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 thetanca, 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 thehabituésof 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 thepadrone'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—")
"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 Perasu gattubrought 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 thirteensoldi(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 thepadrone'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."
"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."
"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 wasthatone, 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.
[12]Sign of familiarity and friendship.
[12]Sign of familiarity and friendship.
At Cagliari Anania went through the Lyceum course, then two years at the University. He was studying Law. These years were like anintermezzoin 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 blacknuragheon 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 womanwill 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 ifthat womanis 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 Ifeelshe 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? AmIdishonoured? What fault is it of mine? She loves me. Yes, she loves me because I'm the son of my own deeds. And probablythat womanis 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; butthat womanis 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 prettystornelli[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 thisstornelli:—
"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 wasthat 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.Shewould 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.