, divided by a

screen made out of a yellow rug. The room was vast but dark, with one

little window looking out on the internal court. Anania's first glance

from this window filled him with dismay. From the lurid depths of the

court rose high walls of dirty yellow, pierced with irregular windows

from which exhaled kitchen odours of grease and onions. Iron rods ran

along the walls and across the court; from them depended miserable

garments of doubtful cleanliness, one of these rods passed just under

the student's window, long strands of twisted pack-thread floating from

it. Anania stood looking gloomily at the faded walls, but Battista Daga

shook the rod and laughed.

"Look!" he said, "the rings on this rod and the skeins of thread dance

as if they were alive. It's amusing!"

Anania looked, and saw the resemblance to marionettes.

Battista went on. "That's life! an iron rod spanning a dirty court and

men who dance suspended over an abyss."

"Don't destroy my illusions," said Anania, "I'm dull enough without your

philosophy. Let's go out. I'm smothering." They went out and walked till

they were tired, bewildered by the noise of carriages and trams, by the

splendour of the lamps, by the violent rush and raucous cries of the

motors, above all by the surging of the crowd.

Anania felt depressed, alone in a desert, alone on a stormy sea. Had he

fallen or cried out none would have heard or seen him; the crowd would

have stepped on his prostrate form without looking at it. He remembered

Cagliari with yearning nostalgia. Oh enchanted balcony, picture of the

sea, sweet eye of the Evening Star! Here no stars were to be seen, no

horizon; only a repellent conglomeration of stones and among them a

swarm of men, who to the young barbarian seemed of a race inferior to

his own.

For the first days Rome, seen through bewildered eyes under the

influence of fatigue and of the dark habitation in Piazza della

Consolazione, caused him almost feverish sadness. In the older part of

the town, in the narrow streets, the stuffy shops, the wretched

dwellings whose doors seemed mouths of caverns, Anania thought of the

poorest Sardinian village which was dowered at least with light and air.

In the modern streets everything seemed too big, the houses were like

mountains, the piazzas the size of _tancas_. Was this the intoxicating

Rome, great but never oppressive, which he had imagined at Civita

Vecchia?

He began to attend the University lectures, studying Civil and Penal Law

under Ferri. Here again his ideas were upset. The students were entirely

noisy; laughing at and mocking everybody and everything. In Hall IV.,

while they were waiting for Ferri, the row and the joking passed all

limits of decorum. One student would leap upon the chair and deliver a

parody of the expected lecture. His fellows shouted, hissed, applauded,

cried, "_Viva il Papa!" "Viva St Alphonso di Liguri!" "Viva Pio Nono!_"

Sometimes the student in the chair, with red, set face, would mimic the

mewing of cats, the crowing of cocks. Then the roaring and the hissing

redoubled. Paper balls were thrown and lighted matches; the student

persisted till the arrival of the professor, who was received with

thunders of applause.

Later Anania took part in this noise and tumult, but at first the

absurdity, the scepticism, the vanity and egotism of his companions

shocked him. He felt more than ever alone, unlike the rest, and he

repented that he had come to Rome. But one evening he and Daga were

crossing Via Nazionale at the fall of evening. The pavements were

deserted, the radiance of the electric lamps was lost in the azure dusk.

The windows of the banks were brightly illuminated.

"Look!" said Daga.

"It seems as if all the gold in the Bank was shining at the windows!"

cried Anania.

"Bravo!" said the other, "you're getting quite brilliant in my society!"

Presently they stopped again. On the left, in the indescribable depth of

Via Quattro Fontane, the sky burned with violet clearness; on the right

the full moon was rising from the black outline of Santa Maria Maggiore

which was silhouetted against a silver background.

"Let's go to the Coliseum!" said Anania.

They went, and spent a long time wandering round the divine mystery of

the spot, looking at the moon through every arch. Then they sat on a

shining column, and Daga said--

"I feel as if I were in the moon. Don't you think that in the moon one

would feel just as one feels here in this great dead world?"

"Yes," said Anania, answering his own inward question, "_this_ is Rome!"

[Footnote 14: Huah-a-bye baby.]

II

It was raining. An ashy shadow burdened the room, of which Daga had

given his companion the brighter part, because he liked sleeping till

ten o'clock and was intolerant of the faintest light. Stretched on his

bed Anania looked at the yellow screen, while he fancied a marble

bas-relief yellowed by damp, and was conscious of discouragement, almost

physical in its nature.

Daga also sighed from his bed behind the screen.

"What's the matter with _him_?" thought Anania irritated, "isn't he

quite happy, rich, talented, esteemed?" He began to make comparisons.

"He isn't in love, the fool! he has parents who worship him; he's

independent--while I? Well then, what about me? Am I not happy? Aren't

my blue devils called up by rain clouds, by nebulous monsters? I declare

I'm mad! I love and am loved. I have before me a future of love and

peace. I'm ambitious, perhaps I have only to open my arms to embrace the

world. Margherita is beautiful. She is rich. She loves me and is waiting

for me. What is it that I want? Why this stupid sadness?"

Even his nostalgia was cured. Rome had by this time revealed herself

before his eyes like some marvellous panorama emerging from the morning

mists. She was now so delightful to him that one morning, looking down

from the terrace of the Villa Medici on the refulgent picture drawn in

the green hollow of the Campagna like a mother-o'-pearl city carved in a

shell of emerald, and looking away to the lonely horizon which reminded

him of the solitudes of Sardinia, he asked himself whether his new love

for the Eternal City was not greater than the old love for his home.

In his life of study he had felt the spirit of Rome, severe and gentle,

blowing on his own little spirit. He was assiduous at his lectures, he

frequented libraries, galleries, museums. Certain pictures had struck

him--he felt as if he had already seen them. Where? when? By degrees he

recognized that the feeling came from the resemblance between the

figures in the picture to the people of his home. That Madonna of

Correggio's has the dark face of Bustianeddu's mother; that old man of

Spagnoletto's is the Bishop of Nuoro; and the sarcastic physiognomy of

Uncle Pera, the gardener, lives in the copy of a picture by an unknown

Tuscan of which the original is at Venice.

Daily in the streets, the churches, the shops, Anania found objects of

Art and of Beauty which filled him with enthusiasm. Ah! how beautiful

was Rome! How he loved her! And yet--a shadow brooded upon all the love,

all the enthusiasm, a cloud hung over all things.

Last night about eleven, before the rain had begun, the two students

were walking in Via Nazionale, at this hour almost empty, with broad

shadows between the electric lamps. They were talking in the Sardinian

dialect, and presently one of those nocturnal butterflies who flit over

the pavements, accosted them in the same speech:--

"_Bonas tardas pizzocheddos_."

She was tall, dark, with large, hollow eyes. The electric light gave a

cadaverous pallor to her small face emerging from the fur collar of a

light jacket. As when Marta Rosa had stopped him at Cagliari, Anania

shuddered. He dragged Daga away who had answered the woman roughly. It

was not the first time Anania had encountered such wandering phantasm in

the lonely streets, and always he had felt a chill at his heart.

Was it _she_? Could it be _she_? But this time--oh this time--the woman

had spoken in Sardinian. She was a Sardinian. It might be _she_!

Stretched on his bed after long hours of melancholy oppression Anania

thought--

"I can't go on living like this. I must _know_. Oh to hear that she were

dead! dead! But I will seek her. Did I not come to Rome for this?

To-morrow--to-morrow! From the very day I arrived I have said that I

And to-morrow comes and I do nothing. But what can I do? Where must I

go? And supposing I do find her?"

Ah! that was his dread. He must not even think of what might happen when

he had found her! Then he thought:

"Would it be a good plan to confide in Battista? Suppose I tell him I'm

going out now to the Questura[15] to get information; what will he

advise? I must confide in some one. I want counsel--help. I can endure

this sad secret no longer. So many, many years I have borne its weight.

I want to get free, to throw it off as one throws off an oppressive

burden. I want to get free, to breathe. I must dislodge this gnawing

worm. I shall be told I'm a fool. I shall be convinced. Well, so much

the better if I am convinced. I shall be told to let it alone. What a

horrible day this is! I feel as if I was in one of Dostoyevsky's novels,

seeing a procession of grey and famished folk passing across the end of

the room. The sky is lowering. Am I going asleep? I must get up and go

about this business at once. Battista Daga!" he cried, rising on his

elbow, "aren't you going out?"

"No," roared the other.

"Will you lend me your umbrella?"

He hoped Battista would ask where he was going, but all his friend said

was--

"Couldn't you do me the favour of buying an umbrella?"

Anania sat up on his bed, put his lips to the screen, and said slowly--

"I've got to go to the Questura."

Again he hoped a fraternal voice would ask his reason. His heart beat

considering how he should explain.

But Daga only asked from behind the screen, "Are you going to get the

rain taken up?"

Anania laughed, and his secret fell back on his heart like lead. Not a

screen, but an immense and impenetrable wall divided him from his

fellows. He must neither ask nor expect help from any one. He must be

sufficient to himself.

He got up, dressed, sought in his desk for the certificate of his birth.

Then he opened the door.

"Take the umbrella, of course," yawned Battista; "but why are you

going?"

Anania did not reply. He went out.

It rained without intermission, furiously. Descending the dark stair he

listened to the echoing clatter of the rain on the glass roof. It seemed

the roar of a cascade which in a moment must smash the glass and

inundate the staircase, already overflowed by the noise of the imminent

catastrophe. He went out and wandered through the rain-washed streets.

He passed through a deserted alley, under a black and mysterious arch;

looked gloomily at the damp chiaroscuro of certain interiors, of certain

small shops in which pale figures of women, of poor men, of dirty

children, moved to and fro; caves where charcoal sellers assumed

diabolical aspect, where vegetables and fruits in baskets grew putrid in

the muddy darkness, where blacksmiths, and cobblers and washerwomen

consumed themselves in the forced labour of an imaginary penitentiary,

more sad than the real prison because more hopeless and lasting.

Anania thought of the savage surroundings of the widow at Fonni, of the

mill, the encompassing poverty, the miserable figures in the poor homes

of Nuoro. He seemed condemned always to be in sad places, among the

grief-stricken and the poor.

After long and useless wandering, he came in and sat down to write a

letter to Margherita.

"I am mortally sad," he wrote. "On my soul lies a great and bruising

weight. For many years I have wished to tell you what I am writing now.

I don't know how you will receive it. But whatever you may think.

Margherita, never forget that I am impelled by inexorable fate, by a

duty which is more bitter to me than a crime. Perhaps--but I will not

influence you in any way; only remember that on your decision depends my

life or my death. By death I mean moral death; the death which does not

kill the body but condemns the whole man to a slow agony. First, let me

explain. But oh! I can't, I can't! You will repel me! Yet my sorrow is

so lacerating that I feel the need of flinging myself before you, of

exposing my anguish----"

Having written thus far he stopped and read the letter over. He could

not write another word. Who was Margherita? Who was he? Who was _that

woman_? What was life? Here were all the stupid questions beginning over

again. A long time he looked at the window panes, at the iron rod and

the rings and the threads, dropping water, chafed by the wind, against

a murky and faded background. He even thought of killing himself.

Presently he tore the letter, first in long strips then into little

squares which he arranged in a pattern. Then again he looked at the

window panes, and the rods, and the rings and the threads which seemed

like soaking marionettes.

Towards evening the rain ceased and the two students went out together.

The sky had cleared, the city noises reanimated the soft air; a rainbow

made a marvellous frame for the picture of the Forum Romanum.

Daga was in a mood of thoughtless merriment. Anania walked

automatically, noticing nothing, his hands in his pockets, his hat on

his eyes, his lips shut. As usual they went down Via Nazionale. Daga

stopped before Garroni's to look at the papers, while Anania walked on

absently, advancing towards a line of chattering young priests habited

in red. The reflection of their scarlet cassocks made a sanguinous

reflection on the wet pavement, and all the footpath seemed on fire.

They were foreigners, merry, thoughtless boys, frisking like flames and

filling the streets with their laughter. Thus they would pass through

life, thoughtless and unconscious, no passion involving them in shadows,

no flame shining on their path but that of their long scarlet cassocks.

Anania felt envious and said to Daga, who rejoined him--

"When I was a child I knew the son of a famous brigand. The boy was on

fire with wild little passions, and meant to avenge his father. Now he

has become a monk. What do you make of that?"

"He's a fool, that's all."

"That won't do," said Anania eagerly, "we explain too many psychological

mysteries by that word fool!"

"Well, anyhow he's a monomaniac. Folly itself is a complicated

psychological mystery, a tree of which monomania is the stoutest

branch."

"Well, he had the monomania of brigandage, an hereditary monomania. He

is a primitive sort of person, and by becoming a monk he tried to free

himself from his monomania. He went from bad to worse. He'll end by

going mad. A normal intelligent man, if he has the ill luck to become

the victim of a fixed idea, throws it off by giving way to it. Take

love, for instance. That's a fixed idea, if you like! a continual itch

to be near some particular person--alone with her. There's no remedy for

that state of obsession but to get near--the fixed idea! Wait a moment,

I see something I want" (he stopped before a shop window)--"a crocodile

card-case."

"Perhaps you are right."

"Of course I am. I know it's crocodile."

"I mean about the fixed idea----"

"Just think! that card-case was once living in the Nile."

"What an idiot you are! where's the Police Office?" asked Anania,

turning on his heel.

"How do I know? I've never been taken up."

"Seriously, where is it?"

"Do you think you're at Nuoro? There are dozens of offices. I've noticed

one at San Martino dei Monti."

"Will you come with me?" said Anania, turning up Via Depretis. He had

grown pale; his hands trembled in his pockets.

"What are you going to do at the Questura? What's the matter with you?

Have you committed a crime?"

"I want to get someone's address. Come on."

He hurried. His friend followed, curious and a little disturbed. "Who is

the person? Who wants the address? Someone at Nuoro? Is it a mystery?

Speak, you wretch!"

Anania strode on and made no answer.

"Well," said Daga as they arrived at S. Martino, "I'm not your pet dog.

If you won't open your mouth, I'll leave you here."

"I'll tell you afterwards. Wait for me."

Daga waited. A quarter of an hour passed. The young man forgot his

comrade's mysterious business in enjoyment of the grand scene spread out

before him. The rosy haze of incipient twilight filled the air. The

lamps were like pearls in the streets of the immense fan, stretching out

from the Piazza dell' Esquilino. Foot-passengers and carriages passed as

on a huge stage before a limitless background.

"They're all marionettes moved by an invisible thread," thought the

student. "There they go passing, hurrying, disappearing. Each one thinks

himself great, the pivot of the world, with an universe existing for him

alone. While in reality they are all very small. I wonder how many of

them have committed crimes? That swell there with the silk hat? Perhaps

he has poisoned someone. They all have cares. No, not all. It's a lie to

say humanity suffers. The chief part of humanity neither suffers nor

enjoys. All those people going to the Pincio for instance! What can

those people either enjoy or suffer? Is that Anania Atonzu coming back?

Yes, here he is. He also is a marionette. He looks like Punch when he

says 'the die is cast!'"

In his olympian superiority of the moment, Daga smiled more mockingly

than ever.

"Well is the die cast?!" he asked tragically.

"Yes," replied Anania, leaning against the wall. For some minutes he

also gazed at the Piazza where lamps were beginning to replace the

luminous twilight. In the depths of the central street which seemed a

road cut through a forest, Monte Mario could be seen, a distant wall

against a background of reddened silver. Anania, he knew not why,

suddenly remembered that evening when he--a child, had climbed the

Gennargentu and seen a fearful heaven--all red, in which hovered the

ghosts of dead robbers.

And now too, he felt a mystery hovering round him; and the vision of the

city inspired him with fear: the vision of that forest of stone

traversed by shining streets, like rivers of which the waves were the

heart beats of suffering men.

[Footnote 15: Police detective inquiry office.]

III

Yes, as Battista had said, and in the words of the ancient Roman, the

die was cast. The police office at Anania's instance undertook the

search for Rosalia Derios. Before the end of March her son was informed

that a woman answering the description lived at such a number of Via del

Seminario, on the top floor, and made her living by letting rooms. This

person was called, or had assumed the name of Maria Obinu and said she

was a native of Nuoro. She had been fourteen years in Rome and at first

had lived--well, a little irregularly. But for some years she had been

quite respectable--at least in appearance; and let furnished rooms with

or without board.

Anania took the information coolly. The description agreed. He did not

precisely remember his mother's face, but knew she was tall with black

hair and light eyes. He was sure that at Nuoro there was no family named

Obinu, and that no one had a female relative living in Rome and letting

rooms. This Obinu Was giving a false name, None the less, he felt

instinctively that the woman was not, could not be his mother. This gave

him a sense of relief. He had done his duty. Maria Obinu was not Rosalia

Derios, Rosalia Derios could not be in Rome if the omniscient _Questura_

failed to find her. He was not obliged to make further search. After

days and months of oppression and suspense he at last breathed freely.

The spring had penetrated even into the dreary court of the house in

Piazza della Consolazione, to that great yellow well, which exhaled the

odours of victuals, and was noisy with the voices of servant maids and

the piping of imprisoned canaries. The air was warm and sweet with the

fragrance of violet and lilac; over the azure sky passed roseate clouds.

Standing at the window, Anania was again conscious of nostalgia. The

scent of violets, the pink clouds, the warm spring breeze reminded him

of his home, of the vast horizons, the clouds he had watched from the

window of his little bedroom, sinking behind the holm-oaks of Orthobene.

Then he remembered the pines of Monte Urpino, the silence of the hills

clothed with blue iris and asphodel, the mystery of the paths, the pure

eyes of the stars. And against the cerulean background of these

nostalgic memories, the delightful figure of Margherita rose supreme,

her little feet on the grass of the fresh landscape, her brown hair

gold-tipped in the brilliance of the sunshine.

It was these recollections which touched him in the Roman spring;

otherwise it seemed artificial, the sunsets too highly coloured, the

abundance of flowers and perfumes exaggerated. Piazza di Spagna decked

with roses like an altar, the Pincio with its flowering trees, the

streets in which flower girls offered baskets of ranunculus and violets

to the passers-by--all this ostentation, all this merchandise of

spring, gave the Sardinian an idea of a vulgar holiday, which would end

in weariness and disgust.

Beyond the horizon, Spring was a maiden wild and pure; she wandered

among the _tancas_ covered now with waving grass, she twittered with the

water birds on the banks of lonely streams, she was merry with the

lambs, with the leverets leaping among the cyclamen, or beneath the

immense oaks sacred to the ancient shepherds of the Barbagia; she slept

in the shadows of the moss-grown rocks, during the voluptuous noons,

while round her bed of periwinkle and fern, golden insects buzzed their

love stories, and bees sucked the dog roses extracting their bitter

honey, sweet and bitter like the Sardinian soul. Anania lived and loved

in that distant spring land. He sat at the window studying his books and

watching the blue sky and the rosy clouds. He fancied himself an

enamoured prisoner. A pleasant somnolence stole his strength, his will,

his power of definite thought. Ideas came and went in his mind--like the

people in the street. He made no effort to detain them, they passed

languidly, leaving furrows of sadness in their wake.

More than ever he loved solitude. His companion irked him. They were no

longer entirely good friends.

Daga tyrannised over the younger lad, he borrowed money (which he never

repaid) he laughed at him and talked displeasingly.

"We view life under different aspects," said Daga, "or, rather, I see it

and you don't. I am short-sighted, but I have strong eyeglasses. People

and things seen through them are small but very dear. You are

short-sighted too, but you haven't even a pair of spectacles."

Sometimes Anania did indeed believe he had a veil before his eyes. His

blood ran with diffidence and apprehension. Even his love for Margherita

was mixed with anxiety; and this nostalgia, this love of solitude, this

sleepiness of spring, this indifference to life--to that imperious life

which had ever eluded him--all this was just diffidence, grief, and

apprehension; and indeed he knew it.

One day at the end of May, Anania surprised his companion kissing the

elder daughter of the landlady.

"You are a brute!" he exclaimed, "haven't you been making love to the

other one?"

They quickly got to high words.

"Why, you fool, it's the girls who come and throw themselves into my

arms. Am I to push them away? If the world walks sideways, let us find

our advantage in it. It's the women nowadays who corrupt the men, and I

should be stupider even than you if I didn't accept their offers, up to

a certain point!"

"That's very fine," returned Anania, "but why do these adventures happen

only to certain people? What about me, for instance?"

"What happens to men doesn't happen to asses. The proverbial Sardinian

donkey, _sardu molente_, is eternally blindfolded. His business is just

to turn the wheel, and if the world were to collapse he'd never find it

out. The mill is his fixed idea. Suppose some day a wretched historian

wanted to write the donkey's life? he would find it vain to describe how

his hero ate and slept, what he studied, whether he was intended for a

doctor or a lawyer, whether he lived on land or sea or in the clouds.

Such things didn't enter into the life of that excellent beast as they

enter into the life of all other creatures."

"Anyhow he could say his donkey wasn't immoral."

"I might ask you, what is morality? but you wouldn't be able to answer.

I will inform you that morality, or whatever you like to call it, is the

result of circumstances. A donkey is highly moral so long as he has no

opportunity to be anything else. The young ladies of this house know you

are engaged. I am not, so they unlade their sweet electric discharges on

me."

"Engaged? I? Who says so?"

"And to a daisy--a pearl cast this time before an ass.

"I forbid you to utter that name! I forbid you! Do you hear?"

"Don't threaten my eyes with that finger! I snap my fingers at you and

at all the engaged chaps in the world."

Furiously Anania fell to packing his papers and books.

"I'm going at once!" he said, "at once. It seems there are prying people

here, as well as persons in search of amusement. I leave you to your

amusement. I am going away."

"Good-bye, then," said Battista, throwing himself on his bed, "but please

remember that if I hadn't taken care of you at first, you'd have been

squashed by the trams. You thought they were alive, didn't you?"

"And you, remember----" began Anania, stung by his companion's ridicule.

But he checked himself and grew red.

"Oh, I remember perfectly. I owe you twenty-seven _lire_. Don't be

afraid for your twenty-seven _lire_. My father, you recollect, has seven

_tancas_ in a row."

"With a river in the middle!" cried Anania, banging his books on the

table. "I defy you and your father and your _tancas_! I snap my fingers

at you."

Thus they separated, the two little supermen who in the Coliseum had

thought themselves as high as the moon. Anania flung out of the dingy

room with the intention of never setting foot in it again.

Once in the street, his heart still swelling with indignation, he went

automatically towards the Corso, and almost without noticing it, found

himself in Via del Seminario. It was burning noon, parched by a hot east

wind. The awning of the shops flapped spitefully against the passers-by.

The smell of the pavement was blended with perfume of flowers but also

with odours of paint, of drugs, of provisions. Anania's nerves were on

edge. He encountered a flock of young priests with floating black

cassocks and compared them to crows. He remembered a long ago quarrel

with Bustianeddu, and hated Battista Daga who represented the race of

vain-glorious and cynical Sardinians. In this mood he rang at the door

of Maria Obinu.

A tall, pale woman, shabbily dressed in black, came to open. Anania felt

sudden dismay. Her greenish eyes seemed familiar.

"Signora Obinu?" he asked.

"Yes, that is my name," answered the woman, her tones somewhat coarse.

"No," thought the youth, "it's not her voice."

He went in. Signora Obinu took him across a dark vestibule, then into a

small parlour, grey, dreary, badly lighted. His attention was caught by

a variety of Sardinian objects, specially the head of a deer and a wild

sheepskin nailed to the wall. He thought of his birthplace and felt his

doubts reborn.

"I want a room. I'm a student, a Sardinian," he said looking at the

woman from head to foot.

She was about thirty-seven, pallid and thin; her nose sharp, almost

transparent. Her thick black hair, still dressed in Sardinian fashion,

that is in narrow plaits coiled on the nape of the neck, made her seem

almost pretty.

"A Sardinian? That's nice!" she answered frankly and with a pleasant

smile. "I have no room just now, but if you can wait a fortnight there's

an English lady going away."

He asked to look at the room. It was in a state of indescribable

confusion. The bed was pulled out from the wall, and stood between piles

of antique books and other curiosities. There was a folding india-rubber

basin which the "Miss" used as a bath, and in it a fragrant branch of

cassia. On the window-sill a book lay open. It was poetry, Giovanni

Cena's _Madre_ (mother) and Anania was struck by seeing it. He decided

to take the room.

In the vestibule there was a large ottoman. He said: "Can't I sleep here

till the lady leaves? I want to get out of the place I'm in at once. I

go to bed late and I get up early----"

"But this ante-room is a passage," said the woman.

"I know. But I don't mind if you don't," urged Anania.

"'_Miss_' goes to bed early, but the other two, her father and Signor

Ciri never come in till late."

"I really don't mind for a few nights."

They returned to the parlour and Anania stood looking at the stuffed

head of the deer.

"Suppose it is _she_?" he was thinking. His coolness surprised him. He

could have borne it even if at that very moment the woman had revealed

herself. At bottom, however, he was deeply moved. He continued his

investigations.

"This is Sardinian," he said touching the yellowing sheepskin, "why

don't you use it as a rug?"

"It's a relic of my father. He was a hunter," said the woman still

smiling kindly.

"She's lying," thought Anania. Then he looked attentively at the deer's

head and asked, "Are you a native of Nuoro?"

"Yes, but I was born there by accident. My parents were just passing

through."

"I was born accidentally at Fonni," he said with careless voice,

fingering the horns of the stag; "yes, at Fonni. My name is Anania

Atonzu Derios."

Having said the name, he turned and faced the woman. She did not move an

eyelash.

"No, it's not _she_," he thought, and felt relieved. She was not his

mother.

But that evening when he had brought his portmanteau and books to his

new domicile, Maria said to him:

"I'll give you my own room for the fortnight."

In vain he protested. His things were all carried into her little

chamber and Anania took possession. He felt shy, intruding thus into the

long narrow room which seemed like a nun's cell. The little white bed

smelt of lavender and reminded him of the simple pallet beds of the

patriarchal Sardinian homes. Again, Sardinian fashion, Maria Obinu had

decorated the grey walls with a row of little pictures, with sacred

images, three wax candles, and three crucifixes, a branch of olive, and

an immense crown made of sugar. At the head of the bed hung two bunches

of medals which had been blessed by the Pope. In one corner a lamp

burned before a representation of blue-pencil souls in Purgatory praying

before three red-pencil ensanguined flames. What a difference between

the Englishwoman's room and that of Maria Obinu! They were divided by at

least five centuries.

Anania was again in doubt. Why did she give him her room? Ah! she was

too anxious--too affectionate! He was unpacking when she knocked and

asked, without entering, whether he wished the lamp extinguished before

the Holy Souls.

"No!" he shouted, "but please come in. I have something to show you."

In his hand was a quaint little object, a small case of greasy material

hung on a thin chain blackened by time. He put the amulet round his neck

and said:

"I am pious myself. This is the Ricetta of San Giovanni, which wards off

temptation."

The woman looked. Her smile faded and Anania's heart beat. "You don't

believe in it?" she said severely; "well, whether you believe or not,

don't jest at it. It's holy."

Stretched on the lavender-scented bed, Anania pondered. If this Maria

Obinu were Olì? If it were _She_? So near and yet so far! What

mysterious thread had led him to her, to the very pillow where she must

have wept for her deserted child? How strange is life!--a thread upon

which men dance like rags moved by the wind; was it really she? Then he

had arrived at his goal insensibly, almost unintentionally, by force of

his subconscious will which had given him suggestion. Suggestion of

what? But surely this was folly! Childishness! It couldn't be she! But

if it were? Did she already know she was with her son while he was

racked by doubt? Then why didn't she reveal herself? What was she afraid

of? Had she recognised the amulet.

No, it could not be she. A mother must betray herself; could not help

crying out on meeting her child. The idea was absurd. No, it was not

absurd. A woman can control herself under the most violent emotions.

Olì would be afraid--after deserting her son--throwing him away. Well,

so much the more she ought to betray herself. A mother is always a

mother--not a mere woman. And how could Olì, a wild creature, a child

of nature, have so assimilated the hypocrisy of cities, as to be able to

feign like an actress? Impossible! Maria Obinu was Maria Obinu, a nice

kind woman, mild and unconscious, who had reformed by luck rather than

by strength of character, who eked out her penitence--perhaps scarcely

felt--by the ostentation of very questionable religious sentiment. It

could not be _She_.

"I'll press for information. She must tell me her history," he thought.

"However I'm satisfied it's not she. I tell you it's not she! you

imbecile, you idiot, you fool!"

Then he remembered his first night at Nuoro and the secret kiss his

father had pressed upon his forehead. He half expected that now his door

would open and a furtive shadow would come in the trembling light of the

little lamp and imitate that shamefaced kiss.

"If it happens, what shall I do?" he asked himself, anxiously. "I'll

pretend I'm asleep. But, good Lord! what a fool I am!"

The noises in the street and in the neighbouring Piazza of the Pantheon

grew fainter and fewer, as if themselves weary and retiring to a place

of repose. The belated lodgers came in. Then all was silence in the

house, in the street, in the city. But Anania still kept vigil. Perhaps

the lamp----

"I'll put it out," he thought and got up. A noise! a rustle! Was the

door opening? Oh God! He sprang back into bed, shut his eyes, waited.

His heart and his throat pulsed feverishly. The door remained shut. He

calmed himself and laughed. But the lamp was left still alight.

IV

Rome, _June_ 1st.

"My Margherita, this moment your letter has arrived and I reply at once.

At least twenty times in the last few days I have taken my pen to write

to you but have not managed it. I have a great deal to tell you. First,

I have moved. I fell out with Battista Daga because I caught him kissing

the elder of the landlady's girls while he still makes love to the

younger one. That made me sick. Besides the place was too far from the

University. Now that the heat has begun the long journey to and fro is a

bore. As to Daga we made it up next day. I met him close to my new rooms

and he said he was coming to look me up, though first he had said he

wouldn't. I'm very comfortable here. The new landlady is a Sardinian.

She says she was born at Nuoro. She's nice and kind and very

pious--quite maternal in her care of me. She has given me her own room,

until the departure of a very beautiful English lady whom I'm to

replace. This '_Miss_' is extraordinarily like _you_. Don't be jealous

though. First, because I'm violently in love with a young lady at Nuoro;

secondly because '_Miss_' is going away in a few days; thirdly she's as

mad as a March hare; fourth she's betrothed; fifthly I'm under the care

of all the saints in heaven who are hung round the walls of my room, not

to mention the blessed souls in Purgatory. They are illuminated day and

night by a taper, which I know not why, seems to me itself a soul at

expiation (now I'm writing what you call nonsense).

"Well, I must tell you that at my new landlady's, there are two or three

more foreigners, a clerk at the War Office, a Piedmontese tailor, very

fashionable and refined, and a French bagman who can fire off eighty

lies in eight minutes. He reminds me of your suitor, the most worshipful

Signor Franziscu Carchide of Nuoro. Yesterday, for instance, while

'_Miss_' and the tailor were arguing about the Boer war, Monsieur

Pilbert told me, half in French half in Latin, that by force of

suggestion he had made the hair come out on his baby's head and in a

single hour it grew an inch, then stopped growing and at last set itself

_Se développer naturellement_. Signora Obinu--that's the landlady--has

a queer little old Sardinian cook, who has been thirty years in Rome and

still can't speak Italian. Poor old Aunt Varvara! She was almost

ravished from Sardinia, carried off by a violent _padrone_, a captain of

Dragons (so she calls him) who terrified her. She's black and tiny, like

a _jana_[16] keeps her native costume jealously locked up, and wears a

ridiculous gown bought in the Campo dei Fiori, and a bonnet which might

have belonged to the Empress Josephine. I often visit Aunt Varvara in

her dark and torrid kitchen. We talk in dialect; she weeps, and asks

after all the people she knew in the island. She thinks of returning to

Sardinia, though she's horribly afraid of the sea and believes the storm

in which she crossed to the continent is still going on. She knows

nothing of the place she's living in. Rome, for her, is just a place

where everything's dear, and a field of danger in which at any moment

she may be assaulted by a passing vehicle. She says the trams seem to

her like awful stags (she has never seen a stag) and that she can't go

to mass at the Pantheon because that church with the round hole on top,

like a Sardinian oven, makes her laugh. She wants to know whether in

Sardinia we still bake at home. I said yes, and she began to cry,

thinking of the jokes and games in the days when she baked bread in her

father's oven. Then she asked if there are still shepherds, and if they

still sit on the ground under the trees. How she sighed thinking of a

certain Easter banquet forty years ago at Goceano! Aunt Varvara can't

bear the Englishwoman, and she in her turn regards the old thing as a

savage. Sometimes while she does her cooking she sings songs in the

Logudorese dialect. Also this dirge which I have heard at Nuoro:

Dear Hearts, hush-a-bye! _Coro anninnò, anninnò

'Tis my day to die. Dego de partire so

While I linger still E de fagher testamentu._ . . .

Let me make my will.

"Then in the evening mistress and maid repeat the Rosary in dialect; and

it amuses me to join in from my room, because it makes Aunt Varvara

furious. She breaks off her prayers to swear at me.

"'_Su diaulu chi ti ha fattu_' ('Go to the devil who made you!')" she

shouts, and the padrona says, changing her voice:

"'Aunt Varvara have you gone clean out of your mind?'

"Enough of this, Margherita, my own, my sweet lovely Margherita! Let's

turn to something else. It's very hot now-a-days, but generally grows

fresh in the evening. I work hard all day--seriously; because it's not

only my duty but my pleasure. I go oftener than anybody to the

University and to the Libraries. For this reason I'm the darling of the

Professors. In the evening I walk along the banks of the Tiber and spend

hours watching the running water. I ask myself silly questions such as

'What _is_ water?' It's not true that the Tiber is clear coloured.

Sometimes it's yellow and muddy, oftener it's green, sometimes blue,

sometimes livid. I have seen it quite milky and reflecting the lamps,

the bridges, the moon, like polished marble. I compare the perennial

flowing of the water to my love for you,--thus constant, silent,

inexhaustible. Why, oh why, are you not here with me, my Margherita? The

mere thought of you makes everything more beautiful, gives everything

deeper meaning. What would not the world be if I could see it reflected

in your adored eyes! When, when will the tormenting and delicious dream

of our souls be made real? I don't know how I manage to live thus divided

from you, but I turn with joy to the thought that in two months we shall

again be together. O my Margherita, my pearl of pearls, I cannot express

even to you what I feel. No human speech could express it. It's a

continual fire which devours me, an unspeakable thirst which only one

fountain can slake. You are that fountain; you are the garden whose

flowers shall refresh my soul.

"Margherita, I am alone in the world, for you are all the world to me.

When I lose myself in the crowd, in the sea of unknown persons, it is

enough for me to think of you, and my heart swells with love to them

all, for your sweet sake. When your letters come, I am so happy I feel

quite giddy. I seem to have attained the summit of some great

mountain--if I stretch out my hand I shall touch the stars. It is too

much! I dread falling--falling into an abyss, being reduced to ashes by

contact with the stars. What would become of me, if, Margherita, if I

should lose you? I laugh when you tell me you are jealous of the

beautiful and cultured women whom I must be meeting here in Rome. No

woman could be to me what you are. You are my life, you are my past, my

home, my race, my dream. You are the mysterious wine which fills for me

the empty cup we call Life. Yes, I like to fancy life a cup which we

continually lift to our lips. For many this cup is never filled, and

they try painfully to suck what is not there, and die slowly for lack of

nourishment. But for others, and I belong to the happy number, the cup

contains divine ambrosia. . . .

"I have interrupted this letter, because Battista came to see me. He

seems getting into trouble with the two girls and wants to follow me

here. We shall see. I will speak to my landlady about it. I don't bear

malice, because as friend Pilbert assures me, hard words are things with

no real existence.

"I return to my letter, quite upset by a confidence made to me a few

minutes ago by Aunt Varvara. She tells me she knows Daga, having seen

him here with the _padrona_ several times. I don't like it, for you must

know Signora Obinu has not always borne the best of characters. I looked

questioningly at Aunt Varvara but she shut up her lips and shook her

head mysteriously. I promised next vacation to visit her old home and

learn its history for her during the last thirty years. This pleased her

so much that she let me catechize her a bit. I got out of her that

Signora Obinu left children in Sardinia, one of whom has been adopted by

a rich Signore of Campidano. Aunt Varvara thinks Battista Daga may be

Maria Obinu's son."

Anania stopped writing, and read and reread the last few lines. A little

black ant ran over the page and he looked at it with eyes full of

thought. What _was_ this little being called an ant? Why did it live?

Ought he to crush it with his finger or not to crush it? Was there such

a thing as Free-Will?

At this time, though he was attending Ferri's lectures, Anania still

believed in free-will. He sometimes committed small crimes just to prove

to himself that he had willed to commit them. This time, however, he let

the ant alone. It vanished under a book ignorant of the danger it had

escaped. As often before, he tore up part of his letter. Then he leaned

his forehead on his hands and reread the remainder, a wave of

bitterness overflowing his heart.

"Yes," he thought, "I am too near the stars; I don't see the abyss into

which I must ineluctably fall. Why do I continue to deceive myself? It's

my mother she may be, and Battista Daga visits her because she is

still--But why has he never spoken of her? After all, why should he

speak? He has not confided his adventures to me. He comes

here--because--Oh God! Oh God! I am the son of Maria Obinu! She knows my

whole life. She told the old _jana_ in her own way that I have been

adopted by a rich Signore. Has she left other children in Sardinia? No,

that part must be a lie--she went away at once after deserting me. She

said that as a blind. Oh God!"

Presently he sprang to his feet.

"I must find out," he thought, "I must know. Why this burning lamp,

these pictures, these prayers,--if it's not for that reason. But I will

unmask you, lost soul! I will kill you, chase you away, because you are

my curse! because you will be the curse of that pure noble creature. Oh

my poor, poor Margherita!"

He struck his fist violently on the letter, while his eyes flamed with

hatred. Then again he sank on his chair, and dropped his head on the

table. He wished he could burst his head, think no more! forget!

annihilate himself!

He felt vile, black and viscid as a lump of mud. He felt himself flesh

of the solid flesh of his mother, himself a sinner, miserable, abject.

Tumultuous recollections passed through his mind. He remembered the

generous ideas so often caressed, the dream of finding and rescuing her,

the infinite pity for her ignorance and irresponsibility; the pride with

which he had regarded his own compassion--the thirst for sacrifice. It

had all been self-deception. A vague hint given by a childish old woman

had sufficed to turn his soul to mud, to rack it with storm, to impel it

towards crime. "I will kill her." Yes, those words were already a crime.

He thought of the peace he had enjoyed since he had been in this house,

and raised his head struck by a new idea. During the week passed in this

convent cell of Maria's, he had at the bottom of his heart accepted the

idea that she was his mother, and the recognition of her redemption, of

her honest and hard working life had made him happy. He had welcomed the

thought of their relationship. His horizon had cleared. He was freed

from a weight which had crushed and nailed him to the earth, and was now

ready to fly to the stars. And since she, either for fear, or for self

castigation, or for love of independence, refused to acknowledge him,

then he was glad to renounce her--now her future was assured, her life

purified. He could do her no good. He might harm her by intrusion. His

_mission_ could not be accomplished; he was spared the solution of the

cruel problem. He might now--after his long suffering--prosecute his

life, tranquilly, happily. He had fulfilled his duty by the mere desire

to fulfil it. And this ideal duty which had cost him so much had seemed

to him so heroic as to fill his soul with pride. The stars were near.

But now the abyss had reopened. All within and without his soul was a

lie; all delusion, all dream--even the stars.

But perhaps the thing he was thinking now was the delusion? If he were

deceiving himself. If Maria were not _she_? He went back on his old

thoughts. "Whether she is Maria or not, whether she is near or far, she

exists and she calls me. I must return on my steps, begin again, find

her dead or alive. Oh, if she were but dead!"

However, he waited for his landlady's return and to calm himself

somewhat tried to analyse this passion which goaded him. But for that

matter he knew well enough that the greater part of his trouble arose

not from passion but from the fact that his Ego was made up of two

cruelly contrasted personalities. One was the fantastic child, violent,

melancholy, with sick blood in his veins, the child who had come down

from his native mountains dreaming of an unreal world; who in his

father's house had meditated flight without ever attempting it, who at

Cagliari had wept wildly imagining that Marta Rosa could be his mother.

The other was a being, normal and intelligent, who had grown alongside

the morbid child, who saw clearly the unreality of the phantoms and

nebulous monsters which were his torment, yet who had never succeeded in

liberating him from the obsession. Continual conflict, cruel

contradiction, agitated by day and by night these two personalities; but

the fantastic and illogical child, victim and tyrant alike, always came

off the victor. Often he had asked himself whether he would have

suffered so acutely had he not been in love with Margherita; always he

answered himself "yes."

Signora Obinu came home in the evening.

"I should like to speak to you," said her young lodger, opening the

door. "Please come here a moment."

"What is it?" she asked, entering.

She was dressed in black, with an old hat of faded violet velvet. She

had run up the stair and was panting, her face unusually red, her

forehead hot and shining.

"What's the matter?" asked Anania, roughly.

"The matter with me? nothing," she answered, surprised; then resumed her

usual pleasant smile. "Why are you sitting in the dark? Well, what have

you to say to me?"

"I'll wait till you've taken off your hat."

She seemed struck by his voice and his frown, the more so that in the

morning he had complained of not feeling well.

"How hot it is! Suffocating!" she said, "are you perhaps feeling it?

Tell me what you want."

"First take off your hat," repeated Anania.

"Why?"

Anania was striking a match against the wall. He was thinking. "Better

catch her suddenly before she speaks to that old monkey Aunt Varvara."

"What's become of the candle? Well, look here, a friend of mine came

here--ah _su diaulu t'a fattu_, the devil made you, candle, that you

won't light! What a beast of a candle!"

He raised his head and looked sharply at the woman who was quietly

watching his efforts with the candle. "Battista Daga, another student,

has been here. He wants a room. Can you give him one?"

"We'll see," she said calmly, "when does he want it?" Anania began to

feel irritated.

"You know him, I think?"

"I? No."

"Aunt Varvara told me she had seen him here several times."

Maria Obinu raised her eyebrows. She seemed trying to remember. Suddenly

her face and her eyes burned.

"Look here," she said proudly, "if you mean that pale young man, with

the crooked nose, and the look of mortal sin--tell him that in my house

there is no place for him!"

"Why not? Please tell me. I assure you I know nothing against him. We

slept for six months in the same room,--Daga and I. But I really don't

know much about him--what he's up to. Tell me."

Anania had sat down by the table, inadvertently pushing the candle

against the wall.

"I have nothing to tell you," answered the woman. "I'm not bound to give

account to anyone. Let me alone. I live by my work and ask nothing from

anyone. I'm better than the ladies to whom you gentlemen lift your hats!

Ah!" she went on sighing heavily, "life is long! Days of trial will come

to you young lads too! You will get to know the world, will find the

hedge thick with serpents. They rise on every side of the path of life.

You also will come upon the stone which will make you trip. And many,

Signor Anania, many will never get up again. They will strike their

heads against that stone and die of the blow. Perhaps those are the best

off. Ah! but the Lord is merciful! The Lord is merciful!"

She put her hand on her heart and again sighed heavily.

"She's acting," thought Anania.

"_Bostè est sapia che ì s'abba_"[17] he said ironically, "upon my word,

I don't understand your sermon. What has it to do with Battista Daga?

Tell me. Signora Maria."

"Move that candle! It's setting fire to the calendar! What are you

thinking of!" cried the landlady, jumping up, "are you trying to ruin

me?"

Anania moved the candle and clapped a dictionary on the burning almanac.

"What a silly boy! Doesn't he deserve a box on the ear?" said Maria,

recovering herself and pulling the tuft of hair which fell on his

forehead.

"Don't! don't!" cried Anania, shaking his head from her touch. A sudden

recollection had shot through him. Yes--in a far distant place, in a

long distant time, in a black kitchen guarded by the long funereal cloak

of a bandit--Olì, exasperated by poverty and grief, used sometimes to

pull the wild locks of a naughty little boy.

Anania was moved by the recollection. He seized Signora Obinu's hand and

held it tight. Was it the same hand which had struck the child, the hand

which had led him to the olive-mill.

"A silly boy!" repeated Maria, "if I hadn't been there, there'd have

been a fine conflagration. Well, may I go away now?"

He raised his head and said:

"I feel as if I had seen your hand before now. Some other time this hand

has pulled my hair, has boxed my ears, has caressed me----"

"Are you going crazy, Signor Anania?" she said, snatching her hand away.

"Signora Maria, do you believe in spirits? No? Yet they exist. I believe

in them. Last night a friendly spirit came and told me many things,

among them, that you are my mother."

Maria laughed, somewhat forcedly, as if wishing to hide something. The

young man saw he had chosen a very childish method of approaching her.

Yet if she was really his mother she could not fail to be upset, finding

he had guessed it. However she laughed, perhaps trying to carry off some

terror of informing spirits.

"You really are crazy. I only wish I were your mother!" she said.

The voice of Aunt Varvara was heard calling her mistress.

"I can't waste any more time," said Signora Maria, turning to go away.

"What shall I say to Daga?" said Anania, brushing his hair.

"Say that if he comes here, I shall throw him downstairs. Do you see?"

"No, I don't see. Signora Maria! wait! Explain to me, do! Don't go away!

What does it all mean?"

But she vanished into the darkness of the ante-room, making no reply.

"Of course I do see," thought Anania shutting the door. "Well, is it any

business of mine what Daga is? and what she is? Hasn't everyone their

faults?"

[Footnote 16: A dwarf of Sardinian legend.]

[Footnote 17: A proverb. Wise as water, viz. very wise.]

V

The time of vacation was near.

"Aunt Varvara," said the student to the old servant as she was preparing

the coffee. "How happy I am! I feel wings growing. A few more days--then

good-bye! Yes, I have wings. I shall jump on the window-sill, cry

zsss--ss--and off! I launch myself in flight, and there I am in

Sardinia."

And he went to the window pretending to suit the action to the words.

"A-a-ah!" cried the old woman terrified, "do get down, sweetheart!

You'll break your neck! Oh God!----"

"Well, if you'll give me some coffee, just one little cup, I won't fly

just yet. How good your coffee is, my dear! How do you get it so good?

No one can make it so well except my mother at Nuoro."

The old woman, greatly flattered, poured out a cup, which being the

first from the pot was truly exquisite.

"Upon my word it is good!" said Anania, raising ecstatic eyes. "It gives

me nostalgia."

"What's nostalgia?"

"A shudder of the heart, Aunt Varvara; that shudder which comes when we

think of paradise. Would you like to come home with me, little aunt, on

a pillion? think! what fun!"

The old woman heaved a tremendous sigh. "Ah--if it weren't for the sea.

Are you very rich?" she asked suddenly.

"Of course I am."

"How many _tancas_ have you?"

"Seven or eight. I don't quite remember."

"And bees have you? And shepherds?"

"Aunt Varvara, I have everything."

"Then why have you come to this land of damnation?"

"Because my sweetheart wishes me to be Doctor of Law."

"And who is your sweetheart?"

"The daughter of the Baron of Baronia."

"Are there still Barons of Baronia? I have heard that phantoms haunt

their castle. Once there was a woodcutter who spent the night under the

castle wall, and he saw a lady with a long gold tail like a comet. Do

you know what a comet is? By our Lady of Good Counsel! you'll kill

yourself drinking so much coffee!"

"Go on with the story. What did the woodcutter do?"

Aunt Varvara went on. She mixed the legends of the Castello of the

Castle of Burgos with those of the castle of Galtelli, confused historic

records come down by popular tradition, with events which had happened

in her own childhood, not it is true very recent. She told a story of a

great lord who had lost his way on a moor, and not till he heard a

little bell at evening dusk, could he find his way to an inhabited

place. The great lord was very rich and very stupid, and he promised to

leave all his wealth to the church whose bell he had heard. And ever

after that, the bell has tolled at evening dusk so that lost men may be

able to find their way.

"But that's the legend of St Maria Maggiore," said Anania.

"No, no, my dear little heart. It belongs to the church of Illori. I can

tell you the name of the great rich man. It was Don Gonario Area."

"And the _nuraghes_," continued Aunt Varvara, walking about the steaming

kitchen, "are there still _nuraghes_? You know when the Moors came to

Sardinia to steal the cattle and the women, the Sardinians hid their

money in the _nuraghes_. Stupid boy, why don't you look for treasure on

your _tancas_?"

Anania thought of his father who had again written requiring him to

visit the museums where antique gold coins are preserved.

"Once," continued Aunt Varvara, "I went to pick lavender near a

_nuraghe_. I remember as if it were yesterday. I had the fever, and in

the evening I had to lie down on the grass, waiting till some cart

should pass which would carry me home, and this is what I saw. The

heaven behind the _nuraghe_ was all the colour of fire--it looked just

like a scarlet cloth. And suddenly a giant rose on the _patiu_[18] and

started blowing smoke out of his mouth. The whole sky became dark. By

our Lady of Good Counsel, it was horrible! But quite suddenly I saw St

George with the full moon on his head, and a great sword shining like

water in his hand. Tiffeti! Taffeti!" cried the old dame, flourishing a

kitchen knife! "St George slashed off the giant's head, and the sky

became quite bright again."

"You saw all that. Aunt Varvara, because you had fever."

"It may have been the fever, but I did see the giant and Santu Jorgi;

yes, I saw them with these eyes!" asseverated the old lady, poking her

fingers into her organs of vision.

Then she asked whether on the days of the greater feasts, horses still

galloped along the edge of the cliff, decorated with coloured ribbons

and ridden by half naked boys. And again whether for Sant' Antonio they

lighted fires, and in the middle of the fires stuck stakes, on top of

which were roasted oranges and pomegranates and arbutus berries, and

dead rats.

Anania listened with pleasure to Aunt Varvara's suggestive stories and

questions. Though the trains were shrieking within a few yards and the

amorous cats were _miouing_ among the columns of the Pantheon, he so

identified himself with the old woman's recollections that he fancied he

had only to open the door, to find himself in a lonely Sardinian

landscape on the top of a _nuraghe_ watched by a giant, or rapt in the

savage excitement of a race of Barbs, in the company of a philosophic

and contemplative old shepherd with soul turbid and great like the

clouds. In the homesick babble of the aged exile he already felt the

aroma of his native land, the breeze blown down from Orthobene and the

Gennargentu. And he felt himself Sardinian, deeply, exclusively

Sardinian.

"I mean to enjoy myself this vacation!" he said to his old Mend. "I

shall attend all the Feasts, I shall visit the whole of my little native

country. I shall climb on the Gennargentu, on Monte Raso, on the hill of

the castle of Burgos! Yes, I'm determined to get up the Gennargentu.

Perhaps, at Fonni, so and so, and so and so are still alive. And I

wonder how the monks are getting on? and Zuanne?"

He was homesick like Aunt Varvara.

"Aren't _you_ ever going back?" he asked Signora Obinu one day when she

came into the kitchen.

"I?" she answered rather drearily, "no, never again, never again!"

"Why not? Come to the window Signora Maria! look! What a wonderful moon!

Wouldn't you like to go on pilgrimage to the Madonna di Gonare, in fine

moonlight like this? on horseback, quietly, quietly through the woods,

up the precipices--on--on--while you see the little church painted on

the sky above you, high up--high up----"

Maria shook her head and pursed up her lips; but Aunt Varvara heaved all

over and raised her eyes as if to find the little country church high

up--high up against the soft blue of the moonlit sky.

"Except for you and your friends," said the landlady, "and the church

and devotees of the Most Holy Madonna, I'd see all Sardinia burnt up

sooner than go back there."

"But why?"

Aunt Varvara busy with her cooking shut her eyes, unable to protest out

loud against her mistress's shocking hatred of the distant fatherland.

"Ah, my sweetheart," said the old woman when Signora Obinu had gone to

the dining-room, "she has good reason! They murdered her there!"

"But she's alive still, Aunt Varvara!"

"You don't know what you're talking about! It's better to murder a woman

than to betray her."

This threw him back into his doubts again.

"Aunt Varvara, you said it was a Signore who seduced her. Tell me his

name. Try to remember it. Tell me, has the Signora any documents? Where

would they be? I might help her to find the man; might persuade him

to----It would be to your own interest as well."

"Persuade him to what?"

"To help her."

"She doesn't want help. She has money. Leave her in peace. She doesn't

want to be reminded of her misfortune. Not a word! No! She'd strangle me

if she knew I had talked about her."

"But her papers----" repeated Anania.

He had already searched for them in Signora Maria's room. She had no

papers. She had destroyed all traces of her past.

The student was consumed with the desire to ascertain something definite

before he went home. Why did he not take active steps, go back to the

Questura, write to Sardinia, follow up the clue? Why had he allowed so

much time to slip by in vain and cowardly inertia? Many a time he had

resolved to bring on a crisis, to attack her and force her to reveal

herself. After the inconclusive colloquy about Daga, he had actually

allowed himself to chatter with her on irrelevant matters. There were

days when he did not see her at all, or try to see her. "Yet I do want

to know," he thought distractedly roaming the streets, which were still

crowded but by an ever decreasing crowd. "If she is not my mother, why

should I torment myself? But in that case, where, where is my mother?

How is she living? Is she near or far? In the turmoil of the city, in

this clatter which seems to me the voice of a thousand-headed monster,

is her breath, her groan, her laughter, a part of it? And if she is not

here, where is she?"

That night he had a touch of fever, caused perhaps by the unwholesome

though poetic philtre of the dreams which he evoked almost nightly in

the silence of the Coliseum. In his delirium he thought he saw the face

of Maria Obinu bending over his pillow. Was it delirium? Moonlight and

the vague reflection of an illuminated window lighted the patient's

room. Behind Maria he saw a cavalier in eighteenth century costume,

carrying a tray on which was a glass of champagne and Olì's amulet. He

felt that the cavalier, motionless in the penumbra, was insubstantial;

but the figure of the woman seemed real. He wanted to light a candle but

he could not move. He seemed lying on the edge of a precipice upon a

stone, which drawn by an occult force flew giddily towards an

unattainable point followed by all things. After the first apparition of

Maria he thought, "I have fever, I know that; but I'm certainly not

wandering. It was she. I was wrong in pretending to be asleep. I ought

to have simulated delirium to see what she would do. Perhaps she'll come

back. Suppose I try and suggest it to her?"

"Come! Come!" he began, speaking half aloud and trying to impose his

will on her. "Come, Maria Obinu! I _will_ you to come."

She did not come at once, and the strange course of the rock on which

the sufferer imagined himself lying redoubled in velocity. Apocalyptic

visions rose, mingled, vanished--monstrous clouds far in the depths of

the fantastic abyss into which the soul of the sufferer gazed with

horror. He saw the _nuraghe_ with the giant and the saint of Aunt

Varvara's delirium. But the moon detached itself from the Saint and fled

over the heaven. Two other moons red and huge appeared in pursuit.

Cataclysm was imminent. An immense crowd trampled each other on the

shore of a storm driven sea. The waves were marine horses, which fought

with invisible spirits. A cry rose out of the sea: "The stepmother! the

stepmother!" Anania shook with horror, opened his eyes and thought they

had turned blue.

"What absurdities!" he thought. "Why should fever make one see such

things?"

Then Maria Obinu came back. She advanced silently and bent over the

patient.

"Now I'll pretend!" he thought, and began a feeble lament. But the woman

said nothing.

"Oh God! Oh God!" murmured the youth, sighing aloud, "who is striking my

head? Let me alone! Don't murder me! The moon is going out. Mother, do

you remember the little song you taught me:"

"_Luna, luna, Moon, moon,

Porzedda luna!_" Beautiful moon!

"Why won't you tell me you are my mother? Tell me! Tell me! I know it of

course; but you ought to tell me yourself. Do you see the knight with

the amulet you gave me that morning? Don't you remember that morning we

came down, and the chaffinches sang on the chestnut trees and the clouds

vanished behind Monte Gonare? Of course you remember! Tell me! Don't be

afraid! I love you, we will live together! Tell me!"

The woman kept silence. The patient was overcome by a spasm of real

tenderness and anguish, and began to rave in reality.

"Mother! Mother! speak to me! Don't make me suffer more. I am worn out.

If you know what I have suffered! You are Olì, aren't you? There's no

use in denying it. You are Olì. What have you been about? Where are

your papers? Ah well, we'll be silent about the past. It's all over and

done with. Now we will never part again. Oh don't go away! Wait! For

God's sake, don't go away!"

He raised himself, his eyes wide; but the figure moved slowly away and

disappeared. The knight with the tray was still there motionless in the

penumbra, and everything was turning round. Again the figure returned

and again it vanished. Anania continued to cry out that he saw his

mother; and this impression, made up of sweetness and anguish, he

retained even after the fever had left him.

Next morning he awoke early. His limbs seemed bruised as with blows of a

stick. He got up and went out without asking for Signora Obinu.

For three or four nights the fever continued to trouble him; but between

the phantasms of nightmare the figure of his mother did not return. That

made him think. Had it been a real vision? If so, she must have been

frightened by his words, and for that reason had kept away.

After this, exhausted by fatigue and the nervous tension of the

Examinations, still moreover a little feverish, he daily resolved to

solve the enigma, but always in vain. He thought, "I will summon her. I

will supplicate, question, threaten. I will tell her the Questura has

told me all, I will frighten her with the threat of exposure. She will

confess. And suppose it is _She_--what next?"

Always this supposition stupefied and terrified him. Sometimes he

imagined a dramatic scene between his long lost mother and himself;

sometimes it seemed that not one fibre in his heart would be moved.

Oftener he felt frozen, watching Signora Obinu, pale and smiling, with

her worn dark dress, always busy, always quiet, unconscious, insensible.

A veil fell between him and the phantasm which had tormented him.

Instead of the violent scene he had imagined, dull conversations about

nothings took place between him and his landlady, simple Aunt Varvara

joining in.

Only a few minutes before starting for his holiday he finally decided to

leave the whole matter in suspense till his return. He felt weary,

defeated. The heat, the examinations, the fever, the fantasies had

exhausted him. "I will rest," he thought, "I will sleep. I need

forgetfulness and sleep if I am to recover myself. I mustn't turn into a

neurasthenic! I will go up to my native mountains, to the wild and

virgin Gennargentu How long I have intended that excursion! I will visit

the robber's widow; my brother Zuanne; the son of the candlemaker; and

the court of the convent and that _carabiniere_ who sang--"

"'_A te questo rosario._'"

Then the thought of again seeing Margherita, of kissing her and

immersing himself in love as in a perfumed bath, gave him a felicity

which took his breath away. He almost wanted to flee from this devouring

joy; but, driven out of his mind, it still ran in his blood, vibrated

with his nerves, and swelled his heart in delicious pain. As he was

starting. Aunt Varvara brought him a small wax candle which he was to

carry to the Basilica of the Martyrs at Fonni, and Signora Obinu gave

him a medal blessed by the Holy Father.

"If you don't value it yourself, unbeliever, give it to your mother,"

she said smiling, and a little moved. "Good-bye, have a good journey and

come back safe. I'll keep the room for you. Get on well, and send me a

postcard at once."

"Good-bye!" said Anania, taking the medal; "commend me to the Holy

Souls in Purgatory."

"Of course I will," she said, shaking her finger at him, "they will

protect you from temptation."

"Amen; and to our happy reunion."

"Good-bye!" he called again from the bottom of the stair, and Maria,

leaning over the bannister, saluted him with her hand. When he had

reached the street he thought of going back to see if she were in tears,

stopped for a moment, but went on followed by Aunt Varvara almost crying

herself.

"Son of my little heart," said the old woman, "greet for me the first

person you shall meet on Sardinian ground. And don't forget the wax

candle."

She went with him to the tram, notwithstanding her fear of the monster,

and kissed him on his cheek. Anania remembered the kiss of poor Nanna

before his departure from Nuoro, but this time he was touched, and he

embraced Aunt Varvara asking forgiveness for all the times he had teased

her.

Then all was left behind; the old woman who in parting from the young

man wept her own exile; the dreary street where lived Maria Obinu; the

Piazza at that hour scorching and deserted; the Pantheon sad as a

cyclopean tomb; the cats dreaming among the great ruins.

Anania, his face brushed by a light breeze, felt happy as if freed from

an incubus.

[Footnote 18: A court or platform round the _nuraghe_.]

VI

Before coming down to supper in his home, Anania stood at the window of

his little room, struck by the deep silence of the courtyard, of the

vicinity, of the whole country as far as to the horizon. He seemed to

have become deaf. It was almost oppressive. But the voice of Aunt

Tatàna resounded from the courtyard.

"Nania, my son, come down!"

He obeyed. A little table was laid expressly for him in the kitchen. His

"parents," according to custom, took their supper seated on the floor,

with meat and cakes in a basket before them. Nothing was changed. The

kitchen was still poor and dark, but very clean. The stove was in the

centre. The walls were adorned with trenchers and hunting spears, with

great baskets, sieves and other utensils for sifting flour: in a corner

were two woollen sacks containing barley. Near the narrow door, which

was thrown open, hung the seed pouch and the rest of the fanning outfit.

A baby pig, tied to the elder tree in the courtyard, grunted gently,

puffed and sighed. A red cat quietly placed himself by the little table

and yawned, raising great yellow eyes to Anania. He was looking about

him in a kind of stupor. No, nothing was changed; yet he felt somehow as

if he were in this environment for the first time, with that tall

peasant of the brilliant eyes and the long oily hair, with that pretty

elderly woman, fair and fat as a dove.

"At last we are alone," said Big Anania, who was eating salad made into

a sandwich with girdle cakes; "but you'll see they won't leave you long

in peace. It'll be Atonzu here, Atonzu there! you're an important man

now you've been in Rome. I, too, when I returned from my military

service----"

"What sort of a comparison is that?" protested Aunt Tatàna.

"Do let me speak. I remember I had the greatest difficulty in talking

dialect. I felt as if I were in a new world."

The student looked at his father and smiled.

"That's what I feel," he said.

"I daresay you do. After a while I got used to it; but as for you, after

three days you'll be sick of this gossipy place and--and----"

His wife frowned and he changed the subject a little. "Eh! what a big

place that devil of a Rome is to be sure! Give me the glass, my old

beauty! What are you grimacing for? Why are you so important because

you've a great man in the house?"

Anania guessed at some secret and said.

"What's the matter? Tell me. What's being said about me?"

"Nothing, nothing; let the crows caw," said the woman.

The lad was disturbed. Had something been heard at Nuoro of Maria Obinu?

He put down his fork and said he would eat no more till he heard

explanation.

"You're so hasty!" sighed the old woman. "King Solomon says the hasty

man is like the wind----"

"Oh King Solomon still? I was hoping you'd forgotten him," said the

young man roughly. She was silent, rather hurt. Her husband looked at

her, then at Anania, and wished to punish him.

"King Solomon always said the truth. But what they're saying in Nuoro is

that you're making love to Margherita Carboni."

Anania flushed. He resumed his fork and ate mechanically, while he

stammered--

"The fools!"

"Why no, they're not fools," said the father, looking into his glass

which was half full of wine. "If it's true, there's good cause to

complain, for you ought to confess to the _padrone_. You might say 'My

benefactor, I'm a man now and you must forgive me for having hidden my

hopes from you, as I have hidden them from my own parents.'"

"Stop! You know nothing about it!" cried the son angrily.

"Ah! holy Saint Catherine!" sighed Aunt Tatàna, who had already

forgiven him. "Let the poor, tired boy alone! There's time enough to

talk of these matters, and you are only a peasant and no scholar, so you

don't understand."

The man drank his wine; waved a hand to implore peace, and said

quietly:--

"Yes, I'm ignorant and my son has been educated. That's all very well.

But I am older than he. My hair's beginning to turn white. Experience,

my wife, makes a man wiser than a Doctor of Law. My son, I will say to

you one thing only; ask your conscience and see if it doesn't tell you

this, that we must not deceive our benefactor."

The student thumped his glass on the table so violently that the cat

shuddered.

"Fools! Fools!" he cried fuming. But he knew his father, that ignorant

and primitive man, was right.

"Yes, my son," said the _contadino_, pushing the oily hair from his

forehead, "you must go to your master, kiss his hand and say, 'I am the

son of a peasant, but by your kindness and my own talents, I shall

become a doctor and a gentleman and rich. I love Margherita and

Margherita loves me. I will make her happy. I will make it up to her if

she lowers herself to take the son of a servant for a husband. I ask

your worship to bless us in the name of the Father, the Son, and the

Holy Ghost.'"

"And if he kicks him out?" said Aunt Tatàna.

The doubt was unflattering, and Anania laughed it off a little

nervously.

"Be quiet, little woman!" replied the peasant, drinking again, "your

King Solomon says women never know what they're talking about. When I

speak I have already weighed my words. The _padrone_ will give his

blessing."

"But suppose it's all nonsense?" cried Anania, uplifted with joy. He

went to the door and whistled. He was bewildered. His heart thumped. He

was submerged by a wave of felicity. He would have liked to ask his

father questions, to tell the whole story, but he could not utter a

word.

"The _padrone_ will give his blessing." The miller must have had his

reasons for saying that! What could have happened? And why had

Margherita never pointed out her father's favourable disposition? If she

was ignorant of it, how could the dependent have found the thing out?

"Within a few hours I shall see her and she'll tell me," thought Anania.

His fatigue, his anxieties, his doubts, the joy itself of the new hope,

melted away before the sweet thought, "I shall see her in a little

while."

The door opened silently at the young man's light tap. "Glad to see

you," whispered the maid, who was in the lover's confidence. "She's

coming in one moment." "How are you?" he asked in an agitated voice;

"here, take this little keepsake I have brought you from Rome." "You are

always so kind," said the girl, receiving the little parcel. "Wait here

for a minute."

The minute seemed an hour. He leaned against the wall of the courtyard

under the veiled heaven of the dark and silent night. He shook with

anxiety and joy; when Margherita ran panting to his arms he felt rather

than saw her; felt her soft warm cheek, her lithe though not too slender

waist, her heart beating against his own. Blinded by cruel

inextinguishable thirst, he kissed her wildly, almost unconsciously.

"That's enough!" she said, the first to recover herself. "How are you?

Quite well again?"

"Yes, yes!" he answered hotly. "Ah God! At last! Oh!" he went on,

breathing hard and pressing her hand to his breast. "I am not able even

to speak. I couldn't come to your window because--because they haven't

left me a minute to myself. Even now I can't see you. If you had only

brought a light!"

"Nonsense, Nino! We shall see each other to-morrow." She laughed softly,

touching him with the palm of her hand which Anania held to his breast.

"How your heart beats!" she said, "it's like a little wounded bird. Tell

me, are you really better?"

"Oh, I'm quite well, quite well. Margherita, where are you? Is it

possible we are together?"

He gazed hard, trying to distinguish her lineaments in the colourless

vault of the clouded night. Great dark velvety clouds passed ceaselessly

over the grey sky. An oval space of clear firmament surrounded by

darkness looked like a mysterious face, its eyes, two red stars, leaning

down to watch the lovers. Anania sat on the stone bench and drew the

girl to his knee. Disregarding her protests he held her tight in the

circle of his arms.

"No, no," she said, "I'm too heavy. I'm too fat!"

"Light as a feather," he affirmed gallantly. "But is it really true we

are together?" he repeated. "It seems a dream! How often I have dreamed

of this moment which I thought would never come! And now here we are

together! united! united. I am going mad, I think! Is it really a fact

that I have you here on my heart? Speak! Say something! Stick a pin into

me to show me I'm not dreaming!"

"What do you want me to say? It's you have things to say. I wrote

everything to you, everything. You speak, Nino! You are so good at

talking! Tell me all about Rome. I don't know how to talk."

"On the contrary, you talk beautifully. You have such a lovely voice.

I've never heard a woman speak like you."

"Stories!" said Margherita.

"I swear it's true! Why should I say what isn't true? You are the most

beautiful, the gentlest, the sweetest of all girls. If you knew how I

thought of you when my landlady's two girls in the first house flung

themselves at me and at Battista! I felt as if they were some sort of

plague struck creatures while you--you were a saint, soft and pure, and

fresh, and lovely!"

"But I'm afraid I, too,--"

"That's quite different. Don't say such horrid things! You know I get

vexed when you are cold. We are betrothed. Isn't it true? Aren't we

going to marry each other? Tell me yes."

"Yes."

"Say that you love me."

"Yes."

"Don't say just Yes. Say it like this. I--love--thee."

"I--love--thee. If I didn't love you should I be here? Of course I love

you! I can't express myself, but I do love you; probably more than you

love me."

"It's not true. I love you most. But you do love me, yes I know it," he

continued, becoming grave, "you who might aspire to anyone, you are so

beautiful and so rich!"

"Rich? I don't know about that. Suppose I'm not?"

"I should like it much, much better."

They were silent, each grave, each following private thoughts; almost

divided.

"You know," he said suddenly, following the thread of his own ideas,

"I've been told your family has guessed our love. Is it true?"

"Yes," she said, after a short hesitation.

"Really? Really? Then your father is not angry?"

Margherita hesitated again. Then raised her head and said drily, "I

don't know."

From her manner Anania understood something unfavourable, something

unexpected which he could not make out. What was happening? Was the girl

hiding some disagreeable secret? His mind flew to her, to his mother, to

the distant phantom, and he asked if this shadow was coming between him

and his love.

"You must tell me frankly," he said, distractedly caressing her hands,

"what is going on? Am I to be allowed to aspire to you or not? May I go

on hoping? You know what I am; a poor dependent on your family; the son

of one of your servants."

"What nonsense!" she exclaimed impatiently. "Your father isn't a

servant. Even if he were, he's a man respected and honoured by everyone,

and that's enough."

"Honoured and respected!" Anania repeated to himself, pierced to the

soul. "Oh God, she is not honoured and respected!" But he reflected at

once that Margherita would not talk like this if she were thinking of

_that woman_. Probably the Carboni's all thought Olì was dead. She must

have something else on her mind.

"Margherita," he insisted as calmly as he could, "I must have you open

your whole heart to me. I want you to advise me what I ought to do.

Shall I wait? Shall I ask? Conscience and pride too bid me go to your

father and tell him at once. If I don't, he may think me a traitor, a

man without any loyalty or honour. But I'll do whatever you tell me.

Only I won't give you up. That would be my death! I am ambitious as you

know. I say it proudly because if only you'll stick to me, my ambition

will come to something. I'm not like most fellows, Sardinians

especially, who expect to succeed at once and have no staying power, and

do nothing but envy those who do succeed. Battista Daga for instance!

He's all envy and hatred. He was quite pleased when _Le Maschere_ was

hissed at the Costanza! But I'm not envious. I can wait calmly, and I

shall succeed. I don't say I'll ever be famous, but I shall achieve a

good position. I'm sure of it. As soon as I've taken my Degree, I shall

enter for the higher examinations. I shall live in Rome and work and

push myself forward. But I repeat I shall do all this only for you.

Woman is at the bottom of every man's ambition. Some are afraid to say

that. But I say it frankly. I'm proud to say it. I've always told you

so, haven't I?"

"Yes," said Margherita, carried away by his enthusiasm.

He went on: "You are the goal of my whole life. Some men live for art or

for glory, or for vanity; and some live for love. I'm one of those. I

seem to have loved ever since I was born, and I shall love on to the

last of my age. You! always you! If you should fail me, I shouldn't have

the strength or even the wish to do anything. I should die morally.

Physically too I expect. If you were to say, I love someone else----"

"Hush! be quiet!" commanded Margherita. "Now it's you who are

blaspheming. Dear me! is that rain?" A drop had fallen on their linked

hands. They looked up at the clouds which were passing slower now. They

had become more dense; nebulous and torpid monsters.

"Listen," said Margherita, speaking a little hurriedly and absently, as

if apprehensive of the rain, "we aren't half so rich as we were. My

father's affairs are going badly. He's been lending money to everybody

who asked for it, and they--never give it back. He is too good-hearted.

That everlasting lawsuit about the forest at Orlei is going against us.

If we lose, and I expect we shall, then I shall no longer be rich."

"You didn't write me all that."

"Why should I? Besides I didn't know it myself till a few days ago. I

declare it _is_ raining!"

They got up and stood for a few minutes under the verandah. Lightning

shone among the clouds, and in that flash of lilac flame, Anania saw

Margherita pale as the moon.

"What's the matter? What is it?" he asked, pressing her to him. "Don't

be afraid for the future. You mayn't be rich, but you will be happy.

Don't be frightened."

"Oh no! I'm only thinking about my mother who's so afraid of lightning

she will be getting up out of bed. You must go now," she ended, pushing

him gently away.

He had to obey. But he lingered a good while under the doorway waiting

for the rain to stop. Sharp flashes of joy illuminated his soul as the

flashes of metallic lightning illuminated the night. He remembered a wet

day in Rome when the thought of death had cloven his soul like a shaft

of lightning. Yes, joy and grief were much alike; devouring flames, both

of them.

As he made his way home under the last drops of rain he accused himself

of selfishness.

"I'm pleased by the misfortunes of my benefactor," he thought. "That's

mean!"

Next morning he wrote to Margherita telling her of many heroic projects.

He would give lessons so as to continue his own studies without being a

further drag on her father. He would visit Signor Carboni and make a

formal proposal of marriage. He would explain to the family which had

patronized him that he would become its prop and its pride.

He was finishing his letter at his open window, enjoying the dewy

morning silence and the fragrance from the rain-freshened fields, when

he heard an outburst of uncontrollable laughter, and turning saw Nanna,

ragged and trembling, her eyes tearful, her ugly mouth open, in her hand

(and in imminent danger of upsetting) a brimming cup of coffee.

"Still alive, Nanna?" he said. "Good-morning."

"Good-morning to your Worship. I wanted to startle you, that's why I

asked Aunt Tatàna to let me bring the coffee. Here it is. My hands are

quite clean, your Worship. Oh, what a delight, what a consolation!" she

cried, crying and laughing.

"Where's the Worship you are talking to? You must say 'Thou' to me. Give

me that coffee and tell me the news."

"The news? Oh, we go on living in dens like the wild beasts we are. How

can I say 'Thou' to your Worship who is a resplendent sun?"

"What? no longer a sugar plum?" said Anania, sipping the coffee from the

antique gold sprigged cup and thinking of Aunt Varvara.

"Ah, my dear! forgive me. I always think of you as a little boy. Do you

remember the first time you came from Cagliari? Yes, little Margherita

was at the window watching for you. Doesn't the moon watch for the sun?"

Anania set the cup on the window ledge. He breathed hard. How happy he

felt! How blue was the sky, how sweet the air! What grandeur in the

silence of humble things, in the air not yet stirred by the turmoil of

civilization. Even Aunt Nanna no longer seemed horrible; under the

unclean exterior of that poisoned body, palpitated a warm heart, a

poetic soul.

"Listen to those lines!" cried Anania, and he recited gesticulating--

_Ella era assisa sopra la verdura Seated she was upon the

verdure fair

Allegra; e ghirlandetta avea All joyous; and a wreath had

contesta: fashioned;

Di quanti por creasse mai natura To paint the radiant vesture

she did wear

Di tanti era dipinta la sua vesta Each flower that blooms its

brightest hues had shed.

E come in prima al giovin pose When of the youth's advance

cura she first was ware

Alquanto paurosa alzò la testa: With motion half of fear she

raised her head,

Poi con la bianca man ripreso il Then lifting her robe's hem

lembo with one white hand,

Levossi in piè con di fior pieno She rose, and so with

un grembo._ flower-filled lap did stand.

Nanna listened without understanding a word. She--opened her lips to

say--to say--At last she said:--

"I've heard that before."

"From whom?" cried Anania.

"From Efès Cau."

"Liar! Now away with you at once, or I'll beat you. No, wait a minute!

tell me everything that has happened at Nuoro this year."

She began a strange rigmarole, mixing up her own affairs with the events

of the town. Every now and then she returned to Margherita.

"She's the lovely one! The rose of roses! the pink! the sugar plum! Oh

and her clothes! Oh God, never have been seen such marvels! When she

passes people watch her like a shooting star. A gentleman charged me to

steal a scrap of her scarf. He wanted to wear it on his heart. The maid

up there at Carboni's says that every morning her young lady finds on

her window a love letter tied up with a blue ribbon. But the rose can't

do with anything except a pink. Well, well! hand me thy cup!" concluded

the babbler giving herself a slap on the mouth, "it's no good! I knew

your Worship when he had a tail and I can't say _Lei_[19] to him."

"And pray when had I a tail?" asked Anania, threatening her with his

finger.

Nanna ran away, shaking and laughing, her hand over her mouth. From the

courtyard she shouted up to the student who was leaning out of his

window--

"It was the tail of your shirt, your Worship!"

Again Anania threatened her and again Nanna shook with laughter; the

little pig, now loose, snuffed at the woman's feet; a hen jumped on its

back and pecked its ears. A sparrow perched on the elder, swinging on

the end of a twig. And Anania was so happy that he sang another verse

from Poliziano:

_Portate, venti, questi dolci versi Breezes, upon your wings these

verses bear

Dentro all' orecchie della Ninfa And breathe them in my

mia; Ladye's ear for me;

Dite quanti per lei lagrime versi, Speak of the many tears I've

shed for her.

E la pregate che crudel non sia; And pray her sore to quit this

cruelty;

Dite che la mia vita fugge via, Tell her my life's sad course is

almost run,

E si consuma come brina al sole._ Wasted, consumed, like hoar

frost in the sun.

As he sang, he had again the feeling of being light as the sparrow on

the twig. Later he went to the garden where he could hand the maid the

letter for Margherita.

The garden, still wet after the nocturnal rain, exhaled a strong odour

of vegetation and wet earth. The beans had been reduced by caterpillars

to masses of strange grey lace. The prickly pears were losing their

little gold cupped yellow flowers; the tall passion flower with its

stemless violet flowers cut the azure of the sky with their strange

outline. The mountains rose vaporous in the pearly distance, their

highest peaks lost in golden clouds. Efès, a heap of rags, lay in a

corner. Anania kicked him lightly; he raised his face, opened a glassy

eye, and murmured--

"When Amelia so pure and so pale--"

Then fell back without recognising the young man. Further on Uncle Pera,

now quite blind, was indefatigably weeding, recognising the weeds by

smell and touch.

"How are you?" cried Anania.

"Dead, my son. I can't see; I can't hear."

"Don't lose heart. You'll get cured----"

"In the next world where all are cured. Where all see and hear. Never

mind, my son. When I saw with the eyes of my body, my soul was blind.

Now I see. I see with the eyes of the soul. But tell me, when you were

in Rome, did you see the Pope?"

When he had left the garden Anania roamed about in the vicinity. Yes,

this little corner of the world was always the same. The madman still

sat on the stone with his back against the tumbling wall, and waited for

the coming of Jesus; the beggar-woman still jealously watched Rebecca,

while the miserable girl still shook with fever and bandaged her sores.

Maestro Pane among his cobwebs still planed tables and talked to

himself; in the tavern the handsome Agata flirted with young and old;

and Antonino and Bustianeddu drank and swore, and now and then vanished

for a month or two, reappearing with faces grown rather pale in "the

service of the King."[20] Aunt Tatàna still baked sweetmeats for her

"dear little boy" and dreamed of his future laurels; Big Anania, on days

of leisure, sat in the street embroidering a leather belt and dreaming

of treasures hidden in the _nuraghes_.

No, nothing was changed; but the young student saw men and things as

never he had seen them before. Everything seemed beautiful to him with a

wild and melancholy beauty. He passed by and gazed as if he were a

stranger; in the picture of those dark and falling cabins, of those

primitive beings who inhabited them, he seemed to see himself vaguely as

a giant--yes, as a giant, or as a bird--a giant by his superiority, a

bird by his joy!

At the end of August, after various meetings, Margherita agreed to the

confession of their love.

"Your father's manner to me has changed," said Anania. "I am uneasy and

remorseful He looks at me with cold, critical eyes, and I can't bear

it."

"Well--do your duty, if you have the courage," said Margherita, with a

touch of malice.

"How shall I put it?" asked the lad, growing nervous.

"As you like. It will be a very interesting occasion. The more agitated

you are the more effect you will make. My father is so kind!"

"Then you think I may have some hope?" cried Anania as eagerly as if

till that moment he had been in utter despair.

"Why, yes--s--s," she said, stroking his hair in almost motherly

fashion.

He folded her close, shut his eyes, and tried to the immensity of his

good fortune. Could it be possible? Margherita would be his own? Really?

In reality, as she had always been his in dream? He thought of the time

when he had scarce dared confess his love to himself. And now----

"How many things come to pass in the world!" he thought. "But there!

what is the world? What is reality? Where does dream end and reality

begin? May not all this be dream? Who is Margherita? Who am I? Are we

alive? And what is life? What is this mysterious joy which lifts me as

the moon lifts the wave? And the sea, what is that? Does the sea feel?

Is it alive? And what is the moon, and is she also real?"

He smiled at his questions. The moon illuminated the courtyard. In the

silence of the diaphanous night, the tremulous song of the crickets

suggested a population of minute sprites, sitting on the dewy moonlit

leaves and sawing on a single string of invisible fiddles. All was dream

and all was reality. Anania fancied he saw the goblin fiddlers, and at

the same time he saw distinctly Margherita's pink blouse, and rings, and

gold chain. He pressed her wrist, touched the pearl of the ring which

she wore on her little finger, looked at her nails with their little

half moons of white. Yes, it was all real, visible, tangible. The

reality and the dream had no dividing-line. All could be seen, handled,

attained, from the maddest dream to the object of the barest visibility.

A few words pronounced by Margherita brought him back to the boundary of

reality.

"What will you say to my father?" she asked, scoffing a little. "Will you

say, 'Sir, Godfather--I--I and--and your daughter--Margherita--are--are

doing what you----'"

"I couldn't!" he exclaimed, "I'll write to him!"

"Oh no!" said Margherita seriously, "you had far better speak! He'll be

far more yielding if you speak. If you're afraid to do it yourself, send

someone."

"Whom could I send?"

Margherita pondered, then said tentatively, "_Your mother_."

He knew she meant Aunt Tatàna, but his thoughts flew to the other, and

he fancied Margherita also must be thinking of that woman. A dense

shadow, a whirlwind of doubt overwhelmed his soul; ah yes! the dream and

the reality were well divided by terrible confines; insuperable

emptiness, like the void between the earth and the sun, separated them.

"If I could tell her at this moment!" he thought again; "this is the

moment! If I let it escape I may never find it again. Perhaps the void

can be crossed; but now--now!"

He opened his lips and his heart beat fast. He could not speak. The

moment passed.

Next evening Aunt Tatàna--greatly surprised, but proud and confident in

the assistance of Heaven, for she had prayed and "made the ascension,"

namely, dragged herself on her knees from the door to the altar of the

church of the Rosario--performed her embassage.

Anania remained at home, waiting anxiously for the dear woman's return.

First, he lay on his bed, reading a book of which he remembered not so

much as the title.

"Yet I am calm," he thought, "why should I be alarmed? the thing is

perfectly certain----"

Thought, like an all-seeing eye, followed the ambassador and saw Aunt

Tatàna walking along very slowly impressed with the solemnity of her

task. She was a little shy--the sweet elderly dove, so soft and pure;

but patience! with the help of the Lord and of the blessed Saint

Catherine and the most holy Mary of the Rosary, she would effect

something! For this great occasion she had donned her best clothes; the

"tunic" trimmed with three ribbons, green, white, and green, the corset

of green brocade, the silver belt, the embroidered apron, the floating

saffron-coloured veil. Nor had she forgotten her rings, certainly not,

her great prehistoric rings, cameos cut on green and yellow stones, and

incised cornelians. Thus adorned and very serious, like an aged Madonna,

she advanced slowly, saluting with unwonted dignity the persons whom she

passed. It was evening, the hour sacred to these grave embassies of

love. At the fall of evening the matchmaker finds at home the head of

the family to which she bears the arcane message.

Aunt Tatàna goes on and on; always sedate and slow. She seems almost

afraid of arriving. Having reached the fatal limit, the great shut door,

silent and dark like the gate of Destiny, she hesitates, arranges her

rings, her ribbons, her belt, her apron; wraps her chin in the end of

her veil, at last makes resolution to knock.

That knock seemed to strike Anania on his chest. He jumped to his feet,

seized the candle, and looked at himself in the glass.

"I do believe I am white! What an idiot! I will think no more about it."

He went to the window. Daylight was dying in the closed court, the

motionless elder tree was a dark mass. Perfect silence! the hens slept,

the little pig slept. Stars came out, sparks of gold in the ashy blue of

the warm twilight. Beyond the courtyard in the silence of the little

street a little shepherd on horseback, passed singing--

_Inoche mi fachet die And the night it seems to me day

Cantende a parma dorada._ As I sing on my golden way.

Anania thought of his childhood, of the widow, of Zuanne. What was the

young monk doing in his convent? the monk who had meant to be a brigand.

"I should like to see him!" thought Anania. "In the course of this month

I will certainly visit Fonni."

Ah! His thought returned violently thither where his fate was being

decided. The old dove has arrived; she is there in Signor Carboni's

simple and orderly study. There is the desk where one evening a young

lad had rummaged among the papers--good Lord! is it possible he ever

behaved so shamefully? Yes, when one is a boy one has no conscience,

anything seems easy and allowable, a positive crime can be committed in

perfect innocence. Well! Aunt Tatàna is there. And Signor Carboni is

there--stout, composed, and bland, with the shining gold chain across

his ample chest.

"Whatever will the dear old thing say!" thought Anania smiling

nervously. "I wish I could be there unseen. If I had the ring which

gives invisibility! I'd slip it on my finger and in a moment I'd be

there. If the big door was shut--I'd knock, Mariedda would open and rage

against the children who knock and run away. But I----Pshaw! such

childish nonsense. I'll think no more about it." He left the window,

went down to the kitchen and sat by the fire, suddenly remembered it was

summer and laughed. For a long time he looked at the red kitten which

sat watching by the oven, motionless, his whiskers stiff, his tail

stiff, expecting the appearance of a mouse.

"You shan't be allowed to catch it!" said Anania, "I'm so happy that not

even a mouse shall suffer in this house to-night. Shoo!" he cried,

jumping up and running at the kitten, who shook all over and leaped on

top of the stove. The young man's restlessness now made him march up and

down the kitchen. Once or twice he stood still, fingering the sacks of

barley.

"My father's not so very poor," he thought, "he's Signor Carboni's

_mezzadro_ (tenant) though he will call him Master. No, he's not poor.

But, of course, he couldn't pay back what's--been spent--on me, if the

thing doesn't come off. Whatever would happen? What is happening at this

moment? Aunt Tatàna has spoken. What can she have said? What sort of

answer can the benefactor have given? He's the most loyal man in the

world--what will he say when he hears that his protégé has dared to

betray--I can imagine him walking up and down the room very thoughtful;

and Aunt Tatàna looking at him, pale herself and oppressed. Oh, my God!

what will happen?" groaned the boy squeezing his head in his hands. He

felt suffocated, rushed into the court, sprang on the low surrounding

wall, waited and listened. Nothing! nothing!

He returned to the kitchen, saw the kitten again in ambush, again drove

it away. He thought of the cats prowling round the Pantheon. He thought

of Aunt Varvara and the wax candle he was to carry for her to the

Basilica of the Holy Martyrs; he thought of his father busy in the

padrone's _tancas_; he remembered the sonorous pine-tree, which murmured

like an angry giant, the king of a solitary region of stubble and

thicket. He thought of the _nuraghe_ and Aunt Varvara's vision

reproduced by fever in himself. He remembered a gold bracelet seen in

the museum at the Baths of Diocletian. Behind all these fleeting

memories, two thoughts met and rolled themselves into one like two

clouds, one dark, one bright, rolling together in space--the thought of

_that woman_ and the thought of what was going on in Signor Carboni's

study. "I've said I won't think of it," he muttered, vexed with himself.

And again he chased the cat, as if he wished to chase away the idea

which, cat-like, continually returned against his will. He went back to

the courtyard, looked and listened. Nothing. About a quarter of an hour

later two voices sounded behind the low wall, then a third, a fourth.

They belonged to the neighbours who nightly assembled for a gossip

before Maestro Pane's shop.

"By our Lady," cried Rebecca's piercing tones, "I have seen five falling

stars! That means something. There's going to be a catastrophe."

"Perhaps Antichrist's coming. They say he'll be born of an animal," said

a man's voice; "an animal like you."

"Like your wife, you beast!" screamed Rebecca.

"Take this, my carnation!" said the handsome Agata, who was eating

something as she talked.

The man began rude talk, but the old carpenter interposed.

"Hold your tongue, or I'll have you on the millstones, you skinned

weasel."