PART II (continued 2)

"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—

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:

As he sang, he had again the feeling of being light as the sparrow on the twig. Later he went to the garden where he could hand the maid the letter for Margherita.

The garden, still wet after the nocturnal rain, exhaled a strong odour of vegetation and wet earth. The beans had been reduced by caterpillars to masses of strange grey lace. The prickly pears were losing their little gold cupped yellow flowers; the tall passion flower with its stemless violet flowers cut the azure of the sky with their strange outline. The mountains rose vaporous in the pearly distance, their highest peaks lost in golden clouds. Efès, a heap of rags, lay in a corner. Anania kicked him lightly; he raised his face, opened a glassy eye, and murmured—

Then fell back without recognising the young man. Further on Uncle Pera, now quite blind, was indefatigably weeding, recognising the weeds by smell and touch.

"How are you?" cried Anania.

"Dead, my son. I can't see; I can't hear."

"Don't lose heart. You'll get cured——"

"In the next world where all are cured. Where all see and hear. Never mind, my son. When I saw with the eyes of my body, my soul was blind. Now I see. I see with the eyes of the soul. But tell me, when you were in Rome, did you see the Pope?"

When he had left the garden Anania roamed about in the vicinity. Yes, this little corner of the world was always the same. The madman still sat on the stone with his back against the tumbling wall, and waited for the coming of Jesus; the beggar-woman still jealously watched Rebecca, while the miserable girl still shook with fever and bandaged her sores. Maestro Pane among his cobwebs still planed tables and talked to himself; in the tavern the handsome Agata flirted with young and old; and Antonino and Bustianeddu drank and swore, and now and then vanished for a month or two, reappearing with faces grown rather pale in "the service of the King."[20] Aunt Tatàna still baked sweetmeats for her "dear little boy" and dreamed of his future laurels; Big Anania, on days of leisure, sat in the street embroidering a leather belt and dreaming of treasures hidden in the nuraghes.

No, nothing was changed; but the young student saw men and things as never he had seen them before. Everything seemed beautiful to him with a wild and melancholy beauty. He passed by and gazed as if he were a stranger; in the picture of those dark and falling cabins, of those primitive beings who inhabited them, he seemed to see himself vaguely as a giant—yes, as a giant, or as a bird—a giant by his superiority, a bird by his joy!

At the end of August, after various meetings, Margherita agreed to the confession of their love.

"Your father's manner to me has changed," said Anania. "I am uneasy and remorseful He looks at me with cold, critical eyes, and I can't bear it."

"Well—do your duty, if you have the courage," said Margherita, with a touch of malice.

"How shall I put it?" asked the lad, growing nervous.

"As you like. It will be a very interesting occasion. The more agitated you are the more effect you will make. My father is so kind!"

"Then you think I may have some hope?" cried Anania as eagerly as if till that moment he had been in utter despair.

"Why, yes—s—s," she said, stroking his hair in almost motherly fashion.

He folded her close, shut his eyes, and tried to the immensity of his good fortune. Could it be possible? Margherita would be his own? Really? In reality, as she had always been his in dream? He thought of the time when he had scarce dared confess his love to himself. And now——

"How many things come to pass in the world!" he thought. "But there! what is the world? What is reality? Where does dream end and reality begin? May not all this be dream? Who is Margherita? Who am I? Are we alive? And what is life? What is this mysterious joy which lifts me as the moon lifts the wave? And the sea, what is that? Does the sea feel? Is it alive? And what is the moon, and is she also real?"

He smiled at his questions. The moon illuminated the courtyard. In the silence of the diaphanous night, the tremulous song of the crickets suggested a population of minute sprites, sitting on the dewy moonlit leaves and sawing on a single string of invisible fiddles. All was dream and all was reality. Anania fancied he saw the goblin fiddlers, and at the same time he saw distinctly Margherita's pink blouse, and rings, and gold chain. He pressed her wrist, touched the pearl of the ring which she wore on her little finger, looked at her nails with their little half moons of white. Yes, it was all real, visible, tangible. The reality and the dream had no dividing-line. All could be seen, handled, attained, from the maddest dream to the object of the barest visibility.

A few words pronounced by Margherita brought him back to the boundary of reality.

"What will you say to my father?" she asked, scoffing a little. "Will you say, 'Sir, Godfather—I—I and—and your daughter—Margherita—are—are doing what you——'"

"I couldn't!" he exclaimed, "I'll write to him!"

"Oh no!" said Margherita seriously, "you had far better speak! He'll be far more yielding if you speak. If you're afraid to do it yourself, send someone."

"Whom could I send?"

Margherita pondered, then said tentatively, "Your mother."

He knew she meant Aunt Tatàna, but his thoughts flew to the other, and he fancied Margherita also must be thinking of that woman. A dense shadow, a whirlwind of doubt overwhelmed his soul; ah yes! the dream and the reality were well divided by terrible confines; insuperable emptiness, like the void between the earth and the sun, separated them.

"If I could tell her at this moment!" he thought again; "this is the moment! If I let it escape I may never find it again. Perhaps the void can be crossed; but now—now!"

He opened his lips and his heart beat fast. He could not speak. The moment passed.

Next evening Aunt Tatàna—greatly surprised, but proud and confident in the assistance of Heaven, for she had prayed and "made the ascension," namely, dragged herself on her knees from the door to the altar of the church of the Rosario—performed her embassage.

Anania remained at home, waiting anxiously for the dear woman's return. First, he lay on his bed, reading a book of which he remembered not so much as the title.

"Yet I am calm," he thought, "why should I be alarmed? the thing is perfectly certain——"

Thought, like an all-seeing eye, followed the ambassador and saw Aunt Tatàna walking along very slowly impressed with the solemnity of her task. She was a little shy—the sweet elderly dove, so soft and pure; but patience! with the help of the Lord and of the blessed Saint Catherine and the most holy Mary of the Rosary, she would effect something! For this great occasion she had donned her best clothes; the "tunic" trimmed with three ribbons, green, white, and green, the corset of green brocade, the silver belt, the embroidered apron, the floating saffron-coloured veil. Nor had she forgotten her rings, certainly not, her great prehistoric rings, cameos cut on green and yellow stones, and incised cornelians. Thus adorned and very serious, like an aged Madonna, she advanced slowly, saluting with unwonted dignity the persons whom she passed. It was evening, the hour sacred to these grave embassies of love. At the fall of evening the matchmaker finds at home the head of the family to which she bears the arcane message.

Aunt Tatàna goes on and on; always sedate and slow. She seems almost afraid of arriving. Having reached the fatal limit, the great shut door, silent and dark like the gate of Destiny, she hesitates, arranges her rings, her ribbons, her belt, her apron; wraps her chin in the end of her veil, at last makes resolution to knock.

That knock seemed to strike Anania on his chest. He jumped to his feet, seized the candle, and looked at himself in the glass.

"I do believe I am white! What an idiot! I will think no more about it."

He went to the window. Daylight was dying in the closed court, the motionless elder tree was a dark mass. Perfect silence! the hens slept, the little pig slept. Stars came out, sparks of gold in the ashy blue of the warm twilight. Beyond the courtyard in the silence of the little street a little shepherd on horseback, passed singing—

Anania thought of his childhood, of the widow, of Zuanne. What was the young monk doing in his convent? the monk who had meant to be a brigand.

"I should like to see him!" thought Anania. "In the course of this month I will certainly visit Fonni."

Ah! His thought returned violently thither where his fate was being decided. The old dove has arrived; she is there in Signor Carboni's simple and orderly study. There is the desk where one evening a young lad had rummaged among the papers—good Lord! is it possible he ever behaved so shamefully? Yes, when one is a boy one has no conscience, anything seems easy and allowable, a positive crime can be committed in perfect innocence. Well! Aunt Tatàna is there. And Signor Carboni is there—stout, composed, and bland, with the shining gold chain across his ample chest.

"Whatever will the dear old thing say!" thought Anania smiling nervously. "I wish I could be there unseen. If I had the ring which gives invisibility! I'd slip it on my finger and in a moment I'd be there. If the big door was shut—I'd knock, Mariedda would open and rage against the children who knock and run away. But I——Pshaw! such childish nonsense. I'll think no more about it." He left the window, went down to the kitchen and sat by the fire, suddenly remembered it was summer and laughed. For a long time he looked at the red kitten which sat watching by the oven, motionless, his whiskers stiff, his tail stiff, expecting the appearance of a mouse.

"You shan't be allowed to catch it!" said Anania, "I'm so happy that not even a mouse shall suffer in this house to-night. Shoo!" he cried, jumping up and running at the kitten, who shook all over and leaped on top of the stove. The young man's restlessness now made him march up and down the kitchen. Once or twice he stood still, fingering the sacks of barley.

"My father's not so very poor," he thought, "he's Signor Carboni's mezzadro (tenant) though he will call him Master. No, he's not poor. But, of course, he couldn't pay back what's—been spent—on me, if the thing doesn't come off. Whatever would happen? What is happening at this moment? Aunt Tatàna has spoken. What can she have said? What sort of answer can the benefactor have given? He's the most loyal man in the world—what will he say when he hears that his protégé has dared to betray—I can imagine him walking up and down the room very thoughtful; and Aunt Tatàna looking at him, pale herself and oppressed. Oh, my God! what will happen?" groaned the boy squeezing his head in his hands. He felt suffocated, rushed into the court, sprang on the low surrounding wall, waited and listened. Nothing! nothing!

He returned to the kitchen, saw the kitten again in ambush, again drove it away. He thought of the cats prowling round the Pantheon. He thought of Aunt Varvara and the wax candle he was to carry for her to the Basilica of the Holy Martyrs; he thought of his father busy in the padrone's tancas; he remembered the sonorous pine-tree, which murmured like an angry giant, the king of a solitary region of stubble and thicket. He thought of the nuraghe and Aunt Varvara's vision reproduced by fever in himself. He remembered a gold bracelet seen in the museum at the Baths of Diocletian. Behind all these fleeting memories, two thoughts met and rolled themselves into one like two clouds, one dark, one bright, rolling together in space—the thought of that woman and the thought of what was going on in Signor Carboni's study. "I've said I won't think of it," he muttered, vexed with himself.

And again he chased the cat, as if he wished to chase away the idea which, cat-like, continually returned against his will. He went back to the courtyard, looked and listened. Nothing. About a quarter of an hour later two voices sounded behind the low wall, then a third, a fourth. They belonged to the neighbours who nightly assembled for a gossip before Maestro Pane's shop.

"By our Lady," cried Rebecca's piercing tones, "I have seen five falling stars! That means something. There's going to be a catastrophe."

"Perhaps Antichrist's coming. They say he'll be born of an animal," said a man's voice; "an animal like you."

"Like your wife, you beast!" screamed Rebecca.

"Take this, my carnation!" said the handsome Agata, who was eating something as she talked.

The man began rude talk, but the old carpenter interposed.

"Hold your tongue, or I'll have you on the millstones, you skinned weasel."

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."

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!"

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—

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.

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."