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. He slept, the branch of elder in his hand, flies settling on his face. He slept, and he dreamed he was there, far away, in the house of the widow, in the kitchen watched by the long black cloak which was like a gibbeted phantom. But Olì his mother was no longer there. She had fled far away, far away to an unknown land. And a monk had come out of the convent and was teaching the little lonely one to read. He wanted to learn, to learn things that he might be wise and able to journey to find his mother. The monk talked and talked but Anania could not hear him, because from the long black cloak came an acute, a lacerating, deafening lament! Ah God! he was afraid! It was the voice of the ghost of the dead bandit. And, besides the fear of the ghost, Anania was troubled by a strange feeling round his nose. That was the flies! [Footnote 10: Large enclosed pastures.] [Footnote 11: An insulting nickname equivalent to "witch."] V At last came part fulfilment of his dream. 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. It was a splendid morning. The fresh breeze carried pleasant odours of new made wine, of coffee, of refuse grape-skins. Hens clucked in the street. Peasants came in from the country their long carts decked with vine branches, attended by frisking and noisy dogs. Anania was happy, though his companion reviled the school and the schoolmaster and the teachers. "Yours is like a cock," he said, "he has a red cap and a great hoarse voice. I had to put up with him for a year. May the devil bite his heels!" The school was at the far side of Nuoro, in a convent surrounded by dreary gardens. Anania's class-room was on the ground floor, its windows facing the deserted street. The walls were flecked with dust; the master's desk had been gnawed by rats; the benches were adorned with spots of ink, with carvings, with names scribbled like hieroglyphics. Anania felt defrauded when instead of the master like a cock he saw a mistress, dressed in the costume of the place, a pale, small woman with a little moustache just like Aunt Tatàna's.