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!"