"Yes; at once. On the wings of a crow. How impetuous you are, child of my heart! Go to your bed now, and don't think any more about it. To-morrow night, at this hour, she'll be here. Don't doubt it. Afterwards you shall do what you like. To-morrow, make your excursion to the Gennargentu. I should suggest you're staying away for the night----" "Leave it to me." "Well--go to bed now," she repeated, pushing him gently. Even in the little room where he used to sleep with his mother nothing was changed. When he saw the poor pallet bed under which was a heap of earthy smelling potatoes, he remembered Maria Obinu's little white bed and all the illusions and the dreams which had persecuted him. "How childish I have been!" he thought bitterly, "and I was thinking myself a man. It is only now I have become a man! Only now has life opened to me its horrible doors. Yes, now I am a man, and I will be strong. No, vile life! you shall not vanquish me! No, monster, you shall not get me down! You are my enemy; till now you have fought with vizor dosed, you miserable coward! but to-day, on this day, long as a century, you have let me see your detestable countenance. But you shan't conquer me! No, you shan't." He unfastened the shaky window shutters, which opened on the old wooden balcony, the supports of which hardly held together. Grasping them, he leaned out. The night was most serene; fresh, dear, diaphanous, as are the mountain nights at the end of summer. An immense silence reigned everywhere, its sublimity unimpaired by the solemn vision of the nearer crags, the vague line of the distant summits. Anania, seeing the profound valleys at his very feet, felt himself suspended--resolved, however, not to fall--over a stupendous abyss. The line of the distant mountains soothed his heart strangely. They seemed to him verses inscribed by the omnipotent hand of a divine poet on the celestial page of the horizon. But the colossal Monte Spada, and the formidable wall of the Gennargentu oppressed him, and suggested the shadow of that monster against whom he had just issued his challenge. And he thought of the distant Margherita, his Margherita, whom he must now renounce; Margherita who at this hour was surely dreaming of him, whose eyes met his on that far horizon. And pitying her rather than himself, tears sweet and bitter, like mountain honey, rose in his eyes. He repressed them sternly; they were a feline and stealthy enemy trying to vanquish him at unawares. "I am strong!" he repeated, supporting himself on the flimsy balcony. "Monster! it is I who shall vanquish you!" And he did not perceive that the monster stood by his side--inexorable. [Footnote 21: A vessel made of cork.] [Footnote 22: Sign of an easy life, with no manual labour.] VIII In the long sleepless night, Anania decided, or believed he decided his fate.