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! I _will_ you 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 the _nuraghe_ with 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:" "_Luna, luna, Moon, moon, Porzedda luna!_" Beautiful moon! "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!"