"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?"