Chapter VII: Part II: I (2)

"Margherita, I am alone in the world, for you are all the world to me. When I lose myself in the crowd, in the sea of unknown persons, it is enough for me to think of you, and my heart swells with love to them all, for your sweet sake. When your letters come, I am so happy I feel quite giddy. I seem to have attained the summit of some great mountain--if I stretch out my hand I shall touch the stars. It is too much! I dread falling--falling into an abyss, being reduced to ashes by contact with the stars. What would become of me, if, Margherita, if I should lose you? I laugh when you tell me you are jealous of the beautiful and cultured women whom I must be meeting here in Rome. No woman could be to me what you are. You are my life, you are my past, my home, my race, my dream. You are the mysterious wine which fills for me the empty cup we call Life. Yes, I like to fancy life a cup which we continually lift to our lips. For many this cup is never filled, and they try painfully to suck what is not there, and die slowly for lack of nourishment. But for others, and I belong to the happy number, the cup contains divine ambrosia. . . .

"I have interrupted this letter, because Battista came to see me. He seems getting into trouble with the two girls and wants to follow me here. We shall see. I will speak to my landlady about it. I don't bear malice, because as friend Pilbert assures me, hard words are things with no real existence.

"I return to my letter, quite upset by a confidence made to me a few minutes ago by Aunt Varvara. She tells me she knows Daga, having seen him here with the _padrona_ several times. I don't like it, for you must know Signora Obinu has not always borne the best of characters. I looked questioningly at Aunt Varvara but she shut up her lips and shook her head mysteriously. I promised next vacation to visit her old home and learn its history for her during the last thirty years. This pleased her so much that she let me catechize her a bit. I got out of her that Signora Obinu left children in Sardinia, one of whom has been adopted by a rich Signore of Campidano. Aunt Varvara thinks Battista Daga may be Maria Obinu's son."

Anania stopped writing, and read and reread the last few lines. A little black ant ran over the page and he looked at it with eyes full of thought. What _was_ this little being called an ant? Why did it live? Ought he to crush it with his finger or not to crush it? Was there such a thing as Free-Will?

At this time, though he was attending Ferri's lectures, Anania still believed in free-will. He sometimes committed small crimes just to prove to himself that he had willed to commit them. This time, however, he let the ant alone. It vanished under a book ignorant of the danger it had escaped. As often before, he tore up part of his letter. Then he leaned his forehead on his hands and reread the remainder, a wave of bitterness overflowing his heart.

"Yes," he thought, "I am too near the stars; I don't see the abyss into which I must ineluctably fall. Why do I continue to deceive myself? It's my mother she may be, and Battista Daga visits her because she is still--But why has he never spoken of her? After all, why should he speak? He has not confided his adventures to me. He comes here--because--Oh God! Oh God! I am the son of Maria Obinu! She knows my whole life. She told the old _jana_ in her own way that I have been adopted by a rich Signore. Has she left other children in Sardinia? No, that part must be a lie--she went away at once after deserting me. She said that as a blind. Oh God!"

Presently he sprang to his feet.

"I must find out," he thought, "I must know. Why this burning lamp, these pictures, these prayers,--if it's not for that reason. But I will unmask you, lost soul! I will kill you, chase you away, because you are my curse! because you will be the curse of that pure noble creature. Oh my poor, poor Margherita!"

He struck his fist violently on the letter, while his eyes flamed with hatred. Then again he sank on his chair, and dropped his head on the table. He wished he could burst his head, think no more! forget! annihilate himself!

He felt vile, black and viscid as a lump of mud. He felt himself flesh of the solid flesh of his mother, himself a sinner, miserable, abject. Tumultuous recollections passed through his mind. He remembered the generous ideas so often caressed, the dream of finding and rescuing her, the infinite pity for her ignorance and irresponsibility; the pride with which he had regarded his own compassion--the thirst for sacrifice. It had all been self-deception. A vague hint given by a childish old woman had sufficed to turn his soul to mud, to rack it with storm, to impel it towards crime. "I will kill her." Yes, those words were already a crime.

He thought of the peace he had enjoyed since he had been in this house, and raised his head struck by a new idea. During the week passed in this convent cell of Maria's, he had at the bottom of his heart accepted the idea that she was his mother, and the recognition of her redemption, of her honest and hard working life had made him happy. He had welcomed the thought of their relationship. His horizon had cleared. He was freed from a weight which had crushed and nailed him to the earth, and was now ready to fly to the stars. And since she, either for fear, or for self castigation, or for love of independence, refused to acknowledge him, then he was glad to renounce her--now her future was assured, her life purified. He could do her no good. He might harm her by intrusion. His _mission_ could not be accomplished; he was spared the solution of the cruel problem. He might now--after his long suffering--prosecute his life, tranquilly, happily. He had fulfilled his duty by the mere desire to fulfil it. And this ideal duty which had cost him so much had seemed to him so heroic as to fill his soul with pride. The stars were near.

But now the abyss had reopened. All within and without his soul was a lie; all delusion, all dream--even the stars.

But perhaps the thing he was thinking now was the delusion? If he were deceiving himself. If Maria were not _she_? He went back on his old thoughts. "Whether she is Maria or not, whether she is near or far, she exists and she calls me. I must return on my steps, begin again, find her dead or alive. Oh, if she were but dead!"

However, he waited for his landlady's return and to calm himself somewhat tried to analyse this passion which goaded him. But for that matter he knew well enough that the greater part of his trouble arose not from passion but from the fact that his Ego was made up of two cruelly contrasted personalities. One was the fantastic child, violent, melancholy, with sick blood in his veins, the child who had come down from his native mountains dreaming of an unreal world; who in his father's house had meditated flight without ever attempting it, who at Cagliari had wept wildly imagining that Marta Rosa could be his mother. The other was a being, normal and intelligent, who had grown alongside the morbid child, who saw clearly the unreality of the phantoms and nebulous monsters which were his torment, yet who had never succeeded in liberating him from the obsession. Continual conflict, cruel contradiction, agitated by day and by night these two personalities; but the fantastic and illogical child, victim and tyrant alike, always came off the victor. Often he had asked himself whether he would have suffered so acutely had he not been in love with Margherita; always he answered himself "yes."

Signora Obinu came home in the evening.

"I should like to speak to you," said her young lodger, opening the door. "Please come here a moment."

"What is it?" she asked, entering.

She was dressed in black, with an old hat of faded violet velvet. She had run up the stair and was panting, her face unusually red, her forehead hot and shining.

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

"The matter with me? nothing," she answered, surprised; then resumed her usual pleasant smile. "Why are you sitting in the dark? Well, what have you to say to me?"

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

She seemed struck by his voice and his frown, the more so that in the morning he had complained of not feeling well.

"How hot it is! Suffocating!" she said, "are you perhaps feeling it? Tell me what you want."

"First take off your hat," repeated Anania.

"Why?"

Anania was striking a match against the wall. He was thinking. "Better catch her suddenly before she speaks to that old monkey Aunt Varvara."

"What's become of the candle? Well, look here, a friend of mine came here--ah _su diaulu t'a fattu_, the devil made you, candle, that you won't light! What a beast of a candle!"

He raised his head and looked sharply at the woman who was quietly watching his efforts with the candle. "Battista Daga, another student, has been here. He wants a room. Can you give him one?"

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

"You know him, I think?"

"I? No."

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

Maria Obinu raised her eyebrows. She seemed trying to remember. Suddenly her face and her eyes burned.

"Look here," she said proudly, "if you mean that pale young man, with the crooked nose, and the look of mortal sin--tell him that in my house there is no place for him!"

"Why not? Please tell me. I assure you I know nothing against him. We slept for six months in the same room,--Daga and I. But I really don't know much about him--what he's up to. Tell me."

Anania had sat down by the table, inadvertently pushing the candle against the wall.

"I have nothing to tell you," answered the woman. "I'm not bound to give account to anyone. Let me alone. I live by my work and ask nothing from anyone. I'm better than the ladies to whom you gentlemen lift your hats! Ah!" she went on sighing heavily, "life is long! Days of trial will come to you young lads too! You will get to know the world, will find the hedge thick with serpents. They rise on every side of the path of life. You also will come upon the stone which will make you trip. And many, Signor Anania, many will never get up again. They will strike their heads against that stone and die of the blow. Perhaps those are the best off. Ah! but the Lord is merciful! The Lord is merciful!"

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

"She's acting," thought Anania.

"_Bostè est sapia che ì s'abba_"[17] he said ironically, "upon my word, I don't understand your sermon. What has it to do with Battista Daga? Tell me. Signora Maria."

"Move that candle! It's setting fire to the calendar! What are you thinking of!" cried the landlady, jumping up, "are you trying to ruin me?"

Anania moved the candle and clapped a dictionary on the burning almanac.

"What a silly boy! Doesn't he deserve a box on the ear?" said Maria, recovering herself and pulling the tuft of hair which fell on his forehead.

"Don't! don't!" cried Anania, shaking his head from her touch. A sudden recollection had shot through him. Yes--in a far distant place, in a long distant time, in a black kitchen guarded by the long funereal cloak of a bandit--Olì, exasperated by poverty and grief, used sometimes to pull the wild locks of a naughty little boy.

Anania was moved by the recollection. He seized Signora Obinu's hand and held it tight. Was it the same hand which had struck the child, the hand which had led him to the olive-mill.

"A silly boy!" repeated Maria, "if I hadn't been there, there'd have been a fine conflagration. Well, may I go away now?"

He raised his head and said:

"I feel as if I had seen your hand before now. Some other time this hand has pulled my hair, has boxed my ears, has caressed me----"

"Are you going crazy, Signor Anania?" she said, snatching her hand away.

"Signora Maria, do you believe in spirits? No? Yet they exist. I believe in them. Last night a friendly spirit came and told me many things, among them, that you are my mother."

Maria laughed, somewhat forcedly, as if wishing to hide something. The young man saw he had chosen a very childish method of approaching her. Yet if she was really his mother she could not fail to be upset, finding he had guessed it. However she laughed, perhaps trying to carry off some terror of informing spirits.

"You really are crazy. I only wish I were your mother!" she said.

The voice of Aunt Varvara was heard calling her mistress.

"I can't waste any more time," said Signora Maria, turning to go away.

"What shall I say to Daga?" said Anania, brushing his hair.

"Say that if he comes here, I shall throw him downstairs. Do you see?"

"No, I don't see. Signora Maria! wait! Explain to me, do! Don't go away! What does it all mean?"

But she vanished into the darkness of the ante-room, making no reply.

"Of course I do see," thought Anania shutting the door. "Well, is it any business of mine what Daga is? and what she is? Hasn't everyone their faults?"

[Footnote 16: A dwarf of Sardinian legend.]

[Footnote 17: A proverb. Wise as water, viz. very wise.]

V

The time of vacation was near.

"Aunt Varvara," said the student to the old servant as she was preparing the coffee. "How happy I am! I feel wings growing. A few more days--then good-bye! Yes, I have wings. I shall jump on the window-sill, cry zsss--ss--and off! I launch myself in flight, and there I am in Sardinia."

And he went to the window pretending to suit the action to the words.

"A-a-ah!" cried the old woman terrified, "do get down, sweetheart! You'll break your neck! Oh God!----"

"Well, if you'll give me some coffee, just one little cup, I won't fly just yet. How good your coffee is, my dear! How do you get it so good? No one can make it so well except my mother at Nuoro."

The old woman, greatly flattered, poured out a cup, which being the first from the pot was truly exquisite.

"Upon my word it is good!" said Anania, raising ecstatic eyes. "It gives me nostalgia."

"What's nostalgia?"

"A shudder of the heart, Aunt Varvara; that shudder which comes when we think of paradise. Would you like to come home with me, little aunt, on a pillion? think! what fun!"

The old woman heaved a tremendous sigh. "Ah--if it weren't for the sea. Are you very rich?" she asked suddenly.

"Of course I am."

"How many _tancas_ have you?"

"Seven or eight. I don't quite remember."

"And bees have you? And shepherds?"

"Aunt Varvara, I have everything."

"Then why have you come to this land of damnation?"

"Because my sweetheart wishes me to be Doctor of Law."

"And who is your sweetheart?"

"The daughter of the Baron of Baronia."

"Are there still Barons of Baronia? I have heard that phantoms haunt their castle. Once there was a woodcutter who spent the night under the castle wall, and he saw a lady with a long gold tail like a comet. Do you know what a comet is? By our Lady of Good Counsel! you'll kill yourself drinking so much coffee!"

"Go on with the story. What did the woodcutter do?"

Aunt Varvara went on. She mixed the legends of the Castello of the Castle of Burgos with those of the castle of Galtelli, confused historic records come down by popular tradition, with events which had happened in her own childhood, not it is true very recent. She told a story of a great lord who had lost his way on a moor, and not till he heard a little bell at evening dusk, could he find his way to an inhabited place. The great lord was very rich and very stupid, and he promised to leave all his wealth to the church whose bell he had heard. And ever after that, the bell has tolled at evening dusk so that lost men may be able to find their way.

"But that's the legend of St Maria Maggiore," said Anania.

"No, no, my dear little heart. It belongs to the church of Illori. I can tell you the name of the great rich man. It was Don Gonario Area."

"And the _nuraghes_," continued Aunt Varvara, walking about the steaming kitchen, "are there still _nuraghes_? You know when the Moors came to Sardinia to steal the cattle and the women, the Sardinians hid their money in the _nuraghes_. Stupid boy, why don't you look for treasure on your _tancas_?"

Anania thought of his father who had again written requiring him to visit the museums where antique gold coins are preserved.

"Once," continued Aunt Varvara, "I went to pick lavender near a _nuraghe_. I remember as if it were yesterday. I had the fever, and in the evening I had to lie down on the grass, waiting till some cart should pass which would carry me home, and this is what I saw. The heaven behind the _nuraghe_ was all the colour of fire--it looked just like a scarlet cloth. And suddenly a giant rose on the _patiu_[18] and started blowing smoke out of his mouth. The whole sky became dark. By our Lady of Good Counsel, it was horrible! But quite suddenly I saw St George with the full moon on his head, and a great sword shining like water in his hand. Tiffeti! Taffeti!" cried the old dame, flourishing a kitchen knife! "St George slashed off the giant's head, and the sky became quite bright again."

"You saw all that. Aunt Varvara, because you had fever."

"It may have been the fever, but I did see the giant and Santu Jorgi; yes, I saw them with these eyes!" asseverated the old lady, poking her fingers into her organs of vision.

Then she asked whether on the days of the greater feasts, horses still galloped along the edge of the cliff, decorated with coloured ribbons and ridden by half naked boys. And again whether for Sant' Antonio they lighted fires, and in the middle of the fires stuck stakes, on top of which were roasted oranges and pomegranates and arbutus berries, and dead rats.

Anania listened with pleasure to Aunt Varvara's suggestive stories and questions. Though the trains were shrieking within a few yards and the amorous cats were _miouing_ among the columns of the Pantheon, he so identified himself with the old woman's recollections that he fancied he had only to open the door, to find himself in a lonely Sardinian landscape on the top of a _nuraghe_ watched by a giant, or rapt in the savage excitement of a race of Barbs, in the company of a philosophic and contemplative old shepherd with soul turbid and great like the clouds. In the homesick babble of the aged exile he already felt the aroma of his native land, the breeze blown down from Orthobene and the Gennargentu. And he felt himself Sardinian, deeply, exclusively Sardinian.

"I mean to enjoy myself this vacation!" he said to his old Mend. "I shall attend all the Feasts, I shall visit the whole of my little native country. I shall climb on the Gennargentu, on Monte Raso, on the hill of the castle of Burgos! Yes, I'm determined to get up the Gennargentu. Perhaps, at Fonni, so and so, and so and so are still alive. And I wonder how the monks are getting on? and Zuanne?"

He was homesick like Aunt Varvara.

"Aren't _you_ ever going back?" he asked Signora Obinu one day when she came into the kitchen.

"I?" she answered rather drearily, "no, never again, never again!"

"Why not? Come to the window Signora Maria! look! What a wonderful moon! Wouldn't you like to go on pilgrimage to the Madonna di Gonare, in fine moonlight like this? on horseback, quietly, quietly through the woods, up the precipices--on--on--while you see the little church painted on the sky above you, high up--high up----"

Maria shook her head and pursed up her lips; but Aunt Varvara heaved all over and raised her eyes as if to find the little country church high up--high up against the soft blue of the moonlit sky.

"Except for you and your friends," said the landlady, "and the church and devotees of the Most Holy Madonna, I'd see all Sardinia burnt up sooner than go back there."

"But why?"

Aunt Varvara busy with her cooking shut her eyes, unable to protest out loud against her mistress's shocking hatred of the distant fatherland.

"Ah, my sweetheart," said the old woman when Signora Obinu had gone to the dining-room, "she has good reason! They murdered her there!"

"But she's alive still, Aunt Varvara!"

"You don't know what you're talking about! It's better to murder a woman than to betray her."

This threw him back into his doubts again.

"Aunt Varvara, you said it was a Signore who seduced her. Tell me his name. Try to remember it. Tell me, has the Signora any documents? Where would they be? I might help her to find the man; might persuade him to----It would be to your own interest as well."

"Persuade him to what?"

"To help her."

"She doesn't want help. She has money. Leave her in peace. She doesn't want to be reminded of her misfortune. Not a word! No! She'd strangle me if she knew I had talked about her."

"But her papers----" repeated Anania.

He had already searched for them in Signora Maria's room. She had no papers. She had destroyed all traces of her past.

The student was consumed with the desire to ascertain something definite before he went home. Why did he not take active steps, go back to the Questura, write to Sardinia, follow up the clue? Why had he allowed so much time to slip by in vain and cowardly inertia? Many a time he had resolved to bring on a crisis, to attack her and force her to reveal herself. After the inconclusive colloquy about Daga, he had actually allowed himself to chatter with her on irrelevant matters. There were days when he did not see her at all, or try to see her. "Yet I do want to know," he thought distractedly roaming the streets, which were still crowded but by an ever decreasing crowd. "If she is not my mother, why should I torment myself? But in that case, where, where is my mother? How is she living? Is she near or far? In the turmoil of the city, in this clatter which seems to me the voice of a thousand-headed monster, is her breath, her groan, her laughter, a part of it? And if she is not here, where is she?"

That night he had a touch of fever, caused perhaps by the unwholesome though poetic philtre of the dreams which he evoked almost nightly in the silence of the Coliseum. In his delirium he thought he saw the face of Maria Obinu bending over his pillow. Was it delirium? Moonlight and the vague reflection of an illuminated window lighted the patient's room. Behind Maria he saw a cavalier in eighteenth century costume, carrying a tray on which was a glass of champagne and Olì's amulet. He felt that the cavalier, motionless in the penumbra, was insubstantial; but the figure of the woman seemed real. He wanted to light a candle but he could not move. He seemed lying on the edge of a precipice upon a stone, which drawn by an occult force flew giddily towards an unattainable point followed by all things. After the first apparition of Maria he thought, "I have fever, I know that; but I'm certainly not wandering. It was she. I was wrong in pretending to be asleep. I ought to have simulated delirium to see what she would do. Perhaps she'll come back. Suppose I try and suggest it to her?"

"Come! Come!" he began, speaking half aloud and trying to impose his will on her. "Come, Maria Obinu! I _will_ you to come."

She did not come at once, and the strange course of the rock on which the sufferer imagined himself lying redoubled in velocity. Apocalyptic visions rose, mingled, vanished--monstrous clouds far in the depths of the fantastic abyss into which the soul of the sufferer gazed with horror. He saw the _nuraghe_ with the giant and the saint of Aunt Varvara's delirium. But the moon detached itself from the Saint and fled over the heaven. Two other moons red and huge appeared in pursuit. Cataclysm was imminent. An immense crowd trampled each other on the shore of a storm driven sea. The waves were marine horses, which fought with invisible spirits. A cry rose out of the sea: "The stepmother! the stepmother!" Anania shook with horror, opened his eyes and thought they had turned blue.

"What absurdities!" he thought. "Why should fever make one see such things?"

Then Maria Obinu came back. She advanced silently and bent over the patient.

"Now I'll pretend!" he thought, and began a feeble lament. But the woman said nothing.

"Oh God! Oh God!" murmured the youth, sighing aloud, "who is striking my head? Let me alone! Don't murder me! The moon is going out. Mother, do you remember the little song you taught me:"

"_Luna, luna, Moon, moon, Porzedda luna!_" Beautiful moon!

"Why won't you tell me you are my mother? Tell me! Tell me! I know it of course; but you ought to tell me yourself. Do you see the knight with the amulet you gave me that morning? Don't you remember that morning we came down, and the chaffinches sang on the chestnut trees and the clouds vanished behind Monte Gonare? Of course you remember! Tell me! Don't be afraid! I love you, we will live together! Tell me!"

The woman kept silence. The patient was overcome by a spasm of real tenderness and anguish, and began to rave in reality.

"Mother! Mother! speak to me! Don't make me suffer more. I am worn out. If you know what I have suffered! You are Olì, aren't you? There's no use in denying it. You are Olì. What have you been about? Where are your papers? Ah well, we'll be silent about the past. It's all over and done with. Now we will never part again. Oh don't go away! Wait! For God's sake, don't go away!"

He raised himself, his eyes wide; but the figure moved slowly away and disappeared. The knight with the tray was still there motionless in the penumbra, and everything was turning round. Again the figure returned and again it vanished. Anania continued to cry out that he saw his mother; and this impression, made up of sweetness and anguish, he retained even after the fever had left him.

Next morning he awoke early. His limbs seemed bruised as with blows of a stick. He got up and went out without asking for Signora Obinu.

For three or four nights the fever continued to trouble him; but between the phantasms of nightmare the figure of his mother did not return. That made him think. Had it been a real vision? If so, she must have been frightened by his words, and for that reason had kept away.

After this, exhausted by fatigue and the nervous tension of the Examinations, still moreover a little feverish, he daily resolved to solve the enigma, but always in vain. He thought, "I will summon her. I will supplicate, question, threaten. I will tell her the Questura has told me all, I will frighten her with the threat of exposure. She will confess. And suppose it is _She_--what next?"

Always this supposition stupefied and terrified him. Sometimes he imagined a dramatic scene between his long lost mother and himself; sometimes it seemed that not one fibre in his heart would be moved. Oftener he felt frozen, watching Signora Obinu, pale and smiling, with her worn dark dress, always busy, always quiet, unconscious, insensible.

A veil fell between him and the phantasm which had tormented him. Instead of the violent scene he had imagined, dull conversations about nothings took place between him and his landlady, simple Aunt Varvara joining in.

Only a few minutes before starting for his holiday he finally decided to leave the whole matter in suspense till his return. He felt weary, defeated. The heat, the examinations, the fever, the fantasies had exhausted him. "I will rest," he thought, "I will sleep. I need forgetfulness and sleep if I am to recover myself. I mustn't turn into a neurasthenic! I will go up to my native mountains, to the wild and virgin Gennargentu How long I have intended that excursion! I will visit the robber's widow; my brother Zuanne; the son of the candlemaker; and the court of the convent and that _carabiniere_ who sang--"

"'_A te questo rosario._'"

Then the thought of again seeing Margherita, of kissing her and immersing himself in love as in a perfumed bath, gave him a felicity which took his breath away. He almost wanted to flee from this devouring joy; but, driven out of his mind, it still ran in his blood, vibrated with his nerves, and swelled his heart in delicious pain. As he was starting. Aunt Varvara brought him a small wax candle which he was to carry to the Basilica of the Martyrs at Fonni, and Signora Obinu gave him a medal blessed by the Holy Father.

"If you don't value it yourself, unbeliever, give it to your mother," she said smiling, and a little moved. "Good-bye, have a good journey and come back safe. I'll keep the room for you. Get on well, and send me a postcard at once."

"Good-bye!" said Anania, taking the medal; "commend me to the Holy Souls in Purgatory."

"Of course I will," she said, shaking her finger at him, "they will protect you from temptation."

"Amen; and to our happy reunion."

"Good-bye!" he called again from the bottom of the stair, and Maria, leaning over the bannister, saluted him with her hand. When he had reached the street he thought of going back to see if she were in tears, stopped for a moment, but went on followed by Aunt Varvara almost crying herself.

"Son of my little heart," said the old woman, "greet for me the first person you shall meet on Sardinian ground. And don't forget the wax candle."

She went with him to the tram, notwithstanding her fear of the monster, and kissed him on his cheek. Anania remembered the kiss of poor Nanna before his departure from Nuoro, but this time he was touched, and he embraced Aunt Varvara asking forgiveness for all the times he had teased her.

Then all was left behind; the old woman who in parting from the young man wept her own exile; the dreary street where lived Maria Obinu; the Piazza at that hour scorching and deserted; the Pantheon sad as a cyclopean tomb; the cats dreaming among the great ruins.

Anania, his face brushed by a light breeze, felt happy as if freed from an incubus.

[Footnote 18: A court or platform round the _nuraghe_.]

VI

Before coming down to supper in his home, Anania stood at the window of his little room, struck by the deep silence of the courtyard, of the vicinity, of the whole country as far as to the horizon. He seemed to have become deaf. It was almost oppressive. But the voice of Aunt Tatàna resounded from the courtyard.

"Nania, my son, come down!"

He obeyed. A little table was laid expressly for him in the kitchen. His "parents," according to custom, took their supper seated on the floor, with meat and cakes in a basket before them. Nothing was changed. The kitchen was still poor and dark, but very clean. The stove was in the centre. The walls were adorned with trenchers and hunting spears, with great baskets, sieves and other utensils for sifting flour: in a corner were two woollen sacks containing barley. Near the narrow door, which was thrown open, hung the seed pouch and the rest of the fanning outfit.

A baby pig, tied to the elder tree in the courtyard, grunted gently, puffed and sighed. A red cat quietly placed himself by the little table and yawned, raising great yellow eyes to Anania. He was looking about him in a kind of stupor. No, nothing was changed; yet he felt somehow as if he were in this environment for the first time, with that tall peasant of the brilliant eyes and the long oily hair, with that pretty elderly woman, fair and fat as a dove.

"At last we are alone," said Big Anania, who was eating salad made into a sandwich with girdle cakes; "but you'll see they won't leave you long in peace. It'll be Atonzu here, Atonzu there! you're an important man now you've been in Rome. I, too, when I returned from my military service----"

"What sort of a comparison is that?" protested Aunt Tatàna.

"Do let me speak. I remember I had the greatest difficulty in talking dialect. I felt as if I were in a new world."

The student looked at his father and smiled.

"That's what I feel," he said.

"I daresay you do. After a while I got used to it; but as for you, after three days you'll be sick of this gossipy place and--and----"

His wife frowned and he changed the subject a little. "Eh! what a big place that devil of a Rome is to be sure! Give me the glass, my old beauty! What are you grimacing for? Why are you so important because you've a great man in the house?"

Anania guessed at some secret and said.

"What's the matter? Tell me. What's being said about me?"

"Nothing, nothing; let the crows caw," said the woman.

The lad was disturbed. Had something been heard at Nuoro of Maria Obinu? He put down his fork and said he would eat no more till he heard explanation.

"You're so hasty!" sighed the old woman. "King Solomon says the hasty man is like the wind----"

"Oh King Solomon still? I was hoping you'd forgotten him," said the young man roughly. She was silent, rather hurt. Her husband looked at her, then at Anania, and wished to punish him.

"King Solomon always said the truth. But what they're saying in Nuoro is that you're making love to Margherita Carboni."

Anania flushed. He resumed his fork and ate mechanically, while he stammered--

"The fools!"

"Why no, they're not fools," said the father, looking into his glass which was half full of wine. "If it's true, there's good cause to complain, for you ought to confess to the _padrone_. You might say 'My benefactor, I'm a man now and you must forgive me for having hidden my hopes from you, as I have hidden them from my own parents.'"

"Stop! You know nothing about it!" cried the son angrily.

"Ah! holy Saint Catherine!" sighed Aunt Tatàna, who had already forgiven him. "Let the poor, tired boy alone! There's time enough to talk of these matters, and you are only a peasant and no scholar, so you don't understand."

The man drank his wine; waved a hand to implore peace, and said quietly:--

"Yes, I'm ignorant and my son has been educated. That's all very well. But I am older than he. My hair's beginning to turn white. Experience, my wife, makes a man wiser than a Doctor of Law. My son, I will say to you one thing only; ask your conscience and see if it doesn't tell you this, that we must not deceive our benefactor."

The student thumped his glass on the table so violently that the cat shuddered.

"Fools! Fools!" he cried fuming. But he knew his father, that ignorant and primitive man, was right.

"Yes, my son," said the _contadino_, pushing the oily hair from his forehead, "you must go to your master, kiss his hand and say, 'I am the son of a peasant, but by your kindness and my own talents, I shall become a doctor and a gentleman and rich. I love Margherita and Margherita loves me. I will make her happy. I will make it up to her if she lowers herself to take the son of a servant for a husband. I ask your worship to bless us in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.'"

"And if he kicks him out?" said Aunt Tatàna.

The doubt was unflattering, and Anania laughed it off a little nervously.

"Be quiet, little woman!" replied the peasant, drinking again, "your King Solomon says women never know what they're talking about. When I speak I have already weighed my words. The _padrone_ will give his blessing."

"But suppose it's all nonsense?" cried Anania, uplifted with joy. He went to the door and whistled. He was bewildered. His heart thumped. He was submerged by a wave of felicity. He would have liked to ask his father questions, to tell the whole story, but he could not utter a word.

"The _padrone_ will give his blessing." The miller must have had his reasons for saying that! What could have happened? And why had Margherita never pointed out her father's favourable disposition? If she was ignorant of it, how could the dependent have found the thing out? "Within a few hours I shall see her and she'll tell me," thought Anania. His fatigue, his anxieties, his doubts, the joy itself of the new hope, melted away before the sweet thought, "I shall see her in a little while."

The door opened silently at the young man's light tap. "Glad to see you," whispered the maid, who was in the lover's confidence. "She's coming in one moment." "How are you?" he asked in an agitated voice; "here, take this little keepsake I have brought you from Rome." "You are always so kind," said the girl, receiving the little parcel. "Wait here for a minute."

The minute seemed an hour. He leaned against the wall of the courtyard under the veiled heaven of the dark and silent night. He shook with anxiety and joy; when Margherita ran panting to his arms he felt rather than saw her; felt her soft warm cheek, her lithe though not too slender waist, her heart beating against his own. Blinded by cruel inextinguishable thirst, he kissed her wildly, almost unconsciously.

"That's enough!" she said, the first to recover herself. "How are you? Quite well again?"

"Yes, yes!" he answered hotly. "Ah God! At last! Oh!" he went on, breathing hard and pressing her hand to his breast. "I am not able even to speak. I couldn't come to your window because--because they haven't left me a minute to myself. Even now I can't see you. If you had only brought a light!"

"Nonsense, Nino! We shall see each other to-morrow." She laughed softly, touching him with the palm of her hand which Anania held to his breast. "How your heart beats!" she said, "it's like a little wounded bird. Tell me, are you really better?"

"Oh, I'm quite well, quite well. Margherita, where are you? Is it possible we are together?"

He gazed hard, trying to distinguish her lineaments in the colourless vault of the clouded night. Great dark velvety clouds passed ceaselessly over the grey sky. An oval space of clear firmament surrounded by darkness looked like a mysterious face, its eyes, two red stars, leaning down to watch the lovers. Anania sat on the stone bench and drew the girl to his knee. Disregarding her protests he held her tight in the circle of his arms.

"No, no," she said, "I'm too heavy. I'm too fat!"

"Light as a feather," he affirmed gallantly. "But is it really true we are together?" he repeated. "It seems a dream! How often I have dreamed of this moment which I thought would never come! And now here we are together! united! united. I am going mad, I think! Is it really a fact that I have you here on my heart? Speak! Say something! Stick a pin into me to show me I'm not dreaming!"

"What do you want me to say? It's you have things to say. I wrote everything to you, everything. You speak, Nino! You are so good at talking! Tell me all about Rome. I don't know how to talk."

"On the contrary, you talk beautifully. You have such a lovely voice. I've never heard a woman speak like you."

"Stories!" said Margherita.

"I swear it's true! Why should I say what isn't true? You are the most beautiful, the gentlest, the sweetest of all girls. If you knew how I thought of you when my landlady's two girls in the first house flung themselves at me and at Battista! I felt as if they were some sort of plague struck creatures while you--you were a saint, soft and pure, and fresh, and lovely!"

"But I'm afraid I, too,--"

"That's quite different. Don't say such horrid things! You know I get vexed when you are cold. We are betrothed. Isn't it true? Aren't we going to marry each other? Tell me yes."

"Yes."

"Say that you love me."

"Yes."

"Don't say just Yes. Say it like this. I--love--thee."

"I--love--thee. If I didn't love you should I be here? Of course I love you! I can't express myself, but I do love you; probably more than you love me."

"It's not true. I love you most. But you do love me, yes I know it," he continued, becoming grave, "you who might aspire to anyone, you are so beautiful and so rich!"

"Rich? I don't know about that. Suppose I'm not?"

"I should like it much, much better."

They were silent, each grave, each following private thoughts; almost divided.

"You know," he said suddenly, following the thread of his own ideas, "I've been told your family has guessed our love. Is it true?"

"Yes," she said, after a short hesitation.

"Really? Really? Then your father is not angry?"

Margherita hesitated again. Then raised her head and said drily, "I don't know."

From her manner Anania understood something unfavourable, something unexpected which he could not make out. What was happening? Was the girl hiding some disagreeable secret? His mind flew to her, to his mother, to the distant phantom, and he asked if this shadow was coming between him and his love.

"You must tell me frankly," he said, distractedly caressing her hands, "what is going on? Am I to be allowed to aspire to you or not? May I go on hoping? You know what I am; a poor dependent on your family; the son of one of your servants."

"What nonsense!" she exclaimed impatiently. "Your father isn't a servant. Even if he were, he's a man respected and honoured by everyone, and that's enough."

"Honoured and respected!" Anania repeated to himself, pierced to the soul. "Oh God, she is not honoured and respected!" But he reflected at once that Margherita would not talk like this if she were thinking of _that woman_. Probably the Carboni's all thought Olì was dead. She must have something else on her mind.

"Margherita," he insisted as calmly as he could, "I must have you open your whole heart to me. I want you to advise me what I ought to do. Shall I wait? Shall I ask? Conscience and pride too bid me go to your father and tell him at once. If I don't, he may think me a traitor, a man without any loyalty or honour. But I'll do whatever you tell me. Only I won't give you up. That would be my death! I am ambitious as you know. I say it proudly because if only you'll stick to me, my ambition will come to something. I'm not like most fellows, Sardinians especially, who expect to succeed at once and have no staying power, and do nothing but envy those who do succeed. Battista Daga for instance! He's all envy and hatred. He was quite pleased when _Le Maschere_ was hissed at the Costanza! But I'm not envious. I can wait calmly, and I shall succeed. I don't say I'll ever be famous, but I shall achieve a good position. I'm sure of it. As soon as I've taken my Degree, I shall enter for the higher examinations. I shall live in Rome and work and push myself forward. But I repeat I shall do all this only for you. Woman is at the bottom of every man's ambition. Some are afraid to say that. But I say it frankly. I'm proud to say it. I've always told you so, haven't I?"

"Yes," said Margherita, carried away by his enthusiasm.

He went on: "You are the goal of my whole life. Some men live for art or for glory, or for vanity; and some live for love. I'm one of those. I seem to have loved ever since I was born, and I shall love on to the last of my age. You! always you! If you should fail me, I shouldn't have the strength or even the wish to do anything. I should die morally. Physically too I expect. If you were to say, I love someone else----"

"Hush! be quiet!" commanded Margherita. "Now it's you who are blaspheming. Dear me! is that rain?" A drop had fallen on their linked hands. They looked up at the clouds which were passing slower now. They had become more dense; nebulous and torpid monsters.

"Listen," said Margherita, speaking a little hurriedly and absently, as if apprehensive of the rain, "we aren't half so rich as we were. My father's affairs are going badly. He's been lending money to everybody who asked for it, and they--never give it back. He is too good-hearted. That everlasting lawsuit about the forest at Orlei is going against us. If we lose, and I expect we shall, then I shall no longer be rich."

"You didn't write me all that."

"Why should I? Besides I didn't know it myself till a few days ago. I declare it _is_ raining!"

They got up and stood for a few minutes under the verandah. Lightning shone among the clouds, and in that flash of lilac flame, Anania saw Margherita pale as the moon.

"What's the matter? What is it?" he asked, pressing her to him. "Don't be afraid for the future. You mayn't be rich, but you will be happy. Don't be frightened."

"Oh no! I'm only thinking about my mother who's so afraid of lightning she will be getting up out of bed. You must go now," she ended, pushing him gently away.

He had to obey. But he lingered a good while under the doorway waiting for the rain to stop. Sharp flashes of joy illuminated his soul as the flashes of metallic lightning illuminated the night. He remembered a wet day in Rome when the thought of death had cloven his soul like a shaft of lightning. Yes, joy and grief were much alike; devouring flames, both of them.

As he made his way home under the last drops of rain he accused himself of selfishness.

"I'm pleased by the misfortunes of my benefactor," he thought. "That's mean!"

Next morning he wrote to Margherita telling her of many heroic projects. He would give lessons so as to continue his own studies without being a further drag on her father. He would visit Signor Carboni and make a formal proposal of marriage. He would explain to the family which had patronized him that he would become its prop and its pride.

He was finishing his letter at his open window, enjoying the dewy morning silence and the fragrance from the rain-freshened fields, when he heard an outburst of uncontrollable laughter, and turning saw Nanna, ragged and trembling, her eyes tearful, her ugly mouth open, in her hand (and in imminent danger of upsetting) a brimming cup of coffee.

"Still alive, Nanna?" he said. "Good-morning."

"Good-morning to your Worship. I wanted to startle you, that's why I asked Aunt Tatàna to let me bring the coffee. Here it is. My hands are quite clean, your Worship. Oh, what a delight, what a consolation!" she cried, crying and laughing.

"Where's the Worship you are talking to? You must say 'Thou' to me. Give me that coffee and tell me the news."

"The news? Oh, we go on living in dens like the wild beasts we are. How can I say 'Thou' to your Worship who is a resplendent sun?"

"What? no longer a sugar plum?" said Anania, sipping the coffee from the antique gold sprigged cup and thinking of Aunt Varvara.

"Ah, my dear! forgive me. I always think of you as a little boy. Do you remember the first time you came from Cagliari? Yes, little Margherita was at the window watching for you. Doesn't the moon watch for the sun?"

Anania set the cup on the window ledge. He breathed hard. How happy he felt! How blue was the sky, how sweet the air! What grandeur in the silence of humble things, in the air not yet stirred by the turmoil of civilization. Even Aunt Nanna no longer seemed horrible; under the unclean exterior of that poisoned body, palpitated a warm heart, a poetic soul.

"Listen to those lines!" cried Anania, and he recited gesticulating--

_Ella era assisa sopra la verdura Seated she was upon the verdure fair Allegra; e ghirlandetta avea All joyous; and a wreath had contesta: fashioned; Di quanti por creasse mai natura To paint the radiant vesture she did wear Di tanti era dipinta la sua vesta Each flower that blooms its brightest hues had shed. E come in prima al giovin pose When of the youth's advance cura she first was ware Alquanto paurosa alzò la testa: With motion half of fear she raised her head, Poi con la bianca man ripreso il Then lifting her robe's hem lembo with one white hand, Levossi in piè con di fior pieno She rose, and so with un grembo._ flower-filled lap did stand.

Nanna listened without understanding a word. She--opened her lips to say--to say--At last she said:--

"I've heard that before."

"From whom?" cried Anania.

"From Efès Cau."

"Liar! Now away with you at once, or I'll beat you. No, wait a minute! tell me everything that has happened at Nuoro this year."

She began a strange rigmarole, mixing up her own affairs with the events of the town. Every now and then she returned to Margherita.

"She's the lovely one! The rose of roses! the pink! the sugar plum! Oh and her clothes! Oh God, never have been seen such marvels! When she passes people watch her like a shooting star. A gentleman charged me to steal a scrap of her scarf. He wanted to wear it on his heart. The maid up there at Carboni's says that every morning her young lady finds on her window a love letter tied up with a blue ribbon. But the rose can't do with anything except a pink. Well, well! hand me thy cup!" concluded the babbler giving herself a slap on the mouth, "it's no good! I knew your Worship when he had a tail and I can't say _Lei_[19] to him."

"And pray when had I a tail?" asked Anania, threatening her with his finger.

Nanna ran away, shaking and laughing, her hand over her mouth. From the courtyard she shouted up to the student who was leaning out of his window--

"It was the tail of your shirt, your Worship!"

Again Anania threatened her and again Nanna shook with laughter; the little pig, now loose, snuffed at the woman's feet; a hen jumped on its back and pecked its ears. A sparrow perched on the elder, swinging on the end of a twig. And Anania was so happy that he sang another verse from Poliziano:

_Portate, venti, questi dolci versi Breezes, upon your wings these verses bear Dentro all' orecchie della Ninfa And breathe them in my mia; Ladye's ear for me; Dite quanti per lei lagrime versi, Speak of the many tears I've shed for her. E la pregate che crudel non sia; And pray her sore to quit this cruelty; Dite che la mia vita fugge via, Tell her my life's sad course is almost run, E si consuma come brina al sole._ Wasted, consumed, like hoar frost in the sun.