PART I (continued 3)

But now the cerulean heights of his native Barbagia vanished at the horizon. One peak of Orthobene towered behind the others, violet against the pale sky. Still an outline—a point, one alone—then nothing. The mountains were setting like the sun or moon, leaving a pensive twilight in the soul of the spectator.

Good-bye, good-bye! Anania felt a moment's sadness, then again his thoughts turned to Margherita's kiss. Ah! he seemed to have the delicious creature beside him. The vivid impression of her person, the electric contact of her fresh lips, still gave him delirium. At moments he shivered. Had it not all been a dream? If she were to forget? or to repent? But hope soon returned: pride, intoxication, and the joy in his new existence, endured for days. Everything went well with him. Fortune favoured him in the smallest things. Arrived at Cagliari, he found at once a delightful room with two balconies to the windows. From one he could see the hills and the great luminous sea, sometimes so calm that the reflection of steamers and sailing-boats was clear as if engraved on steel. From the other, almost the whole town was visible, rising like a Moorish city in bastions to the castle, overgrown with palms and flowers.

At first Anania liked this balcony best. Beneath was a wide white street, opposite a row of small old houses tinted with rose colour (like old painted beauties), and with Spanish balconies full of carnations and of ragged coloured garments put out to dry in the sun. Anania scarcely noticed the cottages. His fascinated eye passed on to the grand view of the Moorish city, where coloured houses rose one above the other to the pyramid of mediæval towers profiled against an oriental sky.

At the end of October it was still summer. The air was impregnated with strange fragrance, and the ladies who passed under Anania's balcony were dressed in muslins and gauze. The student felt himself in an enchanted land. The scented and enervating air, the new conveniences of his fine room, the pleasure of a new life, all combined to give him a sense of dream. He fell into a somnolent languor, through which the impressions of his new existence and the records of his recent past came to him veiled and sweet. Everything seemed beautiful and grand—the streets, the churches, the houses. And oh! how many people there were at Cagliari! What fashion! What luxury!

The first time he passed before the Caffé Montenegro, and saw the smart young men sitting there with their straight moustaches and their yellow shoes, he remembered with a strange feeling of contrast the toil-stained, unkempt figures who assembled at the mill. What was going on there now? The humble life of the poor neighbourhood was certainly pursuing its melancholy course, while here in the shining Caffé, in the luminous streets, in the tall, sunlit, wind-kissed, spray-freshened houses all was light and luxury and joy.

His happiness was increased by a letter from Margherita, first of many. It was a simple, tender letter, written on large white note-paper in a round, almost boyish hand. Anania had been expecting a little azure epistle with a flower in it. Was this unconventionality to show him her superiority? But the simple and affectionate expressions of this girl, who seemed in her first letter to be continuing a long and uninterrupted correspondence, convinced him of her ingenuous and deep love, of her sincerity and force of character. He experienced an ineffable joy. Every evening, said Margherita, she stood long hours at the window, fancying that at any moment he might pass by. Their separation was a great pain, but she comforted herself thinking he was working and preparing for their future. She told him where to direct his reply, and enjoined the greatest secrecy, for of course if her family suspected their love it would be vigorously opposed. Vibrating with love and happiness, Anania wrote his reply at once. He was, however, remorseful at the thought of deceiving his benefactor, and could hardly satisfy himself with the sophistry: "Making the daughter happy is doing good to the father."

He wrote of the marvels of the city and of the season. "At this moment the frogs are croaking in the distant gardens, and I see the moon rising like an alabaster face in the warm twilight heaven. It is the same moon that I used to watch from Nuoro, the same round melancholy face that I used to see looking down on the rocks of Orthobene. Now it seems sweeter to me; how changed, how smiling!"

After posting the letter Anania felt the same impulse, to run to the fresh air of the mountains, that he had felt after posting the sonnet. He restrained himself somewhat, but walked swiftly towards the hill of Bonaria.

Evening was falling with almost Eastern softness. The moon shone pale through the moveless trees; above the mother-o'-pearl sea-line the blue of the heaven melted into green, furrowed with rosy and purple clouds. The broad road leading to the Santuario was deserted. He seemed in a dream.

Anania sat on the lofty terrace of the Santuario, broadly moonlit. He intoxicated himself with the splendid vision of the sea. The waves mirrored the light-permeated heaven, the rosy clouds, the moon: then broke themselves beneath the cliff, like immense shells of pearl dissolving into silver. Four sailing-boats, drawn up in line against the luminous background, seemed to Anania huge butterflies come down to drink and to rest upon the waters. Never had he been so happy as in that hour. Waves, great and resplendent as the sea, seemed rolling over his soul. He felt as if some beneficent sorcery had wafted him to a mysterious orient land, and dropped him on the threshold of an enchanted palace, open to receive him for ever.

By the moonlight, by the dying rays of day, he reread Margherita's letter. He kissed the sheet, put it away, and unwillingly rose to return to the town. As night came on, the moon seemed to strew the pathway with silver carvings and with coins. Far off a chorus of fishermen was heard, and still the pleasant croaking of the frogs. All was sweetness; but now the lad felt a strange invasion of melancholy, a presentiment perhaps.

For when he had reached the little garden of San Lucifero, he heard loud cries, shrieks, shrill screeching of women, oaths of men. He ran. Before the pink cottages opposite to his own balcony was a group of persons engaged in a quarrel. It would seem the neighbours were not astonished, for no heads appeared at the windows of the larger houses. Apparently the place was used to such scenes, to the madness of these persons who took each other by the ears, spitting out the grossest insults. Quite close was a big man dressed in black velvet, motionless, watching, it would seem enjoying, the excitement.

"The police! Where are the police?" cried Anania.

The man turned his eyes slowly on the young student. "The police? Oh, the police come every week. They give a push here, and a blow there, and finish it off. Next day it begins again. They'll have to turn those women out," said the big man, pointing at two of the brawlers. "I'll have to take it in hand myself, and get a petition to the authorities signed by all the respectable householders."

"But what women are they?" asked Anania, bewildered.

The big man looked at him contemptuously.

"Women of the streets, of course, innocent!"

Anania went in so pale and panting that his landlady observed his agitation.

"Never mind" she said, "it's only some stupid matter of jealousy. They'll soon be turned out. We're going to appeal to the government."

"Where do—those women come from?" asked Anania.

"One belongs to Cagliari. The other, I rather think, is from Capo di Sopra."

The shouts redoubled. A woman cried out she was being killed. A child sobbed. God! How horrible! Anania, trembling and attracted by some irresistible force, rushed to his balcony. Above him was the purest of heavens, the moon, the stars; below, at the foot of the vaporous picture of the city, the savage scene, the group of demons, belching forth roars of rage, abominable words. Anania watched in anguish, his soul oppressed by a tremendous thought.

Then came the police. Two of the brawlers ran away, the rest calmed down, the women shut themselves into their houses. In a short time all was silence, broken only by the distant rumble of a carriage, by the hoarse croaking of the frogs.

But in Anania's soul dolorous tumult raged still. Alas! the illumined sea which had flooded his soul while he poured over his letters on the hill of Bonaria, had grown dark, and was tossed and torn by tempest.

"Oh God! oh God! grant she may be dead. Have pity on me, Lord!" he sobbed that night, racked with insomnia and sad thoughts.

The idea had shot through his mind that one of the brawling women who lived in the pink cottage might be his mother. He no longer however thought that, for the landlady when she brought his supper had told him particulars of the women which would not fit for Olì. But what matter? If she were not here, she was there; in some unknown but real place; at Cagliari, in Rome, somewhere, she was living or had been living, a life like that of the women whom the decent inhabitants of the Via S. Lucifero wanted to chase from their vicinity.

"Why did Margherita write to me?" said Anania in anguish, "and why have I replied? That woman will always stand between us. What have I been dreaming? To-morrow I must write to Margherita and tell her all."

"But how can I tell her?" he asked, again turning and tossing on his bed. "And if that woman is dead? Why must I renounce my happiness? Doesn't Margherita probably know about my birth? If it shocked her, she would not have written to me. Yes, but she thinks my mother is dead, or at any rate dead for me. While I feel she is alive, and that it is my duty to seek her, and find her, and lift her out of hell. Perhaps she has reformed already. No, she hasn't. I am sure she hasn't! Oh, it's horrible! I hate her! I hate her, hate her! I'll murder her."

Atrocious visions appeared before his eyes. He saw his mother brawling with other women of her own sort, with lurid and bestial men. He heard cries. He shook with hatred and disgust.

At midnight he wept, smothering his sobs, biting the pillow, wringing his hands, tearing his breast. He snatched away the amulet Olì had given him on the day of their flight from Fonni, and flung it against the wall. Could he but tear out and hurl from him the whole memory of his mother!

Suddenly he marvelled at his tears, rose, and found the amulet, but did not again put it round his neck. He asked himself whether he would have minded so much about his mother if he were not in love with Margherita. He answered himself, Yes, just as much. A sort of emptiness filled his mind. He wearied of his self-torment. Then other thoughts came to him. He heard the moaning of the wind, the loud roar of the sea. He thought of a forest searched by the wind, silvered by the moon; he remembered the woods of Orthobene, where so often while he was picking violets the sound of the wind in the ilexes had seemed to him the sound of the sea. Then suddenly the cruel problem assaulted him with renewed fury. "Suppose she has reformed? It will be just the same, just the same. I've got to seek her, and find her, and help her. It was for my good she deserted me. Otherwise, I shouldn't have had a name or a place in society. If I had stayed with her I'd have been a beggar. I'd have lived in shame, I'd have been a thief, a criminal. But isn't it all the same? Am I not ruined just the same? No! no, it's not the same! I am the son of my own deeds. Only Margherita won't have me because—Oh why, why? why shouldn't she have me? Am I dishonoured? What fault is it of mine? She loves me. Yes, she loves me because I'm the son of my own deeds. And probably that woman is dead. Ah, why do I delude myself? She is not dead, I feel it. She's alive, and she is still young! How old is she? Thirty-three, perhaps; ah yes, quite young!"

The idea that she was still young softened him somewhat. "If she were fifty I couldn't forgive her, that would make it impossible. Oh, why did she desert me? If she had kept me with her she wouldn't have gone back into sin. I would have worked for her. By this time I'd have been a labourer, a shepherd, a workman. I should never have known Margherita. I should have been quite happy."

But the dream of what he might have been disgusted him. He did not love labour. He did not love poor people. He had endured the poverty of the environment in which he had lived till quite lately, only because he had good hope of rising above it in the future.

"My God, my God! grant she may be dead!"

"But why do I make this stupid prayer?" he asked angrily; "she is not dead! After all, why must I seek her? Didn't she give me up? I'm a fool. Margherita would laugh if she knew I was thinking anything so silly. And I'm neither the first nor the last illegitimate son who has raised himself and grown to be respected. Yes; but that woman is the shadow. I've got to find her and make her live with me, and live properly; and an honest woman won't ever live with us. Us! I and she are all one. To-morrow I must write to Margherita. To-morrow. Suppose she loves me still in spite of it?"

He felt almost faint at the sweetness of this thought. Then was conscious of its improbability and fell back into despair. Neither the next day nor later could he bring himself to write to Margherita. The unfulfilled resolve pursued him, goaded, prostrated him, as if he were a leaf in the grip of the blast.

"I will tell her by word of mouth," he thought; yet feared he would have even less courage for that, and reviled himself for a coward; then found unconfessed comfort in the shameful certainty, that this very cowardice would always hinder him from accomplishing what he called "his mission."

Often, however, this mission appeared so heroic that the idea of deliberately giving it up distressed him.

"My life would be pointless like the lives of most men, if I gave that up." And in these romantic moments he was not averse to the conflict between his duty and his love, love morbidly increased by the conflict.

After that evening of the brawl, Anania deserted the balcony which gave on the street. The appeal to the government was unsuccessful in uprooting the women, and the sight of the pink cottages hurt his eyes. However, going out and coming in he often encountered the two women, or saw them on their balcony among the carnations and the washed rags hung out to dry.

One of them, she of Capo di Sopra, was tall and lithe, with black hair and dark bright blue eyes. She it was who especially attracted Anania's attention. Her name was Marta Rosa; she was often drunk, and some days miserably attired, roaming the streets dishevelled, barefoot, or in old red slippers. At other times she wore a hat trimmed with feathers, and a smart cape of violet velvet. Sometimes she sat in her balcony pretending to sew, and sang in a voice fairly clear and melodious, the pretty stornelli[13] of her native place, interrupting herself to scream insolences to the passers-by who had mocked her, or to her neighbours with whom she was in continual hot water for seducing their sons or husbands. When she sang her voice reached to Anania's room, and he suffered keenly in hearing it.

Often she sang this stornelli:—

"Why doesn't she think what she's singing?" Anania asked himself; "why doesn't she think of death, and of God, and reform? But how can she reform? No one will give her work. Society doesn't believe in the repentance of such women. She could commit suicide; that's the only remedy!"

Marta Rosa filled him with pity and with rage. Though he knew where she came from, and what family she belonged to, he could not entirely get rid of the fancy that she might be his mother. At any rate his mother must be very like her. Hideous thought!

One evening Marta Rosa and her companion, a fair-haired woman, pitted with small-pox, stopped the student in the street, and invited him to visit them. He pushed the fair one away and fled, shivering with horror and disgust. Oh God! It seemed as if had spoken to him. After that the two woman jeered at him whenever they met. He signed a second and a third appeal to the Prefecture, but afterwards regretted he had done so.

Meantime the days passed on. The warm autumn was followed by a mild winter. Except on rare days of wind and dust, it felt like spring. Anania studied hard, and he wrote long letters to Margherita.

Their love was no different from that of a hundred thousand poor students and rich young ladies. But Anania thought no couple in the world had ever loved as they loved. Never had man been born who had felt fires like his. Notwithstanding the dread that Margherita might give him up if she knew about his mother, he was happy in his love. The mere thought of seeing the girl again gave him giddiness of delight He counted the days and the hours to the meeting. In the whole veiled and mysterious future, he discerned but one luminous point:—his return home for the Easter holiday, which meant the meeting with Margherita. As time passed on his fever increased. He remembered nothing but her blue eyes, her softly tinted cheeks. All other figures disappeared behind this beloved image.

During his first year at the Lyceum at Cagliari, just as at the Nuoro gymnasium, Anania made no friends, scarce even acquaintances. He sat at his books, or wandered solitary on the seashore, or stood dreaming on his balcony, from which he saw the shining picture of waves and sky, the sailing-boats and steamers apparently carved upon a metallic background.

One day, however, when it was nearing the hour of sunset, he went off towards Monte Urpino, beyond the groves where the almond trees had been in flower since the first days of January; and this excursion had its results. He discovered a pine forest with lonely, moss-carpeted paths. Between the rosy fir-stems patches of delicate brilliance were thrown by the sinking sun. On the left were visions of green meadow, of almond flower, of hedges red in the evening glory; on the right pine groves and shadowed banks, covered with iris blossoms.

The lad wandered hither and thither, full of delight. He could have gone on for ever. The foreground was delicious, but the distance was enchantment. He plucked the iris flowers, murmuring the name of Margherita. He ascended a hill green with asphodel, from which he had a vision of the city so red in the sunset, of the sea which seemed an immense cauldron of boiling gold. The sky flamed, the earth exhaled delicate fragrance. Little purple clouds lost on the horizon suggested a caravan with men and camels, vanishing in splendour. Anania felt so happy that he fluttered his handkerchief and cried aloud, saluting the invisible being who was the soul of the sea, the glory of the heaven, the spirit of that ineffable distance—Margherita!

After this that pine forest on Monte Urpino was the country of his dreams. He fancied himself its proprietor, and was irritated if he met other persons on the lonely paths. Often he lingered till it was night, was present at the red sea-reflected sunset, or sat among the irises watching the rise of the moon, great and golden behind the motionless pines. Once when he was seated on a grassy slope beside a little ravine, he heard the tinkle of grazing flocks, and home-sickness, as yet unknown, overpowered him. Before him, beyond the ravine, the path lost itself in the mystery of distance; the rose-flooded trees blended into the purity of the sky, the velvet moss caught the sunshine. Above the horizon Venus shone out, solitary and smiling, as if she had preceded the stars to enjoy the sweetness of the hour undisturbed.

Of what was the solitary star thinking? Had she a distant love? Anania dared to compare himself with the radiant star alone in the heaven as he was alone in the forest. Perhaps Margherita was looking also at the evening star. And what was Aunt Tatàna doing? The fire was burning on her hearth, and the kind, good, elderly woman was preparing the evening meal, and thinking of her dear boy so far away. And he—he was hardly thinking of her at all! He was ungrateful, selfish! How could he help it? If in Aunt Tatàna's place had been another woman, his thought must have flown to her continually. But that woman was—Ah, where was that woman? What was she doing at this moment? Did her eyes also see the evening star? Was she dead? Was she alive? Was she rich? or was she a beggar? Suppose she were blind! or in prison! This last fancy was perhaps caused by the distant tinkle of a flock led as Anania knew by a jailbird, an old shepherd let out from the prison of S. Bartolomeo on ticket-of-leave. Enough! the boy rose, scattering his sad thoughts. He descended into the ravine, scrambled up again, and went back to the town, comforting himself with the thought that Easter was drawing near.

At last came the day of return. Anania left Cagliari almost sick with delight. He feared he might die on the way, might never see the dear mountains, the familiar street, the fair landscape, the face of Margherita.

"Yet if I were to die now," he thought, leaning his forehead on his hand, "she would never forget me—never!"

Fortunately he arrived quite safe and sound. He saw his dear mountains, his wild valleys, the whole fair landscape; and the purple countenance of Nanna who had come to meet him at the station. She had waited for more than an hour. When she saw the lad's handsome face she opened her arms and cried:—

"My little son! my little son!"

"How do you do? Here, catch this!" and to protect himself from her embraces, he tossed into her arms the portmanteau, a parcel, and a basket.

"Come along!" he cried, "you go out that way. I have to go this way. Go on!"

He ran and disappeared, leaving the woman stupefied. Ah! Here he was in the familiar street. She would be waiting at the window, and no witness, not even Nanna, was wanted for that greeting. But how small were the houses of Nuoro! and the streets how narrow and empty! All the better! It's cold too at Nuoro! Spring has come, but it's still pale and delicate like a child who has been ill. Here are some people coming towards him, among them Franziscu Carchide. Franziscu recognizes the young student, begins to make signs of welcome. What a bore!

"Well, how are you? Glad to see you back. How you've grown! Smart too!"

Carchide could not take his eyes off Anania's yellow shoes. The boy was chafing with annoyance. At last he escaped. On! on! His heart beat louder and louder. A woman came to her door, looked at him as he ran by, and said:—

"I declare it's he!"

Well yes, it was he! What business was it of hers? Ah! here, here is the street which leads to another, to the well known, the beloved street! At last! It is no dream. Anania hears footsteps and is vexed. Luckily it is only some children who run, shout, rush away again. And who will there be in the other street? He longs to run like the children. But he mustn't, he can't. On the contrary, he assumes an aspect of the greatest rigidity. He is quite composed. He adjusts his necktie, brushes the lapels of his coat. He is wearing a long, light overcoat which she has never seen. Will she know him at once in this coat? Perhaps not. Now he is in the street. Here is the red door, the white house with the green window shutters. But she is not there! Oh God, why is she not there!

Anania stood still with beating heart. By happy chance the street was empty. Only a black hen passed quietly by, lifting her claws very high before setting them on the ground, amusing herself pecking at the wall. What can be the pleasure of that? Is she looking for ants, or testing the wall's strength? Well! he must go away, to avoid the observation of curious eyes. He begins to walk away as slowly as the hen, and though there is still no one at the window he does not take his eye from it for an instant. His heart suddenly comes into his mouth! He turns quite faint. Margherita has come! She is pale with passion, and she looks at him with burning eyes! Anania also grows pale, and no thought of salutation comes to him, nor a smile. He cannot think. For some instants he can see nothing but those burning eyes from which rains unspeakable joy.

He walked on automatically, turning his head at each step, followed by those intoxicating eyes. Only when Nanna, the portmanteau on her head, the parcel in one hand, the basket in the other, appeared puffing and blowing at the end of the street, did astonishment overpower him and quicken his halting step.