[16]A dwarf of Sardinian legend.
[16]A dwarf of Sardinian legend.
[17]A proverb. Wise as water, viz. very wise.
[17]A proverb. Wise as water, viz. very wise.
The time of vacation was near.
"Aunt Varvara," said the student to the old servant as she was preparing the coffee. "How happy I am! I feel wings growing. A few more days—then good-bye! Yes, I have wings. I shall jump on the window-sill, cry zsss—ss—and off! I launch myself in flight, and there I am in Sardinia."
And he went to the window pretending to suit the action to the words.
"A-a-ah!" cried the old woman terrified, "do get down, sweetheart! You'll break your neck! Oh God!——"
"Well, if you'll give me some coffee, just one little cup, I won't fly just yet. How good your coffee is, my dear! How do you get it so good? No one can make it so well except my mother at Nuoro."
The old woman, greatly flattered, poured out a cup, which being the first from the pot was truly exquisite.
"Upon my word it is good!" said Anania, raising ecstatic eyes. "It gives me nostalgia."
"What's nostalgia?"
"A shudder of the heart, Aunt Varvara; that shudder which comes when we think of paradise. Would you like to come home with me, little aunt, on a pillion? think! what fun!"
The old woman heaved a tremendous sigh. "Ah—if it weren't for the sea. Are you very rich?" she asked suddenly.
"Of course I am."
"How manytancashave you?"
"Seven or eight. I don't quite remember."
"And bees have you? And shepherds?"
"Aunt Varvara, I have everything."
"Then why have you come to this land of damnation?"
"Because my sweetheart wishes me to be Doctor of Law."
"And who is your sweetheart?"
"The daughter of the Baron of Baronia."
"Are there still Barons of Baronia? I have heard that phantoms haunt their castle. Once there was a woodcutter who spent the night under the castle wall, and he saw a lady with a long gold tail like a comet. Do you know what a comet is? By our Lady of Good Counsel! you'll kill yourself drinking so much coffee!"
"Go on with the story. What did the woodcutter do?"
Aunt Varvara went on. She mixed the legends of the Castello of the Castle of Burgos with those of the castle of Galtelli, confused historic records come down by popular tradition, with events which had happened in her own childhood, not it is true very recent. She told a story of a great lord who had lost his way on a moor, and not till he heard a little bell at evening dusk, could he find his way to an inhabited place. The great lord was very rich and very stupid, and he promised to leave all his wealth to the church whose bell he had heard. And ever after that, the bell has tolled at evening dusk so that lost men may be able to find their way.
"But that's the legend of St Maria Maggiore," said Anania.
"No, no, my dear little heart. It belongs to the church of Illori. I can tell you the name of the great rich man. It was Don Gonario Area."
"And thenuraghes," continued Aunt Varvara, walking about the steaming kitchen, "are there stillnuraghes? You know when the Moors came to Sardinia to steal the cattle and the women, the Sardinians hid their money in thenuraghes. Stupid boy, why don't you look for treasure on yourtancas?"
Anania thought of his father who had again written requiring him to visit the museums where antique gold coins are preserved.
"Once," continued Aunt Varvara, "I went to pick lavender near anuraghe. I remember as if it were yesterday. I had the fever, and in the evening I had to lie down on the grass, waiting till some cart should pass which would carry me home, and this is what I saw. The heaven behind thenuraghewas all the colour of fire—it looked just like a scarlet cloth. And suddenly a giant rose on thepatiu[18]and started blowing smoke out of his mouth. The whole sky became dark. By our Lady of Good Counsel, it was horrible! But quite suddenly I saw St George with the full moon on his head, and a great sword shining like water in his hand. Tiffeti! Taffeti!" cried the old dame, flourishing a kitchen knife! "St George slashed off the giant's head, and the sky became quite bright again."
"You saw all that. Aunt Varvara, because you had fever."
"It may have been the fever, but I did see the giant and Santu Jorgi; yes, I saw them with these eyes!" asseverated the old lady, poking her fingers into her organs of vision.
Then she asked whether on the days of the greater feasts, horses still galloped along the edge of the cliff, decorated with coloured ribbons and ridden by half naked boys. And again whether for Sant' Antonio they lighted fires, and in the middle of the fires stuck stakes, on top of which were roasted oranges and pomegranates and arbutus berries, and dead rats.
Anania listened with pleasure to Aunt Varvara's suggestive stories and questions. Though the trains were shrieking within a few yards and the amorous cats weremiouingamong the columns of the Pantheon, he so identified himself with the old woman's recollections that he fancied he had only to open the door, to find himself in a lonely Sardinian landscape on the top of anuraghewatched by a giant, or rapt in the savage excitement of a race of Barbs, in the company of a philosophic and contemplative old shepherd with soul turbid and great like the clouds. In the homesick babble of the aged exile he already felt the aroma of his native land, the breeze blown down from Orthobene and the Gennargentu. And he felt himself Sardinian, deeply, exclusively Sardinian.
"I mean to enjoy myself this vacation!" he said to his old Mend. "I shall attend all the Feasts, I shall visit the whole of my little native country. I shall climb on the Gennargentu, on Monte Raso, on the hill of the castle of Burgos! Yes, I'm determined to get up the Gennargentu. Perhaps, at Fonni, so and so, and so and so are still alive. And I wonder how the monks are getting on? and Zuanne?"
He was homesick like Aunt Varvara.
"Aren'tyouever going back?" he asked Signora Obinu one day when she came into the kitchen.
"I?" she answered rather drearily, "no, never again, never again!"
"Why not? Come to the window Signora Maria! look! What a wonderful moon! Wouldn't you like to go on pilgrimage to the Madonna di Gonare, in fine moonlight like this? on horseback, quietly, quietly through the woods, up the precipices—on—on—while you see the little church painted on the sky above you, high up—high up——"
Maria shook her head and pursed up her lips; but Aunt Varvara heaved all over and raised her eyes as if to find the little country church high up—high up against the soft blue of the moonlit sky.
"Except for you and your friends," said the landlady, "and the church and devotees of the Most Holy Madonna, I'd see all Sardinia burnt up sooner than go back there."
"But why?"
Aunt Varvara busy with her cooking shut her eyes, unable to protest out loud against her mistress's shocking hatred of the distant fatherland.
"Ah, my sweetheart," said the old woman when Signora Obinu had gone to the dining-room, "she has good reason! They murdered her there!"
"But she's alive still, Aunt Varvara!"
"You don't know what you're talking about! It's better to murder a woman than to betray her."
This threw him back into his doubts again.
"Aunt Varvara, you said it was a Signore who seduced her. Tell me his name. Try to remember it. Tell me, has the Signora any documents? Where would they be? I might help her to find the man; might persuade him to——It would be to your own interest as well."
"Persuade him to what?"
"To help her."
"She doesn't want help. She has money. Leave her in peace. She doesn't want to be reminded of her misfortune. Not a word! No! She'd strangle me if she knew I had talked about her."
"But her papers——" repeated Anania.
He had already searched for them in Signora Maria's room. She had no papers. She had destroyed all traces of her past.
The student was consumed with the desire to ascertain something definite before he went home. Why did he not take active steps, go back to the Questura, write to Sardinia, follow up the clue? Why had he allowed so much time to slip by in vain and cowardly inertia? Many a time he had resolved to bring on a crisis, to attack her and force her to reveal herself. After the inconclusive colloquy about Daga, he had actually allowed himself to chatter with her on irrelevant matters. There were days when he did not see her at all, or try to see her. "Yet I do want to know," he thought distractedly roaming the streets, which were still crowded but by an ever decreasing crowd. "If she is not my mother, why should I torment myself? But in that case, where, where is my mother? How is she living? Is she near or far? In the turmoil of the city, in this clatter which seems to me the voice of a thousand-headed monster, is her breath, her groan, her laughter, a part of it? And if she is not here, where is she?"
That night he had a touch of fever, caused perhaps by the unwholesome though poetic philtre of the dreams which he evoked almost nightly in the silence of the Coliseum. In his delirium he thought he saw the face of Maria Obinu bending over his pillow. Was it delirium? Moonlight and the vague reflection of an illuminated window lighted the patient's room. Behind Maria he saw a cavalier in eighteenth century costume, carrying a tray on which was a glass of champagne and Olì's amulet. He felt that the cavalier, motionless in the penumbra, was insubstantial; but the figure of the woman seemed real. He wanted to light a candle but he could not move. He seemed lying on the edge of a precipice upon a stone, which drawn by an occult force flew giddily towards an unattainable point followed by all things. After the first apparition of Maria he thought, "I have fever, I know that; but I'm certainly not wandering. It was she. I was wrong in pretending to be asleep. I ought to have simulated delirium to see what she would do. Perhaps she'll come back. Suppose I try and suggest it to her?"
"Come! Come!" he began, speaking half aloud and trying to impose his will on her. "Come, Maria Obinu! Iwillyou to come."
She did not come at once, and the strange course of the rock on which the sufferer imagined himself lying redoubled in velocity. Apocalyptic visions rose, mingled, vanished—monstrous clouds far in the depths of the fantastic abyss into which the soul of the sufferer gazed with horror. He saw thenuraghewith the giant and the saint of Aunt Varvara's delirium. But the moon detached itself from the Saint and fled over the heaven. Two other moons red and huge appeared in pursuit. Cataclysm was imminent. An immense crowd trampled each other on the shore of a storm driven sea. The waves were marine horses, which fought with invisible spirits. A cry rose out of the sea: "The stepmother! the stepmother!" Anania shook with horror, opened his eyes and thought they had turned blue.
"What absurdities!" he thought. "Why should fever make one see such things?"
Then Maria Obinu came back. She advanced silently and bent over the patient.
"Now I'll pretend!" he thought, and began a feeble lament. But the woman said nothing.
"Oh God! Oh God!" murmured the youth, sighing aloud, "who is striking my head? Let me alone! Don't murder me! The moon is going out. Mother, do you remember the little song you taught me:"
"Why won't you tell me you are my mother? Tell me! Tell me! I know it of course; but you ought to tell me yourself. Do you see the knight with the amulet you gave me that morning? Don't you remember that morning we came down, and the chaffinches sang on the chestnut trees and the clouds vanished behind Monte Gonare? Of course you remember! Tell me! Don't be afraid! I love you, we will live together! Tell me!"
The woman kept silence. The patient was overcome by a spasm of real tenderness and anguish, and began to rave in reality.
"Mother! Mother! speak to me! Don't make me suffer more. I am worn out. If you know what I have suffered! You are Olì, aren't you? There's no use in denying it. You are Olì. What have you been about? Where are your papers? Ah well, we'll be silent about the past. It's all over and done with. Now we will never part again. Oh don't go away! Wait! For God's sake, don't go away!"
He raised himself, his eyes wide; but the figure moved slowly away and disappeared. The knight with the tray was still there motionless in the penumbra, and everything was turning round. Again the figure returned and again it vanished. Anania continued to cry out that he saw his mother; and this impression, made up of sweetness and anguish, he retained even after the fever had left him.
Next morning he awoke early. His limbs seemed bruised as with blows of a stick. He got up and went out without asking for Signora Obinu.
For three or four nights the fever continued to trouble him; but between the phantasms of nightmare the figure of his mother did not return. That made him think. Had it been a real vision? If so, she must have been frightened by his words, and for that reason had kept away.
After this, exhausted by fatigue and the nervous tension of the Examinations, still moreover a little feverish, he daily resolved to solve the enigma, but always in vain. He thought, "I will summon her. I will supplicate, question, threaten. I will tell her the Questura has told me all, I will frighten her with the threat of exposure. She will confess. And suppose it isShe—what next?"
Always this supposition stupefied and terrified him. Sometimes he imagined a dramatic scene between his long lost mother and himself; sometimes it seemed that not one fibre in his heart would be moved. Oftener he felt frozen, watching Signora Obinu, pale and smiling, with her worn dark dress, always busy, always quiet, unconscious, insensible.
A veil fell between him and the phantasm which had tormented him. Instead of the violent scene he had imagined, dull conversations about nothings took place between him and his landlady, simple Aunt Varvara joining in.
Only a few minutes before starting for his holiday he finally decided to leave the whole matter in suspense till his return. He felt weary, defeated. The heat, the examinations, the fever, the fantasies had exhausted him. "I will rest," he thought, "I will sleep. I need forgetfulness and sleep if I am to recover myself. I mustn't turn into a neurasthenic! I will go up to my native mountains, to the wild and virgin Gennargentu How long I have intended that excursion! I will visit the robber's widow; my brother Zuanne; the son of the candlemaker; and the court of the convent and thatcarabinierewho sang—"
"'A te questo rosario.'"
"'A te questo rosario.'"
Then the thought of again seeing Margherita, of kissing her and immersing himself in love as in a perfumed bath, gave him a felicity which took his breath away. He almost wanted to flee from this devouring joy; but, driven out of his mind, it still ran in his blood, vibrated with his nerves, and swelled his heart in delicious pain. As he was starting. Aunt Varvara brought him a small wax candle which he was to carry to the Basilica of the Martyrs at Fonni, and Signora Obinu gave him a medal blessed by the Holy Father.
"If you don't value it yourself, unbeliever, give it to your mother," she said smiling, and a little moved. "Good-bye, have a good journey and come back safe. I'll keep the room for you. Get on well, and send me a postcard at once."
"Good-bye!" said Anania, taking the medal; "commend me to the Holy Souls in Purgatory."
"Of course I will," she said, shaking her finger at him, "they will protect you from temptation."
"Amen; and to our happy reunion."
"Good-bye!" he called again from the bottom of the stair, and Maria, leaning over the bannister, saluted him with her hand. When he had reached the street he thought of going back to see if she were in tears, stopped for a moment, but went on followed by Aunt Varvara almost crying herself.
"Son of my little heart," said the old woman, "greet for me the first person you shall meet on Sardinian ground. And don't forget the wax candle."
She went with him to the tram, notwithstanding her fear of the monster, and kissed him on his cheek. Anania remembered the kiss of poor Nanna before his departure from Nuoro, but this time he was touched, and he embraced Aunt Varvara asking forgiveness for all the times he had teased her.
Then all was left behind; the old woman who in parting from the young man wept her own exile; the dreary street where lived Maria Obinu; the Piazza at that hour scorching and deserted; the Pantheon sad as a cyclopean tomb; the cats dreaming among the great ruins.
Anania, his face brushed by a light breeze, felt happy as if freed from an incubus.
[18]A court or platform round thenuraghe.
[18]A court or platform round thenuraghe.
Before coming down to supper in his home, Anania stood at the window of his little room, struck by the deep silence of the courtyard, of the vicinity, of the whole country as far as to the horizon. He seemed to have become deaf. It was almost oppressive. But the voice of Aunt Tatàna resounded from the courtyard.
"Nania, my son, come down!"
He obeyed. A little table was laid expressly for him in the kitchen. His "parents," according to custom, took their supper seated on the floor, with meat and cakes in a basket before them. Nothing was changed. The kitchen was still poor and dark, but very clean. The stove was in the centre. The walls were adorned with trenchers and hunting spears, with great baskets, sieves and other utensils for sifting flour: in a corner were two woollen sacks containing barley. Near the narrow door, which was thrown open, hung the seed pouch and the rest of the fanning outfit.
A baby pig, tied to the elder tree in the courtyard, grunted gently, puffed and sighed. A red cat quietly placed himself by the little table and yawned, raising great yellow eyes to Anania. He was looking about him in a kind of stupor. No, nothing was changed; yet he felt somehow as if he were in this environment for the first time, with that tall peasant of the brilliant eyes and the long oily hair, with that pretty elderly woman, fair and fat as a dove.
"At last we are alone," said Big Anania, who was eating salad made into a sandwich with girdle cakes; "but you'll see they won't leave you long in peace. It'll be Atonzu here, Atonzu there! you're an important man now you've been in Rome. I, too, when I returned from my military service——"
"What sort of a comparison is that?" protested Aunt Tatàna.
"Do let me speak. I remember I had the greatest difficulty in talking dialect. I felt as if I were in a new world."
The student looked at his father and smiled.
"That's what I feel," he said.
"I daresay you do. After a while I got used to it; but as for you, after three days you'll be sick of this gossipy place and—and——"
His wife frowned and he changed the subject a little. "Eh! what a big place that devil of a Rome is to be sure! Give me the glass, my old beauty! What are you grimacing for? Why are you so important because you've a great man in the house?"
Anania guessed at some secret and said.
"What's the matter? Tell me. What's being said about me?"
"Nothing, nothing; let the crows caw," said the woman.
The lad was disturbed. Had something been heard at Nuoro of Maria Obinu? He put down his fork and said he would eat no more till he heard explanation.
"You're so hasty!" sighed the old woman. "King Solomon says the hasty man is like the wind——"
"Oh King Solomon still? I was hoping you'd forgotten him," said the young man roughly. She was silent, rather hurt. Her husband looked at her, then at Anania, and wished to punish him.
"King Solomon always said the truth. But what they're saying in Nuoro is that you're making love to Margherita Carboni."
Anania flushed. He resumed his fork and ate mechanically, while he stammered—
"The fools!"
"Why no, they're not fools," said the father, looking into his glass which was half full of wine. "If it's true, there's good cause to complain, for you ought to confess to thepadrone. You might say 'My benefactor, I'm a man now and you must forgive me for having hidden my hopes from you, as I have hidden them from my own parents.'"
"Stop! You know nothing about it!" cried the son angrily.
"Ah! holy Saint Catherine!" sighed Aunt Tatàna, who had already forgiven him. "Let the poor, tired boy alone! There's time enough to talk of these matters, and you are only a peasant and no scholar, so you don't understand."
The man drank his wine; waved a hand to implore peace, and said quietly:—
"Yes, I'm ignorant and my son has been educated. That's all very well. But I am older than he. My hair's beginning to turn white. Experience, my wife, makes a man wiser than a Doctor of Law. My son, I will say to you one thing only; ask your conscience and see if it doesn't tell you this, that we must not deceive our benefactor."
The student thumped his glass on the table so violently that the cat shuddered.
"Fools! Fools!" he cried fuming. But he knew his father, that ignorant and primitive man, was right.
"Yes, my son," said thecontadino, pushing the oily hair from his forehead, "you must go to your master, kiss his hand and say, 'I am the son of a peasant, but by your kindness and my own talents, I shall become a doctor and a gentleman and rich. I love Margherita and Margherita loves me. I will make her happy. I will make it up to her if she lowers herself to take the son of a servant for a husband. I ask your worship to bless us in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.'"
"And if he kicks him out?" said Aunt Tatàna.
The doubt was unflattering, and Anania laughed it off a little nervously.
"Be quiet, little woman!" replied the peasant, drinking again, "your King Solomon says women never know what they're talking about. When I speak I have already weighed my words. Thepadronewill give his blessing."
"But suppose it's all nonsense?" cried Anania, uplifted with joy. He went to the door and whistled. He was bewildered. His heart thumped. He was submerged by a wave of felicity. He would have liked to ask his father questions, to tell the whole story, but he could not utter a word.
"Thepadronewill give his blessing." The miller must have had his reasons for saying that! What could have happened? And why had Margherita never pointed out her father's favourable disposition? If she was ignorant of it, how could the dependent have found the thing out? "Within a few hours I shall see her and she'll tell me," thought Anania. His fatigue, his anxieties, his doubts, the joy itself of the new hope, melted away before the sweet thought, "I shall see her in a little while."
The door opened silently at the young man's light tap. "Glad to see you," whispered the maid, who was in the lover's confidence. "She's coming in one moment." "How are you?" he asked in an agitated voice; "here, take this little keepsake I have brought you from Rome." "You are always so kind," said the girl, receiving the little parcel. "Wait here for a minute."
The minute seemed an hour. He leaned against the wall of the courtyard under the veiled heaven of the dark and silent night. He shook with anxiety and joy; when Margherita ran panting to his arms he felt rather than saw her; felt her soft warm cheek, her lithe though not too slender waist, her heart beating against his own. Blinded by cruel inextinguishable thirst, he kissed her wildly, almost unconsciously.
"That's enough!" she said, the first to recover herself. "How are you? Quite well again?"
"Yes, yes!" he answered hotly. "Ah God! At last! Oh!" he went on, breathing hard and pressing her hand to his breast. "I am not able even to speak. I couldn't come to your window because—because they haven't left me a minute to myself. Even now I can't see you. If you had only brought a light!"
"Nonsense, Nino! We shall see each other to-morrow." She laughed softly, touching him with the palm of her hand which Anania held to his breast. "How your heart beats!" she said, "it's like a little wounded bird. Tell me, are you really better?"
"Oh, I'm quite well, quite well. Margherita, where are you? Is it possible we are together?"
He gazed hard, trying to distinguish her lineaments in the colourless vault of the clouded night. Great dark velvety clouds passed ceaselessly over the grey sky. An oval space of clear firmament surrounded by darkness looked like a mysterious face, its eyes, two red stars, leaning down to watch the lovers. Anania sat on the stone bench and drew the girl to his knee. Disregarding her protests he held her tight in the circle of his arms.
"No, no," she said, "I'm too heavy. I'm too fat!"
"Light as a feather," he affirmed gallantly. "But is it really true we are together?" he repeated. "It seems a dream! How often I have dreamed of this moment which I thought would never come! And now here we are together! united! united. I am going mad, I think! Is it really a fact that I have you here on my heart? Speak! Say something! Stick a pin into me to show me I'm not dreaming!"
"What do you want me to say? It's you have things to say. I wrote everything to you, everything. You speak, Nino! You are so good at talking! Tell me all about Rome. I don't know how to talk."
"On the contrary, you talk beautifully. You have such a lovely voice. I've never heard a woman speak like you."
"Stories!" said Margherita.
"I swear it's true! Why should I say what isn't true? You are the most beautiful, the gentlest, the sweetest of all girls. If you knew how I thought of you when my landlady's two girls in the first house flung themselves at me and at Battista! I felt as if they were some sort of plague struck creatures while you—you were a saint, soft and pure, and fresh, and lovely!"
"But I'm afraid I, too,—"
"That's quite different. Don't say such horrid things! You know I get vexed when you are cold. We are betrothed. Isn't it true? Aren't we going to marry each other? Tell me yes."
"Yes."
"Say that you love me."
"Yes."
"Don't say just Yes. Say it like this. I—love—thee."
"I—love—thee. If I didn't love you should I be here? Of course I love you! I can't express myself, but I do love you; probably more than you love me."
"It's not true. I love you most. But you do love me, yes I know it," he continued, becoming grave, "you who might aspire to anyone, you are so beautiful and so rich!"
"Rich? I don't know about that. Suppose I'm not?"
"I should like it much, much better."
They were silent, each grave, each following private thoughts; almost divided.
"You know," he said suddenly, following the thread of his own ideas, "I've been told your family has guessed our love. Is it true?"
"Yes," she said, after a short hesitation.
"Really? Really? Then your father is not angry?"
Margherita hesitated again. Then raised her head and said drily, "I don't know."
From her manner Anania understood something unfavourable, something unexpected which he could not make out. What was happening? Was the girl hiding some disagreeable secret? His mind flew to her, to his mother, to the distant phantom, and he asked if this shadow was coming between him and his love.
"You must tell me frankly," he said, distractedly caressing her hands, "what is going on? Am I to be allowed to aspire to you or not? May I go on hoping? You know what I am; a poor dependent on your family; the son of one of your servants."
"What nonsense!" she exclaimed impatiently. "Your father isn't a servant. Even if he were, he's a man respected and honoured by everyone, and that's enough."
"Honoured and respected!" Anania repeated to himself, pierced to the soul. "Oh God, she is not honoured and respected!" But he reflected at once that Margherita would not talk like this if she were thinking ofthat woman. Probably the Carboni's all thought Olì was dead. She must have something else on her mind.
"Margherita," he insisted as calmly as he could, "I must have you open your whole heart to me. I want you to advise me what I ought to do. Shall I wait? Shall I ask? Conscience and pride too bid me go to your father and tell him at once. If I don't, he may think me a traitor, a man without any loyalty or honour. But I'll do whatever you tell me. Only I won't give you up. That would be my death! I am ambitious as you know. I say it proudly because if only you'll stick to me, my ambition will come to something. I'm not like most fellows, Sardinians especially, who expect to succeed at once and have no staying power, and do nothing but envy those who do succeed. Battista Daga for instance! He's all envy and hatred. He was quite pleased whenLe Mascherewas hissed at the Costanza! But I'm not envious. I can wait calmly, and I shall succeed. I don't say I'll ever be famous, but I shall achieve a good position. I'm sure of it. As soon as I've taken my Degree, I shall enter for the higher examinations. I shall live in Rome and work and push myself forward. But I repeat I shall do all this only for you. Woman is at the bottom of every man's ambition. Some are afraid to say that. But I say it frankly. I'm proud to say it. I've always told you so, haven't I?"
"Yes," said Margherita, carried away by his enthusiasm.
He went on: "You are the goal of my whole life. Some men live for art or for glory, or for vanity; and some live for love. I'm one of those. I seem to have loved ever since I was born, and I shall love on to the last of my age. You! always you! If you should fail me, I shouldn't have the strength or even the wish to do anything. I should die morally. Physically too I expect. If you were to say, I love someone else——"
"Hush! be quiet!" commanded Margherita. "Now it's you who are blaspheming. Dear me! is that rain?" A drop had fallen on their linked hands. They looked up at the clouds which were passing slower now. They had become more dense; nebulous and torpid monsters.
"Listen," said Margherita, speaking a little hurriedly and absently, as if apprehensive of the rain, "we aren't half so rich as we were. My father's affairs are going badly. He's been lending money to everybody who asked for it, and they—never give it back. He is too good-hearted. That everlasting lawsuit about the forest at Orlei is going against us. If we lose, and I expect we shall, then I shall no longer be rich."
"You didn't write me all that."
"Why should I? Besides I didn't know it myself till a few days ago. I declare itisraining!"
They got up and stood for a few minutes under the verandah. Lightning shone among the clouds, and in that flash of lilac flame, Anania saw Margherita pale as the moon.
"What's the matter? What is it?" he asked, pressing her to him. "Don't be afraid for the future. You mayn't be rich, but you will be happy. Don't be frightened."
"Oh no! I'm only thinking about my mother who's so afraid of lightning she will be getting up out of bed. You must go now," she ended, pushing him gently away.
He had to obey. But he lingered a good while under the doorway waiting for the rain to stop. Sharp flashes of joy illuminated his soul as the flashes of metallic lightning illuminated the night. He remembered a wet day in Rome when the thought of death had cloven his soul like a shaft of lightning. Yes, joy and grief were much alike; devouring flames, both of them.
As he made his way home under the last drops of rain he accused himself of selfishness.
"I'm pleased by the misfortunes of my benefactor," he thought. "That's mean!"
Next morning he wrote to Margherita telling her of many heroic projects. He would give lessons so as to continue his own studies without being a further drag on her father. He would visit Signor Carboni and make a formal proposal of marriage. He would explain to the family which had patronized him that he would become its prop and its pride.
He was finishing his letter at his open window, enjoying the dewy morning silence and the fragrance from the rain-freshened fields, when he heard an outburst of uncontrollable laughter, and turning saw Nanna, ragged and trembling, her eyes tearful, her ugly mouth open, in her hand (and in imminent danger of upsetting) a brimming cup of coffee.
"Still alive, Nanna?" he said. "Good-morning."
"Good-morning to your Worship. I wanted to startle you, that's why I asked Aunt Tatàna to let me bring the coffee. Here it is. My hands are quite clean, your Worship. Oh, what a delight, what a consolation!" she cried, crying and laughing.
"Where's the Worship you are talking to? You must say 'Thou' to me. Give me that coffee and tell me the news."
"The news? Oh, we go on living in dens like the wild beasts we are. How can I say 'Thou' to your Worship who is a resplendent sun?"
"What? no longer a sugar plum?" said Anania, sipping the coffee from the antique gold sprigged cup and thinking of Aunt Varvara.
"Ah, my dear! forgive me. I always think of you as a little boy. Do you remember the first time you came from Cagliari? Yes, little Margherita was at the window watching for you. Doesn't the moon watch for the sun?"
Anania set the cup on the window ledge. He breathed hard. How happy he felt! How blue was the sky, how sweet the air! What grandeur in the silence of humble things, in the air not yet stirred by the turmoil of civilization. Even Aunt Nanna no longer seemed horrible; under the unclean exterior of that poisoned body, palpitated a warm heart, a poetic soul.
"Listen to those lines!" cried Anania, and he recited gesticulating—
Nanna listened without understanding a word. She—opened her lips to say—to say—At last she said:—
"I've heard that before."
"From whom?" cried Anania.
"From Efès Cau."
"Liar! Now away with you at once, or I'll beat you. No, wait a minute! tell me everything that has happened at Nuoro this year."
She began a strange rigmarole, mixing up her own affairs with the events of the town. Every now and then she returned to Margherita.
"She's the lovely one! The rose of roses! the pink! the sugar plum! Oh and her clothes! Oh God, never have been seen such marvels! When she passes people watch her like a shooting star. A gentleman charged me to steal a scrap of her scarf. He wanted to wear it on his heart. The maid up there at Carboni's says that every morning her young lady finds on her window a love letter tied up with a blue ribbon. But the rose can't do with anything except a pink. Well, well! hand me thy cup!" concluded the babbler giving herself a slap on the mouth, "it's no good! I knew your Worship when he had a tail and I can't sayLei[19]to him."
"And pray when had I a tail?" asked Anania, threatening her with his finger.
Nanna ran away, shaking and laughing, her hand over her mouth. From the courtyard she shouted up to the student who was leaning out of his window—
"It was the tail of your shirt, your Worship!"
Again Anania threatened her and again Nanna shook with laughter; the little pig, now loose, snuffed at the woman's feet; a hen jumped on its back and pecked its ears. A sparrow perched on the elder, swinging on the end of a twig. And Anania was so happy that he sang another verse from Poliziano:
As he sang, he had again the feeling of being light as the sparrow on the twig. Later he went to the garden where he could hand the maid the letter for Margherita.
The garden, still wet after the nocturnal rain, exhaled a strong odour of vegetation and wet earth. The beans had been reduced by caterpillars to masses of strange grey lace. The prickly pears were losing their little gold cupped yellow flowers; the tall passion flower with its stemless violet flowers cut the azure of the sky with their strange outline. The mountains rose vaporous in the pearly distance, their highest peaks lost in golden clouds. Efès, a heap of rags, lay in a corner. Anania kicked him lightly; he raised his face, opened a glassy eye, and murmured—
"When Amelia so pure and so pale—"
"When Amelia so pure and so pale—"
Then fell back without recognising the young man. Further on Uncle Pera, now quite blind, was indefatigably weeding, recognising the weeds by smell and touch.
"How are you?" cried Anania.
"Dead, my son. I can't see; I can't hear."
"Don't lose heart. You'll get cured——"
"In the next world where all are cured. Where all see and hear. Never mind, my son. When I saw with the eyes of my body, my soul was blind. Now I see. I see with the eyes of the soul. But tell me, when you were in Rome, did you see the Pope?"
When he had left the garden Anania roamed about in the vicinity. Yes, this little corner of the world was always the same. The madman still sat on the stone with his back against the tumbling wall, and waited for the coming of Jesus; the beggar-woman still jealously watched Rebecca, while the miserable girl still shook with fever and bandaged her sores. Maestro Pane among his cobwebs still planed tables and talked to himself; in the tavern the handsome Agata flirted with young and old; and Antonino and Bustianeddu drank and swore, and now and then vanished for a month or two, reappearing with faces grown rather pale in "the service of the King."[20]Aunt Tatàna still baked sweetmeats for her "dear little boy" and dreamed of his future laurels; Big Anania, on days of leisure, sat in the street embroidering a leather belt and dreaming of treasures hidden in thenuraghes.
No, nothing was changed; but the young student saw men and things as never he had seen them before. Everything seemed beautiful to him with a wild and melancholy beauty. He passed by and gazed as if he were a stranger; in the picture of those dark and falling cabins, of those primitive beings who inhabited them, he seemed to see himself vaguely as a giant—yes, as a giant, or as a bird—a giant by his superiority, a bird by his joy!
At the end of August, after various meetings, Margherita agreed to the confession of their love.
"Your father's manner to me has changed," said Anania. "I am uneasy and remorseful He looks at me with cold, critical eyes, and I can't bear it."
"Well—do your duty, if you have the courage," said Margherita, with a touch of malice.
"How shall I put it?" asked the lad, growing nervous.
"As you like. It will be a very interesting occasion. The more agitated you are the more effect you will make. My father is so kind!"
"Then you think I may have some hope?" cried Anania as eagerly as if till that moment he had been in utter despair.
"Why, yes—s—s," she said, stroking his hair in almost motherly fashion.
He folded her close, shut his eyes, and tried to the immensity of his good fortune. Could it be possible? Margherita would be his own? Really? In reality, as she had always been his in dream? He thought of the time when he had scarce dared confess his love to himself. And now——
"How many things come to pass in the world!" he thought. "But there! what is the world? What is reality? Where does dream end and reality begin? May not all this be dream? Who is Margherita? Who am I? Are we alive? And what is life? What is this mysterious joy which lifts me as the moon lifts the wave? And the sea, what is that? Does the sea feel? Is it alive? And what is the moon, and is she also real?"
He smiled at his questions. The moon illuminated the courtyard. In the silence of the diaphanous night, the tremulous song of the crickets suggested a population of minute sprites, sitting on the dewy moonlit leaves and sawing on a single string of invisible fiddles. All was dream and all was reality. Anania fancied he saw the goblin fiddlers, and at the same time he saw distinctly Margherita's pink blouse, and rings, and gold chain. He pressed her wrist, touched the pearl of the ring which she wore on her little finger, looked at her nails with their little half moons of white. Yes, it was all real, visible, tangible. The reality and the dream had no dividing-line. All could be seen, handled, attained, from the maddest dream to the object of the barest visibility.
A few words pronounced by Margherita brought him back to the boundary of reality.
"What will you say to my father?" she asked, scoffing a little. "Will you say, 'Sir, Godfather—I—I and—and your daughter—Margherita—are—are doing what you——'"
"I couldn't!" he exclaimed, "I'll write to him!"
"Oh no!" said Margherita seriously, "you had far better speak! He'll be far more yielding if you speak. If you're afraid to do it yourself, send someone."
"Whom could I send?"
Margherita pondered, then said tentatively, "Your mother."
He knew she meant Aunt Tatàna, but his thoughts flew to the other, and he fancied Margherita also must be thinking of that woman. A dense shadow, a whirlwind of doubt overwhelmed his soul; ah yes! the dream and the reality were well divided by terrible confines; insuperable emptiness, like the void between the earth and the sun, separated them.
"If I could tell her at this moment!" he thought again; "this is the moment! If I let it escape I may never find it again. Perhaps the void can be crossed; but now—now!"
He opened his lips and his heart beat fast. He could not speak. The moment passed.
Next evening Aunt Tatàna—greatly surprised, but proud and confident in the assistance of Heaven, for she had prayed and "made the ascension," namely, dragged herself on her knees from the door to the altar of the church of the Rosario—performed her embassage.
Anania remained at home, waiting anxiously for the dear woman's return. First, he lay on his bed, reading a book of which he remembered not so much as the title.
"Yet I am calm," he thought, "why should I be alarmed? the thing is perfectly certain——"
Thought, like an all-seeing eye, followed the ambassador and saw Aunt Tatàna walking along very slowly impressed with the solemnity of her task. She was a little shy—the sweet elderly dove, so soft and pure; but patience! with the help of the Lord and of the blessed Saint Catherine and the most holy Mary of the Rosary, she would effect something! For this great occasion she had donned her best clothes; the "tunic" trimmed with three ribbons, green, white, and green, the corset of green brocade, the silver belt, the embroidered apron, the floating saffron-coloured veil. Nor had she forgotten her rings, certainly not, her great prehistoric rings, cameos cut on green and yellow stones, and incised cornelians. Thus adorned and very serious, like an aged Madonna, she advanced slowly, saluting with unwonted dignity the persons whom she passed. It was evening, the hour sacred to these grave embassies of love. At the fall of evening the matchmaker finds at home the head of the family to which she bears the arcane message.
Aunt Tatàna goes on and on; always sedate and slow. She seems almost afraid of arriving. Having reached the fatal limit, the great shut door, silent and dark like the gate of Destiny, she hesitates, arranges her rings, her ribbons, her belt, her apron; wraps her chin in the end of her veil, at last makes resolution to knock.
That knock seemed to strike Anania on his chest. He jumped to his feet, seized the candle, and looked at himself in the glass.
"I do believe I am white! What an idiot! I will think no more about it."
He went to the window. Daylight was dying in the closed court, the motionless elder tree was a dark mass. Perfect silence! the hens slept, the little pig slept. Stars came out, sparks of gold in the ashy blue of the warm twilight. Beyond the courtyard in the silence of the little street a little shepherd on horseback, passed singing—
Anania thought of his childhood, of the widow, of Zuanne. What was the young monk doing in his convent? the monk who had meant to be a brigand.
"I should like to see him!" thought Anania. "In the course of this month I will certainly visit Fonni."
Ah! His thought returned violently thither where his fate was being decided. The old dove has arrived; she is there in Signor Carboni's simple and orderly study. There is the desk where one evening a young lad had rummaged among the papers—good Lord! is it possible he ever behaved so shamefully? Yes, when one is a boy one has no conscience, anything seems easy and allowable, a positive crime can be committed in perfect innocence. Well! Aunt Tatàna is there. And Signor Carboni is there—stout, composed, and bland, with the shining gold chain across his ample chest.
"Whatever will the dear old thing say!" thought Anania smiling nervously. "I wish I could be there unseen. If I had the ring which gives invisibility! I'd slip it on my finger and in a moment I'd be there. If the big door was shut—I'd knock, Mariedda would open and rage against the children who knock and run away. But I——Pshaw! such childish nonsense. I'll think no more about it." He left the window, went down to the kitchen and sat by the fire, suddenly remembered it was summer and laughed. For a long time he looked at the red kitten which sat watching by the oven, motionless, his whiskers stiff, his tail stiff, expecting the appearance of a mouse.
"You shan't be allowed to catch it!" said Anania, "I'm so happy that not even a mouse shall suffer in this house to-night. Shoo!" he cried, jumping up and running at the kitten, who shook all over and leaped on top of the stove. The young man's restlessness now made him march up and down the kitchen. Once or twice he stood still, fingering the sacks of barley.
"My father's not so very poor," he thought, "he's Signor Carboni'smezzadro(tenant) though he will call him Master. No, he's not poor. But, of course, he couldn't pay back what's—been spent—on me, if the thing doesn't come off. Whatever would happen? What is happening at this moment? Aunt Tatàna has spoken. What can she have said? What sort of answer can the benefactor have given? He's the most loyal man in the world—what will he say when he hears that his protégé has dared to betray—I can imagine him walking up and down the room very thoughtful; and Aunt Tatàna looking at him, pale herself and oppressed. Oh, my God! what will happen?" groaned the boy squeezing his head in his hands. He felt suffocated, rushed into the court, sprang on the low surrounding wall, waited and listened. Nothing! nothing!
He returned to the kitchen, saw the kitten again in ambush, again drove it away. He thought of the cats prowling round the Pantheon. He thought of Aunt Varvara and the wax candle he was to carry for her to the Basilica of the Holy Martyrs; he thought of his father busy in the padrone'stancas; he remembered the sonorous pine-tree, which murmured like an angry giant, the king of a solitary region of stubble and thicket. He thought of thenuragheand Aunt Varvara's vision reproduced by fever in himself. He remembered a gold bracelet seen in the museum at the Baths of Diocletian. Behind all these fleeting memories, two thoughts met and rolled themselves into one like two clouds, one dark, one bright, rolling together in space—the thought ofthat womanand the thought of what was going on in Signor Carboni's study. "I've said I won't think of it," he muttered, vexed with himself.
And again he chased the cat, as if he wished to chase away the idea which, cat-like, continually returned against his will. He went back to the courtyard, looked and listened. Nothing. About a quarter of an hour later two voices sounded behind the low wall, then a third, a fourth. They belonged to the neighbours who nightly assembled for a gossip before Maestro Pane's shop.
"By our Lady," cried Rebecca's piercing tones, "I have seen five falling stars! That means something. There's going to be a catastrophe."
"Perhaps Antichrist's coming. They say he'll be born of an animal," said a man's voice; "an animal like you."
"Like your wife, you beast!" screamed Rebecca.
"Take this, my carnation!" said the handsome Agata, who was eating something as she talked.
The man began rude talk, but the old carpenter interposed.
"Hold your tongue, or I'll have you on the millstones, you skinned weasel."
The peasant was not to be silenced, so the women went away and sat under the low wall of the courtyard. Aunt Sorchedda, a little old woman who forty years before had been servant in the Intendant's house, began to tell for the thousandth time the story of her mistress.
"She was amarchesa. Her father was an intimate friend of the King of Spain, and had given her 1000 gold crowns for her dowry. How much are 1000 crowns?
"What are 1000 crowns?" said Agata contemptuously. "Margherita Carboni has 4000."
"4000?" echoed Rebecca, "you mean 40,000."
"You don't know what you're talking about," cried Aunt Sorchedda, "these were gold crowns. Not even Don Franceschino has so much."
"Go along with you! You're doting," cried Agata, getting heated. "How much do 1000 crowns come to? Franziscu Carchide has them in shoe soles!"
It was getting serious. The women began to abuse each other.
"It's easy to see why she brings in Franziscu Carchide, that scum of a girl!"
"Scum yourself, old sinner!"
"Ah."
Anania was listening. In spite of his private anxiety he laughed.
"Oh, ho!" cried Agata, peeping over the wall, "good evening to your Excellence! What are you hiding for? Come out and let us see your pretty face."
He pinched Agata's arm, and Rebecca who had hidden herself on hearing the young man's laugh, contributed a pinch on the leg.
"Oh! oh! oh!" cried Agata, "go to the devil with you! This is too much. Let me alone or I'll tell——"
The pinches were redoubled.
"Oh! oh! oh! The devil! Rebecca, there's no good in being jealous! Oh! oh! Aunt Tatàna has gone this evening, has gone to ask——Well, shall I tell or not?"
Anania withdrew, asking himself how that minx Agata knew.
"My sweetheart, next time have some respect for Aunt Agata!" she said laughing; while Rebecca who had understood became stonily silent, and Aunt Sorchedda enquired—
"Kindly tell me, Nania Atonzu, is there a single person in Nuoro who has 1000 gold crowns?"
The foul-mouthedcontadinocame over and asked, "Young man from Rome, Nania Atonzu—is it true that the pope——"
Anania was not listening. He saw a figure moving slowly at the bottom of the street. His heart came into his mouth. It was she! The old messenger dove, it was she, carrying on her pure lips, like a flower of life or of death, the fateful word.
Anania went in to the house shutting the back door; Aunt Tatàna entered at the front and he shut that door also. She sighed; was still pale and oppressed just as Anania had seen her in fancy. Her rude jewels, her belt, her embroideries, sparkled brightly in the firelight.
Anania ran to meet her. He looked at her anxiously. As she kept silence he burst out impatiently—
"Well? Well? What did he say?"
"Have patience, child of the Lord! I am going to tell you."
"Tell me now—this moment. Will he have me?"
"Yes—s—s—He'll have you! He'll have you!" announced the old lady opening her arms.
Quite overcome, Anania sat down, his head in his hands. Aunt Tatàna looked at him compassionately, shaking her head, while with trembling finger she unclasped her silver belt.
"Is it possible! Is it really possible?" Anania was saying to himself.
Before the oven the kitten was still watching for the exit of a mouse. Perhaps he heard some faint noise for his tail trembled. After a minute Anania heard a squeak and a minute death cry. But his happiness was now so complete that it did not allow him to remember that in the world could exist such a thing as suffering.
Aunt Tatàna's detailed narrative threw a little cold water on this great conflagration of joy.
Margherita's parents did not oppose the love of the two young people, but neither did they give full and irrevocable consent. The godfather had smiled, had rubbed his hand, and shaken his head as if to say, "They've caught me, those two." Aloud he said! "They're in a hurry for their wings, the two children."
Then he had become very thoughtful and grave.
"But what did he say in the end?" cried Anania, also very serious.
"Holy Saint Catherine, what does the boy expect? Don't you understand, my dear? The padrona said, 'We must speak to Margherita.' 'Eh, I don't think it's necessary!' said your godfather, rubbing his hands. I smiled." Anania smiled also.
"So we concluded——Go away, puss!" cried Aunt Tatàna in parenthesis drawing away the hem of her "tunic" upon which the kitten had established himself licking his lips with horrible satisfaction, "we concluded that you must wait. Thepadronesaid, 'Let the boy attend to his studies and do us credit. When he has got some good appointment, then we'll give him our daughter. Meanwhile let them love each other and God bless 'em.' There! now I hope you'll eat your supper."
"But does it mean I can go to their house as her betrothed?"
"No, not just at present. Not for this year. You run too fast,galanu meu. People would think Signor Carboni in his second childhood if he allowed that. You must take your degree first."
"Oh!" cried Anania, "then I suppose he thinks it better for us——" He was going to say, "for us to meet secretly at night lest we should offend false susceptibilities," but it struck him that meeting thus secretly at night and by themselves, was far more comfortable than in the presence of parents and in the glare of day. This calmed him. It was not their own fault and need occasion no remorse.
Accordingly he recommenced his visits that very night. The maid, the moment she had opened the door, wished him good luck as if the wedding were already announced. Anania gave her a tip and waited in trepidation for his sweetheart. She came, cautious and silent. She smelt of iris, she wore a light dress, white in the transparent night. Half seeing her, conscious of her fragrance, the youth experienced a dissolving, a violent sensation as if for the first time he had divined the mystery of love. They embraced long, silently, vibrating together, intoxicated with joy. The world was theirs.
Margherita, now sure she might abandon herself without fear or remorse to her love for this handsome youth who adored her, for the first time showed herself passionate and ardent as Anania had scarce dared to dream her. He went away from the tryst, trembling, blind, out of himself.
Next evening, the meeting was even longer, more delirious. The third night, the maid got tired of watching and gave the prearranged signal in case of surprise. The lovers separated in alarm. Next day Margherita wrote thus—
"I'm afraid Daddy guessed something last night. We must take care not to do ourselves harm, especially now when we are so happy. We had best not meet for a few days. Have patience and courage as I have, for it takes courage to make the big sacrifice of renouncing for some time the immense happiness of seeing you. It kills me; for I love you so dearly I feel as if I really couldn't live without your kisses," and so on and so on.
He replied: "My adored one, I believe you are right. You are a saint for wisdom and goodness, and I am only a poor fool, a fool for love of you. I don't know, I can't even see, what I am doing. Last night I could have compromised our whole future and not have perceived what I was doing. Forgive me! when I am with you I lose my reason. A destroying fire seems to rage within me; I am fevered, consumed. So it is with spasms of pain that I renounce the supreme felicity of seeing you for a few evenings, and I shall require movement, distraction, distance, to quiet this devouring fire which makes me senseless and sick. I think I'll make that little excursion to the Gennargentu of which I spoke the other night. You wouldn't mind, would you? Answer me at once, my adored one, my joy, my darling. I will carry you with me in my heart. I will send you a greeting from the highest summit in Sardinia. I will cry your name to heaven, and my love, as I would wish to cry them from the topmost peak of the world, for the astounding of the whole earth. I embrace you, my dearest; I carry you with me, we are united, fused together for all eternity."
Margherita graciously gave permission for the journey.
Then Anania wrote: "I am starting to-morrow morning by the coach for Mamojada—Fonni. At nine o'clock I shall pass your window. I long to see you to-night—but I will be good! Ah! come with me, Margherita, my own darling! why do you leave me for a single instant? Come here to my heart! I will bum you up in the fire of my love, and die myself of passion!"