PART I

I

It was the night of Midsummer Eve. Olì came forth from the white-walled Cantoniera[1] on the Mamojada road, and hurried away across the fields. She was fifteen, well-grown and beautiful, with very large, very bright, feline eyes of greenish grey, and a sensuous mouth of which the cleft lower lip suggested two ripe cherries. She wore a red petticoat and stiff brocade bodice sustaining and defining her bosom; from the red cap tied under her prominent chin, issued two braids of glossy black hair twisted over her ears. This hair-dressing and the picturesque costume gave the girl an almost Oriental grace. Her fingers were heavily ringed, and she carried long streamers of scarlet ribbon, with which to "_sign the flowers of St John_," that is, to mark those bunches of mullein, thyme, and asphodel which she must pick to-morrow at dawn for the compounding of charms and drugs. True, even were the _signing_ omitted, there was small danger of anyone's touching Olì's selected plants; the fields round the Cantoniera, where she lived with her father and her little brothers, were completely deserted. Only one tumble-down house was in sight, emerging from a field of corn like a rock out of a green lake.

Everywhere in the country round, the wild Sardinian spring[2] was on its death-bed; the flowers of the asphodel, the golden balls of the broom were dropping; the roses showed pale in the thickets, the grass was already yellow; a hot odour of hay perfumed the heavy air. The Milky Way and the distant splendour of the horizon, which seemed a band of far off sea, made the night clear as twilight. The dark blue heaven and its stars were reflected in the scanty waters of the river. On its bank, Olì found two of her little brothers looking for crickets.

"Go home this moment!" she said, in her beautiful, still childish voice.

"No!" replied one of the little fellows.

"Then you won't see the heavens burst to-night. Good children on the night of St John see the heavens open, and then they can look into Paradise, and see the Lord, and the angels, and the Holy Spirit. What you'll see is a hobgoblin if you don't go straight back home!"

"All right," said the elder, impressed; and though the other protested, he allowed himself to be led away.

Olì, however, went on; beyond the river, beyond the path, beyond the dark copse of wild olive. Here and there she stooped over some plant, which she tied with her scarlet ribbons; then straightened herself and scanned the night with the sharp gaze of her cat-like eyes, her heart beating with anxiety, with fear, and with joy.

The fragrant night invited to love, and Olì was in love. She was fifteen, and on the excuse of "signing the flowers of St John," she was making her way to a love-tryst.

One night six months earlier a stranger had come to the Cantoniera to ask for some fire-kindling. He was a _contadino_ or farm-labourer sent by the owner of the extensive fields round the tumble-down house, and had arrived for the sowing. He was young and tall, with long black curls and coal-black eyes so bright one could hardly look at them! Olì alone was not afraid to meet their gaze with her own fine eyes, which were never abashed by anyone.

The _Cantoniere_, a man, not old, though worn with hard work, poverty, and many troubles, received the young man kindly, gave him a flint, catechised him about his master, and invited him to look in whenever he liked. After this the farm-servant frequented the _Cantoniera_ assiduously. He told stories to the children, and taught Olì where to look for the best mushrooms and edible herbs.

One day he took her to the ruined _nuraghe_[3] on the hill, half hidden by thickets of red-berried thorn trees, and told her that among the huge stones of the gigantic tomb there was a treasure hidden.

"And I know of several other hidden treasures," he said gravely, while Oh picked bunches of wild fennel; "I shall certainly manage to find one of them; and then----"

"Then what?" asked Olì half sceptical, raising her eyes, which reflected the green of the surrounding landscape.

"Then I will leave this place. If you will come with me, I'll take you to the continent. Oh, I know all about the continent! I'm not long home from my military service. I've been to Rome, to Calabria, to all sorts of places. Over there everything is splendid. If you'll come----"

Olì laughed softly. She was still a little ironical, but flattered and happy. Behind the ruin, hidden in the thicket, her two little brothers were whistling to lure a sparrow. No other human voice, no human step was heard in the whole green immensity. The young man's arm slipped round Olì's waist. He drew her to him and closed her eyes with kisses.

From that day the two young things loved each other fiercely, trusting the secret of their passion to the silent riverside thickets, to the dark hiding-places of the solitary _nuraghes_. All her life Olì had been oppressed by loneliness and poverty. She loved this man for all be represented to her imagination, for the wondrous things and places he had seen, for the town from which he had come, for the wealthy master he served, for the plans he had traced for the future. He loved Olì for her beauty and for the fire of her temperament. Both were thoughtless and without conscience. Primitive, impulsive, self-pleasing, they loved because life was exuberant in their bosoms, and enjoyment a necessity.

The girl's mother had, it seemed, been just such another ardent and fantastic woman.

"She was of well-to-do family," explained Olì, "and had titled relations. They wanted to marry her to an old man who had a great deal of land. My grandfather, my mother's father, was a poet. He could improvise three or four songs in one evening, and the songs were so beautiful that when he sang them in the street everybody got them by heart. Oh yes! my grandfather was a very great poet! I know some of his poetry myself. My mother taught it to me. Let me repeat some to you."

Olì recited a few verses in the dialect of Logudoro; then went on: "My mother's brother, Uncle Merziòro Desogos, used to do painting in the churches, and he carved pulpits. But at last he killed himself because he had got into prison. Yes, my mother's relations belonged to the nobility and were educated people. But she didn't choose to marry that rich old man! She had seen my father, who at that time was as handsome as a banner in a procession." She fell in love with him and they ran away together. I remember her saying, "My father has cast me off, but I don't care! Some folk love riches; I love my Micheli, and that's enough for me!"

One day the _Cantoniere_ went to Nuoro the town, to buy wheat. He came back more melancholy even than usual.

"Olì, mind yourself. Olì!" he said, threatening his daughter with his finger, "bad luck to that farm-servant if he sets foot in here again! He has deceived us, even as to his name. He told us his name was Quirico; but it isn't, it's Anania. He comes from Argosolo. The people of Argosolo are a race of goshawks, of thieves and jail-birds! Mind yourself, young woman! He's a married man."

Olì wept, and her tears fell with the wheat into the great coffer of black wood. But scarcely was the coffer shut down and Uncle Micheli[4] gone away to his work, than the girl was off to her lover.

"Your name is Anania! You are married!" she said, her eyes flashing with rage.

Anania had just completed his sowing and still carried his grain-bag. Blackbirds sang, swinging on the olive branches. Great white clouds made the blue of the sky more intense. All was sweetness, silence, oblivion.

"Listen," said the young man; "it's unfortunately true I have a wife--an old woman. They forced her upon me (as they tried to force that rich old man upon your mother), because I was poor and she had a great deal of money. What does it matter? She's quite old and will soon die. We are young, Olì, and I care for no one but you I If you give me up, it will kill me!"

Olì was touched, and she believed all he said.

"But what are we to do?" she asked; "my father will beat me if we go on loving each other."

"Have patience, my little lamb. My wife will die very soon. And even if she doesn't, I am sure to find the treasure and then we'll go off together to the continent."

Olì protested; wept. She had no great faith in the treasure, but she let the love-making continue.

The sowing season was over, but Anania still came frequently to the farm, to watch the corn coming up, to hoe, and to weed. At the hour of siesta he did not sleep, but amused himself pulling down the _nuraghe_. He said he wanted stones for a wall; really he was looking for the treasure.

"If it isn't here, then it's there, and I intend to find it," he said to Olì. "You know at Maras a labourer like me found a bundle of bars of gold. He didn't know they were gold and handed them over to the blacksmith. The idiot! I'd have known quick enough! Giants used to live in the _nuraghes_," he went on, "and they had all their utensils of gold. Even the nails in their shoes were gold. Oh! treasures can always be found if one looks for them! When I was in Rome I saw a place where they keep gold coins and things once hidden away by those old giants. In some parts of the world there are giants alive still, and they are so rich that their scythes and their ploughs are all made of silver."

He spoke seriously, his eyes shining with golden dreams. But he could not have told what exactly he intended to do with the treasure when he had found it. He looked no further than to the flight with Olì. Beyond that all was vague.

About Easter the girl herself had occasion to go to Nuoro. She sought information about Anania's wife, and learned that the woman was elderly but by no means old, and not rich at all.

"Well," he said, when Olì reproached him for having deceived her, "she's poor now, but when I married her she had money. After the wedding I had to go to my military service, and I got ill and spent a lot. My wife was ill too. Oh you don't know how expensive a long illness is! Besides, we lent money and couldn't get it back. And I'll tell you what I suspect! While I was away my wife sold some land and has hidden the money she got for it. There! I'll take my oath that's it!"

He spoke seriously, and again Olì believed. She believed because she wished to believe, and because Anania had got her into the habit of believing anything. He was carried away himself by his imaginations. For instance, in his master's kitchen-garden he found a big ring of reddish metal, and at once concluded it was gold.

"There must be a treasure here also!" he thought, and hurried to tell his new fancy to Olì.

Spring now reigned over the wild country. Elderflowers were reflected in the blue river; voluptuous fragrance rose from the warm grass. In the clear moonlit nights, so soft, so silent, it seemed as though the vibrating air were an intoxicating love-philtre. Olì roamed hither and thither, her eyes misty with passion. In the long luminous twilight, in the dazzling noons, when the distant mountains melted into the sky, her pensive look followed her little brothers, who, half naked and dark as bronze statuettes, made the meadows merry with their bird-like pipings; and she thought of the day when she must leave them to go forth with Anania. For she had seen the gold ring of his finding, and she was filled with hope, and her blood boiled with the poison of the spring.

"Olì!" called Anania from the depths of the thicket. She trembled, advanced cautiously, fell into the young man's arms. They seated themselves on the warm grass, beside bushes of pennyroyal and wild laurel which exhaled strong perfume.

"I was almost prevented coming!" said the youth; "the mistress has been brought to bed of a daughter; and my wife has gone up to help, and wanted me to stay at home. 'No,' I told her, 'I've got to pick the pennyroyal and the laurel to-night. Have you forgotten it's Midsummer Eve?' So here I am."

He fumbled at his breast, while Olì touched the laurel and asked what it was good for.

"Don't you know? Laurel gathered to-night is for medicine, and has other virtues too. If you strew leaves of laurel here and there round the wall of a vineyard or a sheepfold, no wild animal can get in to gnaw the grapes or to carry off the lambs."

"But you aren't a shepherd, are you?"

"I want it for my master's vineyard; for the threshing-floor too, or the ants will steal the grain. Won't you come when I'm beating out the grain? There'll be lots of people: it's a holiday, and at night there'll be singing."

"Oh, my father wouldn't let me go," she said with a sigh.

"How stupid of him! it's clear he doesn't know my wife. She's decrepit--worn out like these stones! Wherever have I put it?" said Anania, still fumbling.

"Put what? your wife?" laughed Olì.

"A cross. I've found a silver cross this time."

"A silver cross? Where you found the ring? And you never told me?"

"Ah, here it is! See, it's real silver!" He drew a packet from his arm hole. Olì opened it, touched the little cross, and asked anxiously--

"Is it really silver? Then the treasure must be there!"

She looked so pleased that Anania, who had found the cross in quite a different place, thought it best to leave her to her illusion.

"Yes, there in the garden. Who knows all the precious things there may be! I shall have a search at night."

"But won't the treasure belong to your master?"

"No, it belongs to any one who finds it," replied Anania, and as if to enforce his argument, he folded Olì in his arms and kissed her.

"When I find the treasure, then you'll come?" he asked, trembling. "Say you will, my flower! It's clear I must find it at once, for I can't go on living without you. When I look at my old wife, I'd like to die; but when I'm with you, Olì, then I want to live a thousand years. My flower!"

Olì listened, and she also trembled. Around them was deepest silence; the stars shone like pearls, like eyes smiling with love; ever sweeter on the air was the scent of the laurel.

"My wife must die very soon," said Anania; "what's the good of old people in the world? In a year we shall probably be married."

"San Giovanni grant it!" sighed Olì. "But it's wrong to wish any one's death. And now let me go home."

"Ah, stay a little longer!" he supplicated. "Why should you go so soon? What's to become of me without you?"

But she rose, all tremulous.

"Perhaps we'll see each other to-morrow morning. I shall be picking my flowers before sunrise. I'll make you a charm against temptations."

But he was not thinking about temptations. He knelt, clasping Olì in his arms, and began to cry.

"No, my flower, don't go! don't go! Stay a little longer, Olì, my little lamb! You are my life. See, I kiss the ground where you put your feet. Stay a little, or, indeed, indeed, I shall die!"

He groaned and shook; and his voice moved Oh even to tears.

She stayed.

Not till autumn did Uncle Micheli perceive that his daughter had gone wrong. Then fierce anger overpowered this wearied and suffering man, who had known all the griefs of life except dishonour. That was unbearable. He took Olì by the arm, and cast her out. She wept, but Uncle Micheli was implacable. He had warned her a thousand times. He had trusted her. Had her lover been a free man he might have forgiven. But this--No! this, he could never pardon.

For some days Olì found shelter in the tumble-down house round which Anania had sown his corn. The little brothers brought her scraps of food, till Uncle Micheli found it out and beat them.

Now autumn was covering the heavens with great livid clouds; it rained ceaselessly; the thickets were blown by damp winds, or they glittered with cold hoar frost. Olì made her way to Nuoro to ask help from her lover. Perhaps he had a presentiment of her coming, for outside the town he met her. He was kind, he comforted her, he wrapped her in his own jacket; he took her to Fonni, a mountain village above Mamojada.

"Don't be frightened," said the young man; "I have a relation at Fonni, and you'll be all right with her. Trust me, my little lamb! I will never desert you."

So he took her to his kinswoman, a widow with a little boy of four. When Olì saw this child, dirty, ragged, all eyes and ears, she thought of her little brothers and she wept. Ah! who now would care for the little motherless ones? Who would bake their bread, or wash their little garments in the river? And whatever would become of her father, the poor widower, so feverish and unhappy? Ah, well----Olì cried for a day and a night. Then she raised her head and looked about her with darkened eyes.

Anania had gone away. The widow, pale and thin, with the face of a spectre framed by a yellow handkerchief, sat spinning before a wretched fire of twigs. All round was misery, rags, dirt. Great cobwebs hung trembling from the smoke-blackened tiled roof. A few sticks of wooden furniture gave scanty comfort. The boy with the big ears never spoke or laughed. He was already dressed in the costume of the place with a sheepskin cap. His only amusement was roasting chestnuts in the hot ashes.

"Have patience, daughter; it's the way of the world!" said Aunt Grathia the widow, not raising her eyes from her distaff. "Oh! you'll see far worse things if you live. We are born to suffer. When I was a girl I also laughed; then I cried; now both laughing and crying are over."

Olì felt her heart freeze. Oh, what griefs! what immense griefs!

Outside, night was falling. It was bitter cold. The wind roared in the chimney with the voice of a stormy sea. In the murky brightness of the fire, the widow went on with her spinning, her mind busy with memory. Olì crouched on the ground, and she too remembered--the warm night of San Giovanni--the scent of the laurel--the light of the smiling stars. Little Zuanne's chestnuts burst among the ashes which strewed the hearth--the wind battered furiously at the door, like a monster scouring the night. After a long silence the widow again spoke.

"I also belong to a good family. This boy's father was called Zuanne. Sons, you know, should always have their father's name, so that they may grow up like them. Ah, yes! my husband was a very distinguished man. He was tall as a poplar tree. Look, there's his coat hanging against the wall."

Olì looked round, and there, on the earthen wall, she saw a long cloak of _orbace_,[5] among whose folds the spiders had woven their dusky veil.

"I shall never take it down," continued the widow, "not though I am dying of cold. My sons may wear it when they are as clever as their father."

"But what was their father?" asked Olì.

"Well," said the widow, not changing her voice, but with some animation on her spectral countenance, "he was a robber. For ten years he was a robber--yes, ten. He took to the country a few months after our wedding. I used to go and visit him up there on the mountain of Gennargentu. He hunted eagles and vultures and strayed sheep. Every time I went to see him we used to roast a good haunch of mutton. We slept out of doors, in the wind, on the tops of the mountains. We covered ourselves with that cloak, and my husband's hands were always burning even when it snowed. He kept company with----"

"With whom?" asked Olì, forgetting her own troubles. The child was listening too, his great ears pricked till he seemed a hare listening to the voice of a distant fox.

"Oh, well, with other robbers. They were all most intelligent men, sharp, active, ready for anything, ready especially for death. Do you suppose brigands are bad folk? You are wrong, my dear sister. They are men who live by their wits, that's all. My husband used to say, 'In the old days men made war on each other; that's over now, but they still need to fight. They organize thefts, highway robberies, _bardanas_,[6] not to do harm, but to make use of their ability and strength.'"

"A fine sort of ability!" said Olì; "why don't they knock their heads against a wall if they've nothing to do?"

"You don't understand, my daughter," said the widow, proud and sad; "it's all a matter of Fate. If you like, I will tell you how my husband made himself a brigand." She said "made himself a brigand" with great dignity.

"Yes, tell me," answered Olì, shuddering a little. The shadows had grown denser; the wind howled with a continuous thunder rumble; they seemed in a hurricane-pervaded forest. The words, the cadaverous face of the woman in that black surrounding, now and then momently illuminated by a flash of livid flame, excited Olì to a childish voluptuousness of terror. She seemed involved in one of those fearful legends which Anania used to relate for her little brothers; and she herself, she with her infinite wretchedness, was a part of the hideous story.

The widow went on--

"We had been married a few months. We were well off, my dear. We had corn, potatoes, chestnuts, vines, land, houses, a dog, and a horse. My husband was a landowner. But often he had nothing to do, and then he got bored. He used to say, 'I must set up a shop, I can't stand this idleness. When I'm idle I get bad thoughts.' But we hadn't capital enough to start a shop. Then one day a friend said to him, 'Zuanne Atonzu, will you join in a _bardana_? There'll be a lot of us, and a clever fellow as guide, and we're going to a distant village to attack the house of a man who has three chests of money and silver. The man who's to show the way came here to Capo di Sopra[7] on purpose to tell us of it and to suggest a bard. We've got to cross mountains, rivers, and forests. Come with us.' My husband told me of the invitation. 'Well,' I said, 'what do you want with the rich man's silver?' He answered, 'I snap my fingers at the trifle I may get of the booty; but I like the idea of mountains and forests and new things to see. I'm curious to know how they manage these _bardanas_, and there'll be plenty of other fellows going just to show their pluck and to pass the time. Isn't it worse to have me sit in the tavern and get drunk?' I cried, I implored," said the widow, twisting her thread with her skinny finger and following the motion of her spindle with hollow eyes, "I supplicated, but he went. He gave out he was gone to Cagliari on business; but he went on the bardana. I stayed at home, for I was in the family way. Afterwards he told me all about it. There were about sixty of them, and they travelled in little groups, meeting at appointed places to consult. Corleddu was the captain, a Goliath, strong as the lightning, with eyes of fire and his chest covered with red hair. For the first few days there was rain, hurricanes were unchained, torrents rose in flood, one of the company was struck by a thunderbolt. They marched at night by torchlight. At last they reached a forest near the mountain of the Seven Brothers. There the Captain said, 'Brethren, the signs of the sky are not propitious. The affair will go badly. Moreover, I smell treachery. I believe our guide is a spy. Let us disband; and put the thing off for another time.' Many approved, but Pilatu Barras, the robber from Orani, (his nose had been shot off and lie wore a silver one) got up and said, 'Brothers in God' (he always used that expression), 'I can't have this. Rain is no sign that heaven is against us. On the contrary annoyances are good, and teach the young to put off softness. If the guide betrays us, we'll kill him. Come on, donkeys!' Corleddu shook his head, and another cried out, 'Pilatu can't smell!' Then Barras shouted, 'Brothers in God, it is dogs who smell, not Christians. My nose is of silver and can't smell, but yours is a bone of the dead! What I say is that if we disband, we smell of cowardice. There are young men among us on their first expedition. If you send them away, they'll go back to sit by the ashes of their hearths, idle, and good for nothing. Come on, donkeys!' They went on. Corleddu was right, the guide was a traitor. Soldiers were waiting in the rich man's house. There was a fight and many of the robbers were wounded; others were recognized, one was killed. Lest he should be recognized, his comrades stripped him, cut off his head, and buried it and his clothes far away in the forest. My husband was recognized, so after that he had to become a bandit. I lost my baby."

The widow had stopped spinning, her spindle fell on her lap and she spread out her hands to the fire. Olì shuddered with cold, with horror, with a fearful pleasure. How dreadful, how poetic, was all this the widow was telling! Olì had always imagined robbers were wicked. No, they were brave, wise, pushed by destiny; just as she herself was being pushed----

"Now we'll have supper!" said the widow, rousing herself. She got up, lighted a rude lamp of blackened iron, and prepared the meal; potatoes, always potatoes, for two days Olì had eaten nothing but potatoes, and a couple of chestnuts.

"Anania is your relation?" asked the girl, after they had eaten for some time in silence.

"Yes, a distant relation of my husband's. He's from Argosolo, not Fonni. But," said the widow, shaking her head contemptuously, "Anania's not at all like the blessed one! My man would have hung himself from an oak tree sooner than do this vile action of Anania's, my poor sister!"

Olì burst into tears. She retired to the chimney corner, and when little Zuanne seated himself near her, she drew his head to her knee, and held one of his little hard, dirty hands, thinking of her lost little brothers.

"They are like little naked birds," she cried, "left in the nest when their mother is shot and doesn't come back. Oh, who will feed them? The little one can't even undress himself!"

"Then he can sleep in his clothes," said the widow grimly; "what are you crying for, idiot? You should have thought of all that before; it's useless now. You must be patient. The Lord God doesn't forget even the birds in the nest."

"What a storm! What a storm!" lamented Olì; then asked suddenly, "Do you believe in ghosts, Aunt Grathia?"

"I?" said the widow, putting out the lamp and resuming her spindle, "I believe neither in the dead nor in the living."

Zuanne lifted his head and said softly, "I'm here," then hid his face again in Olì's lap.

The widow continued her recital.

"After that I had a son. His name is Fidele, and he's eight years old and has gone to work at a sheepfold. Then I had this one. We are very poor now, sister. My husband wasn't dishonest, you know; he had lived on his own property, and that's why we had to sell everything except just this house."

"How did he die?" asked the girl, caressing the head of the apparently sleeping child.

"How did he die? Oh, on one of his expeditions. He never got into prison," said the widow, proudly, "though the police were after him like hunters after a boar. He was clever at hiding, and when the police were looking for him on the mountains, he would be spending the night here--yes, here, at this hearth where you are sitting now."

The child looked up, his two great ears suddenly on fire; then sank again on Olì's lap.

"Yes, I tell you, here. One day, two years ago, he learned that a patrol was searching the hills for him, and he sent to tell me, 'While they are busy at that I'm going to take part in a job; on the way back, I'll stop with you, little wife. Look out for me.' I looked out three nights, four. I span a whole hank of black wool."

"Where was he?"

"Don't you understand? On a _bardana_, of course!" cried the widow impatiently. Then she dropped her voice. "I waited four nights, but I was anxious. Every step I heard set my heart beating. The fourth night passed. My heart had shrunk, till it was as little as an almond. Then I heard a beating at the door. I opened. 'Woman, wait no longer,' said a man with a mask over his face. And he gave me my husband's cloak. Ah----" the widow gave a sigh which was almost a groan. Then she was silent.

Olì watched her a long time. Suddenly her gaze was attracted to the frightened gaze of the little Zuanne, whose hands, hard and brown as the claws of a bird, were clenching themselves, and fingering the wall.

"What is it? What do you see?"

"Dead man!" lisped the child.

"What? A dead man?" said Olì laughing.

But when she was in bed, alone in a grey, cold garret, round whose roof the wind screeched ever louder, searching and hammering the rafters, Olì thought of the widow's story; of the mask who had said, 'Woman, wait no more'; of the long black cloak hanging on the wall; of the child who had seen the dead man. And she thought of the little naked birds in the deserted nest; of her poor little neglected brothers; of Anania's treasure; of midsummer night; and of her dead mother. She was afraid--she was sad, so sad that though she believed herself doomed to hell, she longed to die.

[Footnote 1: The man in charge of a portion of the high road is called the _Cantoniere_, and lives in the _Cantoniera_.]

[Footnote 2: _Primavera_: we should call it, in June, early summer.]

[Footnote 3: Prehistoric ruin.]

[Footnote 4: In Sardinia the older persons are given the titles of Uncle and Aunt.]

[Footnote 5: Coarse woollen stuff.]

[Footnote 6: Brigandage committed by a large number in concert.]

[Footnote 7: The province of Sassari]

II

Olì's son was born at Fonni in the springtime. He was called Anania by the advice of his godmother, the bandit's widow. He passed his infancy at Fonni, and in his imagination never forgot that strange village perched on the mountain crest, like a slumbering vulture.

During the long winter, Fonni was all snow and fog; but with the spring grass invaded even the steep village street, where beetles slept among the big, sun-warmed cobblestones, and ants ran confidingly in and out of their holes. The meagre brown houses with their roofs of _scandule_ (wooden tiles overlapping each other like fish-scales), showed on the street side narrow black doorways, balconies of rotten wood, little stairs often vine-garlanded. The Basilica of the Martyrs, with its picturesque belfry, rose among the green oaks of the old Convent court, dominating the whole little town and carved against a sky of crystalline blue. Fabulous beauty reigned on all sides. The tall mountains of the Gennargentu, their luminous summits outlined as it were with silver, crowned the great Barbagia valley, which in a succession of immense green shells rose to the hill-tops; among these Fonni with its scaled roofs and stony streets, defied the thunder and the winds. The district was in winter almost deserted, for its numerous population of wandering shepherds (men strong as the blast, and astute as foxes) descended with their flocks to the warm southern plains. But in the fine weather, a continuous coming and going of horses, dogs, shepherds, old and young, animated the mountain paths. Zuanne, the widow's son, at eleven years old was already a herdsman. He led goats belonging to different persons to pasture on the far side of the wilderness which surrounded the village. At dawn, he passed down the street whistling, and the goats knowing the sound came leaping out of the houses to follow him. Towards evening he brought them back to the entrance of the village; from there the intelligent creatures went off by themselves to the houses of their masters. Zuanne of the big ears, was generally accompanied by his friend and brother, the little Anania. They were barefoot and wore jackets and cloaks of _orbace_, long breeches of coarse cloth, sheepskin caps. Anania had watering eyes and a perpetual cold in his head. With tongue or finger he rubbed his dirty face into strange patterns of moustachios and whiskers.

While the goats fed among the rocks, green with eglantine and aromatic herbs, the two children roamed about. They descended to the road and threw stones at the passers-by; they penetrated into potato plantations where strong wary women were at work; they sought wind-falls in the great damp shadows of the gigantic walnut trees. Zuanne was tall and lithe: Anania stronger and for his age bolder. They were both story-tellers of extraordinary ingenuity, and were excited by strange fancies. Zuanne was always talking of his father, boasting of him, resolving to follow his example, and to avenge his memory. Anania meant to be a soldier.

"I'll catch you," he said calmly, and Zuanne the brigand replied with alacrity, "I'll murder you."

They often played at banditti, armed with guns of cane. They had a suitable den, and Anania the soldier never succeeded in discovering the robber, though the latter cried Cuckoo from the thicket in which he crouched. A real cuckoo would answer from the distance, and often the children, forgetting their murderous intent, would go off in search of the melancholy bird--a search no more successful than the search for the robber. When they seemed quite close to the mysterious voice, it would sob further off, and still further. Then the little brothers in ill luck, buried in the grass, or outstretched on the mossy rock, would punish the cuckoo with questions. Zuanne being shy only said--

_Cuccu bellu agreste Cuckoo, beautiful wild thing, Narami itte ora est._ Tell me what o'clock doth ring.

and the bird would call seven times when he ought to have answered ten. Nevertheless Anania ventured bolder demands.

_Cuccu bellu e' mare Cuckoo, beauty of the sea, Cantos annos bi cheret a How many years shall marry m'isposare?_ me?

"Cu--cu--cu--cu."

"Four years, you little devil! You're going to marry young!" sang out Zuanne.

"Be quiet. He didn't hear me."

_Cuccu bellu 's lizu Cuckoo, beauty of lily fair, Cantos annos bi cheret a fagher In how many years shall my fixu?_ son be here?

This time the cuckoo gave a reasonable answer, and the children in the great silence, broken only by the melancholy oracle, went on with questions not entirely merry.

_Cuccu, bellu e sorre Cuckoo, beauty and sister dear. Cantos annos bi cheret a mi In how many years will my morrer?_ death draw near?

Once Anania went away by himself. He walked along the high road, up and up; then crossed the copses and climbed among the granite boulders, traversing long hollows covered with the little violet flowers of the heather. At last he reached the top of what seemed an immense mountain. The sun had vanished, but he fancied there were great fires flaming behind the purple hills of the horizon, and sending up burning light over the whole sky. Anania was frightened by the red heaven; by the height he had reached, and the terrible silence which surrounded him. He thought of Zuanne's father and looked round in a panic. Ah! though he meant to be a soldier he was mortally afraid of robbers! and the long black cloak on the sooty wall at home gave him spasms of terror. Almost head over heels he fled from his peak and was glad when he heard Zuanne calling him. Zuanne's great wish was to see the brigands; so Anania told him where he had been and described the black mountains and the flaming sky; then added that he had seen them. The widow's son was first contemptuous, then excited. He looked at Anania with respect, as thoughtful and taciturn they returned home together, followed by the goats whose little bells tinkled plaintively in the silence of the twilight.

When he was not running beside Zuanne, little Anania passed the day in the great court of the church of the Martyrs. He played with the sons of the wax-candle-maker, who had his workshop close by. The quiet Courtyard was shadowed by great trees, and surrounded by an arcade falling into ruin. A little stone stair led to the church, on the simple facade of which a cross was painted. Anania and the candlemaker's children spent hours on the little stair, playing with the pebbles and making little candles of chalk. A yawning carabiniere[8] used to stand at the window of the ancient convent; in the cells military boots and tunics were visible; and a voice might be heard singing in falsetto with a Neapolitan accent--

"_A te questo rosario_"--

Some monk--one of the few left in the damp and decadent spot--dirty, tattered, with broken sandals, would pass through the court mumbling his prayers in dialect. Sometimes the soldier at the window, the friar on the staircase, amused themselves talking to the children. The _carabiniere_ would turn sharp to Anania and ask news of his mother.

"What's she doing?"

"She's spinning."

"What else does she do?"

"She goes to the fountain for water."

"Tell her to come here. I want to speak to her."

"Yes, Sir," answered the little innocent.

He gave the message to Olì. Though he had once seen her talking to the soldier, she was angry and boxed his ears. She told him not to go back to the courtyard; but of course he disobeyed as he could not live without either Zuanne or the wax-candlemaker's children.

Except on Sunday, and on the Feast of the Martyrs in spring, sad solitude reigned in the great sunshiny court, in the ruined arcades which smelt of wax, under the big walnut tree, which to Anania seemed taller than the Gennargentu, in the Basilica where the pictures and stucco ornaments were perishing of neglect. Yet in his after life the boy remembered with nostalgic sweetness that deserted spot; and the oats which in spring used to come up between the stones, and the rusty leaves of the walnut tree falling in autumn like the feathers of a dying bird. Zuanne who was devoured with longing to play in the courtyard, and who was bored when Anania deserted him, was jealous of the candlemaker's children, and did his best to keep his friend away from them.

"I want you to-morrow," he said to the younger boy, while they roasted chestnuts in the ashes; "I've got a hare's nest to show you. She has such a lot of little ones and they're as small as your fingers! They're quite naked, with long ears. Eh! their ears are as long as the devil's!" he ended, drawing on his invention. Anania went in search of the leverets, and of course didn't find them. Zuanne swore he had seen them, that they must have run away, that it showed Anania's folly in not having looked for them sooner.

"You waste all your time with _them_," he said scornfully; "well, they can make wax hares for you! I'd have caught the whole nestful of the real ones, if I hadn't been waiting to show them to you. Well, now we'll look for a crow's nest."

The little goatherd did all he could to amuse Anania, but the young child found the autumn mists cold on the mountains, and he stayed among the houses. In those days he saw little of his mother and treasured up few remembrances of her. She was always out. She worked by the day in fields or houses. She dug potatoes and came home late, worn out, livid with cold, famished. Anania's father had not been to Fonni for a long time; the boy had no recollection of ever having seen him.

It was the bandit's widow who to a certain extent mothered the poor little love-child, and of her he retained pleasant memories. The widow had rocked him and hushed him to sleep with the melancholy wail of strange dirges. She washed his head, she cut his nails, she blew his nose violently. Every evening she sat spinning by the fire and telling the heroic deeds of her bandit. The children listened greedily; but Olì no longer cared for the stories and often went away to lie down on her bed in the garret. Anania's sleeping place was at her feet. Often when he went up he found his mother already asleep, but cold as ice; and he tried to warm her feet with his own little hot ones. More than once he heard her sob in the silence of the night, but he was too much in awe of her to ask her why.

He consulted Zuanne on the subject, and the little goatherd thought it his duty to impart certain information to his friend.

"You ought to know," he said, "that you're a bastard; your father isn't married to your mother. There are lots of people like that, you know," he added consolingly.

"Why didn't he marry her?"

"Because he had a wife already. He'll marry her when that one dies."

"When will that one die?"

"When God wills. Your father used to come and see us, so I know him."

"What's he like?" asked Anania, frowning under an impulse of hatred towards this unknown father who didn't come to see him. This was probably what his mother cried about at night.

"Well," said Zuanne, cudgelling his memory, "he's tall and very handsome with eyes like fireflies. He has a soldier's coat."

"Where is he?"

"At Nuoro, Nuoro is a great city which can be seen from the Gennargentu. I know the Monsignore at Nuoro, because he christened me."

"Have you been there? To Nuoro?"

"Of course I have," said Zuanne, lying.

"I don't believe it. You haven't been there. I remember you haven't been there!"

"I was there before you was born, that's how it was!"

After this Anania went willingly with Zuanne even when it was cold. He kept asking questions about his father and about Nuoro and the road to that city. At night he dreamed of the road, and saw a city with so many, many churches, with such big, big houses, and mountains higher than even the Gennargentu.

One day late in November Olì went to Nuoro for the feast of Le Grazie. When she came back she had a quarrel with Aunt Grathia. Indeed latterly she had been quarrelling with every one and slapping the children. Anania heard her crying the whole night through, and though she had beaten him yesterday he was full of pity. He would have liked to say--

"Never mind, mother dear. Zuanne says if he was like me that he'd go to Nuoro the moment he was grown up and find his father and make him come to see us. But I am ready to go before I'm grown up. Let me go, dear mother!" But he dared not utter a word.

It was still night when Olì rose, went to the kitchen, came back, went down a second time, returned with a bundle.

"Get up!" she bade the child.

She helped him to dress; then put a chain round his neck from which hung a little bag of green brocade strongly sewn.[9]

"What's in it?" asked the child, fingering the little packet.

"It's a _ricetta_, a receipt which will bring you good fortune. An old monk I met on the road gave it to me. Mind you always wear it on your chest, next your skin. Don't ever lose it."

"What was the monk like? Had he a long beard? Had he a stick?"

"Yes, a beard and a stick."

"Was it _he_?"

"Who?"

"The Lord Jesus."

"Perhaps!" said Olì. "Well, promise you'll never lose the little bag. Swear it."

"I swear on my conscience," said Anania, much impressed. "Is the chain strong?"

"Very strong."

Olì took the bundle, clasped the child's hand in hers, and led him to the kitchen. There she gave him a bowl of coffee and a piece of bread. Then she threw an old sack over his shoulders and they went out.

It was dawn.

The cold was intense. Fog filled the valley and hid the immense cloister of mountains. Here and there a snow-dad summit emerged like a silvery cloud. Monte Spada, a huge block of bronze, now and then appeared for a moment through the moving veil of vapour. Anania and his mother crossed the deserted street and stepped out into the mist. They began to descend the high road which went down lower and lower into a distance full of mystery. Anania's little heart beat; for the grey, damp road, watched over by the outermost houses of Fonni, whose scaled roofs seemed black wings plucked of their feathers, this road which continuously descended towards an unknown, cloud-filled abyss--was the road to Nuoro.

Mother and son walked fast. The boy often had to run, but he did not tire. He was used to running, and the lower they descended the more excited he felt, hot and eager as a bird. More than once he asked--

"Where are we going, mother?"

Once she answered, "To pick chestnuts." Another time, "Into the country." Another, "You will see." Anania danced, ran, stumbled, rolled. Now and then he felt his chest for the charm. The fog was lifting. High up the sky appeared, a watery blue, furrowed, as it were, by long streaks of white lead. The mountains showed livid through the mist. At last a ray of pale sunshine illuminated the little church of Gonare, which on the top of a pyramidal mountain stood up against a background of leaden cloud.

"Is that where we're going?" asked Anania, pointing to a wood of chestnut trees. Drops hung from the leaves and from the bursting thorny fruit. A little bird cried in the silence of the hour and the place.

"Further on," said Olì.

Anania resumed his delightful running. Never in any excursion had he pushed so far. The continued descent, the changed nature, the grass slopes, the moss-grown walls, the spinnies of hazel, the red berries on the thorn trees, the little chirruping birds, all seemed to him new and glorious.

The fog vanished. A triumphant sun cleared the mountains. The clouds over Monte Gonare had become a beautiful golden pink. The little church was so distinct against them that it seemed near.

"But where the devil is this place?" asked little Anania, opening his hands with a gesture of great contempt.

"We are getting near. Are you tired?"

"I? Tired?" he said, starting to run again.

He began, however, to feel a little pain in his knees. He did not run so fast. He walked by Olì's side and chattered. But the woman, the bundle on her head, her face white, circles round her eyes, hardly heeded him and made absent answers.

"Shall we come back to-night? Why didn't you let me tell Zuanne? Is the wood far off? Is it at Mamojada?"

"Yes, at Mamojada."

"When is the _festa_ at Mamojada? Is it true that Zuanne has been at Nuoro? This is the road to Nuoro, I know that. And it takes ten hours to walk to Nuoro. Have you been to Nuoro? When is the _festa_ at Nuoro?"

"It's over. It was the other day. Would you like to go to Nuoro?" asked Olì, rousing herself.

"Of course, I should. And then--then----"

"You know your father is at Nuoro?" said Olì, guessing his thought. "Would you like to be with him?"

Anania considered. Then he wrinkled his brows, and answered, "Yes."

What was he thinking when he said that? His mother did not ask. She only said--

"Shall I take you to him?"

"Yes," said the child.

Towards noon they halted beside a garden. A woman, with her petticoats sewn between her legs like pantaloons, was hoeing vigorously. A white cat sometimes followed the woman, sometimes darted after a green lizard which now appeared now vanished among the stones of the wall. Ever afterwards Anania remembered these details. The day had become warm, the sky blue. The mountains were grey as if dried by the sun; the dark woods flecked with light. The sun had warmed the grass and waked sparkles in the streamlets.

Olì sat on the ground, opened her bundle, took out some bread, and called Anania who had climbed on the wall to watch the woman and the cat. Just then the post-carriage, which was coming down from Fonni, appeared at the turn of the road. It was driven by a big, red-haired man with a moustache and puffy cheeks which made him seem perpetually laughing.

Olì tried to hide, but the big man had seen her.

"Where are you going, little woman?"

"Where I choose," she answered in a low voice.

Anania still on the wall, peeped into the coach. It was empty, and he cried, "Take me in it, Uncle Batusta, take me!"

"But where are you going? Come!" said the big man, drawing up.

"If you must know, we're going to Nuoro," said Olì eating as she spoke; "it would be a charity to give us a lift. We're as tired as donkeys!"

"Listen," said the big man, "go on to the other side of Mamojada, I have to stop there. After that I'll pick you up."

He kept his promise. Presently the wayfarers were sitting beside him on the box seat. He began to gossip with Olì. Anania was tired, but he felt acute pleasure in his position between his mother and this big man with the long whip, in the fresh fields and blue sky framed by the hood of the vehicle, in the swift trot of the horses. The greater mountains had now all disappeared; and the child thought of how Zuanne would envy him this long journey into a new district. "What a lot I shall tell him when I go home," he thought; "I'll say to him, 'I have ridden in a coach and you haven't.'"

"Why the devil are you going to Nuoro?" the big man was asking Olì.

"If you wish to know," she answered him, "I'm going to service. I've arranged with a good mistress. It's hopeless living at Fonni. The widow of Zuanne Atonzu has turned me out."

"That's not true," thought Anania. Why did his mother lie? Why didn't she say the truth that she was going to Nuoro to find her boy's father? Well, she probably had her reasons for lying. Anania did not bother himself, especially as he was sleepy.

He leaned against his mother and shut his eyes.

"Who's at the _Cantoniera_ now?" asked Olì suddenly. "Is my father there still?"

"No, he's gone."

She sighed heavily. The vehicle stopped for a moment then rolled on. Anania was asleep.

At Nuoro, he became aware of delusions. Was this the city of his dreams? Well, yes, the houses were bigger than the houses at Fonni, but not at all so big as he had expected. The mountains, sombre against the violet sky, were small, quite ridiculous. The streets, however, seemed wide; and the children in them were very impressive, for in speech and in garments they were quite unlike the children of Fonni.

Till evening, mother and son wandered about Nuoro. At last they went into a church. Many people were there, the altar flamed with candles, sweet singing was blended with a sound still sweeter which came the boy knew not whence. Ah! that was something really beautiful! Anania thought of Zuanne and the pleasure of describing his adventures.

Olì whispered in his ear--

"Don't move till I come back. I'm going to find the friend at whose house we shall sleep."

He remained alone at the bottom of the church. It was alarming, but he encouraged himself looking at the people, the candles, the flowers, the saints. Also he had the charm hidden on his breast. That was a comfort. Suddenly he remembered his father. Where was he? Why ever didn't they go and find him?

Olì soon returned. She waited till the service was over, then took her boy's hand and led him out by a side door. They walked down several streets. At last they got beyond the houses. It was late, it was cold; Anania was hungry and thirsty. He felt sad, and thought of Aunt Grathia's hearth, of the roast chestnuts, and of Zuanne's chatter. They were in a lane bordered by hedges; the mountains, which seemed so small to the child, were visible.

"Look here," said Olì, and her voice shook, "did you notice the last house with the big open door?"

"Yes."

"Your father's in there. You want to see him, don't you? Turn back and go in at the big door. You'll find another door straight before you. It will be open. Go in by that door, and look about you. It's a press where they make oil. A tall man with his sleeves turned up and his head bare is walking behind the horse. That is your father."

"Aren't you coming too?" asked the boy.

Olì shuddered. "I'll come presently. You must go in first. When you see him, say, 'I am the son of Olì Derios!' Do you understand? Come along!"

They turned back. Anania felt his mother's hand shake and he heard her teeth chatter. They stopped at the big door; she bent down, arranged the charm round the child's neck and kissed him. "Go on," she said, giving him a push.

Anania entered. He saw the other door, faintly illuminated, and went on. He found himself in a black, black place, lighted only by a red furnace upon which a cauldron was seething. A black horse went round and round, turning a large, heavy, very oily wheel in a sort of round vat. A tall man, bareheaded, with his sleeves turned up and all his clothes stained black with oil, followed the horse, stirring the crushed olives in the vat with a wooden pole. Two other men moved backwards and forwards, pushing a screw fixed in a press, from which flowed the black and steaming oil. Before the fire sat a boy with a red cap.

It was this boy who first saw the stranger child.

"Get out!" he shouted.

Anania, frightened, but encouraged by the thought of his amulet, did not speak. He gazed about him, bewildered, and expecting his mother to come in. The man with the pole looked at him with shining eyes, then asked--

"What do you want?"

Could this be his father? Anania looked at him shyly, then pronounced the words his mother had taught him.

"I am the son of Olì Derios."

The two men who were turning the screw stopped suddenly and one of them cried--

"Your brat!"

The tall man threw his pole down, approached the child, stared, shook him and asked--

"Who has sent you here? What do you want? Where's your mother?"

"She's outside. She's coming."

The oil-miller rushed out, followed by the boy with the red cap. But Olì had disappeared; and nothing more was heard of her.

Learning what had occurred, Aunt Tatàna, the oil-miller's wife, came to the mill. She was a woman not young, but still beautiful, fair and plump, with soft, warm brown eyes surrounded by little wrinkles. On her upper lip was a very faint golden moustache. Her manner was quiet, but cheerful and kind. She put her hands on Anania's shoulders, bent down and examined him.

"Don't cry, poor little man!" she said gently. "Mother will come in a few minutes! Be quiet, you!" she added, turning to the men and the boy, who were inclined to meddle.

Anania wept inconsolably and answered no questions. The boy kept staring at him with wicked blue eyes and a mocking smile on his round rosy face.

"Where has she gone? Isn't she coming? Where shall I find her?" sobbed the deserted child desperately. Something must have happened to his mother; she had been frightened; where could she be? Why didn't she come? And this horrible, oily, rough man--was this his father?

But the coaxing and gentle words of Aunt Tatàna comforted him a little. He stopped crying, and rubbed the tears all over his cheeks in his usual way; then thought of flight.

The woman, the oil-miller, the two men, and the boy were all talking loud. They swore, laughed, disputed.

"He's your own child. He's just like you!" said the woman, turning to her husband. But the miller cried--

"I don't want him! I tell you I don't want him!"

"Have you no heart? Holy Saint Catharine! can men be so cruel?" said Aunt Tatàna, jesting but serious. "Ah, Anania, that's you all over! You are always yourself!"

"Who else would you have me be?" he growled, "Well, I'm going for the police."

"You shan't go for the police, stupid! Wash your dirty linen at home, please!"

He insisted, so she said, temporising, "Well, well, go for the police to-morrow. At present finish your work; and remember the words of King Solomon about leaving the evening wrath till the morning."

The three men returned to their work; but while the miller stirred the olives under the wheel, he muttered and swore, and the others laughed. The woman said quietly--

"You are making bad worse. You have only yourself to blame. By Saint Catharine it's I who ought to be offended! Remember, Anania, that God doesn't leave wages till Saturday!"

Then she turned to the child who was crying again.

"Hush! little son!" she said, "we'll set it all right to-morrow. There! don't you know little birds always leave the nest when they get wings?"

"But did you know of this little bird's existence?" laughed one of the men; and the boy crowded on Anania and said teasingly, "Why has your mother run away? What sort of a woman is she?"

"Bustianeddu!" thundered the miller, "if you don't go this moment I'll kick you out!"

"Try!" said the boy impudently.

"You can tell him the sort of woman she is!" cried one of the men, and the other laughed till his sides shook and he neglected the screw of the press.

Aunt Tatàna was fondling the child, examining his poor clothes and asking him questions. He answered in an uncertain, lamentable voice interrupted by sobs.

"Poor little one! Poor little dear! Little bird without wings! without wings and without a nest!" said the kind soul, "be quiet, my little pet. Aren't you rather hungry? Come! we'll go in and Aunt Tatàna will give you some nice supper, and then we'll put you to bed, with the guardian angel; and to-morrow it will all come right!"

After this promise he allowed himself to be led to a little house beside the olive-mill. Here she gave him white bread and cheese, and an egg and a pear. Never had Anania supped so well! The pear worked wonders, added to Aunt Tatàna's sweet words and motherly caresses.

"To-morrow!" said the woman.

"To-morrow!" accepted the child.

While he ate, Aunt Tatàna moved about preparing her husband's supper. She talked to Anania and gave him good counsels which she said she had herself been taught by King Solomon and Holy Saint Catharine.

Suddenly the round visage of the boy Bustianeddu appeared at the window.

"Get away, little frog!" she said, "it's cold."

"Yes, it's cold," he returned, "so please let me come in."

"Why aren't you at the mill?"

"They've sent me away. There's such a crowd there."

"Well, come in," said the woman, opening the door. "Come in, poor orphan, you also are without a mother! What's Uncle Anania doing? Is he angry still?"

"Oh I suppose so!" said Bustianeddu, sitting down and gnawing the core of the stranger child's pear.

"They've all arrived," he went on, discoursing and gesticulating like a grown person; "my father, and Maestro Pane, and Uncle Pera, and that liar Franziscu Carchide, and Aunt Corredda, every single one of them----"

"What are they saying?" asked the woman, with quick interest.

"They're saying you'll have to adopt the kid. Uncle Pera laughs and says, who will Uncle Anania leave his goods to, if he has no child? Uncle Anania ran at him with the pole. Then they all laughed like mad."

Aunt Tatàna's interest was overpowering. Telling Bustianeddu to mind the child, she went back to the mill.

At once Bustianeddu began confidentially to his charge--

"My father has 100 _lire_ in the chest of drawers, and I know where he keeps the key. We live close here, and have some land for which we pay taxes. One day the Commissioner came and seized the barley. What's in that saucepan making that cra--cra--cra--? Don't you think it's burning? I'd better look in." (he lifted the cover) "The devil! Potatoes! I thought it was something better. I'm going to taste them!"

With two fingers he hooked out a boiling lump, blew on it and ate it up. Then he took another.

"What are you doing?" said Anania shocked, "if the woman comes back----"

"We know how to make macaroni, my father and I," said the imperturbable youngster, "do you know? And tomato sauce----"

"No, I don't know," said Anania absently.

He was thinking of his mother, his mind besieged by sad questions. Where had she gone? Why hadn't she come into the mill? Why had she gone away and forgotten him? Now that he had eaten and was warm, Anania would have liked to run away. To run away and look for his mother. To run away and find his mother. This idea took firm roots and would not leave him.

After a while Aunt Tatàna came back. She brought with her a ragged woman with uncertain step, a red nose, and a large hanging mouth; a horrible-looking person.

"And this--this is the little bird?" she said stammering and looking lovingly at the foundling. "Let me see your little face, to bless you! By God's truth, he's as pretty as a star! And the man doesn't want him? Well Tatàna Atonzu, it's for you to pick him up--to pick him up like a sugar-plum----"

She came nearer and kissed Anania. He turned away, for she smelt of drink.

"Aunt Nanna," said the incorrigible Bustianeddu, pretending to drain a glass, "have you had enough for to-day?"

"Eh? Eh? What? What do you mean? What are you doing here, you little fly, you p--poor little orphan? Go home to your b--bed."

"You'd better go to bed yourself," said Aunt Tatàna, "take yourselves off, both of you."

She gave the woman a gentle push, but before going away Nanna begged for a drop of something. Bustianeddu offered her water; she snatched at the glass eagerly, but after one sip shook her head and set it down. Then she moved unsteadily away. Aunt Tatàna sent Bustianeddu after her, and shut the door.

"You are tired, my pet," she said to Anania, "come, I will put you to bed."

She took him to a big room behind the kitchen and undressed him, coaxing him with sweet words.

"Don't be frightened, my little one. Mother will come to-morrow; or else we'll go together and look for her. Do you know how to cross yourself? Can you say your _Credo_? Yes, every night we ought to say the _Credo_! I'll teach it to you, and some nice prayers; especially one by San Pasquale which will prepare you for the hour of death. Ah! I see you have a _Rezetta_! What a pretty one! That is nice! San Giovanni will take care of you. Yes, he was once a little naked boy like you, though afterwards he baptized our Lord Jesus. Go to sleep, my pet. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen."

Anania found himself in a great bed with red pillows. Aunt Tatàna covered him up; then she went away, leaving him in the dark. He held his amulet very tight, shut his eyes, and did not cry. However he could not sleep.

To-morrow! To-morrow! But oh dear! how many years had passed since they had started from Fonni? What ever would Zuanne think? Strange fancies, confused thoughts passed through the little mind; among them all, the figure of his mother remained distinct. Where had she gone? Was she cold? To-morrow he would see her again. To-morrow. If they didn't take him to find her he would go by himself. To-morrow----

Anania heard the olive-miller come in. He disputed with his wife. He cried, "I don't want the child! I don't want him!"

Then there was silence. But, suddenly, someone opened the door, came into the room, walked on tip-toe to the bed, cautiously lifted the quilt. A bristly moustache touched Anania's cheek. He was pretending to be asleep, but he opened his eyes, a tiny, tiny bit, and saw that the person who had kissed him was his father!

A few minutes later Aunt Tatàna came in and lay down in the great bed beside Anania. He heard her praying a long time, whispering and sighing--then he fell asleep.

[Footnote 8: Carabinieri--The country police.]

[Footnote 9: _La Rezetta_, an amulet containing prayers written on paper, flowers gathered on St John's night, relics, etc.]

III

No one reported to the police that a child had been deserted. Olì was able to disappear unhindered. It was never exactly known whither she had gone. Someone said he had seen her on the steamer from Sardinia to Civita Vecchia. Later, a Fonni shopkeeper, who had been to the continent on business, declared he had met Olì in Rome, smartly dressed and accompanied by other women of obvious character.

These things were told at the olive-mill, the child being present. He listened eagerly. Like some little wild animal which has apparently been tamed, he continually meditated escape. At Fonni, while living with his mother, he had thought of running away to find his father; now he was with his father and he thought of running away to look for Olì. She might be far off, she might be beyond the sea--no matter; he felt capable of finding her by himself. Not that he loved her! No, he could not love one who had given him more blows than kisses, one who had deserted him! Instinctively he felt that was shameful. But then neither did he love his father. Anania could not forget his first impression, the terror and repulsion with which the dark, oily, angry man had inspired him, the man who had kissed him in secret while before the world he stormed at and insulted him.

But Aunt Tatàna--ah, she loved him! She washed and brushed and dressed him; she taught him prayers and the precepts of King Solomon. She took him to church, and gave him nice things to eat, and let him sleep with her. Little by little Anania gave her his affection. In a short time he was another boy. He grew fat and gave himself airs; he had forgotten his rough Fonni costume, and wore a nice little suit of dark fustian. He acquired the Nuoro accent, and was knowing and sharp like Bustianeddu.

Yet his little heart remained unchanged. It could not change. Dreams of flight, of adventure, of wondrous accidents, were blended in his childish soul with nostalgic yearning for his native place, for the people and the things he knew, for the liberty he had enjoyed, for the unkind mother who had become to him an object of pity and of shame. Though he was better off, the little wild creature suffered under the dislocation of all his habits. He wanted he knew not what. He thought he wanted his mother--because everyone had a mother! because to have lost his mother was not so much grief as humiliation. He understood that his mother could not be with the olive-miller, because he had another wife; well, then, he would rather be left with his mother. He belonged to her; perhaps also he instinctively felt her the weaker and became her champion.

As time passed, all these thoughts, these instincts grew fainter, but they did not disappear from his little soul; so also her physical image was transformed in his memory, never obliterated.

One day he learned something unexpected about Bustianeddu, whose friendship he had so far endured rather than courted.

"My mother's not dead," said this boy, almost boastingly, "she's away on the continent like yours. She ran away one time when my father was in prison. When I'm grown up, I'll go and find her. I swear it. I've an uncle on the continent too. He's a schoolmaster. He wrote that he'd seen my mother in a street and was going to beat her, but the people held him off. It was my uncle gave me this red cap."

This story was quite comforting to Anania, and drew him into intimacy with Bustianeddu. For years they were companions, at the olive-mill, in the streets, beside Aunt Tatàna's fire. Bustianeddu was much the age of Zuanne, Anania's lost brother. At bottom he was warmhearted and generous. He said he attended school; but often the schoolmaster asked the boy's father for his invisible pupil. The father was a small dealer in skins and fleeces; when these inquiries reached him, he tied his son up with a rope of undressed leather, locked him in, and bade him learn his lessons. Like older criminals, Bustianeddu came out of prison more reckless and cunning than before. But his father was often away from home; and then the boy, weighted with responsibility, became very serious. He swept the house, washed the linen, cooked the dinner. Anania was delighted to help him. In return Bustianeddu gave him advice and taught him many things good and evil. They were often at the olive-mill where "Big Anania" (so called to distinguish him from his son) worked for his master the rich Signor Daniele Carboni. Big Anania called Signor Carboni "_Master_," because he had served him for years--as olive-miller, field-labourer, gardener, vine-dresser, according to season; he was, however, very independent, and his work though well paid was not without its risks.

On one side of the olive-mill was the courtyard through which Anania had entered that first night; on the other a garden which sloped down to the high road. It was a beautiful garden, partly orchard, partly wild, with rocky boulders among which straggled bushes of white thorn, Indian figs, almond trees, and peaches. There was one oak tree with rugged stem, harbouring nests of great locusts, caterpillars, and all sorts of birds. The garden belonged to Signor Carboni, and was the envy of all the boys in the neighbourhood. The old gardener, Uncle Pera _Sa Gattu_ (the cat), carried a cudgel to keep them out. From this garden the strong, beautiful Nuoro girls could be seen going to the fountain, amphoras on their heads, like the women of the Bible. Uncle Pera ogled them while he sowed his peas and beans, putting three peas in each hole, and shouting to scare the sparrows.

Anania and Bustianeddu watched him from the mill window, anxious themselves to get into the sunny orchard, and waiting till the gardener should take himself off. Uncle Pera, a dried-up little man, clean-shaven, his face the colour of brick-dust, was too fond of his vegetables to desert them often. Not till nightfall did he go up to the mill to warm himself and to gossip.

This was a good olive year and the press was at work night and day. Two _ettolitri_ of olives produced about two _litri_ of oil. Near the door stood a tin for oil to feed the lamps of this or that Madonna; pious persons poured into it a few drops from each load of olives. All round the press the floor was crowded with barrels and tubs, with sacks of black, shining olives, with heaps of steaming refuse. The whole place was dark, hot, dirty. The cauldron was always boiling, the wheel turned by the big bay horse was always in motion, always distilling oil. The smell of the husks, though too strong, was not exactly disagreeable. The furnace sent out a fine heat, and round it in the long chilly evenings were gathered all the coldest persons of the neighbourhood. Beside the miller and his staff, five or six people came regularly. Efès Cau, once a man of means, now reduced by drink to extreme poverty, slept almost nightly at the mill, contaminating the corner where he lay, to the great annoyance of cleaner persons.

Anania and Bustianeddu sat in a corner on a heap of hot husks, amused by the talk of their elders, delighted by the absurdities of the drunken Efès.

Uncle Pera offered him wine; but Franziscu Carchide, the handsome young shoemaker, interposed.

"No, no, Efès, if you don't dance, you don't drink. You must sing too. Come!"

"'When Amelia so pure and so pale----'"

Anania and Bustianeddu laughed till their sides ached, squatting on the husks like a pair of chickens.

"Let's put pins where he sleeps," suggested Bustianeddu.

"What for?" asked the more kindly Anania.

"To prick him, of course. Then he'll dance with a vengeance. I've brought the pins."

"All right," said the other, unwillingly.

The sot was still dancing, singing, reeling, stretching his hand to the glass. The people and the children laughed.

Then came Nanna, the drunken woman, cleaner and more sober than usual.

"Aren't you ashamed?" she said, seizing Efès by the arm; "don't you see all these beggars, these filthy persons are mocking you? And what are they laughing at me for? I've been out working to-day. Good Lord, how I have worked! Ah, Efès, Efès! have you forgotten how rich your house used to be? Your mother had gold buttons as big as my fist. Your house was like a church, so clean, so full of fine things. If you had kept from the drink, everyone would have treasured you like a sugar plum. Now you're a laughing-stock, like a dancing bear. What are they laughing at now? By the Lord, they must be all drunk! Come, miller, spare me a drop of oil to eat with my supper. Your wife is a saint, miller, but upon my word you are a devil. When are you going to find that treasure you talk about?"

Meanwhile Efès, seated on a sack, wept, thinking of his mother and the rich home of his youth. Carchide strove to console him with another glass, but Efès wept on, even while he drank.

A farmer from a neighbouring village, and Bustianeddu's father, a young man with blue eyes and red beard, conspired together to make Nanna drunk. She told scandalous stories of Uncle Pera, and Uncle Pera swore at the two men who worked the screw of the olive press, and told them they were lazy good-for-nothings.

Maestro Pane, the humpbacked carpenter, who wore his grey moustache at one side only of his toothless mouth, sat under the window beating his fist on his knee and talking very loud. No one, however, listened, for he was in the habit of talking to himself.

Under the influence of the wine. Nanna was becoming loquacious.

"Yes, that old gardener waits every morning till the girl comes down to the fountain. Then he calls her in, promising to give her some lettuce----"

"Ah, you tipsy wretch!" cried Uncle Pera, jumping up with his cudgel.

"Well, what harm am I saying? I say that when she comes in for the lettuce you teach her the Ave Maria."

They all laughed, even little Anania, though he could not imagine why Uncle Pera should teach the Ave Maria by force to the girl who was going to the fountain.

That night when Anania was safe in Aunt Tatàna's big bed he could not sleep, but turned and twisted as if pins were pricking him.

"What's the matter, child?" asked Aunt Tatàna in her gentle way, "have you the stomachache?"

"No, no."

"Then what is it?"

After a few minutes he revealed his remorse.

"We put pins in the place where Efès sleeps."

"You naughty boys! Why did you do that?"

"Because he gets drunk----"

"Holy Saint Catharine!" sighed the good woman, "how wicked boys are nowadays! Suppose someone put pins in your bed? Would you like it? No? Wouldn't you? Then you are more wicked than Efès. All people in the world are wicked, my little lamb, but we must have pity on one another. If we don't pity each other we shall be like the fishes in the sea which devour their brothers. King Solomon said no one must judge but God. Do you understand?"

Anania thought of his mother, his mother who had been so wicked and had deserted him; and he felt sad--so sad!

IV

One day in March, Bustianeddu invited Anania to dine with him. The skin-dealer was away on his business, and the boy, after two days' imprisonment for truancy, was alone at home. On his right cheek was the mark of a heavy blow administered by his irate parent.

"They want to make a scholar of me," he said to Anania, spreading out his hands like a man discussing some matter of importance, "but I don't intend to be a scholar. I intend to be a pastry-cook. Why shouldn't I?"

"Yes, why not?" echoed Anania.

"Because they think it _disgraceful_!" said the other, drawling the word contemptuously, "they think learning a trade is disgraceful when one might be a scholar. That's what my relations say. But I've got a joke ready for them! Just you wait a bit."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'll tell you afterwards. Now we'll have dinner."

He had prepared macaroni; at least he gave this name to certain lumps, greasy, and hard as almonds, seasoned with dried tomatoes. The boys ate in company with a grey cat, which snatched morsels from the dish with his paw, and ate them furtively in a corner.

"How clever he is!" said Anania, following the creature with his eyes; "our cat has been stolen!"

"Lots of ours have been stolen. They disappear and we don't know what becomes of them."

"All the cats in the place disappear. What do the people who take the poor things do with them?"

"They roast them. Cat is good, you know; just like hare. On the continent they sell cats as hares. So my father says."

"Has your father been to the Continent?"

"Yes; and I intend to go myself."

"_You_?" said Anania, laughing enviously.

Bustianeddu thought the moment had come for telling his plans. "I can't stay here," he said pompously. "I intend to go away. I'll find my mother and be a pastry-cook. If you like, you may come with me."

Anania grew red with excitement. His heart beat very loud.

"But we've no money," he observed.

"We'll take the hundred lire which are in that chest of drawers. If you like, we'll take them now. Only we must hide them for a while, for if we set out at once my father will guess we've got them. We'll wait till the cold weather's over. Then we'll go. Come here."

He led Anania to a dirty room where was great confusion of evil smelling lamb's skins. He found a key in a hiding-place and opened a drawer with it. The drawer contained a red note for a hundred lire, some silver and a few smaller notes. The little thieves took the red note, shut the drawer and put back the key in its place.

"Now you keep it," said Bustianeddu, "and when it's dark we'll hide it down the hole of the oak tree in the garden behind the mill. Then we'll wait."

Before he had time to object, Anania found the note thrust into his bosom, and rubbing against his precious amulet. He passed a day of intolerable anxiety; fevered with remorse and terror, hope and the wildest of projects.

To escape! to escape! How and whither he knew not, but his dream was to come true. He was sick with alarm and joy. A hundred seemed a treasure inexhaustible; but for the present he felt himself guilty of a grave crime, and the hour which was to deliver him from the stolen property seemed to be never coming.

It was by no means the first time the boys had trespassed in Uncle Pera's garden; it was easy to jump down from the window of the unused mill stable. But never had they ventured in at night and it was some time before they could screw up their courage for the deed. The evening was clear and cold. A full moon rose behind the black crags of Orthobene and flooded the garden with gold. The two children, flattening their noses against the window pane, heard a long despairing wail, a human or superhuman lament.

"Whatever's that?" said Anania; "it must be a devil! I won't go. I'm frightened."

"Then stay here, silly. It's only a cat!" said Bustianeddu scornfully, "I'm going. I'll hide the money in the oak, where Uncle Pera won't think of looking. Then I'll come back. You stay here and keep watch. If any danger comes, whistle."

What this danger might be the two friends did not know, but the mere imagination sufficed to make the adventure delightful; the fantastic moonlight, even the long drawn lamentation of the cat, added to its flavour. Bustianeddu jumped down into the orchard, Anania stayed at the window, all eyes and ears, trembling a little with fear. Hardly had his companion vanished in the direction of the oak tree, when two black shadows passed close to the window. Anania shuddered, whistled faintly, and crouched to conceal himself. What spasms of alarm and strange enjoyment did he not feel. How ever would Bustianeddu escape? What was actually happening down there in the dark? Oh! the lament of the torn-cat was more horrible than ever! It ended in a wild and lacerating shriek; then ceased. Silence. What mystery! What horror! Anania's heart was bursting in his bosom. What had befallen his friend? Had he been seized? arrested? He would be taken off to prison, and Anania himself would have his part in the woeful punishment!

He had no idea of running away. He waited under the window courageously.

"Anania! Where the devil are you gone to?"

Anania leaned out, extended a hand to his friend, marvellously preserved.

"The devil!" repeated Bustianeddu, panting, "I managed that admirably."

"Did you hear me whistle? I whistled very loud."

"I didn't hear you at all. But I did hear two men coming. I hid under the cabbages. Who do you suppose they were? Uncle Pera and Maestro Pane. What do you suppose they were doing? They were snaring cats. The caterwauler got caught and Uncle Pera killed him with his stick. Maestro Pane put the beast under his cloak and said quite jolly, 'What a fat one!' 'Not so bad,' said Uncle Pera, 'the last was as thin as a tooth-pick.' Then they went away."

"Oh!" cried Anania open-mouthed.

"When they go in they'll roast him. Then they'll have supper. Now we know what becomes of our cats. They snare 'em--those two. It's a mercy they didn't see me."

"And the money?"

"That's all right. Hidden. We'll go in now, Ninny. You're no good."

Anania was not offended. He shut the window and they went back to the olive-mill. The usual scene was in progress. Efès, leaning against the wall was singing his accustomed song:--

"When Amelia so pure and so pale----"

and Carchide was relating his adventures in a neighbouring town.

"----the _Sindaco_ was a friend of my father's when we were rich," said the handsome young man whose family had always been in the direst poverty; "when I arrived he was there to meet me. He invited me to his house. Damn those rich folk! Thirty men-servants, if you please, and seven women. We crossed two courts, one within the other; very high walls, iron gates, the window all barred----"

"Why were they barred?" asked the miller.

"Thieves, my dear fellow, thieves. The man's as rich as the king----"

"Bah!" cried the man who was working the press.

"What do you know about it?" asked Carchide scornfully; "at their father's death the Syndic and his brothers weighed out their gold by the pound. The Syndic's wife has eight _tancas_[10] in a row--all watered by streams; with more than a hundred fountains. They say his father had found a treasure. The King of Spain hid more than 100,000 gold ducats there at the time he was making war on Eleonora of Arborea, and the Syndic's father found it."

"Ah, ha!" said the olive-miller, leaning on his black pole while a shiver of excitement ran through him.

"Those are what I call rich men," continued Carchide; "here at Nuoro you're all snoozers."

"My master is wealthy," protested the miller, "he's got more in one corner of a field than your scrubby Syndic in all his _tancas_ together."

"I like that!" said the young man with a gesture of scorn, "you don't know what you're talking about!"

"No more do you."

"Your master's all debts. We'll soon see the end of him."

"Strike you blind first!"

"Go to the devil!"

The young shoemaker and the miller were near blows, but their quarrel was interrupted by Efès Cau falling into a fit. He sank on the heap of husks, twisted, writhed, wriggled like a worm, his eyes rolling, his face convulsed.

Anania fled to a corner screaming with terror, but Bustianeddu was all curiosity and he joined the persons who tried to restrain the poor wretch. Presently Efès returned to himself and sat up, still trembling and glaring.

"Who--who knocked me down? Why did you strike me? Am I not enough punished by God without your interfering?" Then he began to cry.

They laid him down again and he huddled himself up and called on his mother and dead sister.

Anania watched; pitying, but still terrified. He would have liked to help, but could not restrain his disgust; the man had once been rich--now he was a heap of stinking rags flung on the refuse like an unclean thing.

Bustianeddu had run for Aunt Tatàna. She came, leaned over the sufferer, touched him, spoke to him kindly, put a sack under his head.

"He must have some broth," she said; "Ah! this sin of his! this sin! Run, little son," she went on, turning to Anania, "run to the _Signor padrone_, and beg a little soup for Efès Cau. Look! do you see the result of sin? There, take this bowl and run!"

Anania went gladly, Bustianeddu accompanying him. The _padrone_'s house was at no great distance, and the boy had often been sent there to fetch fodder, lamp-oil, and other trifles.

The streets were lighted in patches by the moon. Groups of peasants went by, singing wild and melancholy choruses. Before Signor Carboni's white house, there was an enclosed square court with high walls. Entrance was through a large red door. The boys hammered loudly. At last the door opened and Anania handed in the bowl, explaining the sad case of Efès Cau.

"Sure the soup's not for yourselves?" asked the servant girl suspiciously.

"Go to the devil, Maria _Iscorronca_,[11]" said Bustianeddu; "we don't want your dirty broth!"

"Little animal, I'll pay you out!" said the girl chasing him into the street. Bustianeddu scampered off, but Anania made his own way into the moonlit court.

"What is it? What do those boys want?" asked a faint little voice from the shadow near the kitchen-door.

Anania went forward. "It's only me!" he said, "Efès Cau is fearfully bad. He's at the mill, and _Mother_ wants the mistress to send him a cup of soup."

"Come in!" said the voice.

The servant who had failed to catch Bustianeddu, now made an attack upon Anania. But the little girl who had said "Come in," sprang to the rescue of the boy from the mill.

"Let him alone. What harm has he done? Go and fetch him the soup at once--this minute!" said the young lady, dragging the maid by her skirt.

This protection, this piping-tone of authority, this plump, rosy little person dressed in blue woollen, with an important little turned up nose, very round cheeks, eyes shining in the moonlight between two curls of auburn hair--pleased Anania immensely. He recognized the _padrone_'s daughter Margherita Carboni, known by sight to all the children who frequented the olive-mill. Once or twice Margherita had handed the barley or the lamp-oil to Anania when he had been sent for them. He often saw her in the orchard garden, and sometimes her father had brought her to the mill. Never had he imagined that this rosy young lady with the superb air, could be so affable and pleasant.

The maid went for the soup, and Margherita asked all about Efès Cau's seizure.

"He had his dinner here--in this very courtyard," she said very seriously, "he seemed perfectly well."

"It's because he drinks;" said Anania also very serious, "he twisted about like a cat!"

Then Anania's face grew red; he had suddenly remembered the torn cat which Uncle Pera had caught in the snare, and that reminded him of the hundred lire stolen and hidden in the oak tree in the garden. Stolen! The hundred lire stolen! Whatever would Margherita Carboni say, if she knew that he, Anania, the son of the olive-miller, the foundling, the dependent with whom the little lady was deigning to be so pleasant and affable--had stolen a hundred lire and that these hundred lire were at this moment hidden in her own garden! A thief! He was a thief; and he had thieved an enormous sum. Now he perceived the full shame of his evil deed. Now he felt humiliation, grief, remorse.

"Like a _cat_?" echoed Margherita setting her teeth and twisting her little nose; "dear me! dear me! It would be better he died."

The maid came back, bringing the soup. Anania could not say another word. He took the bowl and moved away carrying it carefully. He was near crying and when he came up with Bustianeddu at the turn of the street, he repeated the words "It would be better he died."

"Who? Is the broth hot? I'm going to taste," said Bustianeddu, putting his face to the bowl. Anania was furious.

"Get away! You're wicked. You'll get like Efès Cau! What did you steal that money for? It's a mortal sin, to steal. Go and get the money and put it back in the drawer."

"Pouf! Are you gone mad?"

"Well then I'll tell my _mother_."

"Your _mother_! That's good! Go and find your mother!"

They were walking very slowly. Anania much afraid of spilling the soup.

"We are _thieves_!" he whispered.

"The money is _my_ father's, and you're a ninny. Well! I'll go away alone, _alone_," replied Bustianeddu energetically.

"All right, go, and never come back," said Anania, "but I shall tell--Aunt Tatàna!" He was afraid to call her his mother again.

"Sneak!" burst out Bustianeddu doubling his fist; "if you tell I'll kill you like a lizard. I'll smash your teeth with a stone. I'll gouge out your eyes!"

Anania still afraid for the soup, bent his shoulders to receive the violence of his friend, but he did not withdraw the threat of telling Aunt Tatàna.

"What devil did you meet in that courtyard," continued the other furiously, "what did that horrid maid say to you? Speak!"

"She didn't say anything. But I don't wish to be a thief."

"You're a bastard anyhow! That's what you are! Well I shall go off at once, with the money, and without you."

He went away running, leaving Anania overwhelmed with grief. A thief, a bastard, a foundling, and now left behind by his friend. It was too much, too much! He began to cry and his tears fell into the soup.

"When, when shall I be able to go?" he sobbed, "when shall I be able to find _her_?"

"When I'm grown up," he answered himself, more cheerfully, "for the present--it can't be helped."

Having given the soup to Aunt Tatàna, he went to the stable window. Silence. No one was to be seen, nothing was to be heard, in the great garden, damp and moonlit. The mountains showed faintly blue against the vaporous heaven. All was silence and peace. Suddenly from the mill came the voice of Bustianeddu.

"Then he hasn't gone? he hasn't taken the money? He hasn't been into the garden? Suppose I go myself?"

But his courage was not equal to this. He went into the mill and hovered round Aunt Tatàna who was ministering to Efès. She asked him her usual question. "What's the matter with you? Have you the stomachache?"

"Yes! Do let us go in," said Anania.

She saw the child wanted to speak to her and she took him home.

"Jesus! Jesus! Holy Saint Catharine!" cried the good woman when Anania had made his confession, "what has happened to the world? Even the little birds, even the chickens in the egg, go wrong!"

Anania never knew the means by which Aunt Tatàna persuaded Bustianeddu to restore the stolen money. But ever after the friends were on strained terms. They slanged each other and fought about every trifle.

The winter passed; but the olive press was at work even in April, for never had there been such abundance of olives. At last the day came when Anania the elder shut down the press, and went into the country to look after his master's wheat. He took the little boy with him, having intentions of making him an agriculturist. Anania liked to be useful. He carried the implements and the provision wallet proudly and ran by his father's side all day. The cornfields extended over a wide undulating plain, across which two tall pine-trees, voiceful as torrents, threw long shadows. It was a sweet and melancholy landscape, bare of trees, here and there spread with isolated vines. The human voice lost itself echoless, as if swallowed up by the lonely murmur of the pines, the thick foliage of which seemed to assimilate the grey blue colour of the far mountains.

While his father worked his hoe, bending over the transparent green of the young wheat, Anania wandered about the naked and melancholy fields, crying with the birds, hunting for herbs and mushrooms. Sometimes the father looking up, saw him in the distance, and his heart tightened; for the place, the occupation, the child's small figure, all reminded him of Olì, of her little brothers, of their sin, of all the love and the happiness they had enjoyed together. Where was Olì? Who could tell? She was lost, she had vanished like the birds of the fields. Well--so much the worse for her. Anania the olive-miller thought he was doing all anyone could expect, in bringing up the child. If ever he found the treasure of his dreams, he would put the boy to school. At least he would make a farmer of him. What more could he do? What about the men who didn't acknowledge their children, who instead of taking them home and bringing them up like Christians, left them to misery and an evil life? Yes, some quite rich men, gentlemen, behaved like that. Yes, even his master, even Signor Carboni. Thus "big Anania" consoled himself; yet still the oppression of sadness remained in his heart.

Looking out over the distance he thought he saw the _nuraghe_ near Olì's old home. At meal-times, or during the midday rest, when they stretched themselves under the sounding pine-trees, he questioned his son about his life at Fonni. Anania was shy with his father and seldom dared to meet his eyes; but once pushed into the path of recollection, he chattered willingly, abandoning himself to the homesick pleasure of telling about the past. He remembered everything, the village, the widow's house and her stories, Zuanne of the big ears, the _carabiniere_, the friars, the convent court, the chestnuts, the goats, the mountains, the candle factory. But in spite of the miller's suggestions he spoke little of his mother.

"Well, did she beat you?"

"Never! Never!"

"I'm sure she beat you."

The child perjured himself swearing he spoke truth.

"Tell me, what did she do all day?"

"She went out to work."

"Did the _carabiniere_ want to marry her?"

"Oh, no. He said to me, 'Tell your mother to come here. I want to talk to her.'"

"What did she say when you told her?" asked the man with some anxiety.

"She was as mad as a dog."

"Ah!"

He sighed. He was relieved hearing she had not gone to talk to the _carabiniere_. Yes; he was still fond of her. He still remembered her clear and burning eyes; he remembered her little brothers; he remembered her father so sorrowful and so poor. But what could he do? Had he been free he'd have married her. As it was, he had to desert her. It was vain to think any more about it. They finished their frugal meal; then he said to the child:

"Run down there to that fig tree, look and you'll see a very very old house. Root about in the ground there. Perhaps you'll find something!"

The boy sped away, glad to leave the grave, toil-stained man. And the father thought:

"Innocents find treasures easily. If we could find a treasure, then I'd hand over a good lot to Olì, and if my wife were to die, I'd marry her. It was I who made her go wrong."

But Anania found nothing. Towards evening, father and son went slowly home, following the broad white road, the depth of which was flooded with twilight gold. Aunt Tatàna had hot supper waiting for them and a fire crackling on the dean swept hearth. She blew Anania's nose, washed his eyes, told her husband the events of the day.

Nanna had tumbled into the fire, Efès had a new pair of shoes, Uncle Pera had beaten a boy. Signor Carboni had been to the mill to look at the horse.

"He says the beast has grown terribly thin."

"That's all the work he has done. What does the _padrone_ expect? Even animals are flesh and blood."

After supper the olive-miller had forgotten all about Olì and her woes. He went to the tavern. Aunt Tatàna got her distaff, and told stories to the son of her adoption. Bustianeddu came to listen also.

"Once upon a time there was a king with seven golden eyes on his forehead like stars;" and so forth.

Or she told the story of Marieddu and the Hobgoblin. Marieddu had escaped from the Hobgoblin's house. "She ran and ran, all the time dropping nails which as fast as she dropped them began to multiply. They multiplied until they filled the whole plain. Uncle Hobgoblin followed her, followed her, but he never could catch her up because the nails kept sticking into his feet."

Dear! what shudders of delight this story of Marieddu gave the two children! What a difference between the dark cottage, the figure, the stories of the widow of Fonni, and the dear kitchen, the warmth, the sweet face and the enchanting legends of Aunt Tatàna. Yet there were times when Anania was bored. Or at least he did not experience the wild emotion which the widow's narratives had awaked in him. Perhaps it was because the good Zuanne, the beloved brother, was not there and in his place was Bustianeddu, who was so naughty and so cruel, who pinched him and called him names even when people were listening and in spite of Aunt Tatàna's admonitions.

One evening Bustianeddu called him "bastard" in the hearing of Margherita Carboni, who had come with her servant bringing a message to the miller. Aunt Tatàna pushed Bustianeddu away, and silenced him, but it was too late. Margherita had heard, and Anania felt unspeakable distress. Aunt Tatàna got bread and honey and set him and Margherita to eat it together; she gave none to Bustianeddu. But what was the good of bread and honey, when he had been dubbed "bastard" before Margherita Carboni? The little girl was dressed in green; her stockings were violet, and round her neck was a scarf of vivid rose colour. It lent colour to her soft cheeks and brought out the blue of her shining eyes. That night Anania saw her in his dreams; lovely, and coloured like the rainbow. Even in his dream he felt the grief of having been called "bastard" before her.

That year Easter was not till the end of April. The olive miller fulfilled his Easter duty, and his confessor bade him legitimize his son. At Easter too, Anania, now eight years old, was confirmed. Signor Carboni was his godfather. The confirmation was a great event not only for the boy but for the whole place. Monsignore Demartis, the beautiful and imposing bishop, convened everybody to the Cathedral and publicly bestowed the Chrism on a hundred children. Through the open doors, which seemed enormous to Anania, spring, with its sunshine and fragrance, penetrated into the church. It was crowded with women in their purple dresses, with fine ladies, and wondering children. Signor Carboni, stout, florid, with blue eyes and reddish hair, wore a velvet waist-coat crossed by a huge gold chain. He was greeted, saluted, sought after by all the most conspicuous persons, by the peasants both male and female, by the fine ladies and the crowding children. Anania was proud and happy to have such a godfather. True, Signor Carboni was standing sponsor for seventeen others, but that did not detract from the importance of this singular honour done to each of the eighteen.

After the ceremony the eighteen children with their respective parents adjourned to their godfather's house, and Anania was able to admire Margherita's drawing-room of which he had heard marvels. It was a great room with red walls and huge eighteenth century chairs; cabinets adorned with wax flowers under glass shades, with marble dishes of fruit, and plates with slices of cheese and sausage, all of marble. Liqueurs, coffee, cakes and pastry were handed round, and the lovely Signora Carboni who had deep dimples in her cheeks, black hair drawn very tight on her temples, and a pretty muslin gown with flounces and little spots of pink and blue, was most amiable with everybody and kissed all the eighteen god-children, giving each of them a present.

Anania long remembered these details. He remembered too, how ardently and how vainly he had wished that Margherita would come and look at his new clothes, which were of yellow fustian, and as stiff as the skin of the devil. And he remembered that Signora Cecita Carboni had kissed him, and with her jewelled hand had tapped lightly on his little head (cropped horrible close) and said to the miller:

"Ah, gossip, why have you shorn him like this? He seems quite bald!"

"Never mind, gossip," replied Big Anania, carrying on the agreeable jest of this lady who was not exactly his fellow sponsor, "this chicken's feathers were as thick as a wood----"

"Well," interrupted the lady, "have you done your duty?"

"Yes, yes."

"I'm so glad. Believe me, it's only legitimate sons who are the support of their father in his old age."

Then Signor Carboni came over, and said, looking at his godson.

"What demon eyes this young highlander has! Well, youngster, what are you hiding them for? Laughing at me, eh? you little devil!"

Anania was laughing for joy at being publicly addressed by his godfather and favourably regarded by Signora Carboni.

"What are you going to do with yourself, little devil?"

Anania hung his head, then looked up with the bright eyes which Aunt Tatàna's ministrations had quite cured of their weakness. Then he tried to hide behind his parent.

"Well, answer your godfather!" said the miller, shaking him. "What do you intend to do with yourself?"

"Will you be a miller?" suggested the lady.

He shook his head vigorously.

"You don't like that? A farmer perhaps?"

Still no.

"Well, perhaps you want to become a scholar," said his father, diplomatically.

"Yes."

"Bravo!" said Signor Carboni. "You intend to be a scholar. A priest, I suppose?"

"No."

"A lawyer?" prompted the miller.

"Yes."

"The deuce! I said he had bright eyes! So you intend to be a lawyer, little mouse?"

"Ah, my boy, we're too poor," said the miller with a sigh.

"If the child has the wish. Providence will assist him," said the _padrone_.

"----will assist him," repeated the Signora like an echo. These words decided Anania's destiny, and he never forgot them.

The olive press was shut down for the year and the miller turned into a farmer.

Fierce sunshine was making the grass yellow. Bees and wasps buzzed round Aunt Tatàna's little house; the elder tree in the courtyard wore the wondrous lace of its tiny flowers.

The company which used to meet at the mill now assembled in the courtyard; Uncle Pera with his cudgel, Efès and Nanna generally drunk, the handsome shoemaker, Bustianeddu and his father, as well as other persons from the neighbourhood. Maestro Pane had set up a workshop in a cellar opposite the courtyard. All day long was a coming and going of people, who laughed, talked, quarrelled, and swore.

Little Anania spent his days among these folk; from them he learned rude words and actions, and they accustomed him to the sight of drunkenness, and careless misery. In another smoke-blackened and cobwebby cellar beside Maestro Pane's workship, a poor, sick girl was withering. Years ago her father had gone away to work in an African mine, and he had never been heard of again. The girl, Rebecca, lived alone, diseased and abandoned, in her squalid den, swarming with flies and other insects. A little further on lived a widow, whose five children were supported by begging. Maestro Pane sometimes begged himself. But one and all they were merry. The five beggar children never stopped laughing. Maestro Pane talked to himself and related long pleasant tales of the jolly days when he was young. Only in the long luminous afternoons, when the streets were silent and the wasps buzzed over the elder flowers, inducing sleep to the little Anania stretched at the threshold, then in the hot stillness could be heard the sharp cry of Rebecca. It rose, it grew, it broke off; it recommenced, it hurled itself on high, it dashed itself to earth. It seemed, so to speak, to pierce the silence with a shower of sibilant arrows. In this cry was all the grief, all the evil, the poverty, the forlornness, the unseen wretchedness of the place and its dwellers; it was the voice even of things, the lament of the stones which dropped one by one from the blackened walls of the prehistoric houses, of the crumbling roof, of the broken stairs and worm-eaten balconies which menaced ruin; of the spurge which grew on the pathway, of the wild olive which shadowed the walls, of the children who had no food, of the women who had no clothes, of the men who drank to stupefy themselves, and beat their wives and their children and their beasts because they could not strike at their destiny; it was the voice of all sickness uncured, of all the misery ineluctably accepted like life itself. But who heeded?

Little Anania, stretched across the threshold flapping away the flies and the wasps with a branch of elder, thought sleepily--

"Whew! Why is that girl screaming? What makes her scream? Why are there any sick people in the world?"

He himself had grown plump, fattened by the abundant food, by idleness, by sleep. He slept a great deal. In the silent afternoons not even Rebecca's cry kept him awake. He slept, the branch of elder in his hand, flies settling on his face. He slept, and he dreamed he was there, far away, in the house of the widow, in the kitchen watched by the long black cloak which was like a gibbeted phantom. But Olì his mother was no longer there. She had fled far away, far away to an unknown land. And a monk had come out of the convent and was teaching the little lonely one to read. He wanted to learn, to learn things that he might be wise and able to journey to find his mother. The monk talked and talked but Anania could not hear him, because from the long black cloak came an acute, a lacerating, deafening lament! Ah God! he was afraid! It was the voice of the ghost of the dead bandit.

And, besides the fear of the ghost, Anania was troubled by a strange feeling round his nose. That was the flies!

[Footnote 10: Large enclosed pastures.]

[Footnote 11: An insulting nickname equivalent to "witch."]

V

At last came part fulfilment of his dream. One October morning he got up very early, Aunt Tatàna washed him and brushed him, and dressed him in his best suit, that one of yellow fustian which was as stiff as the skin of the devil. Big Anania was at breakfast, eating roast liver. When he saw his boy dressed for school, he laughed with satisfaction, and said, threatening with his finger--

"Ho! ho! If you aren't a good boy. I'll send you to Maestro Pane to make coffins."

Bustianeddu came for Anania and somewhat contemptuously took him under his wing. It was a splendid morning. The fresh breeze carried pleasant odours of new made wine, of coffee, of refuse grape-skins. Hens clucked in the street. Peasants came in from the country their long carts decked with vine branches, attended by frisking and noisy dogs.

Anania was happy, though his companion reviled the school and the schoolmaster and the teachers.

"Yours is like a cock," he said, "he has a red cap and a great hoarse voice. I had to put up with him for a year. May the devil bite his heels!"

The school was at the far side of Nuoro, in a convent surrounded by dreary gardens. Anania's class-room was on the ground floor, its windows facing the deserted street. The walls were flecked with dust; the master's desk had been gnawed by rats; the benches were adorned with spots of ink, with carvings, with names scribbled like hieroglyphics.

Anania felt defrauded when instead of the master like a cock he saw a mistress, dressed in the costume of the place, a pale, small woman with a little moustache just like Aunt Tatàna's.

Forty idle children made the room lively. Anania was the tallest of them all. Perhaps for this reason the little mistress turned oftenest to him. Besides the moustache she had two terrible, fierce, dark eyes, and she addressed Anania by his surname, speaking partly in Italian, partly in Sardinian. He was honoured by her persistent attention, though he found it a little tedious. At the end of three hours he was actually able to read and to write two letters. One of them was a mere round O, but that did not detract from the importance of his attainment. At eleven o'clock he was dead sick of the school and the mistress and his stiff, smart clothes. He thought longingly of the courtyard, the elder tree, the basket of fruit into which he was in the habit of thrusting predatory fingers. He yawned. Was the going away hour never coming? Many of the children were in tears, and the mistress wasted her breath preaching about order and the love of lessons.

At last the door burst open. The school officer--also dressed in costume--showed his shaven face for a single instant and shouted, "Time!" The children made one simultaneous rush to the door, tumbling over each other and shouting. Anania was left to the last, and the mistress began to pat his head with her scraggy fingers.

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Bravo! Remember me to your mother."

That, of course, referred to Aunt Tatàna. He suddenly felt quite fond of his teacher, who now hurried after the rest of the noisy children.

"What style of going out is that?" she cried, capturing as many as she could. "Come now! Two and two! In a proper line!"

She placed them in order, and they filed down the corridor through the door, out into the street. There they were set free and they scattered like birds escaped from a net, screaming and jumping. Older and more serious scholars issued from the other class-rooms, all in their rows. Bustianeddu fell upon Anania, slamming his copy books on the child's head and seizing his arm.

"Did you like it?" he asked.

"Yes," replied Anania, "but I'm so awfully hungry. I thought it was never going to stop."

"Did you imagine it would only last a minute?" said the other in his superior voice. "Just you wait a bit. You'll know something of hunger in a little while! Look! there's Margherita Carboni!"

The little girl with the violet stockings, the rosy handkerchief, the green woollen sleeves, appeared among the female pupils, who were dismissed after the boys. She passed in front of Anania and Bustianeddu without noticing them, followed by other girls, rich and poor, young ladies and peasants, some nearly grown up, and in training as coquettes. The older boys stopped to laugh with and admire them.

"They're spooning," said Bustianeddu, "if the master were to catch them----"

Anania did not answer. Boys and girls of that dignity seemed to him quite old enough for love-making.

"They even write to each other!" said Bustianeddu importantly.

"I suppose we shall do that when we're in the fourth form," said Anania simply.

"Oh, indeed, will you, Ninny? Better wash your face first," said Bustianeddu; then he pulled the little boy's hand and they ran.

After that day, followed many similar ones. Winter came back, the olive mill was reopened, the scenes of the previous year were re-enacted. Anania was top of his class. No one doubted that he was to be a doctor or a lawyer--possibly a judge. All knew that Signor Carboni had promised to assist his education. He knew it himself, but as yet had no idea of the worth of that promise. Gratitude began in him later. For the present he was overpowered by shyness augmented by delight whenever he encountered his florid and affable godfather. He was often invited to dinner at Signor Carboni's, but in the kitchen with the servants and the cats. This was no annoyance to him, as at table with the gentry he could not have opened his lips for pride and alarm.

After dinner Margherita used to come to the kitchen and entertain him. She asked questions about the people at the mill, then took him to the courtyard, to the granaries, to the cellar. She was delighted when, aping Bustianeddu's grand manner, he said, "Good Lord! What a lot of things you have!"

She never condescended to play with him, but Anania cared little for play. He was timid and grave; without understanding its significance he was already conscious of his position's irregularity.

Years rolled on.

After the mistress with the moustache came the master like a cock: then an old man, much addicted to snuff, who wept when he pointed to Spitzbergen and said, "Here Silvio Pellico was imprisoned." Then came a master with a round face, who was very pale and very lively, and who presently committed suicide. This lamentable event was morbidly impressive to the whole school, and for a long time the children neither spoke nor thought of anything else. Anania could not explain to himself why a man of such great cheerfulness should have cut his throat; but he declared before the whole school that he was ready to follow the example at the earliest opportunity. Fortunately the opportunity was lacking. At this time he had no sorrows. He was loved at home, he did well at school. His life unfolded evenly without change in its events, without change in the faces which surrounded him. One day was like another, one year was like another, resembling an interminable roll of stuff printed all over on the same pattern.

In winter the same people assembled round the olive press. In spring the elder flowered in the courtyard, the flies and the bees buzzed in the luminous air. The same figures moved in the streets. Uncle Barchitto, the madman, with his staring blue eyes, his long beard, and flowing hair, like a Jesus become old and a beggar, continued his harmless extravagances. Maestro Pane rapped on the table and talked to himself in a loud voice. Efès and Nanna reeled and stuttered. The ragged children played with the dogs, and the cats, and the chickens, and the baby pigs. The women squabbled. The young men sang melancholy love songs in the serene moonlit nights. Rebecca's lament shook the air like the cry of the cuckoo across the sadness of a barren landscape. As the sun sometimes shines out from an unexpected quarter of a cloudy sky, so the florid figure of Signor Carboni sometimes appeared in this district of dismal poverty. Then the women came to their doors smiling and saluting; the men who did no work, and passed their time stretched out indolently in the sunshine, sprang to their feet and blushed; the children ran after him and kissed his hand which he carried carelessly behind his back. In hard winters he gave _polenta_ (maize) and oil to the whole neighbourhood. People came to him for small loans which they never repaid. Everywhere in the dirty wind-swept lanes he met boys and girls who called him Godfather, and men and women whom he addressed as Gossip. He could not keep count of his god-children, and Uncle Pera declared that many called him Gossip merely to get his money.

"They all hope he'll educate their sons," said the old gardener, warming himself at the olive press furnace, his cudgel across his knees.

"Well, there's one he's going to educate," said the miller, looking proudly at Anania who was gazing out of the window.

"Not even one. The _padrone_ is vain, but he isn't going to ruin himself."

"Oh, shut up, you old grasshopper," said the miller; "you're just like the devil--the older you get the more disagreeable you are!"

"Why doesn't the _padrone_ educate his own bastards?" said the old man, hawking and coughing. Anania, who was looking out of the window felt a shudder run through him as if he had been struck.

The miller coughed in his turn and wished Anania would go away, but he could not restrain himself from reply.

"Dead, dirty, malignant rat!" he exclaimed, "how dare you speak of the master so?"

"Do you suppose it's not known?" said the old man taking up his cudgel as if to defend himself; "that boy who works for Franziscu Carchide--he's a son of Jesus Christ, is he? What I say is why doesn't the _padrone_ educate that boy?"

"He's the son of a priest," said the miller in a loud voice.

"He isn't. He's the _padrone_'s son. Look at him! He's the image of Margherita."

"Well," said the miller, defeated, "that boy's as bad as the devil. What's the good of educating him? You can't make a silk purse of a sow's ear."

"Have it your own way!" murmured Uncle Pera, relapsing into his cough.

Anania stood at the window beside the heap of husks, oppressed by mysterious sadness. He knew the boy at Carchide's; he was wild, but not more so than Bustianeddu and many of the schoolboys. Why did not Signor Carboni take him into his house and give him a home, as the olive miller had done for his son? Then he thought--

"Has that boy a mother, I wonder?"

Ah! the mother! the mother! As Anania grew and his mind opened, its ideas and perceptions taking form unobserved like the petals of a wild flower, so the thought of his mother became ever clearer in the haze of his new found conscience. He belonged now to the Fifth Elementary Form, and was associated with boys of every condition and of every character. He began to have knowledge of the science of good and evil. He was now intelligently ashamed if any one alluded to his mother, and remembered that he had always felt ashamed instinctively. Yet he was consumed by the desire to know where she was, to see her again, and reproach her with having deserted him. The unknown land, mysterious and far, to which she had fled, was taking to Anania's eyes clear outline and appearance, like that land discerned amid the mists of dawn to which the voyaging ship draws ever nearer. He studied geography with interest; and knew exactly how he should go from the island to that continent which concealed his mother. As once in the mountain village he had dreamed of the town where his father lived, so now he pondered upon the great cities described by his teachers and his books, and in one of them, and in all, he saw the figure of his mother. Her physical image, like an old photograph, was growing fainter and fainter in his memory; but he always thought of her as dressed in the Sardinian costume, barefoot, slender, and very sorrowful.

That year an event occurred which was deeply impressive to his imagination. This was the return of Bustianeddu's mother.

Anania was a pupil at the Gymnasium, secretly enamoured of Margherita Carboni, and believing himself quite grown up. The woman's reappearance moved the whole neighbourhood, and Anania wondered over it by day and by night. Ostensibly, however, he took no interest in the event.

Some time passed before he saw the woman who had hidden herself in the house of a relative. Bustianeddu, however, who had become grave and astute beyond his years, spoke frequently of her to Anania.

Uncle Pera was growing old and the olive-miller assisted him in the cultivation of his beans and teazles. Anania had free ingress to the garden, and often carried his books to a grassy bank beside the streamlet, whence under the shadow of the prickly pears he could see the wild panorama of mountains and valleys. Here Bustianeddu would find him when he wanted to pour out his confidences. Bustianeddu spoke sceptically and coldly, unaware of the tumults of emotion working in the soul of his friend.

"It would have been better for her to stay away," said Bustianeddu, lying on his face, his legs in the air. "My father was ready to kill her; but he takes it more quietly now."

"Have you seen her?"

"Of course I have. My father doesn't like me to visit her, but, of course, I go. She's grown stout. She's dressed like a lady: I didn't recognize her. The devil!"

"You didn't recognize her?" exclaimed Anania, surprised and thinking of his own mother. Ah, he would know _her_ at once!

Then he thought--

"She will be dressed like that too, and her hair in the fashion. Oh God--oh God--what will she be like?"

Her face eluded him, he was bewildered, confused, then tried to console himself trusting to his instinct.

"I should know her--I'm sure I should," he thought passionately.

"Why has your mother come back?" he asked Bustianeddu once.

"Why? Because this is her own town. She was working at a dressmaker's in Turin. She got tired of it and came home."

There was a pause. Neither of the lads believed in the dressmaker at Turin, but they accepted the story. Anania even said--

"Then your father aught to make it up with her."

"No," said Bustianeddu, defending his father, "he's quite right. You see there was no necessity for her to go away, and work for her living!"

"Your father works himself. What's the shame of working?"

"My father keeps a shop," corrected the other.

"Well, what's she going to do now? And which of them will you live with?"

"Don't know," said Bustianeddu.

Daily, however, the stories became more interesting.

"No end of people come to my father to beg him to forgive her. Even our member of parliament! Grand-mother came yesterday. She said, 'Jesus forgave the Magdalen; remember, my son, that we are all born to die, and it's only our good deeds we can carry over there. Look at the condition of your house! Only the rats are at home in it.'"

"What did your father say?"

"He went away," said Bustianeddu with great indignation; "of course he went away!--for shame!"

Next day he related. "Even Aunt Tatàna has begun to meddle. She preaches long sermons. She said to my father, 'Fancy you are taking a friend as a guest. Oh, do take her! She's penitent. She will reform. If you won't take her back, who knows what will become of her! King Solomon had seventy women in his house, and he was the wisest man in the world!'"

"What did your father say."

"Hard as a stone. He said it was the women who made King Solomon foolish."

The skin-dealer never relented. His wife lived at the far side of the town near the school. She wore the costume again; but slightly altered, slightly embellished with tags and ribbons. Her dress proclaimed her a woman of equivocal character. The husband did not forgive, and she continued her own life.

Anania saw her whenever he went to the Gymnasium. She lived in a black house, the windows of which were outlined with white, the white lines ending in a large cross. There were four steps to the door, and the woman often sat on these steps sewing or embroidering. She was large and handsome, very dark, no longer young. In summer her head was bare, her raven locks raised high on a cushion above her low forehead. Round her long full throat she wore a handkerchief of grey silk.

When he saw her, Anania grew red. He felt a morbid kindness for her, yet often thought he hated her. He would have liked to go to his school another way so as to avoid the sight of her; but an occult and malignant force drew his steps always to that street.

VI

It was the Easter holiday time.

Anania, studying his Greek grammar as he paced the little path which divided the expanse of ashy green teazles, heard a rap at the gate. He had not the garden to himself. His father was there, hoeing and singing love songs of the poet Luca Cubeddu. Nanna was weeding, helped by Uncle Pera. Efès, in his usual condition, lay on the grass. The weather was almost hot. Rosy clouds chased each other over the milky heaven, disappearing behind the Cerulean summits of Monte Aliena. From the valley, as from an immense verdure-clad shell, indefinite sounds and perfumes rose into the sunny air.

Now and then Nanna raised herself upright putting her hand to her back. She blew kisses to the student. "Bless him!" she said tenderly. "There he is studying away like a little bishop! Who knows what he mayn't turn out! He'll be a judge, or an examining Inspector. All the girls of the place will be picking him up like a sugar plum! Ah, my poor back!"

"Get on with the weeds!" growled Uncle Pera, "or I'll break your back in good earnest. Get on with the weeds and let the boy alone."

"Bad luck to you, old tyrant! If I were a lass of fifteen, you wouldn't be talking like that!" she said, bending over the weeds; but after a minute she looked up again, blowing more kisses to Anania.

When the miller heard the knock he called out--

"Who's there?"

Anania and Efès, one from his book, the other from the grass, looked up with the same look of faint anxiety. Suppose it were Signor Carboni? Efès felt all the weight of his degradation when the benevolent _padrone_, who never worried him with useless reproaches, sat down and talked to him: Anania thought of his mother and remembered the incongruity between his position and that of Margherita whom he was yet daring to love. The knock was repeated.

"I'll go and see who it is," said Anania, running and tossing his book in the air to encourage himself.

"If it's the master," said Uncle Pera, "Efès must get up and pretend he's doing something. It's abominable to see him sprawling about like a dead dog."

Nanna emitted a growl and kilted her ragged petticoat round her red bare legs.

"Get up, you old blunderbuss!" continued Uncle Pera, attacking the sot, "get up and pretend you're some use!"

But the alarm subsided when Anania returned bringing a thin, pale, young man with a face like a scarecrow, dressed in the Fonni costume.

"I suppose you don't know him," said the student to his father; "I didn't! It's Zuanne Atonzu. What a big fellow he is!"

"Greetings, cousin!" said the miller. "Welcome! How's your mother?"

"She is well," said the young man laughing shyly.

"Why have you come?"

"I'm witness in a case at the Tribunal."

"What have you done with your horse? At the tavern? Why you've forgotten we're kin. Well? Are we too poor for you to lodge with us?"

"I wish I was as rich," smiled the youth.

"We'll send for the horse," said Anania, hiding his grammar in his pocket.

They went off together. Anania was childishly pleased at seeing this humble shepherd in his rough clothes which recalled to him a whole wild and far off world. Zuanne was overcome by shyness beholding this handsome young gentleman, fair and fresh with his white collar and splendid necktie.

"Mother, we want some coffee," called Anania from the street.

Then he took the guest to his own room and began to exhibit his possessions. Quaint furniture filled the long narrow room. The ceiling was of cane, whitewashed; there were two wooden chests like antique Venetian coffers, roughly carved with griffons, eagles, and fantastic flowers; a pyramidal chest of drawers, baskets suspended from the walls, and pictures in cork frames: in one corner a vessel of oil, in the other his bed covered with a quilt knitted by Aunt Tatàna. The window looked out on the courtyard elder; between the window and the bed was a little table with a green cover, and a white wood book-case, the corners of which had been carved by Maestro Pane in imitation of the chests. On the table were sundry books and much manuscript written by Anania; a few boxes strangely tied up, almanacs and a packet of Sardinian newspapers. All was tidy and very dean; sweet odours and waves of light entered by the window. The tiled floor was cracked in places, and a couple of elder leaves fluttered over it, chasing each other as if in play. A volume of _Les Misérables_ lay open on the desk. Anania had intended to show everything to the visitor as to a long missed brother; but Zuanne's stupid expression as he opened and shut the mysterious boxes, damped his friend's enthusiasm.

Why had he brought this bumpkin into his little room? It was fragrant not only with the scent of honey, of fruit, of lavender which Aunt Tatàna hoarded in the chests, but also with the perfume of his lonely dreams. From its windows opening on the elder flower and the moss-grown roofs of neighbouring cottages, the world was opening for him, virgin and flowery like the untrodden mountains of the horizon. His pleasure had changed into disappointment.

Something had detached itself and fallen away from him, as a stone sometimes detaches itself from the rock, never to return. His native village, the past, the first years of his life, the homesick memories, the poetic affection for the brother of his adoption--all seemed to vanish in a flash.

"Let's go out," he said brusquely; and led the shepherd through the Nuoro streets, avoiding his schoolfellows lest they should ask who was this peasant walking awkwardly at his side. They passed before Signor Carboni's house. Suddenly appeared at the door a plump and rosy face, illuminated, it seemed, by reflection from a blouse of republican scarlet.

Anania snatched off his hat and the reflection of the blouse flamed on his face also. Margherita smiled, and never were the round cheeks of any maiden marked with more adorable dimples.

"Who's that woman!" asked Zuanne, the lout, when they had moved on.

"Woman? Why, she's a young girl! only nine months older than I am!" cried Anania.

Zuanne was much confused and said no more; but a most strange thing happened to Anania. His will became unable to keep his mouth shut; and he lied, knowing that he lied, but overwhelmed by felicity at the notion that what he said might have been true.

"That's my sweetheart," he said deliberately.

That evening, the olive-miller lounging in his kitchen, made Zuanne describe the ruins of Serrabile, an ancient city discovered near Fonni, and he asked whether there was any chance of treasure being found there. But Anania stood at the window of his little room, watching the slow rising of the moon between the black teeth of Orthobene.

At last he was alone! Night reigned, passionate and sweet. Already the cuckoo was filling the lonely valley with her palpitating cries. Ah! thus sadly did Anania feel his heart palpitate and cry, out of an infinite solitude.

Why had he told that lie? And why had the stupid shepherd said not a word on hearing the stupendous falsehood? Clearly he knew nothing of love--love for a superior creature, love without limit and without hope. But why had Anania stooped to a lie? For shame! He had calumniated Margherita, put himself further than ever from her. It must be the same spirit of vanity, the same desire of the marvellous, which once upon a time had made him tell Zuanne of an imaginary encounter with robbers. Ah! God!

He pressed his cold hands upon his burning cheeks; he fixed his eyes on the melancholy visage of the moon. He shuddered. Then he remembered a bright cold winter moon, the theft of the hundred _lire_, the figure of Margherita appearing before him like the shadow of a flower against the golden disc of the moon. Ah! his love must have dated from that night; only now after years and years had it burst forth breaking the stone beneath which it had lain buried, like a spring which can no longer keep its course below ground.

These similes of the flower against the moon, of the rising spring, came ready made to Anania. He was pleased with his poetic fancies, but they could not lay the remorse which tormented him. "How vile I am!" he thought; "vile enough to lie, and about her. Well, I may be successful at my books, I may become a great lawyer; but morally I shall never be anything but the son of that lost woman!"

He stood a long time at the window. Some one passed down the street singing, and somehow the song reawakened his memories of infancy and of Fonni, Fonni with its crimson sunsets! He fell into a dream, luminous and melancholy like the moon he was watching. He imagined himself still at Fonni. He had never gone to school, had never felt the shame of his birth. He was a shepherd, simple like Zuanne. And he saw himself standing at the extremity of the village, in a rosy summer twilight; and behold Margherita passed, Margherita she also poor and an exile in the mountain village, wearing that narrow skirt characteristic of the place, the amphora on her head, as if she were a woman out of the Bible. He called to her and she turned, radiant in the sunset dazzle, and she smiled to him rapturously.

"Where are you going, beauty?" he asked.

"I am going to the fountain."

"May I come with you?"

"Come, Nania."

He went. They walked together by the road high up on the shoulder of the valley in whose depth night was waiting, waiting till the purple should fade in the heavens and veils of shadow should fall upon all things. Together they descended to the fountain. Margherita set the amphora under the silver stream of gurgling water, and immediately it changed its tone to one of merriment, as if the descent into the jug had agreeably interrupted the eternal tedium. The two young things sat on a stone bench before the fountain, and they talked of love. The amphora filled, the water overflowed, and for some moments was quite silent as if listening to the lovers. And now the sky was grey and the veils of shadow had fallen on the higher peaks, the more luminous folds of the mountains. And as night enwrapped the valleys, the desire of Anania waxed bolder. He put his arm round the girl's waist, she laid her head on his shoulder, and he kissed her.

At this time Anania was seventeen. He had no friends and mixed little with his schoolfellows. He was painfully conscious of the stain upon his birth. Once overhearing the remark, "If I were he, I would not stay with my father," he fancied the words must refer to himself.

"That's it!" he thought; "why am I here with this man who betrayed my mother and flung her into a bad life? I don't exactly love him, and I certainly don't hate him, but what I ought is to despise him. He is not wicked; he's not completely trivial like the majority of our neighbours. Sometimes I feel quite fond of him, when I hear his simple talk about treasure hunting, when I see his respectful affection for his elderly wife, his unchanging fidelity to his master. But I ought to despise him! I wish to despise him! What claim has he on me? Did I ask him to bring me into the world? I ought certainly to leave him now I understand----"

But gratitude, affection, much confidence, bound him to Aunt Tatàna. She lived almost exclusively for him. She adored him, though she had not succeeded in making him what she would have liked, a pious and obedient boy, reverent of God and the king and the priests. She saw, alas I that he was wrong-headed and self-sufficient, but she loved him none the less. She laughed and jested with him; she taught him to dance; she amused him with all the gossip of the place. Every morning before he was up she brought him a cup of coffee. Every Sunday she promised him money if he would go to mass.

"I'm too sleepy," he would say. "I worked so hard last night."

"Go later," she would insist. Anania did not go, but Aunt Tatàna gave him the money all the same.

The day after his idyllic dream, woven of the moonlight which streamed in at his little window, Anania took Zuanne for a walk, starting with the intention of treating his friend to a cup of aniseed at the tavern.

"Who knows when we shall meet again!" sighed the shepherd. "When are you coming to see us?"

"I can't" said Anania, seeking an excuse, "I have to work so hard. I ought to finish with the Gymnasium this year."

"And then where are you going? To the continent?"

"Yes! to Rome!"

"There are a great many convents at Rome, aren't there? And more than a hundred churches."

"A good many more than a hundred. Who told you?"

"Your father, last night. He said when he was a soldier----"

"Are you to be a soldier?"

"No; my brother. I----" He interrupted himself.

They entered the tavern. It was empty, smelling of tobacco and spirits, swarming with flies.

A girl was sitting on the bench. She was dark, and very handsome, though untidy and dirty.

"Good-morning. Agata."

"What do you want?" she asked, getting up and turning familiarly to Anania.

"What would you like?" Anania asked the shepherd.

"I don't mind," said Zuanne embarrassed.

The girl mimicked him, looking Anania in the face. He returned her look. Zuanne grew red, and looked at the floor. When they came out he asked shyly.

"Is that one your sweetheart too?"

Anania was half-flattered, half-angry. "What makes you think that? Because she looked at me? Good gracious, what are eyes for? You intend to be a monk, I suppose?"

"Yes," said Zuanne simply.

"You're going to be a monk!" repeated Anania astounded. "Come along, then! we'll visit the churchyard. That's what will suit you."

"We shall all go there some day," said Zuanne gravely.

It was soon after Zuanne's visit that the boys at the Gymnasium acted a comedy. They had wanted Anania to take the part of the heroine, but he had obstinately refused. Nor did he repent his resolution, for when the night of the performance came he had a place in the second row of the spectators immediately behind his godfather (now Syndic of Nuoro) by whose side sat Margherita in a white hat and a red dress which shone like a flame.

The Captain of the Carabinieri, the Secretary of the Sub-Prefecture, the Assessor and the Director of the Gymnasium, sat in the front row with the Syndic and his resplendent daughter; but the young lady did not seem pleased with her company; she kept turning her head, though haughtily, to look at the students.

The hall had once been a convent church; now it was the theatre, exhibition-room, centre of reunion for all Nuoro. A curtain, not innocent of patches, concealed the stage, but it blew about in the wind and gave visions of boyish legs jumping and dancing. At last it was drawn with much difficulty and the comedy began.

The time was that of the Crusades, the scene an ancient and much turreted castle, of which, however, nothing was visible but one room containing a round mahogany table and six Vienna chairs.

The faithful Hermengild (a diminutive school-boy, his face rouged with red paper, his legs awkwardly astraddle, his costume one of Signora Carboni's dresses) was embroidering a scarf for the no less faithful Godfrey, a warrior away on some distant expedition.

"Here she pricks her finger," whispered Anania leaning towards Margherita.

She leaned towards him, hiding her laughter with her handkerchief.

The Captain of the Carabinieri seated by her side, turned his head slowly, and glared at the student. But Anania was so happy he wanted to laugh, and wanted to impart to Margherita all the joy which her nearness had waked in him.

At the sixth mocking criticism whispered by the little student, the Captain could endure no more.

"Hold your stupid tongue, will you?" he shouted. Anania shivered, and drew back as a snail withdraws into its shell. He was so angry that for some minutes he could neither hear nor see.

_Hold your tongue._ Exactly; he was not to be allowed to make his harmless jokes, not to be allowed to speak. Oh yes! he quite understood! He must not lift his eyes, because he was poor and dependent and a foundling. What was he doing here among all these great folk, among all these rich and courted young people? How had he dared to lean towards Margherita Carboni to whisper with her, to make trivial jokes for her smile? He was quite conscious of the triviality of his conversation. How could the son of an olive-miller, the son of an Olì, be expected to talk otherwise? "Hold your tongue, do!" the Captain had said.

Presently Anania revived. He looked contemptuously at the fringe of red hair round the Captain's bald head. He saw deformed ears and the end of a waxed moustache. He felt a ferocious wish to box the deformed ears as many times as there remained hairs on his hideous head. Margherita presently turned round, surprised by Anania's silence. Their eyes met. Seeing him depressed, Margherita's eyes became shadowed. Anania saw it and he smiled. In a moment they were both merry again. Margherita tried to give her attention to the stage, but felt that Anania was smiling still, and that his long, half-closed eyes were still fixed on her.

A delicate intoxication overpowered them both. After the comedy there was a farce at which Signor Carboni laughed immoderately. Margherita was vexed to see her father laughing like a baby. She had read that fashionable persons never attend to the play, still less are amused by it. The Secretary of the Sub-Prefecture frequently turned his back on the stage, and Margherita would have liked her father to do the same.

It was near midnight when Anania accompanied the Carboni's to their home. The Assessor--old and a babbler--walked with the Syndic, telling of an American medical discovery: that microbes are essential to the human organism. The boy and girl walked in front, laughing when they slipped on the cobbles of the miry streets. Other persons went by, laughing and chattering. The night was dark, warm, velvety. Now and then a breeze from the east came, went, returned wafting a wild perfume from the woods outside the town. Stars, infinite like human tears, sparkled in the limitless heaven. Jupiter flamed over Orthobene.

Who does not remember in his early youth some such night, some such hour? Stars quivering in the depths of a night more luminous than twilight, stars not seen but felt--ready to descend upon our brow; the brilliant bear like a golden chariot waiting to carry us to the land of dreams; a dark pathway; felicity so near, she can be grasped and retained for ever and for ever.

More than once Anania felt the girl's hand touch his. The mere thought that he might take it and press it seemed sacrilege. He felt a sort of double consciousness. He spoke yet seemed silent, his thoughts far away. He walked and stumbled yet seemed scarce to touch the earth. He laughed yet was sad almost to tears. He saw Margherita by his side, so near, that he might touch her, yet she appeared far away, intangible like the breath of the wind which went and came. She laughed and jested with him. In her eyes he had seen the reflection of his own distress; yet he told himself she could only regard him as a faithful dog. He thought--

"Could she guess I was consumed with the desire to press her hand she would cry out with horror; she would regard me then as a rabid dog."

What did they say to each other that starlit night, in the dark streets swept by the odorous breeze? He never was able to remember; but, for a long, long time the dull talk between the old Assessor and Signor Carboni remained in his mind.

At last, however, the Assessor's high nasal voice became silent. Margherita and Anania stopped, bid him good-night, went on their way; but now the boy felt himself awakened from a dream, once more solitary, sad and shy, stumbling in the darkened street. The Syndic had interposed his portly person between the poor young creatures!

"Bravo! bravo!" said he, "how did you like the play?"

"It was rot!" replied Anania.

"Bra--a--vo!" repeated the godfather. "You're a cruel critic."

"What else could you expect? Our Director's a fossil--he couldn't choose better. Life's not like that--never has been! If the theatre isn't like life, its ridiculous. If they must have chosen something mediæval, still it might have been something less absurd--something true, human, touching. They might have had Eleonora d'Arborea dying because she had helped the plague-stricken----

"But," said Signor Carboni, astonished by the boy's eloquence, "I don't think our theatre's equal to such a grandiose subject."

"Then a modern comedy would be better--something moving. These stupid legends have had their day," said Margherita, catching up Anania's tone.

"What, Miss? you too? Well, I agree they might have had something more interesting. What's that you said about the Director?"

"I said he's a fossil."

"Good Lord! Suppose I tell him?"

"I don't care! I'm going away next year."

"And pray where may you be going?"

Anania grew red, remembering he couldn't go anywhere without Signor Carboni's assistance. What did the question mean? Had his godfather forgotten? Was he mocking him? Did he want to make the boy feel the weight of his obligation, keeping him on tenter hooks, exhibiting him as at his patron's mercy?

"I don't know," he murmured.

"Do you really want to go, my lad? Then you shall, you shall. You're shaking your wings like a young bird. Oh! you shall fly--you shall fly!"

He made the gesture of throwing a bird in the air; then slapped his godson's shoulder. Anania heaved a sigh of relief. He felt as light as if he had really been launched in flight. Margherita laughed. That laugh vibrating in the stillness of the night seemed to Anania the rose-bush's obscure desire for the bird which perches on it to sing.

VII

Autumn drew on.

These were Anania's last days at home, and heavy weight of sentiment oppressed him. He was still the young bird joyfully ready for flight; but he was sad and tormented by vague fears of the unknown. What was the world like, which had already usurped his thoughts? And the adieu was painful to that humble world in which his childhood had monotonously passed, unstained by active grief, brightened by his evolving love for Margherita. The languor and sweetness of early autumn contributed to render him sentimental. Light clouds veiled the sky. Behind the mountains a vaporous horizon concealed yet suggested worlds of ineffable dream. The pale green twilights were brightened by rosy cloudlets, meandering slowly and interruptedly over the glaucous heaven. In the garden was the rustle, the odour of burning weeds; it seemed to Anania that something of his soul vanished in the smoke of these melancholy fires.

Good-bye! good-bye! gardens and orchards, guardians of the valley! Good-bye! distant roar of the torrent which announced the winter! Good-bye, cuckoo, which foretold the return of spring! Good-bye! grey and savage Orthobene with his holm-oaks outlined against the clouds like upstanding hairs on a sleeping giant. Good-bye! distant cerulean mountains! and good-bye, tranquil and kindly hearth, little room scented with fruit, with honey, and with dreams! Good-bye, humble companions, unconscious of their own ill-fortune, wicked old Uncle Pera, miserable Nanna and Efès, suffering Rebecca, extravagant Maestro Pane, crazy beggars, girls careless of their beauty, children born to want--all of them mean and distressful persons whom Anania did not love, whom he was leaving gladly, yet with a wrench.

And good-bye, Margherita! Light and sweetness among shadows, a rainbow in the cloud, a frame of pearl glorifying the dingy painting of dull memory I Margherita, good-bye!

The day of departure drew near. Aunt Tatàna made endless preparations. She provided shirts and socks, fruit, and cakes white as ivory, cheese, a fowl, dozens of salted eggs, wine, honey, raisins, saddle-bags, and baskets filled to the brim.

"But these are stores for a whole army!" said Anania.

"Hush, my son! You will find it all necessary. _There_ you will have no one to care for you, poor child. Oh! what will become of you?"

"Never fear. I'll look after myself."

The miller and his wife had long, secret consultations and Anania guessed their tenor. One evening they went out together and he anxiously awaited their return.

Aunt Tatàna came in alone.

"Anania, where do you intend to go? To Cagliari or to Sassari?"

Till that moment he had expected to cross the sea: now he understood that some one had decided against that plan.

"Signor Carboni, I suppose?" he said, with ill-concealed bitterness and pride; "don't deny it. What's the good of keeping me in the dark? I see through you. Why won't he send me to the continent? I'll pay all his money back to him in the end."

"Bah!" said Aunt Tatàna alarmed by these symptoms of pride, "whatever have you taken into your head?"

Anania panted, bent his head over a book without seeing a word of it. The woman caressed him.

"Well, what do you wish, my son? Cagliari or Sassari? You mentioned them both yesterday. Why on earth should you go further? Jesus! Mary! The sea's a horrible thing! People get sick on the sea--so I have heard--sometimes they die. And the storms. Do you never think of the storms?"

"You don't understand," said Anania, turning his pages.

"You never said a word about it! You mustn't be so capricious. You can study just as well in Sardinia as on the continent? Why should you go to the continent?"

Ah yes, why? What did Aunt Tatàna know of his secret desires? It was not for the sake of his studies that he wanted to cross the sea. Had he not, since the first day, that sunny autumn day when Bustianeddu had led him to the Convent school, had he not been thinking of something very different from mere study?

However Aunt Tatàna's gentle talk calmed his annoyance.

"You are still a child, my son. At seventeen do you want to run about the world alone? Would you die at sea away from every one, or wither in a city which you tell me is as big as a forest? Go to Cagliari. Signor Carboni will give you introductions. He knows everybody at Cagliari, even a Marquis. Well, then, be reasonable. You shall go further when you are older. You are like a leveret just weaned. It leaves the form and runs away to the very wall of the _tanca_, then it comes back. Presently it goes further, and further still. It learns what it may do; it sees the path along which it will run. You must wait. Think how near we shall be, think how you can run back to us if anything goes wrong. At Christmas you'll be able to come back----"

"Very well. I'll go to Cagliari," said Anania.

Next day he began his leave-takings. He visited the Director of the Gymnasium, a priest who was a great friend of Aunt Tatàna's, the doctor, the Deputy; then the tailor, the grocer, and the shoemaker, Franziscu Carchide, the handsome young man who had been one of the _habitués_ of the olive-mill. Carchide had, however, made a fortune, no one knew how; he had a big shop with five or six workmen, he dressed like a gentleman, talked affectedly and flirted with the young ladies whose feet he measured.

"Have you any commissions for Cagliari?" said Anania entering his shop.

"Send him a diamond ring," said one of the workmen, "for he's engaged to the Syndic's daughter."

"Well, why not?" said Carchide, with conceit. "Sit down, Anania."

But Anania, irritated by the joke which he thought an insult to Margherita, would not sit down and hurried away. As he went out he met the lad whom rumour called the _padrone_'s son, a tall boy with blue eyes really very like Margherita's, but sadder.

"Good-bye, Antonino," said the student, and the other looked at him with flashes of hatred and envy in his melancholy pupils.

When he came in Anania told everything to Aunt Tatàna, who was preparing a sweetmeat, compounded of oranges, honey and almonds, for him to present to some great person at Cagliari.

"Look," said the boy, "your priest gave me a crown, and the doctor gave me two lire. I don't like to take it."

"Oh, bad child! It's the custom to give presents to a boy going away for the first time!" said the woman, shaking and stirring the slender strips of orange-peel in the shining copper saucepan. Strong smell of boiling honey perfumed the kitchen. Everywhere were little yellow baskets packed with the stores for the student. Anania sat down with the cat on his knee.

"I wonder where I shall be in a week? Stay quiet, Mussittu, put your tail down! Your priest read me such a long sermon."

"I suppose he told you to make your confession and take the Communion before starting?"

"That was necessary twenty years ago, when one went to Cagliari on a horse and took three days over it. It's not the fashion now!"

"You bad child! don't you believe in God? Holy Saint Catharine, what will become of you at Cagliari? I hope you'll anyhow go to La Sea (the cathedral), where there's a picture that does miracles. Cagliari's a very pious place. You won't speak against religion, I hope?"

"Never mind Cagliari! Every one believes what he can and what he likes. I venerate God more in my heart than all the hypocrites."

These words were somewhat consolatory to the good woman. She told him the Bible story of Eli, and then let him continue the description of his visits.

The kitten had climbed on his shoulder and was licking his ear, tickling him in a way that somehow reminded him of Margherita. He was telling the vulgar joke about Carchide's engagement when Nanna came in, Aunt Tatàna having sent her to buy comfits for her sweetmeat. Her skirt was torn, and she looked even worse than usual, as she stood unrolling her package and trying to listen to the conversation.

"Did you hear," said simple Aunt Tatàna, "that horrid Franziscu Carchide wants to marry Margherita Carboni?"

"No, that's not what I said!" cried Anania.

"Oh, I know Franziscu," said Nanna, "he's mad. He asked first for the doctor's daughter. They chased him out with the broom handle, and now he thinks he'll get Margherita because he made her shoes too small."

"He wants a kick in the face!" cried Anania jumping up, the cat round his neck.

Nanna looked at him, her little eyes shining shrewdly.

"That's what I say. But there's an officer, a general I think, who wants to marry Margherita. No, I say, she's a rose and she must marry a pink--fresh and sweet, both of them. Take it!" she went on offering a comfit to Anania. He drew back, while the kitten vainly stretched its paw to the little white object.

"Keep off! You smell like a wine barrel!" said the boy, and Nanna staggered and dropped all her comfits on the floor.

"My pink!" she said coaxingly. "You shall be Margherita's pink! Why are you going away? But I know! it's to become a judge----"

Anania laughed and picked up the comfits.

"And all the girls are to pick me up like a sugar plum, isn't that it?"

He danced the kitten up and down, feeling quite affectionate to Nanna. Then suddenly became very gloomy. Who was the officer who wanted to marry Margherita? Was it that horrible Captain with the red neck who had said, "Hold your tongue, do!" Then he thought of something still worse. Margherita married to some young man, handsome--rich--eternally lost to the poor student.

He set the cat down, and went away, shut himself up in his own room and looked out of the window. He was suffocating. It had never occurred to him that Margherita might marry.

"No, no!" he said, squeezing and shaking his head between his hands. "She mustn't marry. She must wait. She must wait till--till I----. But why should she wait? How could I marry her? I am the son of a lost woman. I have no mission in life but to find my mother and draw her out of the abyss. Margherita could never stoop to me. But until I have fulfilled my mission, I need Margherita as I need a lighthouse. Afterwards--I can die content."

He did not think that his "mission" might be prolonged indefinitely and without success. It did occur to him that he might aspire to Margherita if he were to renounce his mission; but this seemed monstrous, and he put the idea away.

The thought of finding his mother had grown and developed with his growth. It palpitated with his heart, vibrated with his nerves, flowed with his blood. Only death could eradicate it; but it was of his mother's death that he thought when he wished that their meeting might not take place. The yearning for this solution, however, seemed to him great cowardice.

Later he asked himself if it were natural sentimentality which had created this thought of his mission; or whether the thought had made him sentimental. At present he accepted his preoccupations and sentiments without analysis. Accepting them thus childishly he rooted them so firmly in his soul and in his flesh, that no logic, no conscious reasoning could have sufficed to pluck them up.

He spent a fevered night. Already far distant was the time in which he had been content to see Margherita in the orchard garden, without caring for the colour of her hair, the grace of her bosom. Then his dreams had been all fantastic; raptures, meetings, flights to mysterious places, preferably to the white tablelands of the moon; but had he learned she was about to marry, it would have occasioned him no suffering. Once he had thought of persuading her to follow him to the mountains where they might poison themselves with a poison that would not disfigure their corpses; yes, they would lay themselves on the rocks among the wild flowers and the ivy, and they would die together; but into this dream entered the desire neither for a kiss nor for a pressure of the hand.

Afterwards had come the idyllic dream of the mountains at Fonni, of the lover's kiss, of Margherita's surrender. Then came the night of the acting, when the immediate vision of her hair, her eyes, her bosom, had caused him a delicate intoxication.

Now he was racked by the thought that she might be destined for another. In his fevered slumber he was in agony, in his dreams he was writing, writing, at a despairing letter which he never succeeded in bringing to a termination. Then, still dreaming, he remembered having composed a sonnet in dialect for her, and he decided on sending it. He awoke. He rose and flung the window wide. It was near dawn. The heaven was quite clear, a great red star was setting behind the black obelisk of Orthobene, like a dying flame on a candlestick of stone. Cocks were crowing, answering each other with rivalry of raucous cries, each apparently angry with the other, and all with the delay in the coming of the light. Anania looked at the sky; he yawned, and a cold shiver ran from his feet to his head. Oh God! what was happening to him? Part of his soul must detach itself from him, must remain here, under that clear heaven, in sight of those wild mountains whose crests were candlesticks for the stars. As a wayfarer, burdened by too heavy a load wishes to drop some of it so as more lightly to follow his path, so Anania felt a great longing to leave part of his secret with Margherita. He shut the window, seated himself at his table, trembling and yawning. "How cold!" he said aloud.

The sonnet was already written out on pink paper ruled with violet lines. It bore the poetic title "Margherita," and was in the form of an allegory, also highly poetic.

A most lovely marguerite grew in a green meadow. All the flowers admired her, but specially a pale and lowly buttercup which had grown by her side. The buttercup was sick with love for his beauteous neighbour. And lo! on a sweet spring morning, a lovely maiden passed through the meadow, and plucked the daisy, kissing it and hiding it in her bosom, never noticing that she had squashed the unhappy buttercup. But the buttercup seeing his adored neighbour snatched away was glad to die.

The poet read his verses with breaking heart, for instead of the symbolic maiden he saw a captain of Carabinieri with a long moustache. He folded the sheet, enclosed it in an envelope, but remained long undecided whether or no it should be sealed. What would Margherita think of it? Would she receive a sonnet from him? Yes; because when the postman rapped out his three terrible knocks, which seemed a knocking of the iron hand of destiny. Margherita would herself run to take in the letters. That is if she were at home at the time of the postman's coming. She would be there at midday certainly. Therefore it was necessary to post the poetic epistle early.

Feverish agitation preyed upon the student. He could neither hear nor see. He sealed the envelope, left the house, and roamed the dark, deserted streets like a somnambulist. What o'clock was it? He did not know. Cocks were still crowing behind the walls. The damp air smelt of straw. A poor woman who baked barley bread in the poorer houses, came and went on her fatiguing business. The steps of two tall black Carabinieri resounded on the pavement. There was no one else.

Though it was still dark, Anania feared he might be seen. He slunk along the wall, and the moment he had posted the letter he took to his heels. He saw the Carabinieri again at the end of the street, changed his direction and made his way home almost without noticing it. But he could not go in. He was choking. He wanted air, he wanted immensity, and again he ran, his hat in his hand, his feet hurrying towards the high road. But when he had reached it he was still unrelieved. The horizon was clouded, the great valley dark. He went on and up. Only when he was at the foot of Orthobene could he breathe, expanding his nostrils like a colt escaped from the halter. He would have liked to shout aloud for excitement and joy.

It was getting light. Thin azure veils covered the great damp valley. The last stars had vanished. Involuntarily Anania repeated the line--

"_Care stelle dell'Orsa, io non credea_--" ("Dear stars of the Bear, I believed not--")

and tried to forget what he had done, though the thought of it was causing him acute spasms of happiness.

He began the ascent of Orthobene, plucking the leaves, the tufts of grass, throwing stones and laughing aloud. He seemed mad. The turf smelt sweet. The heaven was the colour of cyclamen behind the immense purple rocks of Monte Albo. Anania stood upon a rock looking at the huge cloister of the far mountains, upon which streamed the delicate reflection of the sunrise. Suddenly he became pensive.

Good-bye! To-morrow he would be away beyond the mountains, and Margherita would think in vain of the forgotten buttercup who loved her and who was himself.

A finch sang from its wild nest in the heart of an ilex tree, expressing in its trembling note, all the solitude of the place and of the hour. The note found its echo in the young lad's soul; and he remembered the song of another little bird which had sung from out the damp leafage of a chestnut tree on a morning long ago. A morning long ago, over there, over there, on one of those far distant hills, perhaps on that rosy spur thrust out towards the morning! And again he saw the child merrily descending the slope, beside a sorrowful woman; the child all unconscious of sorrow.

"And now again," he said to himself, "I am glad to go, and who knows what may be awaiting me?"

He came in pale and weary.

"Where have you been, _galanu meu_ (my treasure)? What took you out before sunrise?" asked Aunt Tatàna.

"Give me my coffee," replied Anania.

"Here it is. But what's the matter, dear heart? Cheer up. Get back your colour before you go to your godfather. What? Aren't you going to him to-day? What are you staring at? Has an ant got into your coffee?"

He was staring at a little gold bordered cup reserved exclusively for him. Good-bye, little cup! Just once more to-morrow, and then, Good-bye. A lump rose in his throat.

"I'll go to my godfather later. I've got to finish packing," he said, as if talking to the cup.

"Suppose we never see each other again?" he said to Aunt Tatàna. "Suppose I die before I come back? I daresay it would be better. What's the good of living to be old?"

Aunt Tatàna, looked at him anxiously, crossed herself and said, "Have you been having bad dreams last night? Why does my little lamb without wool talk like this? Have you the headache?"

"You don't understand!" he cried, springing to his feet. He went to his room and packed his books and dearest possessions, now and then his eyes turned to the window.

What would he see from the window of the room which awaited him at Cagliari? The sea? The real sea? The infinite distance of azure water, under the infinite distance of azure heaven? The thought of all that azure had a soothing effect. He repented having been cross to Aunt Tatàna. He was very ungrateful--still nerves are nerves and uncontrollable. But he would not be ungrateful. No! throw down portmanteau, books, boxes, rush to the kitchen, where the good woman is sweeping with an air half sad, half philosophical, grieving probably over the tragic words of her lamb without wool, fall upon her, enfold her and her broom in one embrace, and drag her into a vertiginous whirl of a dance!

"Bad boy, what's the matter with you?" cried the elderly woman palpitating with joy. And then in the middle of the dance he was off again, running and imitating the puffing of a train.

His packing done, he went on with his good-bye visits, going first to Maestro Pane. The old carpenter's shop, generally thronged, was at the moment deserted, and Anania had to wait some time sitting on the bench, his feet among the abundant shavings which strewed the floor. A light breeze blew in from the door, agitating the great cobwebs and the layers of sawdust.

At last Maestro Pane came in, put on an old soldier's tunic, its buttons carefully polished, and smiled with childish satisfaction when Anania told him he looked like a general.

"I have the helmet too," he said, "but when I put it on the children laugh. So you're off, my boy? God go with you and help you. I have nothing to give you."

"Never mind that, Maestro Pane."

"My heart is not wanting, but heart isn't enough. Well, when you're Doctor of Laws I'll make you a writing desk. I've got the pattern!"

He looked up a furniture catalogue and showed a splendid bureau with columns and carving.

"You think I can't do it? You don't know Maestro Pane. If I've not made much precious and expensive furniture it's only because I lack capital. It will be well done."

"I'm sure it will, and when I'm a doctor and a rich man I'll have you to make all the furniture of my palace."

"Will you really?" cried the old hunchback, delighted. "In how many years will it be?"

"That I can't tell you. Ten perhaps, or fifteen."

"Too long. I shall be in heaven by that time. In the workshop of the glorious St Joseph." (He crossed himself.)

"And tell me, what does this catalogue mean by furniture Lui-gi-de-ci-mo-quart-o," (Louis XIV.) he asked reading in syllables.

"He was a king," began Anania.

"I know that much. He was a king very fond of women," said the old man with a grin on his great toothless mouth.

"Maestro Pane, how do you know that?"

"Because I'm not a scholar do you think I know nothing? Victor Emmanuel liked hoeing his garden, and Queen Esther liked picking lavender in the fields, and that King Luigi liked girls."

"You seem to have read a great deal."

"I? I wish I had. My dear boy, all are not born under a lucky star, like you!"

Anania next knocked at Nanna's low door, but the old madman sitting on a stone close by told him she wasn't at home.

"I'm waiting for her myself, you must know. Last night Jesus Christ told me he was wanting a servant."

"Where did you see Jesus Christ?"

"Down there, in the lane. He had a long cloak and his shoes were burst. Why don't you give me a pair of shoes, Nania Atonzu?"

"They're too tight," said the boy, looking at his feet.

"Then go barefoot, strike you dead!" shouted the lunatic menacingly.

"Good-bye," said Anania; "I'm off to college."

"To Iglesias?"

"No, to Cagliari."

"There are pole cats and vampires at Iglesias. Well good-bye. Shake hands. I won't eat you. And where's that mother of yours now, I wonder?"

"Good-bye, take care of yourself," said Anania, freeing his hand from the madman's hard fingers.

"I'm going away myself; to a place where one feasts all day; beans, lentils, sheep's fry----"

"Good appetite to you. Good-bye."

"Eh!" cried the old man, when he had gone some distance, "write to me when you're gone, and don't fall into the hands of the scarlet women."

Anania had other friends to see including the beggar widow, who received him in a little chamber beautifully clean, and gave him a cup of first-rate coffee.

"Are you going to Rebecca?" she said jealously. "_She_'s taken to begging. A shame, isn't it, for a girl like that? Tell her so."

"She's a cripple."

"Not she. She's cured. What are you looking at? My reaping hook?"

"Why's it hanging on the door?"

"For the vampire. When the vampire comes in at night she stops to count the teeth of the sickle. She can't count further than seven so she keeps beginning again. Then the dawn comes, and the moment she sees the light she flies off. Why do you laugh? It's quite true. God bless you, dear; good journey and do the place credit!" said the beggar, going with him to the street.

He went to Rebecca. Huddled up in her dark hole she seemed a wild beast sick in its den--though considerably more than twenty she was still the size of a child.

Seeing the lad, she flushed all over and offered him a bunch of black grapes on a rude cork-tray.

"Take them. I've nothing else!"

"Say 'thou'[12] to me," said Anania, taking one from the bunch.

"I'm not worthy. I'm not Margherita Carboni. I'm a poor wretch," said the girl excitedly. "Take the whole bunch. It's quite clean. I haven't touched it. Uncle Pera _su gattu_ brought it."

"Uncle Pera?" said Anania, who believed all the scandals about the old gardener.

"Yes, poor old fellow. He always remembers me and brings me something every day. Last month I was ill, for my sores broke out again. Uncle Pera sent for the doctor and brought me my medicines himself. He's what my father ought to have been. But my father has left me! Well, never mind." (for she saw that touched Anania). "Why won't you take the whole bunch? It's really quite clean!"

"Give it to me. But where can I put it? Let me wrap it in this newspaper. I'm off to-morrow. Going to Cagliari. I do hope you'll get well."

"Good-bye," she said, tears in her eyes, "I wish I were going away."

Next Anania saw the handsome Agata at the tavern door so he stepped across to take leave of her.

"She smiled, her big eyes sparkling, and kissed her hand.

"Yes, it's good-bye," said Anania, coming closer.

"You've been flirting with that lump of dirt," she said, pointing to Rebecca. "Go away, you smell of her."

For some reason, Anania remembered Margherita, and felt shocked.

"She's jealous of me!" continued Agata, making eyes at him. "Look! she's watching you. The silly fool! She's always thinking of you because last New Year's Eve she drew you for a sweetheart."

"Oh, shut up! I'm off to-morrow. Can I do anything for you?"

"Take me with you!"

A shepherd, who had been drinking a cup of brandy, came out and pinched the girl as he passed.

"_Sas manas siccas_ (wither your hands), skinned hare!" cried Agata. She beckoned Anania into the tavern, and asked what he would drink.

"Nothing. Good-bye! good-bye."

However, she fetched white wine, and, as he drank, leaned languidly against the bar watching him. She said, "I'm going to Cagliari as soon as I've bought a new dress with gold buttons for the chemisette. I'll go to Cagliari and get a place. We shall meet again. The devil! Here comes Antonino! he's my sweetheart, and is mad jealous of you. Ah, my jewel, good-bye! good-bye!"

Saying this she flung herself upon him with a wild cat spring and kissed him hotly on the lips. Then she pushed him away, and he went out, confounded and agitated, hurrying past Antonino whose look of hate he now understood. For some minutes he walked not knowing whither. He was new to kisses, and could only think of Margherita, the longing to see her making his blood boil.

"Oh!" he cried suddenly finding himself in the arms of another woman.

"Child of my heart!" cried Nanna, crying and laughing, and offering him a parcel, "are you really going? God go with you and bless you as he blesses the ears of corn. We shall see you again, but meantime--here take this, my darling. Don't refuse or I shall die of grief."

To prevent Nanna's death he accepted the parcel, but shuddered, feeling something very unpleasant on his cheek.

"There!" said Nanna, when she had kissed him, "I couldn't help it. It will wash off, dear. It won't prevent the flower-smelling kisses of the golden girls who will pick you up like a sugar plum."

Anania made no protests, but this thrust into reality restored his moral equilibrium and cancelled the burning sensation given him by the kiss of Agata.

When he got home he opened Nanna's parcel, and found it contained thirteen _soldi_ (half-pence).

"I hope you've been to your godfather," said Aunt Tatàna.

"I'm going at once after dinner," he replied.

But after dinner he went into the courtyard and stretched himself on a mat under the elder tree, round which buzzed the bees and the flies. The air was warm. Between the boughs Anania saw great white clouds floating across the blue heaven. An infinite sweetness fell from those clouds. It seemed a rain of warm milk. Distant memories, wandering, changing, like the clouds, passed through his mind confused with recent impressions. Now he was back in the dreary landscape guarded by the sounding pines, where his father had ploughed and sown the _padrone_'s corn. The sounding of the pines is like the voice of the sea. The sky is deeply, monotonously blue. Anania remembered the lines--whose? Baudelaire's perhaps?--

"Blue the colour of her eyes, Deep and empty as the skies."

The eyes of Margherita? No, that was an insult to her! But it was satisfactory to be able to quote such an original verse--

"Blue the colour of her eyes, Deep and empty as the skies."

Who is that behind the pine-tree? The postman with the red whiskers! On his head he wears a crow with outstretched wings. It is pecking hard at the poor man's forehead.

"Rat-tat-tat!" Margherita runs to the door, receives the pink letter, and begins to fly. Anania wants to follow her, but he can't move, can't move, can't speak. It's because the postman is shaking him.

"My son, it's three o'clock. When are you going to your godfather?" asks Aunt Tatàna.

She it is, not the postman, who is shaking him. Anania springs to his feet, one eye still shut, one cheek pale, the other red.

"I'm rather sleepy. It's because I was awake all last night. Very well, I'll go now."

He washed, combed his hair, spent half an hour in making his parting first at the side, then in the middle, then doing away with it altogether.

"What an idiot I am!" he thought, trying to control his feelings but in vain.

"Are you there still? When ever are you going?" called the good woman from the courtyard. He looked out of the window and asked--

"What shall I say to him?"

"Say you are going to-morrow. Say you'll get on well, that you'll always be a good boy."

"Amen. But what will he say to me?"

"He'll give you good advice."

"Won't he say anything about----"

"About what?"

"About money," said Anania in a whisper, putting his hand over his mouth.

"Bless me, what have you to do with money? You know nothing about it!" said the old woman raising her hands.

"Then I'll go."

On the contrary, he visited Bustianeddu; then went to the garden to take leave of Uncle Pera, also of the figs, the teazles, the far-reaching landscape.

He found the old gardener stretched on the grass, his stick by his side, at rest like its master.

"I'm off. Uncle Pera, good-bye. Keep well and take care of yourself."

"Eh?" said the old fellow who was growing blind and deaf.

"I'm going away!" shouted Anania. "I'm going to Cagliari to college."

"Going to sea? Oh yes, there's sea at Cagliari. God bless you, my lad. Old Uncle Pera has nothing to give you but his prayers."

Anania repented his frequent mockery of the old man, who at any rate was kind to Rebecca. He bent down, his hands on his knees. "Have you any commissions?"

The old man sat up, stared, then smiled.

"Commissions? I? But I'm going away myself very soon."

"You?" said the boy, amused at the mania all men, even decrepit ones, have for going away.

"Yes, I'm starting too."

"For what place. Uncle Pera?"

"Ah, for a distant one," said the old man, pointing to the horizon; "for eternity."

Not till evening, nor till he had passed and repassed vainly before Margherita's window did Anania knock and ask for his godfather.

"There's no one at home. They'll be back soon, if you'll wait," said the maid. "Why didn't you come earlier?"

"Because I do what I choose," said Anania entering.

"Oh, very well. It's better to waste your time with that scum Agata, than to come and visit your benefactors."

"Pshaw!" said Anania, leaning against the window.

The servant was insulting as she had been that long ago night when he and Bustianeddu had come for the basin of soup. Nothing was changed. He was still a dependent, an object of charity.

"But I'm grown up!" he thought. "I can renounce it all, go to work, be a soldier--anything that's not abject!"

He moved from the window, brushing against the writing desk, which was already illuminated by the moon. Among the papers, untidily tossed about, he spied a pink envelope lined with green.

The blood rushed to his face. His ears burned, he shook from head to foot. Mechanically he bent and took up the envelope. Yes, it was _that_ one, torn and empty. He felt as if he were touching the remains of some sacred thing which had been violated and destroyed. It was all over! His soul was empty and torn to pieces like this envelope.

Suddenly, brightness flooded the room. Margherita had come in! He tried to drop the envelope, but perceived that the girl had seen it in his hand. Shame now was added to his grief.

"Good evening," said Margherita, placing a lamp on the desk; "they've left you in the dark."

"Good evening," he murmured. He resolved to explain, then to escape, never to be seen in this house again.

"Take a seat."

He looked at her in astonishment. Yes, it certainly was Margherita. At that moment he hated her.

"Forgive me," he stammered, "I didn't do it intentionally. I'm not a beast; but I saw this--this envelope, and I couldn't help--looking----"

"Is it yours?"

"Yes."

Margherita blushed and seemed confused; but Anania as if freed from a burden began to recover his wits. Wounded pride counselled him to assert the sonnet a jest. But Margherita in her walking dress, with her small waist and her bright green ribbon was so beautiful and so rosy that his hatred all disappeared. He wished he might put the lamp out and be alone with her in the moonlight, he wished he might fall at her feet and name her with sweetest names. But he couldn't, he couldn't! though he saw she also was raising and dropping her eyes in delicious alarm, expecting his cry of love.

"Did your father read it?" he whispered.

"Yes, and he laughed," she answered in the same tone.

"Did he laugh?"

"Yes, he laughed. Then he gave it to me and said, 'Who in the world has sent it?'"

"And you--you----?"

"I----"

They spoke anxiously and very low, already involved in a delicious conspiracy. Suddenly Margherita changed her voice.

"Oh, it's Papa! Anania is here," she cried, running to the door.

She hurried out, and the boy remained in the greatest perturbation. He felt the warm, soft hand of his godfather clasping his own, and he saw the blue eyes and the shining gold chain. But he hardly heard the good advice and the pleasantries with which Margherita's father favoured him.

Bitter doubt tormented him. Had Margherita understood the significance of the sonnet? She had said nothing to the point in those precious moments, which he had stupidly not turned to profit. Her agitation was not enough. It told nothing. No, he must really know more--know all.

"Know what?" he asked himself ruefully. "There's nothing to know." It was all useless. Even if she cared for him--but this was folly. Nothing was any good. Great emptiness surrounded him, and in this emptiness the voice of Signor Carboni lost itself and was unheard.

"You're lucky in having only your studies to mind," ended the godfather hearing a sigh from the boy. "Be cheerful; be a man and do us credit."

Margherita now came back accompanied by her mother, who in her turn was prodigal of counsel and encouragement. The girl went hither and thither about the room. She had dressed her hair coquettishly with a curl on her left temple. What was still more important, she had powdered herself. Eyes and lips were resplendent. She was a wonder; and Anania followed her about deliriously, his thoughts running on kisses. She must have understood, she must have been attracted by the fascination of his gaze, for when he was going away--she followed him to the great entrance door!

The court was bathed in moonlight, as it had been that night long ago, when the proud, sweet vision of her had waked his childishness to a sense of duty. So now she was proud and sweet. She stepped lightly, with a rustle of wings, ready to fly. Ah! she was a true angel! Anania thought himself still dreaming. Presently she would float up and vanish, and he would not be able to follow her. And the desire to put his arm round that slender waist with its green ribbon made him giddy.

"I shall never see her again!" he told himself; "I shall fall dead the instant she has shut the door!"

Margherita pulled the chain; then turned and extended her hand. She was pale.

"Good-bye. I'll write to you," she whispered.

"Good-bye!" said he, shivering with joy.

The contact of their hands perhaps caused some grand explosion. For they felt as it were a great booming in their ears, and the heat and the light of a thunderbolt fell round them, while--rapturously--they kissed each other.

[Footnote 12: Sign of familiarity and friendship.]

VIII

At Cagliari Anania went through the Lyceum course, then two years at the University. He was studying Law. These years were like an _intermezzo_ in his life; sweet and inspiriting music.

He began a new existence from the moment he set foot in the train, and was carried across the lonely plains, the dreariness of which was aggravated by autumn. He felt a new person clothed in a new vesture, soft and comfortable after one torn and narrow. Was it Margherita's kiss which made him so happy? or the good-bye to all the petty wretchednesses of the past? or the somewhat timorous joy of liberty with the thought of the unknown world to which he was hurrying? He neither knew nor sought to know. How beautiful, how easy was life! He felt strong, handsome, victorious. All women loved him, all the doors of life opened to his feet. Pride and enjoyment enwrapped his soul like an odorous, an intoxicating vapour, through which he discerned horizons as yet undreamed.

The whole way from Nuoro to Macomer, Anania stood in the corridor of the railway carriage, violently shaken by the jerks of the little train. Few persons got in or out at the desolate stations, where bored acacia trees seemed waiting for the train, to hurl upon it companies of fast yellowing leaves.

"Take them!" said the acacias to the train, "take them, contemptuous monster; we are stuck always here, and you move about. What more do you want?"

"Yes," thought the joyous student, "life is movement." And he understood the jocund strength of running water. Till now his soul had been a morass, its edge smothered in fetid weeds. Yes! the acacias stuck in the stagnant Sardinian solitudes knew the truth. Yes! move, run, hurry! that is to live!

"Is this devil of a train never going on!" asked the student during one of the interminable delays.

The railway official, who knew Anania by sight as he knew almost all his passengers, calmly lit his pipe and said, sucking its stem:--

"You'll arrive all in good time. If you're in a hurry get out and fly."

Ah t if he could fly! Anania looked at a black _nuraghe_ on a high rock, like a nest of gigantic birds, and wished he could fly thither with Margherita; to be alone with her and with the memories which floated on the wild scent of the heather; alone, inspired by the shadows and by the phantoms of epic passions. Ah, how great he felt!

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_:--

_Su soldadu in sa gherra The soldier die he must Nan chi s' est olvedadu In war and be forgot; No s'ammentat de Deu. Not even God remembers Torrat su colpus meu My body He dismembers, Pustis ch' est sepultadu When buried 'tis, I wot, A sett' unzas de terra._ To ounces six of dust.

"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.

[Footnote 13: These _stornelli_ called _mutos_ are improvised by the women of the Nuoro district. The subject of the first three lines is always independent of the subject of the second three, the two verses being connected only by the rhyme.]