He began a new existence from the moment he set foot in the train, and was carried across the lonely plains, the dreariness of which was aggravated by autumn. He felt a new person clothed in a new vesture, soft and comfortable after one torn and narrow. Was it Margherita's kiss which made him so happy? or the good-bye to all the petty wretchednesses of the past? or the somewhat timorous joy of liberty with the thought of the unknown world to which he was hurrying? He neither knew nor sought to know. How beautiful, how easy was life! He felt strong, handsome, victorious. All women loved him, all the doors of life opened to his feet. Pride and enjoyment enwrapped his soul like an odorous, an intoxicating vapour, through which he discerned horizons as yet undreamed. The whole way from Nuoro to Macomer, Anania stood in the corridor of the railway carriage, violently shaken by the jerks of the little train. Few persons got in or out at the desolate stations, where bored acacia trees seemed waiting for the train, to hurl upon it companies of fast yellowing leaves. "Take them!" said the acacias to the train, "take them, contemptuous monster; we are stuck always here, and you move about. What more do you want?" "Yes," thought the joyous student, "life is movement." And he understood the jocund strength of running water. Till now his soul had been a morass, its edge smothered in fetid weeds. Yes! the acacias stuck in the stagnant Sardinian solitudes knew the truth. Yes! move, run, hurry! that is to live! "Is this devil of a train never going on!" asked the student during one of the interminable delays. The railway official, who knew Anania by sight as he knew almost all his passengers, calmly lit his pipe and said, sucking its stem:-- "You'll arrive all in good time. If you're in a hurry get out and fly." Ah t if he could fly! Anania looked at a black _nuraghe_ on a high rock, like a nest of gigantic birds, and wished he could fly thither with Margherita; to be alone with her and with the memories which floated on the wild scent of the heather; alone, inspired by the shadows and by the phantoms of epic passions. Ah, how great he felt! But now the cerulean heights of his native Barbagia vanished at the horizon. One peak of Orthobene towered behind the others, violet against the pale sky. Still an outline--a point, one alone--then nothing. The mountains were setting like the sun or moon, leaving a pensive twilight in the soul of the spectator.