Chapter IX: Part II: I (4)

"Why was I born? Why did they bring me into the world? Look! I am ruined now. My life is destroyed, my career ended. I can't go on with my studies. And the girl I was going to marry, without whom I cannot live, will give me up. I mean I must give her up."

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

"Yes, she knows that much, but she doesn't know that _woman_ could ever come across our path. How could a pure, delicate girl live beside an infamous woman?"

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

"What is your advice?"

"Mine? my advice? To leave her to her own way," replied the widow fiercely. "Weren't you deserted by her? Your bride need never see the unhappy creature. You yourself need never see her."

Anania looked at her, compassionate, but contemptuous.

"You don't understand!" he said, "you can't understand. Let it alone. Now I have to consider the best way for me to see her. I must go to her to-morrow morning."

"You're mad."

"You don't understand."

They faced each other, each pitying and scornful. Then they argued, quarrelled almost. Anania wanted to start at once, or at least the first thing to-morrow. The widow suggested summoning Olì to Fonni without telling her why.

"As you are so obstinate! You know it would be far better to leave her alone. As she has walked till now, so she will walk to the end. Let her be."

"Nonna," he answered, "you also must be afraid of me. That's silly. I'm not going to hurt a hair of her head. I'll take charge of her. She shall live with me, and I'll work for her. I'll do her good, not harm. It's my duty."

"Yes, yes, your _duty_. Still you ought to think, my son; to consider. How are you going to support her? How will you set about it?"

"Never mind."

"What do you propose to do?"

"Never mind."

"Well, well! But I tell you she's mad afraid of you. If you come upon her, suddenly, she's capable of doing something foolish----"

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

"Yes; at once. On the wings of a crow. How impetuous you are, child of my heart! Go to your bed now, and don't think any more about it. To-morrow night, at this hour, she'll be here. Don't doubt it. Afterwards you shall do what you like. To-morrow, make your excursion to the Gennargentu. I should suggest you're staying away for the night----"

"Leave it to me."

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

Even in the little room where he used to sleep with his mother nothing was changed. When he saw the poor pallet bed under which was a heap of earthy smelling potatoes, he remembered Maria Obinu's little white bed and all the illusions and the dreams which had persecuted him.

"How childish I have been!" he thought bitterly, "and I was thinking myself a man. It is only now I have become a man! Only now has life opened to me its horrible doors. Yes, now I am a man, and I will be strong. No, vile life! you shall not vanquish me! No, monster, you shall not get me down! You are my enemy; till now you have fought with vizor dosed, you miserable coward! but to-day, on this day, long as a century, you have let me see your detestable countenance. But you shan't conquer me! No, you shan't."

He unfastened the shaky window shutters, which opened on the old wooden balcony, the supports of which hardly held together. Grasping them, he leaned out.

The night was most serene; fresh, dear, diaphanous, as are the mountain nights at the end of summer. An immense silence reigned everywhere, its sublimity unimpaired by the solemn vision of the nearer crags, the vague line of the distant summits. Anania, seeing the profound valleys at his very feet, felt himself suspended--resolved, however, not to fall--over a stupendous abyss. The line of the distant mountains soothed his heart strangely. They seemed to him verses inscribed by the omnipotent hand of a divine poet on the celestial page of the horizon. But the colossal Monte Spada, and the formidable wall of the Gennargentu oppressed him, and suggested the shadow of that monster against whom he had just issued his challenge.

And he thought of the distant Margherita, his Margherita, whom he must now renounce; Margherita who at this hour was surely dreaming of him, whose eyes met his on that far horizon. And pitying her rather than himself, tears sweet and bitter, like mountain honey, rose in his eyes. He repressed them sternly; they were a feline and stealthy enemy trying to vanquish him at unawares.

"I am strong!" he repeated, supporting himself on the flimsy balcony. "Monster! it is I who shall vanquish you!"

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

[Footnote 21: A vessel made of cork.]

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

VIII

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

"I will place her here with Aunt Grathia, until I have found my feet. I will speak to Signor Carboni and to Margherita. I will tell them, 'This is how matters stand, my mother is to live with me the moment my position allows it. This is my duty, and I will do my duty though the universe fall.' He will drive me away like an unclean animal; I will have no illusions about it. Next, I will look for a post; and I shall find one, and then I will take the poor wretch with me, and we will live together, miserably of course, but I shall pay my debts, and I shall be a man. A man! say rather a living corpse."

He seemed to himself calm, cold, already dead to joy. But in the depth of his heart was a cruel intoxication of pride, a fury of infatuated resistance to fate and to society and to himself.

"It is what I willed," he thought. "I knew it might end like this. I have been allowing myself to drift. Woe is me! now I must expiate my folly. I will expiate!"

This illusion of courage sustained him through the night and through the following day, when he made the ascension of the Gennargentu.

The morning was sad, windless, but cloudy and misty; he determined to persevere in his expedition, hoping the weather would clear. In reality, he wanted to give himself proof of his courage and indifference. What were mountains from henceforth to him? What were far horizons? What the whole world? But he willed to do what he had resolved to do. Only for one moment did he hesitate.

"Suppose _she_ finds out I am here, and refuses to come, escapes me again? Am I not temporizing in the hope of that?" he asked himself cruelly. The widow reassured him, and he set out.

The guide, mounted on a strong and patient pony, preceded him up steep paths, sometimes lost in the silver mist, sometimes appearing like a figure blotted in water colour on a too wet grey background. Anania followed him. All around him, all within him was fog. In that floating veil, he distinguished the cyclopean outline of Monte Spada; and within him among the mists which enwrapped his soul, that soul showed itself like the mountain, great, hard, and monstrous.

Tragic silence enveloped the wayfarers, broken at intervals by the scream of the vultures. Strange forms showed here and there through the fog, the cry of the carrion feeding birds seemed the wild voice of these mysterious shapes, terrified and enraged by the intrusion of man. To Anania it seemed as if he were walking through the clouds. Sometimes his head swam, and to vanquish the vertigo he fixed his eyes on the path under the horses' feet, staring at the wet and shining slabs of schist, and at the little bushes of violet heather, the sharp scent of which made the fog fragrant. About nine the fog lifted a little, fortunately, as the travellers were just then passing with difficulty along a very narrow piece of path, on the huge shoulder of Monte Spada. Anania gave a cry of admiration, torn from him by the beauty and the magnificence of the panorama. All the nearer mountains were covered with a mantle of violet flowers; beyond, the vision of the deep valleys, of the high summits to which he was drawing near, of the torn veils of luminous mist, of the play of shadow and sun, of the blue heaven painted with strange and slowly contracting clouds, all seemed the dream of a painter's madness, a picture of unimagined beauty.

"How great is nature! how strong! how beautiful!" thought Anania, his heart softened, "all things are pure on her immense bosom. Ah! if we three, Margherita, and I, and she, were here and, would it be possible for any impure things to divide us?"

A breath of hope revived his spirit. If Margherita loved him, as in these last few days she had shown that she loved him--then surely----

With this wild hope in his heart, he dreamed away a long time, till he had reached the bottom of the slope of Monte Spada, and had again begun to ascend to the topmost peak of the Gennargentu. A torrent ran at the bottom, among enormous rocks and alder trees shaken by a sudden gust of wind. The sound of the alders in the silence of that place of mystery, brought a strange fancy to Anania; it seemed as if the winds had been wakened by this hope which animated him, and that all things were moved by it, the lonely trees trembling like wild men surprised in their gloomy solitude by a sudden joy.

Then in a quick revulsion of feeling, he remembered a fancy of a few days before in the wind-shaken forest of Orthobene. Then also the trees had seemed to him men, but miserable men, tom by sorrow. Even when the wind was still, they trembled, like human creatures experienced in suffering, who even in their moments of ease must think of sorrow, inevitable and near. His depression returned. An absurd notion flashed across his thought. Kill the guide and become a bandit! He smiled at himself.

"I am a romantic, it seems! But without murder I might hide among these mountains and live alone, and feed on grasses and wild birds! Why cannot man live alone? Why can't he burst the fetters which bind him to society and which strangle him? Zarathustra? Oh yes; but even he cried once. 'Oh! how alone I am! I have no longer anyone to share my laughter, no one to give me comfort----'"

The ascent, slow and dangerous, continued for three hours. The sky had cleared, the wind blew, the schisty summits shone in the sunlight, profiled with silver on the infinite azure. Now the island displayed itself in all its cerulean vastness: clear mountains, grey villages, shining pools, here and there confounded with the vaporous line of the sea.

Anania admired; he followed with interest the explanations of the guide, he looked through his field-glass. But his trouble never passed out of his thoughts; when he tried to enjoy the sweetness of the surrounding beauty, it clutched him with tiger paw more tightly to itself.

Towards noon they reached the top of Bruncu Spina. Anania climbed on the heap of shining shale which marked the summit, and flung himself on the ground to escape the fury of the blasts which blew from all sides. The whole island was stretched out before him, with its blue mountains and its silver sea, glittering under the midday sun. Overhead the heaven was immense, infinite, void as human thought. The wind raged furiously in the great emptiness. Its assaults invested Anania in mad fury, in the violent anger of a formidable wild beast, which would permit the approach of no other being to the aereal cave where it was resolved to reign alone.

The young man resisted. The guide crawled to his side and pointed out the principal towns, and villages and mountains. But the wind ravished his words, and cut short the respiration both of speaker and of hearer.

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

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

"I know. It's very clear."

"If it wasn't for this devil of a wind," shouted the guide, "one could send a salute to Nuoro, it looks so close to-day."

Anania remembered his promise to Margherita.

"From the highest summit in Sardinia, I will send you a greeting. I will cry to the heavens your name and my love--as I should like to cry from the highest summit in all the world, for all mankind to wonder and to applaud."

And it seemed to him that the wind was carrying away his heart, battering it against the granite colossi of the Gennargentu.

On his return he expected to find his mother with the widow. Anxiously he crossed the deserted village and stopped before Aunt Grathia's low black door. The evening was falling sadly. Strong gusts blew down the steep, stony streets. The heaven was pale. It felt like autumn. Anania listened. Silence. Through the chink of the door, he saw the fire's red brightness. Silence.

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

The coffee pot was gurgling among the embers, and a piece of mutton hung on a wooden spit, dropping its fat upon the burning ashes.

"Well?" said the youth.

"Patience, my jewel of gold! I couldn't find anyone I could trust to take the message. My son is not in the neighbourhood."

"But the driver of the coach?"

"Patience, I tell you!" said the widow, rising and laying her distaff on the stool. "I did ask the driver to tell her she must come here to-morrow. I said, 'Tell her from me to come. Don't say a word about Anania Atonzu! go, son, and God will reward you, for you'll be doing a work of charity.'"

"Did he refuse to do it?"

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

"She won't come! You'll see she won't come!" said Anania uneasily. "She'll escape us again! Why didn't I go myself? But there's still time."

He wanted to start at once for the Cantoniera, but without difficulty allowed himself to be persuaded to wait.

Another sad night passed. Though his limbs were stiff with fatigue he slept little, on that hard pallet where he had been born, on which he wished that this night he might die. The wind shook the roof, roaring like a sea in storm. It reminded Anania of his infancy; the distant terrors, the wintry nights, the touch of his mother who clasped him to her, more for fear than for love. No, she had not loved him. Why delude himself? She had not loved him. Perhaps this had been Olì's worst misfortune, her greatest loss. He felt it, he knew it; and sudden pity rose in his breast for her, who had been the victim of destiny and of men.

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

But the long night passed, and a day broke, made melancholy by the wind. He spent long restless hours which he considered among the most distressing of his whole life. During these hours he roamed through the alleys, as if storm driven; he went to the tavern and drank; he returned to the widow's cottage and sat by the fire, shivering feverishly, his nerves in a condition of acute irritation. Even Aunt Grathia could not rest. She wandered about the house, and as soon as the modest midday repast was over, she went forth to meet Olì.

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

"Why, my good woman," he answered scornfully, "I shall hardly even look at her! I have very few words to say."

More than an hour passed. The young man remembered bitterly the sweet impatient hour he had spent waiting for Aunt Tatàna. Now he panted for the coming of his mother, her coming which once and for all was to end his torments. And all the time he was devoured by the dark desire--that she should not come, should escape him again, should disappear for ever.

"In any case, she's ill," he thought with bitter satisfaction, "it's impossible she can live long."

The widow came back alone, hurriedly.

"Hush! keep quiet!" she said in a low voice, "she's coming! she's coming! She's here. I've told her. Hush! She's desperately frightened. Don't be cruel to her, son!"

She went out again, leaving the door open. The wind seized it, pushing it to and fro as if romping with it. Anania waited; pale, unable to think. Each time the door opened the sun and the wind rushed into the kitchen, illuminating, shaking everything in it. Then the door closed and everything became as before. For several minutes Anania unconsciously followed the play of the sun and the wind: then he became irritated, and stepped over to slam the door; his countenance dark with nervousness and anger. Thus he appeared at the moment when the unhappy mother reached the threshold,--trembling, timid, ragged as a beggar. He looked at her; she looked at him; fear and diffidence in the eyes of each. Neither thought of extending a hand nor of uttering a greeting. A whole world of suffering and of sin lay between them and divided them inexorably.

Anania held the door open, leaning against it; the wind and the sun flooded his figure. His eyes followed the miserable Olì as Aunt Grathia pushed her towards the hearth.

Yes, it was she; the pale emaciated apparition half seen at the black window of the Cantoniera; in her grey visage the great light eyes, wan with fear and weakness, seemed the eyes of a sick and homeless cat. When she was seated, the widow fancied it a happy thought to leave her two guests alone. She went out, but Anania followed her angrily.

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

Olì heard the threat, for when Anania and the widow returned to the kitchen, she was standing by the door and weeping, as if about herself to slink away. Blind with grief and shame, the young man threw himself towards her, seized her arm, pushed her against the wall, then shut and locked the door.

"No!" he cried, while the woman crouched on the ground, curling herself up like a hedgehog, and weeping convulsively: "you shan't go away any more. You are not to stir another step without my consent. You are to stay here. Cry as much as you like, but from this you shan't move. Your gay doings are all over."

Olì wept louder, shaken by spasms of trembling. Through her sobs sounded frantic derision of her son's last words. He felt it, and remorse for his brutality increased his fury.

Her tears irritated instead of moving him. All the instincts of primitive man, jealous, ferocious, barbarous, vibrated in his quivering nerves. He knew it, but was unable to control himself.

Aunt Grathia looked at him, alarmed herself, and wondering whether Olì's terror had not good reason. She shook her head, threatened with her hands, became agitated, was prepared for anything except the avoidance of a violent scene. She knew not what to say; her tongue refused to speak. Ah! he was possessed by a devil, that well-dressed handsome lad! he was more terrible than an Orgolese herdsman with his cudgel more terrible than the brigands she had known in the mountains! How different the meeting she had anticipated!

"Yes," he went on, lowering his voice, and standing before his mother, "your wanderings are finished. Let us talk, crying is quite useless. You ought to be happy now you've found a good son who will pay you good for evil. If it's to be in proportion, you may expect a great deal of good! I tell you, you must not leave this, till I order it; _I._ Do you see? Do you see?" he repeated, again raising his voice and slapping his chest. "I am master now. I'm no longer the child whom you cruelly deceived and deserted. I'm no longer the piece of rubbish which you threw away. I'm a man now, and I shall know how to defend myself, yes, to defend myself. I shall know how, because you've never been anything but an offence to me. You've been killing me day by day; betraying and mining me. Do you understand? destroying me as one destroys a house or a wall, stone by stone--thus!"

He made the gesture of throwing down an imaginary wall, stooped, sweated, as if oppressed by some actual physical force. Then suddenly, unexpectedly, as he looked at the weeping woman his anger cooled, disappeared. He was oppressed as by frost. What was this woman he was reviling? That bundle of rags, that creeping thing, that beggar, that being without a soul? Was she capable of understanding what he was saying, what she had done? What could there be in common between him and this unclean creature? Was she really his mother? She? And if she was, what did it mean? What did it matter? The _mother_ is not the material woman who gives to the material light, a material being, fruit of a moment's pleasure, and then flings it out into the street, or on to the knees of the perfidious seducer who has made it be born! No, that woman there was not his mother; she was not a mother at all, even unconsciously. He owed her nothing. Perhaps he had no right to reprove her, but neither was it his duty to sacrifice himself for her. His mother should have been Aunt Tatàna, or Aunt Grathia; even Maria Obinu, even Aunt Varvara, even Nanna the drunkard, anyone except that cowering creature who stood before him.

"I'd have done better to leave her alone as Aunt Grathia advised," he thought. "Perhaps I'd better let her go her own way. What does it matter to me? No, she does not matter to me at all."

Olì wept on.

"Have done," he said coldly, but no longer angrily; and he turned to the widow, signing to her to administer some consolation and enforce quietness.

"Don't you see she's frightened!" murmured Aunt Grathia, as she passed him moving to Olì's side.

"Come, come!" she said, tapping the poor thing on the shoulder, "Have courage, daughter, have patience. Crying's no good! He isn't going to eat you. After all, you know, he's the son of your womb. Come! come! Take a little coffee; after that you'll be able to talk. Do me the favour, son Anania, to go out for a little. Then you'll be able to speak better. Go out, jewel of gold!"

He did not move. Olì, however, controlled herself somewhat, and when Aunt Grathia brought the coffee she took it, trembling, and drank avidly, looking about her with eyes still frightened, yet sometimes shot with gleams of pleasure. Like all Sardinian women she loved coffee, and Anania, who had inherited the taste, looked at her with some sympathy. He seemed to be watching some wild shy animal, a furtive hare nibbling the grapes in a vineyard, trembling with enjoyment, and with fear of surprise.

"More?" asked Aunt Grathia, bending down and speaking as to a child. "Yes? No? If you'd like some more, say so. Here, give me your cup. Get up. Come and wash your eyes, and be quiet. Do you hear? Come, girl!"

Olì got up, aided by the old woman, and went straight to the water tub, as she had been accustomed to do twenty years earlier. First, she washed her cup, then herself, drying her face with her ragged apron. Her lips twitched, sobs still swelled her bosom; her red and encircled eyes, enormous in the shrunken face, shunned the cold gaze of her son.

He looked at the ragged apron and thought.

"She must have new clothes at once, she's perfectly squalid. I've got sixty _lire_ from my pupils at Nuoro. I'll get some more pupils. I'll sell my books. Yes, she must have clothes and shoes; and perhaps she's hungry."

As if guessing his thought Aunt Grathia asked Olì--

"Would you like some food? If you would, tell me at once. Don't be so shamefaced. Shame won't feed you! Are you hungry?"

"No," replied Olì with trembling lips.

Anania was moved hearing that voice. It was a voice of long ago, a far distant voice; her voice. Yes, this woman was she, was the mother, the one true, only mother! Flesh of his flesh, the diseased limb, the rotten yet vital member which tortured him, but from which he could never while he lived set himself free; the member which at his own cost he must try to cure.

"Well now, sit down," said Aunt Grathia, drawing two stools to the hearth, "sit here, daughter; and you there, my jewel. Sit here together and talk--"

She made Olì sit, but Anania shook his head.

"Let me be," he said, "I tell you I'm not a child. For that matter," he went on, walking up and down the floor, "there's very little to say. I've said what I've got to say. She must remain here, till I make some other arrangement, and you must buy her shoes and a dress--I'll give you the money. But we'll settle all that presently. Meanwhile," he raised his voice to show he was addressing Olì, "speak for yourself, if you have anything to say."

Thinking he still spoke to the widow Olì made no answer.

"Did you hear?" asked Aunt Grathia, gently, "what have you to say?"

"I?"

"Yes, you."

"Nothing."

"Have you debts?" asked Anania.

"No."

"Not to the _Cantoniere_?"

"No. They've taken all I had."

"What had you?"

"My silver buttons, my shoes, twelve silver _lire_."

"What have you now?"

"Nothing. _As you see me write me down_."[23]

"Have you any papers?"

"What?"

"Papers," explained Aunt Grathia, "your certificate of birth, for instance."

"Yes, I have that. It's here," she said touching her chest.

"Let me see."

She drew out a stained and yellowing paper, while Anania thought bitterly of his endeavours to find out if Maria Obinu had any tell-tale documents. He turned the paper round, looked at it, and gave it back.

It's date was recent.

"Why did you get this?" he asked.

"For my marriage with Celestino."

"The blind man--that vile brute," explained the widow.

Anania was silent, walking up and down the kitchen. The wind still whistled ceaselessly round the little house. Spots of sunshine now and then fell obliquely through the roof, like golden coins on a black pavement.

Anania walked mechanically, setting his feet on these sunny coins as he used to do when a child.

He asked himself, what more was to be said? He had already accomplished part of his grave task; but much remained to be done.

He thought, "Now I'll call Aunt Grathia aside, and hand her over the money for feeding and dressing her. Then I'll go. There's nothing more to do here."

"It's all ended! all over!" he repeated to himself sadly. "All over!"

For a moment he thought of sitting beside his mother, asking her history, giving her one word of tenderness and forgiveness. But he could not, could not! Merely to look at her was disgust. She even smelt of beggary! He longed for the moment of departure, of escape, of riddance for his eyes of that dolorous vision.

Still something held him back. He felt that the scene could not end with those few phrases. He thought that possibly between her fear and her shame, she was glad to see her son so evidently fortunate, and was yearning for the gentle word, for the human look, which he could not bring himself to give her. In his disgust, in his grief, he felt too some faint comfort in thinking--

"Anyhow she's not brazen. Perhaps she may still reform. She doesn't understand, but she's not brazen. She won't rebel."

But Olì did rebel.

"Look," he said after a long silence; "you'll stay here till I've settled my affairs. Aunt Grathia will buy you new clothes----"

Her voice, suffering but still fresh and clear, rang out.

"I don't want anything."

"How do you mean?" he asked, arresting his step by the fire.

"I'm not going to stay."

"_What_?" he cried, turning round, his eyes wide, his fist clenched.

Ah! then it was not all done! She dared--why did she dare? Ah! then she didn't understand that her son had suffered and struggled all his life to attain one end; namely, to take her away from her life of vagabondage and sin, even if he must sacrifice his whole future to do it! How could she dare to rebel? How could she wish to escape? Had she no comprehension of her position, of his determination?

"What do you mean?" he said restraining his anger. He stood to listen, shivering, agitated, driving his nails into his palms, his face working. Aunt Grathia watched, ready to defend Olì if he attempted to strike her. The three wild creatures had drawn together by the hearth, and among them rose the blue and hissing flame of a firebrand. It seemed a live thing. Olì roused herself.

"Listen," she said, "and don't get angry, for anger will be useless. The evil is done and nothing can remedy it. You may kill me, but you won't get any good by that. The only thing you can do is to let me alone. I can't stay here. I'll go away and you'll never hear more of me. You must imagine you've never seen me."

"That's just what I told him," said the widow, "but he doesn't think it possible. Where could you go? But yes--there's one way! You must stay here, as he wishes, instead of straying about the world; and we won't say who you are, and he can live in peace as if you were far away. Why, poor dear, should you leave this? Where can you go?"

"Where God wills."

"God!" burst out Anania; "God commands you now to obey me. Don't dare to repeat that you won't stay here. Don't dare! Do you suppose I'm joking? You shan't move one step without my leave. If you disobey. I'm capable of----"

"It's for your good!" she insisted, meeting the young man's anger; "Listen, at least. Don't be cruel to me, who have been the victim of every human wickedness, while I know you are indulgent to that father of yours who was my ruin----"

"She's right!" said the widow.

"Hold your tongue!" shouted Anania.

Olì took courage.

"I don't know how to speak," she went on; "I don't know how to speak, because I am stupefied by misfortunes. But I ask you this one thing, shouldn't I have everything to gain by staying here? If I want to go away isn't it because I'm thinking of you? Answer me. Ah! now he won't even listen!" she cried in despair, turning to the widow.

Anania was again pacing the floor, and seemed really deaf to her words, but suddenly he shuddered and cried, "I'm listening!"

She went on humbly, content that at least he no longer threatened her.

"Why do you wish me to be here? Leave me to myself. As once I did you harm, so now suffer me to do you good. Let me go. I don't wish to be an impediment to you. Let me go--for your good."

"No!" he repeated.

"Let me go. I implore you. I'm still able to work for myself. You shall hear no more of me. I will vanish as a leaf down the wind----"

He turned round on himself. An insidious, a terrible temptation overtook him. _Let her go_! For a short moment wild joy shone in his soul. He might consider it all as an evil dream; one word and the dream would vanish and the sweet reality would be restored! But suddenly he was ashamed of the thought. His wrath flamed up again, his voice echoed through the gloomy kitchen.

"No!"

"You are a wild beast!" murmured Olì, "you are not a Christian. You are a wild animal which devours its own flesh. Let me go, child of God! Let me go!"

"I will not."

Olì fell back silent and seemingly vanquished; but Aunt Grathia spoke--

"Yes, indeed, a wild beast! What's the need to shout like that? _No! no! no_! If any one were to hear you, he'd think there was a wild bull shut up here. Are these the manners you learned at school?"

"Yes, at my school; and I learned other things too," he said, lowering his voice however. "I learned that a man must not acquiesce in disgrace, even at cost of his own life. But I suppose you can't understand! Well, let us cut it short, and be silent both of you."

"Can't understand? I understand perfectly," protested the old woman.

"_Nonna_! yes, you understand. Remember----But there--that'll do!" he cried, wringing his hands, worn out, sickened by himself and every one. He had been struck by the old woman's words, and now returned to himself, remembering that he had always prided himself on his superiority. His wish now was to end this painful and vulgar scene. He threw himself on a seat in the corner of the kitchen dropping his head in his hands.

"I've said No, and that's enough," he thought; and said brokenly, "Have done now. Have done."

But Olì perceived that now was the moment to fight on. She was not afraid, she dared anything.

"Listen," she cried humbly, "why do you wish to ruin yourself, _my son_?" (Yes she had courage to say "my son," nor did Anania protest.) "I know all. You are to marry a girl who is beautiful, who is rich, and if she knows that you haven't cast me off, you'll lose her. She'll be quite right, for a rose can't be mixed up with dirt. For her sake, let me go. Let her believe I am dead. She's an innocent soul, why is she to suffer? I'll go ever so far away. I'll change my name. I'll disappear, carried away by the wind. The evil I have done you without intention is enough. Yes, without intention! My son, I don't want to hurt you again. No, I don't. Ah! how can a mother wish evil to her son? Let me go!"

He wanted to cry, "All my life you have done me evil!" but he restrained himself. What was the use? It was useless and indecorous. He would cry aloud no more. Only with his head still pressed in his hands, with voice at once sorrowful and enraged, he repeated, "No! no! no!" At bottom he felt that Olì was right. He understood that she really desired his happiness. But precisely the idea that at that moment she was more generous and more reasonable than he, irritated him and made her seem odious.

Olì was transformed. Her illumined eyes watched him supplicatingly, lovingly. As she repeated, "Let me go," her still youthful voice vibrated with infinite tenderness, her countenance expressed untold grief. Perhaps a sweet dream, which never before had brightened the horror of her existence, had touched her heart; to stay! to live for him! to find peace!

But from the depths of her simple soul an instinct for good--the flame which lies hidden even in the flint--impelled her to disregard this dream. A thirst for sacrifice devoured her. Anania understood that in her own way she wished to fulfil her duty, just as in his way he wished to fulfil his.

But Anania was the stronger. He was resolved to conquer by any means, by force if necessary, by the cruelty of the surgeon who to heal the sufferer will open his flesh with steel. She threw herself on the ground. Again she wept, implored, supplicated.

Anania answered always No.

"Then what will become of me?" she sobbed, "Holy Mother! what shall I do? Must I again leave you by stratagem? do you good by force? Yes, I will leave you--I will go. You cannot compel me. I don't acknowledge your right--I am free--I will go."

He raised his head and surveyed her.

He was no longer angered, but his cold eyes and grey face grown suddenly old were terrible.

"Listen," he said firmly. "We must end this. It's all settled--there's no more to be said. You will not move one step without my knowledge. Listen, and keep my words in mind as if they were the words of one dead. Till now, I have endured the dishonour and the grief of your shameful life, because I was not able to prevent it, and because I hoped some day to put a stop to it. But from to-day it is different. If you attempt to go away from here, I shall follow you. I'll kill you. I'll kill myself! I shall not wish to go on living!"

Olì looked at him in fear. He was like her father. Uncle Micheli, when he had driven her away from the Cantoniera. He had the same cold look, the same calm and terrible countenance, the same hollow voice, the same inexorable tone. She seemed looking at the old man's ghost, risen up to punish her; and she felt the whole horror of death. She spoke no further word, but crouched upon the floor, trembling with terror and despair.

A sad night fell upon the wind-shaken hamlet.

Anania had not been able to get a horse that evening, so he was obliged to spend another night at Fonni, sleeping a strange sleep like the sleep of a convict on the day he has been sentenced.

Aunt Grathia and Olì sat up a long time over the fire. Olì had the cold fit which is precursor of fever; her teeth chattered, she yawned and groaned. As in the nights of long ago, the wind roared through the kitchen, stirring the black relics of the bandit. By the firelight the widow worked at her spinning, her face pallid and impassive as that of a spectre. But she told her guest no stories of her dead husband, nor did she dare to offer consolation. Only now and then she vainly implored the sufferer to go to bed.

"I'll go, if you'll do me one kindness," said Olì at last.

"What is it?"

"Go and ask him if he still has the _rezetta_ which I gave him the day we left this. Beg him to let me look at it."

The old woman promised and Olì got up. She shook all over, and yawned so wide that her jaws cracked.

That night she was light-headed, her temperature very high. Now and then she demanded the _rezetta_, and grumbled childishly because Aunt Grathia, who lay beside her, would not ask Anania for it.

In her delirium a doubt crossed her mind; if Anania were not her son? Surely, he was not her son! he was too cruel, too unfeeling. She had been tormented all her life by all the people she had known; now, she could not believe that her son could torture her more even than the rest.

Still delirious, she told Aunt Grathia of the little packet she had tied round Anania's neck, that she might recognize him when he should be grown up and well-to-do.

"I meant to go to him some day when I should be very old and walking with a stick. Rat-tat-tat! I should knock at his door, and say, 'I am Most Holy Mary disguised as a beggar.' My son's servants would laugh and call their master. 'Old woman, what do you want?' 'Sir, I know you have a little packet, like this and this--I know who gave it to you.' To-day you have all these _tancas_ and servants and cattle, but you owe them all to that poor soul who is now reduced to seven little ounces of dust. Good-bye. Give me a slice of bread and some honey. And forgive that poor soul.' 'Servants,' he would say, 'cross yourselves. This old woman who knows everything is Most Holy Mary.' Ah! ah! ah! The _rezetta_! I want the _rezetta_. That man is not my son! The _rezetta_! The _rezetta_!"

When it was light. Aunt Grathia went to Anania and told him what Olì had said.

"That's the one thing wanting," he said smiling bitterly, "that she should doubt me! I'll soon prove to her that I am--myself."

"Son, don't be unnatural. Content her at least in this one small matter."

"But I haven't got the thing. I threw it away. If I can find it again, I'll send it."

Aunt Grathia wished further to know the result of Anania's disclosures to his betrothed.

"If she cares for you she'll be pleased by your good action," she said consolingly. "No, no, she won't give you up because you can't disown your mother. Ah! true love cares nothing for the prejudices of the world. I loved my husband madly when all the world was against him."

"We shall see," said Anania. "I'll write to you."

"For pity's sake, jewel of gold, don't write! I can't read, and I don't want to make your affairs public property."

"Well then----"

"Send me a token. If she sticks to you, send the _rezetta_ wrapped in a white handkerchief. If you lose her, send it in a coloured handkerchief."

He promised.

"And when will you come back yourself?"

"I don't know. Soon, certainly. As soon as I have settled my affairs."

He left without seeing Olì again, for the poor thing had at last dropped asleep. He was in deep dejection. The journey seemed eternal, though he had no wish to arrive at his destination. Still, he was drawn by a slender thread of hope.

"Margherita loves me," he thought; "perhaps she loves me as Nonna loved her husband. Her family will scorn and drive me away, but she will say, 'I'll wait for you. I will love you always.' That's what she will say; but what shall I be able to promise her? My career is destroyed."

Another hope, not to be confessed, was, however, fermenting in the bottom of his heart: that Olì would make her escape. He dared not reveal this hope clearly to himself, but he felt it, felt it; in spite of himself it ran in his blood like a drop of poison. He was ashamed of it; he understood its meanness, but it was impossible to drive it away.

At the moment when he had cried, "I will kill you, I will kill myself," he had meant what he said, but now the words, the whole scene felt like some horrible nightmare. As he saw again the landscape, the street, which three days ago, he had seen with so much gladness in his soul, as he approached Nuoro, the sense of present reality pressed upon him more and more tightly.

The moment he arrived at home he looked for the amulet; and possessed by the superstition that things prearranged do not come to pass, he wrapped it up in a coloured handkerchief. Then he remembered that the sad occurrences of these few days he had always foreseen and expected, and he was vexed by his own childishness.

"And why should I send the _rezetta_ at all? Why should I want to please her?"

He tossed the little packet against the wall, then picked it up again, softening. "For Aunt Grathia," he thought.

Then he told himself, "At four o'clock I will go to Signor Carboni and tell him the whole thing. I must get it over this very day. Margherita! Margherita! Suppose I see her to-night instead? She will bid me say nothing to her father. She will tell me to wait--to go on as usual. No, I won't be such a coward. At four o'clock I will go to Signor Carboni."

At the determined hour he did indeed pass the door of Margherita's home, but he could not bring himself to stop, to ring. He passed by; despising himself, thinking he would return later; convinced at bottom that never would he succeed in addressing his godfather.

Two days, two nights, he wasted thus in a vain battle of thoughts, which changed and dissolved like agitated waves. He had altered nothing in his habits or daily life. He read with young students, he studied, he ate, he lingered under Margherita's window, and if he saw her, he gazed at her passionately. But at night Aunt Tatàna heard him tramp about his room, descend to the court, go out, return, wander hither and thither. He seemed a soul in torment, and the kind woman feared he was ill.

What was he expecting? What did he hope?

The day after his return home, he saw a man from Fonni cross the street and he grew deadly pale.

Yes, he was expecting something--something dreadful; the news that she had again disappeared. He understood his cowardice, yet at the same time was ready to execute his threat, "I will follow you, I will kill you, I will kill myself."

Then it seemed to him that nothing was real; at the widow's house was no one but the widow herself, with her legends and her long black phantasmal cloak. Nothing, no one else.

The second night he heard Aunt Tatàna telling her old story to a little boy from a neighbouring house.

"The woman ran--ran--throwing down the nails; and they grew and grew till they filled the whole plain. Uncle Hobgoblin followed her, followed her, but he never could catch her up, because the nails stuck in her feet----"

What anguished pleasure that story had given Anania in his childhood, especially in the first days after his mother's desertion! To-night he dreamed that the man from Fonni had brought news she was gone, that he set out to follow--to follow--across a plain sown with nails. Look! there she is! far on the horizon! Soon he will catch her up and kill her, but he is afraid--afraid--because it is not Olì at all, but a goatherd, that same goatherd who had passed down the street while Aunt Tatàna was with Signor Carboni. Anania runs--runs--the nails don't prick; he wishes they would prick; and Olì has changed into the goatherd and is singing those lines of Lenau's:

_I masnadieri nella Taverna della Landa_--Robbers in field-side tavern.

There! now he has caught her, he is going to kill her, and the frost of death has stiffened his arm--

He woke, bathed in cold perspiration. His heart had stopped; he wept.

The third day. Margherita, surprised that he did not write, invited him to the usual tryst. He went. He told of his excursion up the Gennargentu. He abandoned himself to her caresses, as a tired wayfarer abandons himself on the grass, under the shadow of a tree. But not a word could he utter of the dark secret which was consuming him.

"_September_ 18_th._ 2 A.M.

"MARGHERITA,--I have come in after roaming wildly through the streets. Every minute I think I am going mad. It is this very fear moves me, after long and miserable indecision--to confide to you the grief which is killing me. I will cut it short.

"Margherita, you know what I am; the son of a sin, deserted by a mother who was more sinned against than sinning. I was born under a bad star, and I have to expiate sins which were not my own. I have dragged with me into a gulf from which I can never escape, that creature whom I love more than all the rest of the world. Thee, Margherita! Forgive me! forgive me! This is my greatest grief which I shall feel for the rest of my life. Listen. My unhappy mother is alive; after an existence of misery and sin, she has risen again before me like a ghost. She is wretched, ill, grown old with suffering and privation. My duty, you yourself will say it at once, is to redeem her. I have resolved to live with her, to sacrifice, if need be, life itself to fulfil my duty. Margherita, what more can I say? Never as at this moment have I felt the need of showing you all my soul. It is like a stormy sea, and words fail me at this moment which is the turning point of my life. I have your kisses still on my lips, and I tremble with love and with grief. Margherita, I am in your hands. Have pity on me and on yourself too. Be what I have always dreamed you are. Think how short life is, and that love is the only reality of life, and that no one in the world will love you as I do. Don't tread out our happiness for the sake of worldly prejudices, prejudices invented by envious men to make all equally unhappy. You are good, you are above me. Say to me one word of hope for the future. And remember, whatever may happen, I shall be yours for all eternity. Write to me at once.

ANANIA."

"_September_ 19_th._

"ANANIA,--Your letter seems a horrid dream. I also have no words to express myself. Come to-night at the usual time and we will decide our fate together. It is I who should say 'my life is in your hands.' Come. I wait for you anxiously.

MARGHERITA."

"_September_ 19_th._

"MARGHERITA,--Your little letter has frozen my heart. My fate is already decided, but a thread of hope still guides me. No, I dare not come. I will not come unless you first give me a word of hope. Then I will fly to you, kneel at your feet, and thank you and worship you as a saint. But now--no, I cannot. I will not. I abide by what I wrote to you yesterday. Write to me, do not kill me with this terrible suspense.--Your most unhappy.

ANANIA."

"_September_ 19_th._ Midnight.

"ANANIA, MY NINO,--I have waited for you till this moment trembling with grief and love; but you have not come. Perhaps you are never coming any more, and I write to you at this sweet hour of our meetings with death in my heart and tears in my eyes which have not yet wept themselves out. The pale moon is sinking in a clouded heaven, the night is sad, it seems to me that all creation is oppressed by the ill-fortune which has crushed our love.

"Anania, why did you deceive me?

"As you say, I knew what you were, and I loved you just because I am above vulgar prejudice, and I wished to make up to you for the injustice of fate. But I believed you also were superior to prejudice, and were giving up all for me as I had given up all for you. Now, it seems, I have been deceived. You have deceived me, hiding your real sentiments. I believed and I still believe, that you knew your mother was alive and even where she was, and what sort of life she was leading (indeed, every one knew that!) but that you had no affection for this unnatural mother, who had deserted you, and was your misfortune and dishonour. You considered her dead for you and for every one. And I was quite sure that if ever she thrust herself upon your notice, which I suppose is what has happened, you would not condescend even to look at her. But on the contrary, you want to drive away her who has loved you so many years and will always love you, and to sacrifice your life and your honour to one, who (if she hadn't had an easy place to drop you into) was quite ready to kill you, or to leave you in a wood or a wilderness, a prey to starvation and terror, just that she might set herself free!

"But why should I write all this? Surely you know it? Why do you try to deceive me? Why do you appeal to sentiments which I can't possibly entertain, and which I don't believe you entertain yourself? You aren't going to do this stupid thing out of affection or out of generosity--I'm sure you really hate the woman--but just out of regard to these same vulgar prejudices which 'were invented by men to make all equally miserable.' Yes, yes! You want to sacrifice yourself and to ruin me, only for the glory of saying, '_I've done my duty!_' You are a silly boy, your dreams are dangerous, and what's worse, ridiculous. People may praise you to your face; behind your back they will laugh at your simplicity.