Anania

“ But Anania stood at the window of his little room, watching the slow rising of the moon between the black teeth of Orthobene.
At last he was alone! Night reigned, passionate and sweet. Already the cuckoo was filling the lonely valley with her palpitating cries. Ah! thus sadly did Anania feel his heart palpitate and cry, out of an infinite solitude.
Why had he told that lie? And why had the stupid shepherd said not a word on hearing the stupendous falsehood? Clearly he knew nothing of love—love for a superior creature, love without limit and without hope. But why had Anania stooped to a lie? ”

“ Strange questions are still, however, troublesome in Anania's mind, falling without answer like stones thrown into the sea.
Why should he not stop on this wild, gently melancholy coast? Why should not the half seen figure on the rocks be his own? Why not build a house on the ruins of that church? Why waste himself in this stupid sentimentality? Why was he going to Rome? why studying Law? Who was he? What was life? Nostalgia? Love? What was Margherita doing? Why did he love her? ”

“ Anania remained alone on the deck, numbed by the damp breeze, and saw the moon, red like molten iron, sink into a turbid and sanguinous distance. At last he too turned in, but was long ere he slept. He felt as if his body were incessantly growing longer and shorter. An interminable line of carts seemed crossing over his torpid person. The most unpleasant recollections of his life came into his head. The clashing of the waves cut by the keel seemed the wind in the widow's cottage at Fonni. Oh what a vain, useless, odious thing was life! What was the good of living at all? ”

“ Sunset enfolded him as he ascended from Mamojada to Fonni; great peace overspread the rose-tinted landscape. The shadows, lengthening on the golden carpet of the stubble, suggested persons asleep, and the glowing mountains blended with the glowing sky, in which the moon already showed its shell of pearl. Anania felt his heart softening. His spirit raised itself towards the pure and mystic heaven. ”

“ Anania looked at a black nuraghe on a high rock, like a nest of gigantic birds, and wished he could fly thither with Margherita; to be alone with her and with the memories which floated on the wild scent of the heather; alone, inspired by the shadows and by the phantoms of epic passions. ”

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

“ 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. ”

“ Anania gave a cry of admiration, torn from him by the beauty and the magnificence of the panorama. All the nearer mountains were covered with a mantle of violet flowers; beyond, the vision of the deep valleys, of the high summits to which he was drawing near, of the torn veils of luminous mist, of the play of shadow and sun, of the blue heaven painted with strange and slowly contracting clouds, all seemed the dream of a painter's madness, a picture of unimagined beauty.
"How great is nature! how strong! ”

“ The air was scented with heather blossom. A far off village with grey campanile against the violet sky came into sight. Anania looked at the strange outline of the mountains, at the quiet sky, at the cistus bushes among the rocks, and nothing kept back his tears but the fear of ridicule from his fellow-travellers: a priest, and a student from lowland Campidano who had once been his school-fellow.
At last he was a man! True he had thought himself a man ever since he was fifteen, but then he had thought himself a young man, now he was an "old young man." ”

“ Her beautiful hair, her dark blue eyes shadowed by long black lashes, attracted the attention of passers-by who turned their heads to look at her. Anania, slighter and shorter than she, walked by her side trembling with jealousy and joy. It seemed impossible that this beautiful creature, so regal, so reserved, in whose disdainful eyes shone the pride of an imperial race, should abase herself to love, even to look at him. Margherita talked little. She was no flirt, and unlike the generality of women did not change look or voice when a man admired or addressed her. ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ People may praise you to your face; behind your back they will laugh at your simplicity.
"Anania, be yourself, be kind to yourself and to me. Be a man! No, I don't bid you abandon your mother if she's weak and unhappy (though she abandoned you) . We can help her, give her some money, but we must keep her at arm's length. I won't have her coming between us and upsetting our life. I won't. You see I don't deceive you, Anania. ”

“ Anania sat up on his bed, put his lips to the screen, and said slowly—
"I've got to go to the Questura."
Again he hoped a fraternal voice would ask his reason. His heart beat considering how he should explain.
But Daga only asked from behind the screen, "Are you going to get the rain taken up?"
Anania laughed, and his secret fell back on his heart like lead. Not a screen, but an immense and impenetrable wall divided him from his fellows. He must neither ask nor expect help from any one. He must be sufficient to himself. ”

“ Little Anania, stretched across the threshold flapping away the flies and the wasps with a branch of elder, thought sleepily—
"Whew! Why is that girl screaming? What makes her scream? Why are there any sick people in the world?"
He himself had grown plump, fattened by the abundant food, by idleness, by sleep. He slept a great deal. In the silent afternoons not even Rebecca's cry kept him awake. ”

“ Around them was deepest silence; the stars shone like pearls, like eyes smiling with love; ever sweeter on the air was the scent of the laurel.
"My wife must die very soon," said Anania; "what's the good of old people in the world? In a year we shall probably be married." ”

“ He wanted to start at once for the Cantoniera, but without difficulty allowed himself to be persuaded to wait.
Another sad night passed. Though his limbs were stiff with fatigue he slept little, on that hard pallet where he had been born, on which he wished that this night he might die. The wind shook the roof, roaring like a sea in storm. It reminded Anania of his infancy; the distant terrors, the wintry nights, the touch of his mother who clasped him to her, more for fear than for love. No, she had not loved him. Why delude himself? She had not loved him. ”

“ Anania had sat down by the table, inadvertently pushing the candle against the wall.
"I have nothing to tell you," answered the woman. "I'm not bound to give account to anyone. Let me alone. I live by my work and ask nothing from anyone. I'm better than the ladies to whom you gentlemen lift your hats! Ah!" she went on sighing heavily, "life is long! Days of trial will come to you young lads too! You will get to know the world, will find the hedge thick with serpents. They rise on every side of the path of life. ”

“ 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. ”

“ One October morning he got up very early, Aunt Tatàna washed him and brushed him, and dressed him in his best suit, that one of yellow fustian which was as stiff as the skin of the devil. Big Anania was at breakfast, eating roast liver. When he saw his boy dressed for school, he laughed with satisfaction, and said, threatening with his finger—
"Ho! ho! If you aren't a good boy. I'll send you to Maestro Pane to make coffins."
Bustianeddu came for Anania and somewhat contemptuously took him under his wing. ”

“ Anania looked on with envious eyes.
“How good lady must de Countess be!” added Agnes.
“Oh, she can be good to folks sometimes,” snarled Anania. “She’s just as full of whims as she can be—all those great folks are—proud and stuck-up and crammed full of caprice: but they say she’s kind where she takes, you know. It just depends whether she takes to you. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At this time Anania was seventeen. He had no friends and mixed little with his schoolfellows. He was painfully conscious of the stain upon his birth. Once overhearing the remark, "If I were he, I would not stay with my father," he fancied the words must refer to himself.
"That's it!" he thought; "why am I here with this man who betrayed my mother and flung her into a bad life? I don't exactly love him, and I certainly don't hate him, but what I ought is to despise him. He is not wicked; he's not completely trivial like the majority of our neighbours. ”

“ Anania thought of the savage surroundings of the widow at Fonni, of the mill, the encompassing poverty, the miserable figures in the poor homes of Nuoro. He seemed condemned always to be in sad places, among the grief-stricken and the poor.
After long and useless wandering, he came in and sat down to write a letter to Margherita.
"I am mortally sad," he wrote. "On my soul lies a great and bruising weight. ”

“ One day at the end of May, Anania surprised his companion kissing the elder daughter of the landlady.
"You are a brute!" he exclaimed, "haven't you been making love to the other one?"
They quickly got to high words.
"Why, you fool, it's the girls who come and throw themselves into my arms. Am I to push them away? If the world walks sideways, let us find our advantage in it. ”

“ 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? ”

“ He went into the mill and hovered round Aunt Tatàna who was ministering to Efès. She asked him her usual question. "What's the matter with you? Have you the stomachache?"
"Yes! Do let us go in," said Anania.
She saw the child wanted to speak to her and she took him home.
"Jesus! Jesus! Holy Saint Catharine!" cried the good woman when Anania had made his confession, "what has happened to the world? Even the little birds, even the chickens in the egg, go wrong!"
Anania never knew the means by which Aunt Tatàna persuaded Bustianeddu to restore the stolen money. ”