The peasant was not to be silenced, so the women went away and sat under

the low wall of the courtyard. Aunt Sorchedda, a little old woman who

forty years before had been servant in the Intendant's house, began to

tell for the thousandth time the story of her mistress.

"She was a _marchesa_. Her father was an intimate friend of the King of

Spain, and had given her 1000 gold crowns for her dowry. How much are

1000 crowns?

"What are 1000 crowns?" said Agata contemptuously. "Margherita Carboni

has 4000."

"4000?" echoed Rebecca, "you mean 40,000."

"You don't know what you're talking about," cried Aunt Sorchedda, "these

were gold crowns. Not even Don Franceschino has so much."

"Go along with you! You're doting," cried Agata, getting heated. "How

much do 1000 crowns come to? Franziscu Carchide has them in shoe soles!"

It was getting serious. The women began to abuse each other.

"It's easy to see why she brings in Franziscu Carchide, that scum of a

girl!"

"Scum yourself, old sinner!"

"Ah."

"_Foglia di gelso Leaf of the mulberry tree!

Chi la fa la pensa._ The thing you do, you everywhere

see!"

Anania was listening. In spite of his private anxiety he laughed.

"Oh, ho!" cried Agata, peeping over the wall, "good evening to your

Excellence! What are you hiding for? Come out and let us see your pretty

face."

He pinched Agata's arm, and Rebecca who had hidden herself on hearing

the young man's laugh, contributed a pinch on the leg.

"Oh! oh! oh!" cried Agata, "go to the devil with you! This is too much.

Let me alone or I'll tell----"

The pinches were redoubled.

"Oh! oh! oh! The devil! Rebecca, there's no good in being jealous! Oh!

oh! Aunt Tatàna has gone this evening, has gone to ask----Well, shall I

tell or not?"

Anania withdrew, asking himself how that minx Agata knew.

"My sweetheart, next time have some respect for Aunt Agata!" she said

laughing; while Rebecca who had understood became stonily silent, and

Aunt Sorchedda enquired--

"Kindly tell me, Nania Atonzu, is there a single person in Nuoro who has

1000 gold crowns?"

The foul-mouthed _contadino_ came over and asked, "Young man from Rome,

Nania Atonzu--is it true that the pope----"

Anania was not listening. He saw a figure moving slowly at the bottom of

the street. His heart came into his mouth. It was she! The old messenger

dove, it was she, carrying on her pure lips, like a flower of life or of

death, the fateful word.

Anania went in to the house shutting the back door; Aunt Tatàna entered

at the front and he shut that door also. She sighed; was still pale and

oppressed just as Anania had seen her in fancy. Her rude jewels, her

belt, her embroideries, sparkled brightly in the firelight.

Anania ran to meet her. He looked at her anxiously. As she kept silence

he burst out impatiently--

"Well? Well? What did he say?"

"Have patience, child of the Lord! I am going to tell you."

"Tell me now--this moment. Will he have me?"

"Yes--s--s--He'll have you! He'll have you!" announced the old lady

opening her arms.

Quite overcome, Anania sat down, his head in his hands. Aunt Tatàna

looked at him compassionately, shaking her head, while with trembling

finger she unclasped her silver belt.

"Is it possible! Is it really possible?" Anania was saying to himself.

Before the oven the kitten was still watching for the exit of a mouse.

Perhaps he heard some faint noise for his tail trembled. After a minute

Anania heard a squeak and a minute death cry. But his happiness was now

so complete that it did not allow him to remember that in the world

could exist such a thing as suffering.

Aunt Tatàna's detailed narrative threw a little cold water on this

great conflagration of joy.

Margherita's parents did not oppose the love of the two young people,

but neither did they give full and irrevocable consent. The godfather

had smiled, had rubbed his hand, and shaken his head as if to say,

"They've caught me, those two." Aloud he said! "They're in a hurry for

their wings, the two children."

Then he had become very thoughtful and grave.

"But what did he say in the end?" cried Anania, also very serious.

"Holy Saint Catherine, what does the boy expect? Don't you understand,

my dear? The padrona said, 'We must speak to Margherita.' 'Eh, I don't

think it's necessary!' said your godfather, rubbing his hands. I

smiled." Anania smiled also.

"So we concluded----Go away, puss!" cried Aunt Tatàna in parenthesis

drawing away the hem of her "_tunic_" upon which the kitten had

established himself licking his lips with horrible satisfaction, "we

concluded that you must wait. The _padrone_ said, 'Let the boy attend to

his studies and do us credit. When he has got some good appointment,

then we'll give him our daughter. Meanwhile let them love each other and

God bless 'em.' There! now I hope you'll eat your supper."

"But does it mean I can go to their house as her betrothed?"

"No, not just at present. Not for this year. You run too fast, _galanu

meu_. People would think Signor Carboni in his second childhood if he

allowed that. You must take your degree first."

"Oh!" cried Anania, "then I suppose he thinks it better for us----" He

was going to say, "for us to meet secretly at night lest we should

offend false susceptibilities," but it struck him that meeting thus

secretly at night and by themselves, was far more comfortable than in

the presence of parents and in the glare of day. This calmed him. It was

not their own fault and need occasion no remorse.

Accordingly he recommenced his visits that very night. The maid, the

moment she had opened the door, wished him good luck as if the wedding

were already announced. Anania gave her a tip and waited in trepidation

for his sweetheart. She came, cautious and silent. She smelt of iris,

she wore a light dress, white in the transparent night. Half seeing her,

conscious of her fragrance, the youth experienced a dissolving, a

violent sensation as if for the first time he had divined the mystery of

love. They embraced long, silently, vibrating together, intoxicated with

joy. The world was theirs.

Margherita, now sure she might abandon herself without fear or remorse

to her love for this handsome youth who adored her, for the first time

showed herself passionate and ardent as Anania had scarce dared to dream

her. He went away from the tryst, trembling, blind, out of himself.

Next evening, the meeting was even longer, more delirious. The third

night, the maid got tired of watching and gave the prearranged signal in

case of surprise. The lovers separated in alarm. Next day Margherita

wrote thus--

"I'm afraid Daddy guessed something last night. We must take care not to

do ourselves harm, especially now when we are so happy. We had best not

meet for a few days. Have patience and courage as I have, for it takes

courage to make the big sacrifice of renouncing for some time the

immense happiness of seeing you. It kills me; for I love you so dearly I

feel as if I really couldn't live without your kisses," and so on and so

on.

He replied: "My adored one, I believe you are right. You are a saint for

wisdom and goodness, and I am only a poor fool, a fool for love of you.

I don't know, I can't even see, what I am doing. Last night I could have

compromised our whole future and not have perceived what I was doing.

Forgive me! when I am with you I lose my reason. A destroying fire seems

to rage within me; I am fevered, consumed. So it is with spasms of pain

that I renounce the supreme felicity of seeing you for a few evenings,

and I shall require movement, distraction, distance, to quiet this

devouring fire which makes me senseless and sick. I think I'll make that

little excursion to the Gennargentu of which I spoke the other night.

You wouldn't mind, would you? Answer me at once, my adored one, my joy,

my darling. I will carry you with me in my heart. I will send you a

greeting from the highest summit in Sardinia. I will cry your name to

heaven, and my love, as I would wish to cry them from the topmost peak

of the world, for the astounding of the whole earth. I embrace you, my

dearest; I carry you with me, we are united, fused together for all

eternity."

Margherita graciously gave permission for the journey.

Then Anania wrote: "I am starting to-morrow morning by the coach for

Mamojada--Fonni. At nine o'clock I shall pass your window. I long to see

you to-night--but I will be good! Ah! come with me, Margherita, my own

darling! why do you leave me for a single instant? Come here to my

heart! I will bum you up in the fire of my love, and die myself of

passion!"

[Footnote 19: _She_, the 3rd person feminine singular, is the

ceremonious form of address.]

[Footnote 20: In prison.]

VII

The coach crossed the wild _tancas_, yellowed by the burning sun,

shadowed here and there by thickets of wild olive and stunted oak.

The interior of the vehicle was suffocatingly hot and Anania sat beside

the driver. He was overwhelmed by memories which almost made him forget

the fever of the last few days. He was living again in a distant day,

seeing once more the driver with the yellow moustache and the swollen

cheeks, who had cracked his whip just as the small thin driver sitting

at his side now cracked his.

As the coach neared Mamojada, the vividness of his recollections became

almost painful. In the arch made by the coach's hood was depicted the

same landscape which Anania had seen _that day_, his little head

drooping on _her_ knee; the same melancholy sky of unvaried blue was

stretched above. A sudden breeze swept over the green country with its

strong undulating lines and rows of wild bushes. Here and there the

violet gleam of water was just visible. The whistle of marsh birds was

heard. A shepherd, bronze against a luminous background, watched the

horizon.

Here was the _Cantoniera_. The coach stopped for a few minutes. Sitting

on the doorstep carding black wool with iron combs was a woman in the

costume of Tonara--swathed in rough cloths like an Egyptian mummy. Three

ragged and dirty children were playing or rather quarrelling at a little

distance. At a window appeared the gaunt and wan face of a sick woman,

who looked at the coach with two great hollow greenish eyes, heavy with

fever. The desolate _Cantoniera_ seemed the habitation of hunger, of

sickness, of dirt. Anania's heart tightened. He knew perfectly the sad

drama which had been played twenty-two years ago in that lonely place,

set in that wild fresh landscape which would have been so pure but for

the unclean passage of man.

He sighed. And he looked at the shepherd with the dark sarcastic face,

erect against the blinding background of sky, and thought that even that

poetic figure was a barbarous conscienceless being--like his father,

like his mother, like all the creatures scattered over that stretch of

desolate earth, in whose minds bad thoughts developed by fatal

necessity, like evil vapours in the atmosphere.

The coach resumed its journey. Here was Mamojada hidden in the green of

walnuts and gardens; its _campanile_ drawn clear upon the tender blue,

as in a conventional water colour. But as the coach moved further along

the dusty road, the picture took a darker and a drearier tint. In front

of the small black houses, built into the rock, was a group of

characteristic figures, all ragged and dirty; pretty women with glossy

hair, looped round their ears, sewing or suckling their infants; two

_Carabinieri_; a bored student--from Rome like Anania; a peasant, an old

noble who was _contadino_ as well--gossiping, grouped together before a

carpenter's workshop, the door of which was hung with bright coloured

sacred pictures.

The student knew Anania and went at once to meet him and introduce him

to the rest of the company.

"You also are at your studies in Rome?" said the peasant noble,

thrusting out his chest and speaking with dignity. "Yes? Then I suppose

you know Don Pietro Bonigheddu, a nobleman and head of a department in

the Court of Exchequer."

"No," replied Anania, "Rome is a big place and one can't know every

one."

"Just so," said the other, with scornful gravity, "but every one knows

Don Pietro. He's a rich man. We are relatives. Well, if you do meet him,

give him greetings from Don Zua Bonigheddu."

"I will remember," said Anania with an ironical bow. He made the tour of

the village with his friend; then set forth again in the coach which

resumed its journey. After half an hour's amusement, he fell back again

into his memories. Here was the little ruined church, here the garden,

here the commencement of the rise to Fonni, here the potato plantation

beside which Olì and her child had sat down to rest. Anania remembered

the woman hoeing with her skirt kilted up between her legs, and the

white cat which had darted at the green lizard gliding over the wall.

The picture in the arch of the hood became brighter, the background more

luminous. The grey pyramid of Monte Gonare, the cerulean and silver

lines of the chain of the Gennargentu were cut into the metal of the

sky. Every minute they were nearer and more majestic. Ah yes! Now Anania

really breathed his native air--some strange, some atavic instinct

seemed to possess him.

He wanted to leap from the vehicle, to run up the slopes where the grass

was still green, among the rocks and the thickets, crying aloud with

joy, like the colt which flees from the halter back to the freedom of

the _tancas_. "And when I have worked off that intoxication I should

like to stand like the wandering shepherd against a dazzling background

of sunshine, or in the green shadow of the hazels, on the platform of a

cliff, in the fork of a tree, losing myself in the contemplation of the

immensity! Yes," he thought as the coach moved slowly up a steep

incline, "I believe I was meant to be a shepherd. I should have been a

ferocious robber, a criminal, but also a poet. Oh! to watch the clouds

from the height of a mountain! To fancy oneself a shepherd of clouds--to

see them roam over the silver heaven, chase each other, change, pass,

sink, disappear! He laughed to himself, then thought--

"Am I not a shepherd of clouds? Are not my thoughts mere clouds? If I

were forced to live in these solitudes I should dissolve into the winds

and the mist and the sadness of the landscape. Am I alive? What after

all is life?"

To these questions there was no reply.

The coach ascended slowly, more and more slowly with gentle cadenced

movements; the coachman dozed, the horse seemed walking in his sleep.

The sun at his zenith rained an equable and melancholy splendour; the

thickets threw no shadow. Profound silence, burning somnolence pervaded

the immense landscape. Anania felt himself really dissolving, becoming

one with the drowsy panorama, with the sad and luminous sky. The fact

was he was himself drowsy. _As that other time_, so now, he ended by

closing his eyes and falling childishly asleep.

"Aunt Grathia! _Nonna_!" (godmother), he called, his voice still sleepy,

as he entered the widow's cottage. The kitchen was deserted, the sunny

little street was deserted; deserted the whole village which in the

desolation of midday, seemed prehistoric, abandoned for centuries.

Anania looked curiously around. Nothing was changed. Poverty, rags,

soot, ashes in the hearth, cobwebs among the rafters of the roof; wild

emperor of that legendary spot, the long and empty phantasm of the black

cloak hanging against the earthen wall.

"Aunt Grathia, where are you? Aunt Grathia?" cried the young man.

The widow had gone to the well. Presently she returned with a malune[21]

on her head and a bucket in her hand. She was just the same; yellow,

thorny, with a spectral face surrounded by the folds of a dirty

kerchief. The years had passed without ageing that body already dried up

and exhausted of the emotions of her distant youth.

Anania seeing her was strangely moved. A flood of memories rose out of

the depths of his soul. He seemed to recall a whole former existence, to

see afresh the spirit which had inhabited his body before his spirit of

to-day.

"_Bonos dias,_"(good day) the widow said in greeting, surveying in

astonishment the handsome unknown youth. She set down first the pail,

then the _malune_ slowly and without taking her eyes off the stranger.

But no sooner had he smiled and asked, "What? don't you know me?" than

she emitted a cry and opened her arms. Anania kissed her and overwhelmed

her with questions.

How, where was Zuanne? Why had he become a monk? Did he visit his

mother? Was he happy? And her elder son? And the candlemaker's son? And

this one, and that one? And how had life gone on these fifteen years at

Fonni? And to-morrow could he make the ascension of the Gennargentu?

"Son! dear son!" cried the widow, looking at her dismal walls; "well,

what do you think of my house? Naked and sad as an abandoned nest! But

sit down--will you wash your hands? here is pure fresh water, real pure

silver! Wash yourself, drink, rest. I'll cook a mouthful for you. Don't

refuse, son of my heart! don't humiliate me. I should like to feed you

with my heart! But you'll accept what I can offer. Here's a towel, my

dear. How tall and beautiful you are! I hear you're to marry a rich and

lovely girl. Ah, and she's no fool, that girl! Why didn't you write

before coming? Ah, dear boy! you at least haven't forgotten the deserted

old woman!"

"But Zuanne? Zuanne?" said Anania, washing in the fresh water from the

bucket.

The widow's face darkened.

"Don't speak of him! He has grieved me so much. It would have been far

better he'd followed his father. Well no--don't talk of it. He's not a

man. He may be a saint, but he isn't a man. If my husband were to lift

his head out of the tomb, and see his son barefoot, with the cord and

the wallet, a stupid, begging friar, whatever would he say! Ah! he'd

beat him to death, he would!"

"Where is Brother Zuanne at present?"

"In a convent a long way off. On the top of a mountain! If he'd even

stayed in the convent at Fonni! But no! I'm fated to be abandoned by

them all! Even Fidele the other boy has taken a wife and hardly ever

remembers me. The nest is deserted--the old eagle has seen all her poor

eaglets fly away, and will die alone--alone!"

"Come and live with me!" said Anania. "Once I've got my degree, I'll

make a home for you, Nonna!"

"What good should I be to you? Once, I was able to wash your eyes and

cut your nails--now you'd have to do it for me."

"You would tell your stories to me, and to my children."

"I can't even tell the stories. I've grown childish. Time has carried

away my brains, as the wind carries away the snow from the mountains.

Well, my boy, eat! I've nothing better to offer you. Accept with a good

heart. Oh this candle, is it yours? Where are you taking it?"

"To the Basilica, Nonna, to put before the images of the saints Proto

and Gianuario. It's come a long way, Nonna. It was given me by an old

Sardinian woman who lives in Rome. She told me stories too, but not such

nice ones as yours."

After the modest meal, Anania found a guide with whom he arranged for

the ascent of the Gennargentu to-morrow. Then he went to the Basilica.

In the ancient court, under the tall whispering trees, on the broken

stair, in the crumbling _loggia_, in the church itself, which smelt of

damp like a tomb, everywhere there was silence and desolation. Anania

put Aunt Varvara's candle on a dusty altar, then looked at the rude

frescoes on the walls, at the stucco figures gilded with a melancholy

light, at the rough images of Sardinian saints, at everything which once

had moved him to wonder and to terror. He smiled; but languidly and

sadly. He returned to the Court and saw, through an open window, the hat

of a carabiniere and a pair of boots hung on the wall of a cell. In his

memory resounded once more that air from the Gioconda--

"_A te questo rosario_--"

The smell of wax reached him. Where were the children, the companions of

his infancy, the little birds savage and half naked which had animated

the steps of the church? Anania had no wish to see them now, to make

himself known to them; yet how tenderly did he remember the games played

with them beneath these trees while the dead leaves were falling,

falling like the feathers of dying birds.

A barefooted woman with an amphora on her head, passed at the far end of

the court. Anania trembled, for the woman reminded him of his mother.

Where was his mother? Why had he not dared, even though he had wished,

to speak of her to the widow? Why had not the widow alluded to her old,

ungrateful guest? To escape from these questions the young man went next

to the Post Office, and sent a picture card to Margherita. Then he

visited the Rector, and towards evening he walked along the road to the

west, the road which looked down on the immensity of the valleys.

Seeing the Fonni women going to the fountain, straitened in their

strange "_tunics_," he remembered his early love dreams; and how he had

wished himself a herdsman and Margherita a peasant girl, delicate and

graceful, but with the amphora on her head like some Pompeian damsel

made in stucco. And he smiled again contrasting his romantic fancies

with the rough disillusion which had awaited him among the wonders of

the Basilica.

A glory of sunset spread itself over the heaven. It seemed an

apocalyptic vision. The clouds painted a tragic scene: a burning plain,

furrowed by lakes of gold and rivers of purple from whose depths rose

bronze coloured mountains, edged with amber and pearly snow, severed by

flaming apertures which seemed mouths of grottoes, sending up fountains

of gilded blood. A battle of solar giants, of formidable denizens of the

infinite, was in progress among these aerial mountains, in the profound

grottoes of the bronze clouds. From the apertures flashed the gleam of

arms carved in the metal of the sun; the blood poured in torrents,

rolling into the lakes of molten gold, serpentining in rivers which

seemed arrows, inundating the fiery plains of heaven.

His heart dancing with admiration and joy, Anania remained absorbed in

contemplation of the magnificent spectacle, until the vision had fled

and the shades of evening had drawn a violet pall over all things. Then

he returned to the widow's house and drew a stool beside the hearth.

Memory again assailed him. In the penumbra, while the old woman was

preparing supper and talking in her dreary tones, he again saw Zuanne of

the big ears busy with his chestnuts; and another figure behind silent

and vague as a phantom.

"So they've killed all the Nuoro brigands?" said the widow, "but do you

believe it will be long before new ones appear? You are deceived, my

son. So long as there are men with hot burning blood in their veins, men

clever for good or for evil, so long will there be brigands. It's true

that just now they're no good--all towards, mere despicable thieves; but

in my husband's time it was not like that! How brave they were then! so

kind and so courageous. My husband once met a woman who was crying

because----"

Anania was only moderately interested in Aunt Grathia's recollections.

Other thoughts were passing through his brain.

"Look here," he said, when the widow had concluded the tale of the

weeping woman, "have you never had any news of my mother?"

Aunt Grathia who was dexterously turning an omelet, made no reply.

Anania waited. He thought, "She knows something!" and in spite of

himself became agitated. After a short silence the widow said--

"If you know nothing of her, why should I? Now, my son, come over to

this chair and eat with a good heart."

Anania sat in front of the basket which the widow had placed on a chair

and began to eat.

"I knew nothing of her for a long time," he said, confiding in the old

woman as he had never been able to confide in any one before; "but now I

believe I have traced her. After leaving me, she went away from

Sardinia. A man I know saw her in Rome--dressed in town fashion."

"Did he really see her?" asked Aunt Grathia quickly. "Did he speak to

her?"

"More than that," replied the young man bitterly. "After that nothing

more was heard of her. But this year, in Rome, I made enquiries at the

_Questura_, and learned that she's living there, in Rome, under another

name; but she's reformed, yes, quite reformed. She's working and living

honestly."

Aunt Grathia had come nearer to her guest, her hollow eyes widened, she

stooped and stretched out her hands as if to gather up the young man's

words. He had grown calm thinking of Maria Obinu; when he said, "she has

reformed" he felt happy, sure at that moment he was not deceiving

himself in thinking Maria was _she_.

"Are you certain, really certain?" asked the old woman bewildered.

"Yes. Yes--s--s!" he cried, imitating his sweetheart in the joyous

almost singing pronounciation of the word. "Why I've been living in her

house for two whole months!"

He turned to drink, looking at the wine through the rosy light of the

rude iron lamp. It was thick and he scarcely tasted it. Then he rubbed

his mouth and seeing that the old grey napkin was torn, he put it over

his face and looked through a hole, saying:

"Do you remember the night Zuanne and I dressed up? I put this very

cloth over my head like this----But what's the matter?" he exclaimed,

suddenly throwing the napkin down and changing his tone. His face had

turned pale.

He saw that the widow's countenance, generally cadaverous and

expressionless, had become strongly animated, showing first surprise

then pity. He understood at once he was himself the object of her pity.

The edifice of his dream fell into ruin, broken to atoms for all time.

"_Nonna_! Aunt Grathia! you know!" he cried apprehensively, his nervous

fingers stretching the old cloth to its full length.

"Eat your supper. Then we'll talk. No, finish eating!" said the old

woman, recovering herself. "Don't you like the wine?"

But Anania sprang to his feet. "Speak!" he cried.

"Ah, Holy Lord! what do you expect me to say?" lamented the old woman,

sighing and mumbling her lips; "why don't you go on with your supper?

We can have a talk afterwards."

He no longer heard or saw.

"Speak! speak! I see you know. Where is she? Is she alive? Is she dead?

Where is she? Where is she? Where is she?"

He repeated the question twenty times, roaming automatically round the

kitchen, turning and returning, stretching the cloth, putting it over

his face. He seemed almost mad, angry rather than grieved.

"Hush! hush!" said the old woman going to his side. "I had supposed you

knew. Yes--she's alive; but she's not the woman who has deceived you by

pretending to be your mother."

"She didn't pretend, Nonna! It was my own fancy. She doesn't even know I

thought it! Ah--then it's not she!" he added in a low voice, as much

shocked as if till that moment he had been certain of his discovery.

"Go on!" he exclaimed. "Why are you keeping me on the rack? Why have you

not alluded to her? Where is she? Where is she?"

"Perhaps she has never left Sardinia," said the widow, walking by his

side. "Really I thought you knew and that you didn't think it mattered.

I saw her this year, early in May. She came to Fonni for the Feast of

the Martyrs, with a singer, a blind man, her lover. They had walked from

Neoneli, a long way. She had malaria and was like an old woman of sixty.

The blind man took a lot of money at the Feast, and after it was over he

joined a company of beggars going to a feast in another part of the

country. He left her behind. In June or July I heard she was harvesting

in the _tancas_ of Mamojada. The fever was killing her. She was ill a

long time in the _Cantoniera de su Gramene_, and she's there still."

Anania lifted his head and opened his arms with a gesture of despair.

"I--I saw her!" he cried. "I saw her! I saw her! Are you certain of all

this?" he asked gazing hard at the old woman.

"Quite certain. Why should I invent it?"

"Tell me," he insisted, "is she _really_ there? I saw a woman with

fever--yellow--earthy--with eyes like a cat's. She was at the window.

Are you sure it was she? Are you sure?"

"Quite sure, I tell you. That was certainly she."

"I have seen her!" he repeated, holding his head with his hands, furious

with himself that he had been so stupidly deceived; that he had sought

his mother beyond the mountains and the seas, while she was trailing her

dishonour and her wretchedness close to his side; that he had been so

moved by strangers, yet had felt no heart beat upon seeing the face of

that beggar, that living misery, framed by the gloomy window of the

Cantoniera.

What then was man? What the human heart? What was life, intelligence,

thought?

Ah yes! now he could answer these questions which so often had risen

idly to his lips! Now that Destiny was beating with inexorable, funereal

wings, shaking all things with sudden storm, now at last he knew what

man was, what life, what the human heart! Deceit! deceit! deceit!

Aunt Grathia pushed a stool to Anania and made the unhappy lad sit down.

Then she crouched beside him, took his hand, and long watched him

compassionately.

"How cold you are, my child!" said the widow, pressing his hand. "Cry,

my son. It will do you good."

Anania escaped from the grip of the hard, old fingers.

"I'm not a child!" he said irritated. "Why should I cry?"

"It would do you good, son! Oh yes, I know how much good it does one to

weep. When the knock came to my door that terrible night, and a voice,

which seemed the voice of Death himself, said to me, 'Woman, wait no

longer,' I became a stone. For hours and hours I could not weep; and

they were the worst of all hours for me. My heart in my breast had

become red hot iron; it was burning me, burning me inside, tearing my

breast with its sharp point. Then the Lord granted me tears, and the

tears refreshed me in my grief as dew refreshes the rocks burnt by the

sun. Have patience, my child. We are born to suffer, and what is this

distress of yours in comparison with so many other sorrows?"

"But I am not suffering!" he protested. "I ought to have expected this.

I was expecting it. I felt myself forced to come here by a mysterious

power. A voice said to me, 'Go, go. You'll learn something there.' It's

a blow of course. I was surprised--but that's all over. Never mind."

The widow still watched him. She saw his face ghastly, his lips pale and

contracted. She shook her head. He continued--

"But why did no one tell me? There are some things one has a right to

know. The driver of the coach, for instance--didn't he know?"

"Perhaps. She might have told you herself; but no, she's afraid of you.

When she came here for the Feast--she and that wretched blind man who

made her lead him about and then deserted her--no one here recognised

her. She seemed so old, she was so ragged, so stupefied by poverty and

fears. I hardly knew her myself. The blind man had some horrid nickname

for her. But she confided in me--only in me. She told me her whole sad

story, and conjured me never to tell you a word about her. She's afraid

of you."

"Why is she afraid?"

"She's afraid you'll put her in prison, because she deserted you. She's

afraid of her brothers too; they have the railway _Cantoniera_ at

Iglesias."

"And her father?" asked Anania, who had never thought of these distant

kinsmen.

"Her father has been dead many years. He died cursing her; at least

that's what she said. She says it was his curse which destroyed her."

"I see. She must be mad. But what has she been about all these years?

How has she lived? Why didn't she get some work?"

He seemed calm, almost indifferent. His questions seemed a matter of

curiosity, faint curiosity, which allowed his thought to return to other

affairs. Indeed at that moment he was thinking what he must do. If he

was sorry for his mother's miserable condition, he was still more

distressed by the consequences which would follow from his recovery of

her. The widow raised her finger and said solemnly--

"It's all in the hands of God. Son, it's a terrible rod which goads us

and pushes us. Didn't my husband intend to work and to die in his bed,

praise the Lord! Well, it was just the same with your mother! Of course

she would have liked to work and to live honestly. But the rod pushed

her on."

Anania's face blazed; again he wrung his fingers, suffocated by shame.

"It's all over for me!" he thought. "What horror! What wretchedness,

what shame! Go on," he said aloud, "tell me all. How did she support

herself. I wish to know all--all! Do you understand? I wish to die of

shame before----That will do!" he said shaking his head as if to drive

from him all cowardly apprehensions. "Tell me."

Aunt Grathia looked at him with infinite pity. She would have liked to

take him in her arms, to rock him and sing him to sleep with a childish

lullaby. Instead she must torture him. But--God's will be done! We are

born to suffer, and no one dies of grief!

She tried, however, to soften somewhat the bitter cup which God was

giving to the poor boy through her hands.

"I can't tell you exactly how she supported herself, nor what she did. I

just know that after leaving you and in doing that she did the best

thing she could, for otherwise you'd never have had a father, nor all

that good luck----"

"Aunt Grathia, don't drive me mad!" he interrupted.

"Hush! Patience! Don't be disowning the Lord's bounty, my son. Suppose

you had stayed here--what would have become of you? You might have ended

vilely--as a monk, a begging monk, a cowardly monk! Ah--don't let us

speak of it! Better to die than to end like that! And your mother would

have followed her own life just the same, because it was her destiny.

Even here, before she went away, do you suppose she was a saint? No, she

wasn't. Well! well! it was her destiny. For the last part of the time

she was here, she had a _carabiniere_ for a lover. He was transferred to

Nuraminis a few days before she took you away. After she had left

you--at least so the poor thing told me--she walked on foot to

Nuraminis, hiding by day, walking at night, half across Sardinia. She

joined the _carabiniere_ and they lived together for a while. He had

promised to marry her; but on the contrary he got tired, ill-treated

her, beat, impoverished, finally abandoned her. She followed her fated

path. She told me, and poor dear, she cried so as to move the

stones!--she told me she was always looking for work, but never could

get any. I tell you, it's Fate! It's Fate which robs some poor creatures

of work, just as it robs others of reason, health, goodness. It's

useless for the man or the woman to rebel. No! on to the death, on to

the crack of doom, but follow the thread which draws you! Well! at last

she did do a little better. She joined the blind singer, and they lived

for two years as man and wife. She led him about, to the country feasts,

from one place to another. They always went on foot, sometimes alone,

sometimes in companies of other wandering beggars. The blind man sang

songs of his own composition. He had a lovely voice. Here he sang a song

which made everybody cry. It was called "_The Death of the King_." The

Municipio gave him twenty _lire_, and the Rector had him to dinner. In

the three days he was here he got more than twenty crowns. The wretch!

He too had promised to marry the poor soul; but instead, when he found

she was ill and couldn't drag herself further, he also deserted her,

fearing he'd have to spend money in getting her cured. They went away

together from here to the Feast of St Elia; there the horrid man met a

company of mendicants from Campidano, going to the Feast at Gallura. He

went off with them leaving the poor creature, sick to death with fever,

in a shepherd's hut. Afterwards as I told you, she got a little better

and went here and there harvesting, lavender-picking, until the fever

broke her down completely. But a few days ago she sent to tell me she

was better----"

A shudder, vainly repressed, ran through Anania's limbs. What

wretchedness, what shame, what grief! What iniquity, human and divine!

None of the sad and blood-stained tales, related to him in his infancy

by this same rough woman, had ever seemed so terrible as this, had ever

made him tremble as did this.

Suddenly he remembered a thought which had shot through him one sweet

evening long ago, in the silence of the pine forest, scarce broken by

the song of the ticket-of-leave-man shepherd.

"Was she ever in prison?" he asked.

"Yes, I think so; once. Certain things were found in her room which had

been taken from a country church by one of her friends. She was let off

because she proved her ignorance of the matter."

"You are lying!" muttered Anania in a low hard voice. "Why can't you

tell me the truth. She has been a thief also. Why don't you say it? Do

you think it doesn't matter? Doesn't matter as much even as this?" he

said, showing the tip of his little finger.

"What a nail, good God!" cried the old woman. "Why do you let your nail

grow like that?"[22]

He did not answer, but sprang to his feet and walked up and down

furiously. The widow did not move, and after a space he calmed himself.

He stood before her, and said in a voice very quiet though bitter--

"Why was I born? Why did they bring me into the world? Look! I am ruined

now. My life is destroyed, my career ended. I can't go on with my

studies. And the girl I was going to marry, without whom I cannot live,

will give me up. I mean I must give her up."

"But why? Doesn't she know who you are?"

"Yes, she knows that much, but she doesn't know that _woman_ could ever

come across our path. How could a pure, delicate girl live beside an

infamous woman?"

"But what do you want to do? You said yourself she's nothing to you."

"What is your advice?"

"Mine? my advice? To leave her to her own way," replied the widow

fiercely. "Weren't you deserted by her? Your bride need never see the

unhappy creature. You yourself need never see her."

Anania looked at her, compassionate, but contemptuous.

"You don't understand!" he said, "you can't understand. Let it alone.

Now I have to consider the best way for me to see her. I must go to her

to-morrow morning."

"You're mad."

"You don't understand."

They faced each other, each pitying and scornful. Then they argued,

quarrelled almost. Anania wanted to start at once, or at least the first

thing to-morrow. The widow suggested summoning Olì to Fonni without

telling her why.

"As you are so obstinate! You know it would be far better to leave her

alone. As she has walked till now, so she will walk to the end. Let her

be."

"Nonna," he answered, "you also must be afraid of me. That's silly. I'm

not going to hurt a hair of her head. I'll take charge of her. She shall

live with me, and I'll work for her. I'll do her good, not harm. It's my

duty."

"Yes, yes, your _duty_. Still you ought to think, my son; to consider.

How are you going to support her? How will you set about it?"

"Never mind."

"What do you propose to do?"

"Never mind."

"Well, well! But I tell you she's mad afraid of you. If you come upon

her, suddenly, she's capable of doing something foolish----"

"Well then, get her here. But at once--to-morrow morning."

"Yes; at once. On the wings of a crow. How impetuous you are, child of

my heart! Go to your bed now, and don't think any more about it.

To-morrow night, at this hour, she'll be here. Don't doubt it.

Afterwards you shall do what you like. To-morrow, make your excursion to

the Gennargentu. I should suggest you're staying away for the night----"

"Leave it to me."

"Well--go to bed now," she repeated, pushing him gently.

Even in the little room where he used to sleep with his mother nothing

was changed. When he saw the poor pallet bed under which was a heap of

earthy smelling potatoes, he remembered Maria Obinu's little white bed

and all the illusions and the dreams which had persecuted him.

"How childish I have been!" he thought bitterly, "and I was thinking

myself a man. It is only now I have become a man! Only now has life

opened to me its horrible doors. Yes, now I am a man, and I will be

strong. No, vile life! you shall not vanquish me! No, monster, you shall

not get me down! You are my enemy; till now you have fought with vizor

dosed, you miserable coward! but to-day, on this day, long as a century,

you have let me see your detestable countenance. But you shan't conquer

me! No, you shan't."

He unfastened the shaky window shutters, which opened on the old wooden

balcony, the supports of which hardly held together. Grasping them, he

leaned out.

The night was most serene; fresh, dear, diaphanous, as are the mountain

nights at the end of summer. An immense silence reigned everywhere, its

sublimity unimpaired by the solemn vision of the nearer crags, the vague

line of the distant summits. Anania, seeing the profound valleys at his

very feet, felt himself suspended--resolved, however, not to fall--over

a stupendous abyss. The line of the distant mountains soothed his heart

strangely. They seemed to him verses inscribed by the omnipotent hand of

a divine poet on the celestial page of the horizon. But the colossal

Monte Spada, and the formidable wall of the Gennargentu oppressed him,

and suggested the shadow of that monster against whom he had just issued

his challenge.

And he thought of the distant Margherita, his Margherita, whom he must

now renounce; Margherita who at this hour was surely dreaming of him,

whose eyes met his on that far horizon. And pitying her rather than

himself, tears sweet and bitter, like mountain honey, rose in his eyes.

He repressed them sternly; they were a feline and stealthy enemy trying

to vanquish him at unawares.

"I am strong!" he repeated, supporting himself on the flimsy balcony.

"Monster! it is I who shall vanquish you!"

And he did not perceive that the monster stood by his side--inexorable.

[Footnote 21: A vessel made of cork.]

[Footnote 22: Sign of an easy life, with no manual labour.]

VIII

In the long sleepless night, Anania decided, or believed he decided his

fate.

"I will place her here with Aunt Grathia, until I have found my feet. I

will speak to Signor Carboni and to Margherita. I will tell them, 'This

is how matters stand, my mother is to live with me the moment my

position allows it. This is my duty, and I will do my duty though the

universe fall.' He will drive me away like an unclean animal; I will

have no illusions about it. Next, I will look for a post; and I shall

find one, and then I will take the poor wretch with me, and we will live

together, miserably of course, but I shall pay my debts, and I shall be

a man. A man! say rather a living corpse."

He seemed to himself calm, cold, already dead to joy. But in the depth

of his heart was a cruel intoxication of pride, a fury of infatuated

resistance to fate and to society and to himself.

"It is what I willed," he thought. "I knew it might end like this. I

have been allowing myself to drift. Woe is me! now I must expiate my

folly. I will expiate!"

This illusion of courage sustained him through the night and through the

following day, when he made the ascension of the Gennargentu.

The morning was sad, windless, but cloudy and misty; he determined to

persevere in his expedition, hoping the weather would clear. In reality,

he wanted to give himself proof of his courage and indifference. What

were mountains from henceforth to him? What were far horizons? What the

whole world? But he willed to do what he had resolved to do. Only for

one moment did he hesitate.

"Suppose _she_ finds out I am here, and refuses to come, escapes me

again? Am I not temporizing in the hope of that?" he asked himself

cruelly. The widow reassured him, and he set out.

The guide, mounted on a strong and patient pony, preceded him up steep

paths, sometimes lost in the silver mist, sometimes appearing like a

figure blotted in water colour on a too wet grey background. Anania

followed him. All around him, all within him was fog. In that floating

veil, he distinguished the cyclopean outline of Monte Spada; and within

him among the mists which enwrapped his soul, that soul showed itself

like the mountain, great, hard, and monstrous.

Tragic silence enveloped the wayfarers, broken at intervals by the

scream of the vultures. Strange forms showed here and there through the

fog, the cry of the carrion feeding birds seemed the wild voice of these

mysterious shapes, terrified and enraged by the intrusion of man. To

Anania it seemed as if he were walking through the clouds. Sometimes his

head swam, and to vanquish the vertigo he fixed his eyes on the path

under the horses' feet, staring at the wet and shining slabs of schist,

and at the little bushes of violet heather, the sharp scent of which

made the fog fragrant. About nine the fog lifted a little, fortunately,

as the travellers were just then passing with difficulty along a very

narrow piece of path, on the huge shoulder of Monte Spada. Anania gave a

cry of admiration, torn from him by the beauty and the magnificence of

the panorama. All the nearer mountains were covered with a mantle of

violet flowers; beyond, the vision of the deep valleys, of the high

summits to which he was drawing near, of the torn veils of luminous

mist, of the play of shadow and sun, of the blue heaven painted with

strange and slowly contracting clouds, all seemed the dream of a

painter's madness, a picture of unimagined beauty.

"How great is nature! how strong! how beautiful!" thought Anania, his

heart softened, "all things are pure on her immense bosom. Ah! if we

three, Margherita, and I, and she, were here and, would it be possible

for any impure things to divide us?"

A breath of hope revived his spirit. If Margherita loved him, as in

these last few days she had shown that she loved him--then surely----

With this wild hope in his heart, he dreamed away a long time, till he

had reached the bottom of the slope of Monte Spada, and had again begun

to ascend to the topmost peak of the Gennargentu. A torrent ran at the

bottom, among enormous rocks and alder trees shaken by a sudden gust of

wind. The sound of the alders in the silence of that place of mystery,

brought a strange fancy to Anania; it seemed as if the winds had been

wakened by this hope which animated him, and that all things were moved

by it, the lonely trees trembling like wild men surprised in their

gloomy solitude by a sudden joy.

Then in a quick revulsion of feeling, he remembered a fancy of a few

days before in the wind-shaken forest of Orthobene. Then also the trees

had seemed to him men, but miserable men, tom by sorrow. Even when the

wind was still, they trembled, like human creatures experienced in

suffering, who even in their moments of ease must think of sorrow,

inevitable and near. His depression returned. An absurd notion flashed

across his thought. Kill the guide and become a bandit! He smiled at

himself.

"I am a romantic, it seems! But without murder I might hide among these

mountains and live alone, and feed on grasses and wild birds! Why cannot

man live alone? Why can't he burst the fetters which bind him to society

and which strangle him? Zarathustra? Oh yes; but even he cried once.

'Oh! how alone I am! I have no longer anyone to share my laughter, no

one to give me comfort----'"

The ascent, slow and dangerous, continued for three hours. The sky had

cleared, the wind blew, the schisty summits shone in the sunlight,

profiled with silver on the infinite azure. Now the island displayed

itself in all its cerulean vastness: clear mountains, grey villages,

shining pools, here and there confounded with the vaporous line of the

sea.

Anania admired; he followed with interest the explanations of the guide,

he looked through his field-glass. But his trouble never passed out of

his thoughts; when he tried to enjoy the sweetness of the surrounding

beauty, it clutched him with tiger paw more tightly to itself.

Towards noon they reached the top of Bruncu Spina. Anania climbed on the

heap of shining shale which marked the summit, and flung himself on the

ground to escape the fury of the blasts which blew from all sides. The

whole island was stretched out before him, with its blue mountains and

its silver sea, glittering under the midday sun. Overhead the heaven was

immense, infinite, void as human thought. The wind raged furiously in

the great emptiness. Its assaults invested Anania in mad fury, in the

violent anger of a formidable wild beast, which would permit the

approach of no other being to the aereal cave where it was resolved to

reign alone.

The young man resisted. The guide crawled to his side and pointed out

the principal towns, and villages and mountains. But the wind ravished

his words, and cut short the respiration both of speaker and of hearer.

"And that's Nuoro?" said Anania, pointing.

"Yes. It is cut in two by the hill of St Onofrio."

"I know. It's very clear."

"If it wasn't for this devil of a wind," shouted the guide, "one could

send a salute to Nuoro, it looks so close to-day."

Anania remembered his promise to Margherita.

"From the highest summit in Sardinia, I will send you a greeting. I will

cry to the heavens your name and my love--as I should like to cry from

the highest summit in all the world, for all mankind to wonder and to

applaud."

And it seemed to him that the wind was carrying away his heart,

battering it against the granite colossi of the Gennargentu.

On his return he expected to find his mother with the widow. Anxiously

he crossed the deserted village and stopped before Aunt Grathia's low

black door. The evening was falling sadly. Strong gusts blew down the

steep, stony streets. The heaven was pale. It felt like autumn. Anania

listened. Silence. Through the chink of the door, he saw the fire's red

brightness. Silence.

He went in, and saw only the old woman, who sat spinning, quiet as a

spectre.

The coffee pot was gurgling among the embers, and a piece of mutton hung

on a wooden spit, dropping its fat upon the burning ashes.

"Well?" said the youth.

"Patience, my jewel of gold! I couldn't find anyone I could trust to

take the message. My son is not in the neighbourhood."

"But the driver of the coach?"

"Patience, I tell you!" said the widow, rising and laying her distaff on

the stool. "I did ask the driver to tell her she must come here

to-morrow. I said, 'Tell her from me to come. Don't say a word about

Anania Atonzu! go, son, and God will reward you, for you'll be doing a

work of charity.'"

"Did he refuse to do it?"

"No, he said he would. He even promised to drive her up."

"She won't come! You'll see she won't come!" said Anania uneasily.

"She'll escape us again! Why didn't I go myself? But there's still

time."

He wanted to start at once for the Cantoniera, but without difficulty

allowed himself to be persuaded to wait.

Another sad night passed. Though his limbs were stiff with fatigue he

slept little, on that hard pallet where he had been born, on which he

wished that this night he might die. The wind shook the roof, roaring

like a sea in storm. It reminded Anania of his infancy; the distant

terrors, the wintry nights, the touch of his mother who clasped him to

her, more for fear than for love. No, she had not loved him. Why delude

himself? She had not loved him. Perhaps this had been Olì's worst

misfortune, her greatest loss. He felt it, he knew it; and sudden pity

rose in his breast for her, who had been the victim of destiny and of

men.

Had she come to-night, while he was in this mood, her son would have

received her tenderly, would have forgiven her.

But the long night passed, and a day broke, made melancholy by the wind.

He spent long restless hours which he considered among the most

distressing of his whole life. During these hours he roamed through the

alleys, as if storm driven; he went to the tavern and drank; he returned

to the widow's cottage and sat by the fire, shivering feverishly, his

nerves in a condition of acute irritation. Even Aunt Grathia could not

rest. She wandered about the house, and as soon as the modest midday

repast was over, she went forth to meet Olì.

"Remember she's afraid of you!" she said to Anania, urging him to great

quietness.

"Why, my good woman," he answered scornfully, "I shall hardly even look

at her! I have very few words to say."

More than an hour passed. The young man remembered bitterly the sweet

impatient hour he had spent waiting for Aunt Tatàna. Now he panted for

the coming of his mother, her coming which once and for all was to end

his torments. And all the time he was devoured by the dark desire--that

she should not come, should escape him again, should disappear for ever.

"In any case, she's ill," he thought with bitter satisfaction, "it's

impossible she can live long."

The widow came back alone, hurriedly.

"Hush! keep quiet!" she said in a low voice, "she's coming! she's

coming! She's here. I've told her. Hush! She's desperately frightened.

Don't be cruel to her, son!"

She went out again, leaving the door open. The wind seized it, pushing

it to and fro as if romping with it. Anania waited; pale, unable to

think. Each time the door opened the sun and the wind rushed into the

kitchen, illuminating, shaking everything in it. Then the door closed

and everything became as before. For several minutes Anania

unconsciously followed the play of the sun and the wind: then he became

irritated, and stepped over to slam the door; his countenance dark with

nervousness and anger. Thus he appeared at the moment when the unhappy

mother reached the threshold,--trembling, timid, ragged as a beggar. He

looked at her; she looked at him; fear and diffidence in the eyes of

each. Neither thought of extending a hand nor of uttering a greeting. A

whole world of suffering and of sin lay between them and divided them

inexorably.

Anania held the door open, leaning against it; the wind and the sun

flooded his figure. His eyes followed the miserable Olì as Aunt Grathia

pushed her towards the hearth.

Yes, it was she; the pale emaciated apparition half seen at the black

window of the Cantoniera; in her grey visage the great light eyes, wan

with fear and weakness, seemed the eyes of a sick and homeless cat. When

she was seated, the widow fancied it a happy thought to leave her two

guests alone. She went out, but Anania followed her angrily.

"Where are you going?" he cried, "come back, or I'll go away myself."

Olì heard the threat, for when Anania and the widow returned to the

kitchen, she was standing by the door and weeping, as if about herself

to slink away. Blind with grief and shame, the young man threw himself

towards her, seized her arm, pushed her against the wall, then shut and

locked the door.

"No!" he cried, while the woman crouched on the ground, curling herself

up like a hedgehog, and weeping convulsively: "you shan't go away any

more. You are not to stir another step without my consent. You are to

stay here. Cry as much as you like, but from this you shan't move. Your

gay doings are all over."

Olì wept louder, shaken by spasms of trembling. Through her sobs

sounded frantic derision of her son's last words. He felt it, and

remorse for his brutality increased his fury.

Her tears irritated instead of moving him. All the instincts of

primitive man, jealous, ferocious, barbarous, vibrated in his quivering

nerves. He knew it, but was unable to control himself.

Aunt Grathia looked at him, alarmed herself, and wondering whether

Olì's terror had not good reason. She shook her head, threatened with

her hands, became agitated, was prepared for anything except the

avoidance of a violent scene. She knew not what to say; her tongue

refused to speak. Ah! he was possessed by a devil, that well-dressed

handsome lad! he was more terrible than an Orgolese herdsman with his

cudgel more terrible than the brigands she had known in the mountains!

How different the meeting she had anticipated!

"Yes," he went on, lowering his voice, and standing before his mother,

"your wanderings are finished. Let us talk, crying is quite useless. You

ought to be happy now you've found a good son who will pay you good for

evil. If it's to be in proportion, you may expect a great deal of good!

I tell you, you must not leave this, till I order it; _I._ Do you see?

Do you see?" he repeated, again raising his voice and slapping his

chest. "I am master now. I'm no longer the child whom you cruelly

deceived and deserted. I'm no longer the piece of rubbish which you

threw away. I'm a man now, and I shall know how to defend myself, yes,

to defend myself. I shall know how, because you've never been anything

but an offence to me. You've been killing me day by day; betraying and

mining me. Do you understand? destroying me as one destroys a house or

a wall, stone by stone--thus!"

He made the gesture of throwing down an imaginary wall, stooped,

sweated, as if oppressed by some actual physical force. Then suddenly,

unexpectedly, as he looked at the weeping woman his anger cooled,

disappeared. He was oppressed as by frost. What was this woman he was

reviling? That bundle of rags, that creeping thing, that beggar, that

being without a soul? Was she capable of understanding what he was

saying, what she had done? What could there be in common between him and

this unclean creature? Was she really his mother? She? And if she was,

what did it mean? What did it matter? The _mother_ is not the material

woman who gives to the material light, a material being, fruit of a

moment's pleasure, and then flings it out into the street, or on to the

knees of the perfidious seducer who has made it be born! No, that woman

there was not his mother; she was not a mother at all, even

unconsciously. He owed her nothing. Perhaps he had no right to reprove

her, but neither was it his duty to sacrifice himself for her. His

mother should have been Aunt Tatàna, or Aunt Grathia; even Maria Obinu,

even Aunt Varvara, even Nanna the drunkard, anyone except that cowering

creature who stood before him.

"I'd have done better to leave her alone as Aunt Grathia advised," he

thought. "Perhaps I'd better let her go her own way. What does it matter

to me? No, she does not matter to me at all."

Olì wept on.

"Have done," he said coldly, but no longer angrily; and he turned to the

widow, signing to her to administer some consolation and enforce

quietness.

"Don't you see she's frightened!" murmured Aunt Grathia, as she passed

him moving to Olì's side.

"Come, come!" she said, tapping the poor thing on the shoulder, "Have

courage, daughter, have patience. Crying's no good! He isn't going to

eat you. After all, you know, he's the son of your womb. Come! come!

Take a little coffee; after that you'll be able to talk. Do me the

favour, son Anania, to go out for a little. Then you'll be able to speak

better. Go out, jewel of gold!"

He did not move. Olì, however, controlled herself somewhat, and when

Aunt Grathia brought the coffee she took it, trembling, and drank

avidly, looking about her with eyes still frightened, yet sometimes shot

with gleams of pleasure. Like all Sardinian women she loved coffee, and

Anania, who had inherited the taste, looked at her with some sympathy.

He seemed to be watching some wild shy animal, a furtive hare nibbling

the grapes in a vineyard, trembling with enjoyment, and with fear of

surprise.

"More?" asked Aunt Grathia, bending down and speaking as to a child.

"Yes? No? If you'd like some more, say so. Here, give me your cup. Get

up. Come and wash your eyes, and be quiet. Do you hear? Come, girl!"

Olì got up, aided by the old woman, and went straight to the water tub,

as she had been accustomed to do twenty years earlier. First, she washed

her cup, then herself, drying her face with her ragged apron. Her lips

twitched, sobs still swelled her bosom; her red and encircled eyes,

enormous in the shrunken face, shunned the cold gaze of her son.

He looked at the ragged apron and thought.

"She must have new clothes at once, she's perfectly squalid. I've got

sixty _lire_ from my pupils at Nuoro. I'll get some more pupils. I'll

sell my books. Yes, she must have clothes and shoes; and perhaps she's

hungry."

As if guessing his thought Aunt Grathia asked Olì--

"Would you like some food? If you would, tell me at once. Don't be so

shamefaced. Shame won't feed you! Are you hungry?"

"No," replied Olì with trembling lips.

Anania was moved hearing that voice. It was a voice of long ago, a far

distant voice; her voice. Yes, this woman was she, was the mother, the

one true, only mother! Flesh of his flesh, the diseased limb, the rotten

yet vital member which tortured him, but from which he could never while

he lived set himself free; the member which at his own cost he must try

to cure.

"Well now, sit down," said Aunt Grathia, drawing two stools to the

hearth, "sit here, daughter; and you there, my jewel. Sit here together

and talk--"

She made Olì sit, but Anania shook his head.

"Let me be," he said, "I tell you I'm not a child. For that matter," he

went on, walking up and down the floor, "there's very little to say.

I've said what I've got to say. She must remain here, till I make some

other arrangement, and you must buy her shoes and a dress--I'll give you

the money. But we'll settle all that presently. Meanwhile," he raised

his voice to show he was addressing Olì, "speak for yourself, if you

have anything to say."

Thinking he still spoke to the widow Olì made no answer.

"Did you hear?" asked Aunt Grathia, gently, "what have you to say?"

"I?"

"Yes, you."

"Nothing."

"Have you debts?" asked Anania.

"No."

"Not to the _Cantoniere_?"

"No. They've taken all I had."

"What had you?"

"My silver buttons, my shoes, twelve silver _lire_."

"What have you now?"

"Nothing. _As you see me write me down_."[23]

"Have you any papers?"

"What?"

"Papers," explained Aunt Grathia, "your certificate of birth, for

instance."

"Yes, I have that. It's here," she said touching her chest.

"Let me see."

She drew out a stained and yellowing paper, while Anania thought

bitterly of his endeavours to find out if Maria Obinu had any tell-tale

documents. He turned the paper round, looked at it, and gave it back.

It's date was recent.

"Why did you get this?" he asked.

"For my marriage with Celestino."

"The blind man--that vile brute," explained the widow.

Anania was silent, walking up and down the kitchen. The wind still

whistled ceaselessly round the little house. Spots of sunshine now and

then fell obliquely through the roof, like golden coins on a black

pavement.

Anania walked mechanically, setting his feet on these sunny coins as he

used to do when a child.

He asked himself, what more was to be said? He had already accomplished

part of his grave task; but much remained to be done.

He thought, "Now I'll call Aunt Grathia aside, and hand her over the

money for feeding and dressing her. Then I'll go. There's nothing more

to do here."

"It's all ended! all over!" he repeated to himself sadly. "All over!"

For a moment he thought of sitting beside his mother, asking her

history, giving her one word of tenderness and forgiveness. But he could

not, could not! Merely to look at her was disgust. She even smelt of

beggary! He longed for the moment of departure, of escape, of riddance

for his eyes of that dolorous vision.

Still something held him back. He felt that the scene could not end with

those few phrases. He thought that possibly between her fear and her

shame, she was glad to see her son so evidently fortunate, and was

yearning for the gentle word, for the human look, which he could not

bring himself to give her. In his disgust, in his grief, he felt too

some faint comfort in thinking--

"Anyhow she's not brazen. Perhaps she may still reform. She doesn't

understand, but she's not brazen. She won't rebel."

But Olì did rebel.

"Look," he said after a long silence; "you'll stay here till I've

settled my affairs. Aunt Grathia will buy you new clothes----"

Her voice, suffering but still fresh and clear, rang out.

"I don't want anything."

"How do you mean?" he asked, arresting his step by the fire.

"I'm not going to stay."

"_What_?" he cried, turning round, his eyes wide, his fist clenched.

Ah! then it was not all done! She dared--why did she dare? Ah! then she

didn't understand that her son had suffered and struggled all his life

to attain one end; namely, to take her away from her life of vagabondage

and sin, even if he must sacrifice his whole future to do it! How could

she dare to rebel? How could she wish to escape? Had she no

comprehension of her position, of his determination?

"What do you mean?" he said restraining his anger. He stood to listen,

shivering, agitated, driving his nails into his palms, his face working.

Aunt Grathia watched, ready to defend Olì if he attempted to strike

her. The three wild creatures had drawn together by the hearth, and

among them rose the blue and hissing flame of a firebrand. It seemed a

live thing. Olì roused herself.

"Listen," she said, "and don't get angry, for anger will be useless. The

evil is done and nothing can remedy it. You may kill me, but you won't

get any good by that. The only thing you can do is to let me alone. I

can't stay here. I'll go away and you'll never hear more of me. You must

imagine you've never seen me."

"That's just what I told him," said the widow, "but he doesn't think it

possible. Where could you go? But yes--there's one way! You must stay

here, as he wishes, instead of straying about the world; and we won't

say who you are, and he can live in peace as if you were far away. Why,

poor dear, should you leave this? Where can you go?"

"Where God wills."

"God!" burst out Anania; "God commands you now to obey me. Don't dare to

repeat that you won't stay here. Don't dare! Do you suppose I'm joking?

You shan't move one step without my leave. If you disobey. I'm capable

of----"

"It's for your good!" she insisted, meeting the young man's anger;

"Listen, at least. Don't be cruel to me, who have been the victim of

every human wickedness, while I know you are indulgent to that father of

yours who was my ruin----"

"She's right!" said the widow.

"Hold your tongue!" shouted Anania.

Olì took courage.

"I don't know how to speak," she went on; "I don't know how to speak,

because I am stupefied by misfortunes. But I ask you this one thing,

shouldn't I have everything to gain by staying here? If I want to go

away isn't it because I'm thinking of you? Answer me. Ah! now he won't

even listen!" she cried in despair, turning to the widow.

Anania was again pacing the floor, and seemed really deaf to her words,

but suddenly he shuddered and cried, "I'm listening!"

She went on humbly, content that at least he no longer threatened her.

"Why do you wish me to be here? Leave me to myself. As once I did you

harm, so now suffer me to do you good. Let me go. I don't wish to be an

impediment to you. Let me go--for your good."

"No!" he repeated.

"Let me go. I implore you. I'm still able to work for myself. You shall

hear no more of me. I will vanish as a leaf down the wind----"

He turned round on himself. An insidious, a terrible temptation overtook

him. _Let her go_! For a short moment wild joy shone in his soul. He

might consider it all as an evil dream; one word and the dream would

vanish and the sweet reality would be restored! But suddenly he was

ashamed of the thought. His wrath flamed up again, his voice echoed

through the gloomy kitchen.

"No!"

"You are a wild beast!" murmured Olì, "you are not a Christian. You are

a wild animal which devours its own flesh. Let me go, child of God! Let

me go!"

"I will not."

Olì fell back silent and seemingly vanquished; but Aunt Grathia spoke--

"Yes, indeed, a wild beast! What's the need to shout like that? _No! no!

no_! If any one were to hear you, he'd think there was a wild bull shut

up here. Are these the manners you learned at school?"

"Yes, at my school; and I learned other things too," he said, lowering

his voice however. "I learned that a man must not acquiesce in disgrace,

even at cost of his own life. But I suppose you can't understand! Well,

let us cut it short, and be silent both of you."

"Can't understand? I understand perfectly," protested the old woman.

"_Nonna_! yes, you understand. Remember----But there--that'll do!" he

cried, wringing his hands, worn out, sickened by himself and every one.

He had been struck by the old woman's words, and now returned to

himself, remembering that he had always prided himself on his

superiority. His wish now was to end this painful and vulgar scene. He

threw himself on a seat in the corner of the kitchen dropping his head

in his hands.

"I've said No, and that's enough," he thought; and said brokenly, "Have

done now. Have done."

But Olì perceived that now was the moment to fight on. She was not

afraid, she dared anything.

"Listen," she cried humbly, "why do you wish to ruin yourself, _my

son_?" (Yes she had courage to say "my son," nor did Anania protest.) "I

know all. You are to marry a girl who is beautiful, who is rich, and if

she knows that you haven't cast me off, you'll lose her. She'll be quite

right, for a rose can't be mixed up with dirt. For her sake, let me go.

Let her believe I am dead. She's an innocent soul, why is she to suffer?

I'll go ever so far away. I'll change my name. I'll disappear, carried

away by the wind. The evil I have done you without intention is enough.

Yes, without intention! My son, I don't want to hurt you again. No, I

don't. Ah! how can a mother wish evil to her son? Let me go!"

He wanted to cry, "All my life you have done me evil!" but he restrained

himself. What was the use? It was useless and indecorous. He would cry

aloud no more. Only with his head still pressed in his hands, with voice

at once sorrowful and enraged, he repeated, "No! no! no!" At bottom he

felt that Olì was right. He understood that she really desired his

happiness. But precisely the idea that at that moment she was more

generous and more reasonable than he, irritated him and made her seem

odious.

Olì was transformed. Her illumined eyes watched him supplicatingly,

lovingly. As she repeated, "Let me go," her still youthful voice

vibrated with infinite tenderness, her countenance expressed untold

grief. Perhaps a sweet dream, which never before had brightened the

horror of her existence, had touched her heart; to stay! to live for

him! to find peace!

But from the depths of her simple soul an instinct for good--the flame

which lies hidden even in the flint--impelled her to disregard this

dream. A thirst for sacrifice devoured her. Anania understood that in

her own way she wished to fulfil her duty, just as in his way he wished

to fulfil his.

But Anania was the stronger. He was resolved to conquer by any means, by

force if necessary, by the cruelty of the surgeon who to heal the

sufferer will open his flesh with steel. She threw herself on the

ground. Again she wept, implored, supplicated.

Anania answered always No.

"Then what will become of me?" she sobbed, "Holy Mother! what shall I

do? Must I again leave you by stratagem? do you good by force? Yes, I

will leave you--I will go. You cannot compel me. I don't acknowledge

your right--I am free--I will go."

He raised his head and surveyed her.

He was no longer angered, but his cold eyes and grey face grown suddenly

old were terrible.

"Listen," he said firmly. "We must end this. It's all settled--there's

no more to be said. You will not move one step without my knowledge.

Listen, and keep my words in mind as if they were the words of one dead.

Till now, I have endured the dishonour and the grief of your shameful

life, because I was not able to prevent it, and because I hoped some day

to put a stop to it. But from to-day it is different. If you attempt to

go away from here, I shall follow you. I'll kill you. I'll kill myself!

I shall not wish to go on living!"

Olì looked at him in fear. He was like her father. Uncle Micheli, when

he had driven her away from the Cantoniera. He had the same cold look,

the same calm and terrible countenance, the same hollow voice, the same

inexorable tone. She seemed looking at the old man's ghost, risen up to

punish her; and she felt the whole horror of death. She spoke no further

word, but crouched upon the floor, trembling with terror and despair.

A sad night fell upon the wind-shaken hamlet.

Anania had not been able to get a horse that evening, so he was obliged

to spend another night at Fonni, sleeping a strange sleep like the sleep

of a convict on the day he has been sentenced.

Aunt Grathia and Olì sat up a long time over the fire. Olì had the

cold fit which is precursor of fever; her teeth chattered, she yawned

and groaned. As in the nights of long ago, the wind roared through the

kitchen, stirring the black relics of the bandit. By the firelight the

widow worked at her spinning, her face pallid and impassive as that of a

spectre. But she told her guest no stories of her dead husband, nor did

she dare to offer consolation. Only now and then she vainly implored the

sufferer to go to bed.

"I'll go, if you'll do me one kindness," said Olì at last.

"What is it?"

"Go and ask him if he still has the _rezetta_ which I gave him the day

we left this. Beg him to let me look at it."

The old woman promised and Olì got up. She shook all over, and yawned

so wide that her jaws cracked.

That night she was light-headed, her temperature very high. Now and then

she demanded the _rezetta_, and grumbled childishly because Aunt

Grathia, who lay beside her, would not ask Anania for it.

In her delirium a doubt crossed her mind; if Anania were not her son?

Surely, he was not her son! he was too cruel, too unfeeling. She had

been tormented all her life by all the people she had known; now, she

could not believe that her son could torture her more even than the

rest.

Still delirious, she told Aunt Grathia of the little packet she had tied

round Anania's neck, that she might recognize him when he should be

grown up and well-to-do.

"I meant to go to him some day when I should be very old and walking

with a stick. Rat-tat-tat! I should knock at his door, and say, 'I am

Most Holy Mary disguised as a beggar.' My son's servants would laugh and

call their master. 'Old woman, what do you want?' 'Sir, I know you have

a little packet, like this and this--I know who gave it to you.' To-day

you have all these _tancas_ and servants and cattle, but you owe them

all to that poor soul who is now reduced to seven little ounces of dust.

Good-bye. Give me a slice of bread and some honey. And forgive that poor

soul.' 'Servants,' he would say, 'cross yourselves. This old woman who

knows everything is Most Holy Mary.' Ah! ah! ah! The _rezetta_! I want

the _rezetta_. That man is not my son! The _rezetta_! The _rezetta_!"

When it was light. Aunt Grathia went to Anania and told him what Olì

had said.

"That's the one thing wanting," he said smiling bitterly, "that she

should doubt me! I'll soon prove to her that I am--myself."

"Son, don't be unnatural. Content her at least in this one small

matter."

"But I haven't got the thing. I threw it away. If I can find it again,

I'll send it."

Aunt Grathia wished further to know the result of Anania's disclosures

to his betrothed.

"If she cares for you she'll be pleased by your good action," she said

consolingly. "No, no, she won't give you up because you can't disown

your mother. Ah! true love cares nothing for the prejudices of the

world. I loved my husband madly when all the world was against him."

"We shall see," said Anania. "I'll write to you."

"For pity's sake, jewel of gold, don't write! I can't read, and I don't

want to make your affairs public property."

"Well then----"

"Send me a token. If she sticks to you, send the _rezetta_ wrapped in a

white handkerchief. If you lose her, send it in a coloured

handkerchief."

He promised.

"And when will you come back yourself?"

"I don't know. Soon, certainly. As soon as I have settled my affairs."

He left without seeing Olì again, for the poor thing had at last

dropped asleep. He was in deep dejection. The journey seemed eternal,

though he had no wish to arrive at his destination. Still, he was drawn

by a slender thread of hope.

"Margherita loves me," he thought; "perhaps she loves me as Nonna loved

her husband. Her family will scorn and drive me away, but she will say,

'I'll wait for you. I will love you always.' That's what she will say;

but what shall I be able to promise her? My career is destroyed."

Another hope, not to be confessed, was, however, fermenting in the

bottom of his heart: that Olì would make her escape. He dared not

reveal this hope clearly to himself, but he felt it, felt it; in spite

of himself it ran in his blood like a drop of poison. He was ashamed of

it; he understood its meanness, but it was impossible to drive it away.

At the moment when he had cried, "I will kill you, I will kill myself,"

he had meant what he said, but now the words, the whole scene felt like

some horrible nightmare. As he saw again the landscape, the street,

which three days ago, he had seen with so much gladness in his soul, as

he approached Nuoro, the sense of present reality pressed upon him more

and more tightly.

The moment he arrived at home he looked for the amulet; and possessed by

the superstition that things prearranged do not come to pass, he wrapped

it up in a coloured handkerchief. Then he remembered that the sad

occurrences of these few days he had always foreseen and expected, and

he was vexed by his own childishness.

"And why should I send the _rezetta_ at all? Why should I want to please

her?"

He tossed the little packet against the wall, then picked it up again,

softening. "For Aunt Grathia," he thought.

Then he told himself, "At four o'clock I will go to Signor Carboni and

tell him the whole thing. I must get it over this very day. Margherita!

Margherita! Suppose I see her to-night instead? She will bid me say

nothing to her father. She will tell me to wait--to go on as usual. No,

I won't be such a coward. At four o'clock I will go to Signor Carboni."

At the determined hour he did indeed pass the door of Margherita's home,

but he could not bring himself to stop, to ring. He passed by; despising

himself, thinking he would return later; convinced at bottom that never

would he succeed in addressing his godfather.

Two days, two nights, he wasted thus in a vain battle of thoughts, which

changed and dissolved like agitated waves. He had altered nothing in his

habits or daily life. He read with young students, he studied, he ate,

he lingered under Margherita's window, and if he saw her, he gazed at

her passionately. But at night Aunt Tatàna heard him tramp about his

room, descend to the court, go out, return, wander hither and thither.

He seemed a soul in torment, and the kind woman feared he was ill.

What was he expecting? What did he hope?

The day after his return home, he saw a man from Fonni cross the street

and he grew deadly pale.

Yes, he was expecting something--something dreadful; the news that she

had again disappeared. He understood his cowardice, yet at the same time

was ready to execute his threat, "I will follow you, I will kill you, I

will kill myself."

Then it seemed to him that nothing was real; at the widow's house was no

one but the widow herself, with her legends and her long black

phantasmal cloak. Nothing, no one else.

The second night he heard Aunt Tatàna telling her old story to a little

boy from a neighbouring house.

"The woman ran--ran--throwing down the nails; and they grew and grew

till they filled the whole plain. Uncle Hobgoblin followed her, followed

her, but he never could catch her up, because the nails stuck in her

feet----"

What anguished pleasure that story had given Anania in his childhood,

especially in the first days after his mother's desertion! To-night he

dreamed that the man from Fonni had brought news she was gone, that he

set out to follow--to follow--across a plain sown with nails. Look!

there she is! far on the horizon! Soon he will catch her up and kill

her, but he is afraid--afraid--because it is not Olì at all, but a

goatherd, that same goatherd who had passed down the street while Aunt

Tatàna was with Signor Carboni. Anania runs--runs--the nails don't

prick; he wishes they would prick; and Olì has changed into the

goatherd and is singing those lines of Lenau's:

_I masnadieri nella Taverna della Landa_--Robbers in field-side

tavern.

There! now he has caught her, he is going to kill her, and the frost of

death has stiffened his arm--

He woke, bathed in cold perspiration. His heart had stopped; he wept.

The third day. Margherita, surprised that he did not write, invited him

to the usual tryst. He went. He told of his excursion up the

Gennargentu. He abandoned himself to her caresses, as a tired wayfarer

abandons himself on the grass, under the shadow of a tree. But not a

word could he utter of the dark secret which was consuming him.

"_September_ 18_th._ 2 A.M.

"MARGHERITA,--I have come in after roaming wildly through the streets.

Every minute I think I am going mad. It is this very fear moves me,

after long and miserable indecision--to confide to you the grief which

is killing me. I will cut it short.

"Margherita, you know what I am; the son of a sin, deserted by a mother

who was more sinned against than sinning. I was born under a bad star,

and I have to expiate sins which were not my own. I have dragged with me

into a gulf from which I can never escape, that creature whom I love

more than all the rest of the world. Thee, Margherita! Forgive me!

forgive me! This is my greatest grief which I shall feel for the rest of

my life. Listen. My unhappy mother is alive; after an existence of

misery and sin, she has risen again before me like a ghost. She is

wretched, ill, grown old with suffering and privation. My duty, you

yourself will say it at once, is to redeem her. I have resolved to live

with her, to sacrifice, if need be, life itself to fulfil my duty.

Margherita, what more can I say? Never as at this moment have I felt the

need of showing you all my soul. It is like a stormy sea, and words fail

me at this moment which is the turning point of my life. I have your

kisses still on my lips, and I tremble with love and with grief.

Margherita, I am in your hands. Have pity on me and on yourself too. Be

what I have always dreamed you are. Think how short life is, and that

love is the only reality of life, and that no one in the world will love

you as I do. Don't tread out our happiness for the sake of worldly

prejudices, prejudices invented by envious men to make all equally

unhappy. You are good, you are above me. Say to me one word of hope for

the future. And remember, whatever may happen, I shall be yours for all

eternity. Write to me at once.

ANANIA."

"_September_ 19_th._

"ANANIA,--Your letter seems a horrid dream. I also have no words to

express myself. Come to-night at the usual time and we will decide our

fate together. It is I who should say 'my life is in your hands.' Come.

I wait for you anxiously.

MARGHERITA."

"_September_ 19_th._

"MARGHERITA,--Your little letter has frozen my heart. My fate is already

decided, but a thread of hope still guides me. No, I dare not come. I

will not come unless you first give me a word of hope. Then I will fly

to you, kneel at your feet, and thank you and worship you as a saint.

But now--no, I cannot. I will not. I abide by what I wrote to you

yesterday. Write to me, do not kill me with this terrible

suspense.--Your most unhappy.

ANANIA."

"_September_ 19_th._ Midnight.

"ANANIA, MY NINO,--I have waited for you till this moment trembling with

grief and love; but you have not come. Perhaps you are never coming any

more, and I write to you at this sweet hour of our meetings with death

in my heart and tears in my eyes which have not yet wept themselves out.

The pale moon is sinking in a clouded heaven, the night is sad, it seems

to me that all creation is oppressed by the ill-fortune which has

crushed our love.

"Anania, why did you deceive me?

"As you say, I knew what you were, and I loved you just because I am

above vulgar prejudice, and I wished to make up to you for the injustice

of fate. But I believed you also were superior to prejudice, and were

giving up all for me as I had given up all for you. Now, it seems, I

have been deceived. You have deceived me, hiding your real sentiments. I

believed and I still believe, that you knew your mother was alive and

even where she was, and what sort of life she was leading (indeed, every

one knew that!) but that you had no affection for this unnatural mother,

who had deserted you, and was your misfortune and dishonour. You

considered her dead for you and for every one. And I was quite sure that

if ever she thrust herself upon your notice, which I suppose is what has

happened, you would not condescend even to look at her. But on the

contrary, you want to drive away her who has loved you so many years and

will always love you, and to sacrifice your life and your honour to one,

who (if she hadn't had an easy place to drop you into) was quite ready

to kill you, or to leave you in a wood or a wilderness, a prey to

starvation and terror, just that she might set herself free!

"But why should I write all this? Surely you know it? Why do you try to

deceive me? Why do you appeal to sentiments which I can't possibly

entertain, and which I don't believe you entertain yourself? You aren't

going to do this stupid thing out of affection or out of generosity--I'm

sure you really hate the woman--but just out of regard to these same

vulgar prejudices which 'were invented by men to make all equally

miserable.' Yes, yes! You want to sacrifice yourself and to ruin me,

only for the glory of saying, '_I've done my duty!_' You are a silly

boy, your dreams are dangerous, and what's worse, ridiculous. People may

praise you to your face; behind your back they will laugh at your

simplicity.

"Anania, be yourself, be kind to yourself and to me. Be a _man_! No, I

don't bid you abandon your mother if she's weak and unhappy (though she

abandoned you). We can help her, give her some money, but we must keep

her at arm's length. I won't have her coming between us and upsetting

our life. I won't. You see I don't deceive you, Anania. I can't in the

most distant way admit the possibility of living with her. It would be

hideous, a daily tragedy. Better to die once for all, and have done with

it, than die daily of resentment and disgust. I might pity the wretched

creature, but I should never love her. If you persist in this mad idea,

you'll make me loathe her even worse than before. This is my last word;

aid her, but keep her far away, so that I may never lay eyes on her, so

that our world in which we live may ignore her existence.

"I daresay she'll prefer to be out of your sight. Your presence ought to

mean to her continual remorse. You say she has grown old with grief and

privation, that she's poor and ill. Well, it's all her own fault. It's

much better for you and for herself that she should be like that; for

then she can't go roaming about the world and inflicting more disgrace

upon you. But she, who didn't hesitate to outrage you when she was young

and strong, mustn't now make a weapon of her weakness and want to

destroy your happiness. No! no! you must never permit such a thing. No,

no, it's impossible you should act upon such a fatal aberration! Unless

it is that you don't love me any longer, and seek an excuse to----But I

am not going to doubt you and your loyalty and your love. Don't be so

wicked and cruel to me, when I have sacrificed to you all my youth, and

all my dreams, and all my future.

"There! I tell you I'm crying as I write. Remember our love, our first

kiss, our oaths, our plans--all--all. Don't reduce all that to a handful

of ashes; don't kill me with disappointments, don't act so that

afterwards you will repent your madness. If you won't listen to me,

consult any sensible persons, and they'll all tell you not to be

ungrateful and wicked and vain-glorious.

"Why, only yesterday you told me you had called my name from the summit

of the Gennargentu, and proclaimed your love eternal and superior to all

other human passion! Were you lying? and only yesterday? Why do you

treat me like this? What have I done to deserve it? Have you forgotten

that I love you? Have you forgotten that evening when I stood at the

window and you threw me a flower after kissing it? I keep that flower to

sew it into my wedding-dress, and I say _keep_, because I am sure that

you really are going to be my bridegroom, and that you don't intend to

kill your Margherita (remember your sonnet), and that we are going to be

so happy alone together in our own little house.

"It is I, who am waiting for a word of hope from you at once. Tell me

it's all a horrid dream. Tell me you have recovered your reason, and are

sorry for having made me suffer.

"To-morrow night, or rather this night, for its already morning, I shall

expect you. Don't fail me. Come, my adored one, my darling, my beloved

bridegroom, come! I shall expect you as a flower expects the dew after a

day of burning sun. Come! revive me, make me forget. My lips shall be

laid on yours like----"

"No! no! no!" cried Anania convulsively, crumpling the letter before he

had read the last lines, "I won't come! You are bad! bad! bad! I shall

die, but I shan't see you again!"

With the letter crushed in his hand, he threw himself on his bed,

burying his face in the pillow, biting it, restraining the sobs which

rose in his throat. A shudder of passion ran through him, rising like a

wave from his feet to his head. The last lines had filled him with

tumultuous desire for Margherita's kisses, a desire as violent as it was

despairing.

Little by little he regained self-control and knew what he was

experiencing. He had seen the naked Margherita, and he felt for her a

delirious love, and a disgust so great as to annihilate that very love.

How mean, how despicable she was! and consciously. The goddess, veiled

in majesty and goodness, had thrown off her golden robes, and appeared

naked, daubed with egotism and unkindness. The taciturn minerva had

opened her lips to curse. The symbolic image had burst like a fruit rosy

without, black and poisonous within. She was complete woman with all her

savage wiles.

But the worst torment was the thought that Margherita guessed his secret

sentiments. That she was right in reproving his deceptions, in asking

the fulfilment of his duties of gratitude and love.

"It's all over!" he thought. "It was bound to end like this."

He got up and reread the letter. Every word offended and humiliated him.

Margherita had loved him out of compassion, believing him as despicable

as she was herself. Probably she had meant him to be just an instrument

of her pleasure, a complacent servant, a humble husband. No, probably

she had not thought of anything like that, but had loved him by mere

instinct, because he had been the first to kiss her, to speak to her of

love.

"She has no soul!" thought the poor boy. "When I raved, when I rose to

the stars and swelled with superhuman joy, she was silent because in her

there was emptiness. And I was adoring her silence, and thinking it

divine! She spoke only when her senses were awaked. She speaks now

because she's menaced with the vulgar annoyance of being given up. She

has no soul, no heart! Not one word of pity! Not the modesty to conceal

her selfishness. And she's ignorant too. Her letter is copied and

recopied, yet even so it's badly expressed. But the last lines--there's

her art! She knew the effect they'd produce. She knows me perfectly, and

I am only now beginning to understand her. She wants to allure me to the

meeting, because she thinks she can intoxicate me. Deceit! deceit! But I

see through her now. Ah! not one kind word, not a single generous

impulse, nothing! nothing! How horrible!"--(again, he crumpled the

letter)--"I hate all women! I shall always hate them! I'll become bad

myself! I'll grind you all to powder and spit upon you. I'll make you

all suffer! I'll kill you, tear you to pieces! I'll begin this instant!"

He took the _rezetta_ still wrapped in the coloured handkerchief, rolled

it in a newspaper, sealed and despatched it to Aunt Grathia. "It's all

over," he repeated. And he seemed to be walking through emptiness, over

the cold clouds as on the ascent of Gennargentu. But now vainly he

looked down or around him; there was no path of escape, all was cloud,

infinite giddiness. During the day he thought of suicide, a hundred

times.

He went up and took information as to what examinations and public posts

were open to him, and how soon he could present himself as a candidate.

He went to the tavern and seeing the handsome Agata (now betrothed to

Antonino) he kissed her. Whirlwinds of hate and of love for Margherita

shook his soul. The more he read her letter, the more he felt her

paltriness; the more he felt himself alienated from her, the more he

loved and desired her. Kissing Agata, he remembered what excitement the

beautiful peasant's kiss had roused in him on that former occasion. Then

Margherita had been so far above him, a whole world of mystery and

poetry had divided them; and this same world, fallen to ruins, divided

them now.

"What's up with you?" asked Agata, making no objection to his kiss.

"Have you quarrelled with? What are you kissing me for?"

"Because I like it, because you're coarse----"

"You've been drinking!" laughed Agata. "Well if that's your fancy in

women, you can have Rebecca. But suppose Margherita hears of it----"

"Hold your tongue! Don't dare to mention her name!"

"Why not? She's going to be my sister-in-law. Is she any different from

me? She's a woman like the rest of us. I doubt she's even rich. If she

was certain she'd be rich, she'd only keep you on till she found a

better match."

"If you don't hold your tongue I'll strike you!" said Anania furiously.

"Oh, you're drunk! Get away! go to Rebecca!" repeated Agata.

Her insinuations completed Anania's torment; he now believed Margherita

capable of anything.

He went to bed early that evening, complaining of imaginary fever. He

thought of staying in bed to-morrow, hoping that Margherita would hear

he was ill. He even arrived at imagining that she, believing him very

ill indeed, would come secretly to visit him. This dream melted him

completely; he shook with emotion thinking of the scene that would

follow. Then suddenly the dream appeared what it was, childish

sentimentality. He was ashamed of himself, got up and went out. At the

accustomed hour, he stood before Margherita's door. She opened it

herself. They embraced, and both were moved to tears. But as soon as

Margherita began to speak, he felt an immense displeasure; then a sense

of frost, much as he had felt in looking at his mother.

No! no! he no longer loved her! He no longer desired her! He rose and

went away without uttering a word.

At the end of the street he turned back, leaned against her door, and

called--

"Margherita!"

But the door remained shut.

[Footnote 23: A local expression meaning, "nothing but what I

wear."]

IX

"_September_ 20_th._ Midnight.

"Your behaviour last night has finally revealed your character. I should

suppose it needless to declare that all is over between us, were it not

that you take my silence for a sign of humiliating expectancy. Good-bye,

then, for ever.

M."

"P.S. I wish my letters returned, and I'll send you yours."

"NUORO, _September_ 20_th._

"MY DEAR GODFATHER,--I intended to visit you and explain by word what

now I must write to you, for at this moment, I have received from Fonni

news of my mother's dangerous illness, and I must go to her at once.

This, therefore, is what I have to tell you.

"Your daughter informs me that she withdraws her promise of marriage,

which we had arranged together, with your consent. If she has not

already done so, she will explain to you her reason for this decision,

which, of course, I accept. Our characters are too unlike for us to be

united. Fortunately, for us and for those who love us, we have made this

sad discovery in time. It may make us unhappy now, but it will prevent

an error which would be the misfortune of our whole lives. Your daughter

will surely attain the happiness which she deserves, and will meet some

man who is worthy of her. No one will wish her greater happiness than I

do. As for me--I will follow my destiny.

"Ah! dear godfather! when you have had the explanation from Margherita,

don't, don't accuse me of ingratitude and of pride, whatever happens.

Whether or not I am allowed to fulfil grave duties to an unhappy mother,

I know every relation between me and you, or any of your family, is at

an end. I renounce all favours, which indeed would now be absurd and

humiliating to us all, but in my heart I shall retain as long as I live

the sincerest gratitude for all your goodness to me. In this sad hour of

my life, when circumstances make me despair of everything and everybody,

and especially of myself, I still look up to you, my godfather, and

remember your kindness and charity which has guided me from the first

hour I knew you, and which still preserves my faith in human goodness.

And the duty of gratitude to you, makes me still wish to live, though

the light of life is failing me on all sides. I have no more to add; the

future will explain to you the real nature of my thoughts, and will, I

hope, prevent your repenting of your kindness, to--Your ever most

grateful.

"ANANIA ATONZU."

At three o'clock, Anania was already on his way to Fonni, riding on an

old horse blind of an eye, which did not travel so fast as the occasion

demanded. But alas! why hide the truth? Anania was not in a hurry,

although the driver of the coach, Aunt Grathia's messenger, had said.

"You must start at once; it is possible you may find _the woman_ already

dead."

For a time Anania could think of nothing but the letter which he had

himself consigned to Signor Carboni's servant.

"He'll be angry with me," thought Anania, "when Margherita tells him of

my strange excuses, he'll think she's in the right. Of course, any girl

would have done what she has done. I suppose I am quite wrong, but still

who ever the girl was, I should have acted the same. Perhaps I ought to

have said in my letter that I was to blame, but that I simply _couldn't_

do anything else. But no, they wouldn't understand, just as they won't

be able to forgive. It's all over."

Suddenly he felt an impulse of joy at the fact that his mother was

dying; but at once he tried to shudder at himself.

"I'm a monster!" he thought; but his relief was so great, so cruel, that

the very word "monster" seemed farcical, almost amusing. However, after

a few minutes he was really shocked at himself.

"She's dying; and it's I who have killed her. She's dying of fear,

remorse, suffering. I saw her sink down that day, with her eyes full of

despair. My words hurt her worse than a blow. What a lurid thing is the

human heart! I'm rejoicing in my crime; I'm rejoicing like a prisoner

who has gained his freedom by murdering his gaoler, while I'm thinking

Margherita despicable, because she says bluntly that she can't love a

bad woman. I am far worse, a hundred times worse than Margherita. But

can I alter my feelings? What whirlwind of contradictions, what malign

force is it that draws and contorts the human soul? Why can we not

overcome this force even when we recognize and hate it? The God which

governs the universe is Evil! a monstrous God, living in us as the

thunderbolt lives in the air, ready to burst forth at any moment. And

that infernal power which oppresses and derides us--Good Lord! perhaps

it will make the poor wretch better and entirely cure her, to punish me

for rejoicing at the expectation of her death!"

This idea depressed him for some moments, and he felt the horror of his

depression as he had felt the horror of his joy, but was powerless to

conquer it.

Sunset enfolded him as he ascended from Mamojada to Fonni; great peace

overspread the rose-tinted landscape. The shadows, lengthening on the

golden carpet of the stubble, suggested persons asleep, and the glowing

mountains blended with the glowing sky, in which the moon already showed

its shell of pearl. Anania felt his heart softening. His spirit raised

itself towards the pure and mystic heaven.

"Once I imagined I was kind-hearted," he thought; "delusion--mere

delusion. I exalted myself when I thought of _her_, and when I thought

of Margherita too. I fancied I loved my mother, and could redeem her,

and thus make my existence some use. Instead of that, I have killed her!

What must I do now? How shall I use my freedom, my miserable

tranquillity? I shall never be happy again. I shall never again believe

in myself or in any one else. Now truly I know what man is--a vain

though fiery flame, which passes over life and reduces everything to

ashes, and goes out when there is nothing left for it to destroy."

As he ascended, the marvel of the sunset increased; he stopped his horse

that he might contemplate what seemed a symbolic picture. The mountains

had become violet; a long cloud of the same colour made a darkness above

the horizon; between the mountains and the cloud a great sun, rayless

and blood-red was going down in a heaven of gold. At that moment, he

knew not why, Anania felt good; good, but sorrowful. He had arrived at

sincerely desiring his mother's recovery. He felt a measureless pity for

her; and the beautiful childish dream of a life of sacrifice dedicated

to the unhappy one's redemption, shone in his soul, great and terrible

like that dying sun. But suddenly he perceived that this dream was only

for his own comfort; and he compared his belated generosity to a rainbow

curved over a country devastated by storm; it was splendid, but

altogether useless.

"What shall I do?" he repeated in new despair, "I shall love no more, I

shall believe no more. The romance of my life is ended; ended at

twenty-two, the age when most men are beginning theirs!"

When he reached Fonni it was already night. The outline of the tiled

roofs showed black against the stainless moonlit sky. The air was

perfumed and very fresh. The tinkle of the goats returning from pasture,

could be heard, the step of the herdsman's horse, the bark of his dogs.

Anania thought of Zuanne and of his distant childhood, more tenderly

than when he had been at Fonni a few days ago.

He dismounted at the widow's door, inquisitive heads appeared at the

windows, the low doors, the wooden balconies of the opposite houses. He

seemed expected, a mysterious whisper ran around, and he felt himself

wrapped in it, straitened as by a cold and heavy chain.

"She must be dead!" he thought, and stood motionless beside his horse.

Aunt Grathia came to the door, a lamp in her hand. She was even more

ghastly than usual, her small, bloodshot eyes sunk in great livid

circles.

Anania looked at her anxiously.

"How is she?"

"Ah! she is well. She has finished her penitence in this world," replied

the old woman with tragic solemnity. Anania understood that his mother

was dead. He could not feel sad, but neither did he feel the expected

sense of relief.

"Good God! Why didn't you send for me sooner? When did she die? Let me

see her!" he said, with anxiety exaggerated, but partly sincere. He

entered the kitchen which was illuminated by a great fire.

Seated at the hearth Anania saw a peasant who looked like an Egyptian

priest, with a long square black beard, and wide opened, round, black

eyes. In his hands he held a large black rosary, and he looked at the

new-comer ferociously. Anania began to feel a mysterious disquiet. He

recalled the embarrassed air of the man who had brought him the news of

his mother's danger. He remembered that a few days ago he had left her

suffering but not gravely ill. He suspected they were trying to conceal

something from him. A terrible idea flashed through his mind. All this

in one moment while the widow who remained at the door was saying to the

black bearded man--

"Fidele, see to the horse. The straw is there. Make haste."

"At what o'clock did she die?" asked Anania, turning also to the peasant

whose black eyes, round like holes, impressed him strangely.

"At two," answered a voice of the deepest bass.

"At two? That was the hour when I got the news. Why was I not told

sooner?"

"You could have done nothing," said Aunt Grathia, who was still guarding

the horse. "Make haste, son Fidele!" she repeated impatiently.

"Why didn't you warn me," said Anania, stooping mechanically to take off

his spur. "What was the matter with her? What did the doctor say? God

knows I had no idea----Well, I'm going up to see her."

He straightened himself and moved towards the stair, but Aunt Grathia

still holding the lamp hastily prevented him.

"What, my son? The thing you will see is a corpse!" she cried in

horror-struck tones.

"_Nonna_! Do you suppose I'm afraid? Come with me."

"Very well."

The old woman preceded him up the wooden stair. Her deformed shadow as

tall as the roof, trembled on the wall.

At the door of the room where the dead woman lay. Aunt Grathia stopped

and hesitated. Again she pressed Anania's arm. He noticed that the old

woman was shivering; and, he knew not why, he shuddered himself.

"Son," said the widow, in a whisper "don't be shocked."

He grew pale; the thought deformed and monstrous, like the shadows

trembling on the wall, took form and filled his soul with terror.

"What is it?" he cried, guessing the fearful truth.

"The Lord's will be done."

"She killed herself?"

"Yes."

"My God! How horrible!"

He cried thus twice; it seemed as if his hair rose on his head; he heard

his voice resounding in the funereal silence of the house. Then he

collected himself and pushed the door.

On the pallet bed where a few night's ago he had himself slept, he saw

the corpse delineated under the sheet which covered it. Through the open

window entered the fresh evening air; and the flame of a wax candle

burning by the bedside seemed to wish to fly away, to escape into the

fragrant night.

Anania approached the bed; cautiously as if fearing to wake her, he

uncovered the corpse. A handkerchief covered with spots of darkened

blood, already dry, swathed the neck, passed under the chin, over the

ears, and was knotted among the thick black hair. Within this tragic

circle the face was drawn in grey, the mouth still contorted with the

death spasm. The vitreous line of the eyes was visible through the

heavy, half-shut lids.

Anania understood that she had severed the carotid artery. Horrified by

the spots of blood, he at once recovered the dead face; leaving,

however, the hair, which was twisted high on the pillow, partly exposed.

His eyes had darkened with horror, his mouth writhed as if in mimicry of

the contortion of the dead woman's lips.

"My God! my God! this is awful!" he said, wringing his hands, and

twisting his fingers. "Blood! She has shed her blood! How did she do it?

How was she able to do it? She has cut her throat! How horrible! How

wrong, how wrong I have been. Oh! my God! No, Aunt Grathia, don't shut

the window! I am stifled. It was I who bade her kill herself!"

He sobbed fearlessly--suffocated by remorse and horror. "She has died in

despair, and I did not say to her one word of comfort. She was my mother

after all, and she suffered in bringing me into the world! And I--have

killed her, and I--still live!"

Never as at that moment before the terrible mystery of death had he felt

all the greatness, all the value of life. To live! Was it not enough to

live--to move, to feel the perfumed breeze of the serene night--in order

to be happy? Life! the most beautiful, the most sublime thing which an

eternal and infinite will could create! And he lived; and he owed his

life to the miserable creature who lay before him, deprived of this

highest good! How was it he had never thought of that? Ah! he had never

understood the value of life, because he had never seen the horror and

the emptiness of death. And now she, she alone, had taken upon herself

the task of revealing to him, by the shock of her death, the supreme joy

of Life. She, at the price of her own life, had given him birth a second

time; and this new moral life was immeasurably greater than the first.

A veil fell from his eyes. He saw the contemptibleness of his passions,

of his past griefs and hatreds. Had he suffered because of his mother's

sin? Fool! What did that matter? What mattered a fact so trifling in

comparison with the greatness of life? And because Olì had given him

life, must she not represent to him the kindest of human creatures, to

whom he must be eternally grateful, whom he must always love?

He sobbed still, his heart filled with strange anguish through which

came to him the joy of mere life. Yes, he suffered; therefore he lived.

The widow drew to his side, took his wrung hands in hers, comforted and

encouraged him.

"We'll come downstairs, son; we'll come down. No, don't torment

yourself. She has died because she had to die. You did your duty; and

she--perhaps, she also did hers--although truly the Lord gave us life

for repentance, and bade us live----Let us come down, my son."

"She was still young!" said Anania, somewhat calmed, his eyes resting on

the dead woman's black hair, "No, Aunt Grathia, I am not upset, let us

stay here a moment. How old was she? Thirty--eight? Tell me," he asked

again, "at what hour did she die? How did she do it? Tell me all about

it."

"Come downstairs, then I'll tell you. Come!" repeated Aunt Grathia.

But he did not move. He was still looking at the dead woman's hair,

marvelling that it was so abundant and so black. He would have liked to

cover it with the sheet, but felt a strange fear of again touching the

corpse.

The widow performed this act of reverence, then taking Anania's hand,

led him away. His eye fell on the small table against the wall, at the

foot of the bed; but they went out and sat together on the staircase,

the lamp set on the boards by their side.

The widow narrated a long history, of which Anania ever retained in his

memory these sad fragments.

"She kept saying, 'Oh, I'll go! You'll see I shall go, whether he likes

it or not. I've harmed him enough, Aunt Grathia, now I must set him

free, and in such fashion that he shall never again so much as hear my

name. I'll desert him a second time to expiate the sin of my first

desertion.' Then she sharpened the knife on the grindstone, poor thing!

When we got the _rezetta_ in the coloured handkerchief, she grew so

pale; and she tore the packet and wept----Oh yes, she cut her throat.

Yes, this very morning at six, when I had gone to the fountain. When I

came back, I found her in a pool of blood. She was still alive--her eyes

horribly wide open.

"All the officials, the colonel, the Prætor, the Town-Clerk, they all

invaded the house. It was like hell! People crowded in the street, the

women cried like children. The Prætor took the knife and looked at me

with terrible eyes. He asked if you had ever threatened your mother. But

then I saw he also was in tears.

"She lived till midday. It was agony for everyone. Son, you know that in

my life, I have seen terrible things--never anything like this. No, one

doesn't die of sorrow and pity, for you see I am still alive. Ah! why

are we born?" she ended with tears.

Anania was deeply moved. This strange old woman, who had long seemed

petrified by griefs, wept; but he, he who only last night had wept for

love in Margherita's arms, he could not weep; remorse and anguish were

tearing at his heartstrings.

He got up and moved again towards the death-chamber.

"I want to look at something," he said tremulously.

The widow raised her lamp, reopened the door, let the young man pass in,

and waited. So sad she was, so black with that antique iron lantern in

her hand, she looked like the figure of death, vigilantly waiting.

Anania approached the little table on tip-toe. On it he had seen the

amulet and the little torn packet, laid on a sheet of glass. He looked

at it, almost superstitiously. Then he took it up and opened it.

There was in it only a yellow pebble, and some ashes; ashes blackened by

time.

Ashes!

Several times Anania touched those black ashes, which perhaps were the

relics of some love token of his mother's; those ashes which long ago

she had placed upon his breast that they might feel its deepest throbs.

And in that memorable hour of his life, the whole solemn significance of

which he knew he did not yet feel, it seemed to him that little heap of

Ashes was a symbol of destiny. Yes, all was Ashes; life, death, the

human kind; destiny itself which had produced them.

And yet in that supreme hour, shadowed by that figure of aged Fate,

which seemed Death in waiting,--in the presence of the remains of that

most wretched of all the daughters of men, who, after doing and

suffering wrong in all its manifestations, had died for another's

good,--Anania felt that among the ashes lurks the spark, the seed of the

luminous and purifying flame; and Hope returned to him, and he felt that

he loved life still.