Anania felt depressed, alone in a desert, alone on a stormy sea. Had he fallen or cried out none would have heard or seen him; the crowd would have stepped on his prostrate form without looking at it. He remembered Cagliari with yearning nostalgia. Oh enchanted balcony, picture of the sea, sweet eye of the Evening Star! Here no stars were to be seen, no horizon; only a repellent conglomeration of stones and among them a swarm of men, who to the young barbarian seemed of a race inferior to his own. For the first days Rome, seen through bewildered eyes under the influence of fatigue and of the dark habitation in Piazza della Consolazione, caused him almost feverish sadness. In the older part of the town, in the narrow streets, the stuffy shops, the wretched dwellings whose doors seemed mouths of caverns, Anania thought of the poorest Sardinian village which was dowered at least with light and air. In the modern streets everything seemed too big, the houses were like mountains, the piazzas the size of _tancas_. Was this the intoxicating Rome, great but never oppressive, which he had imagined at Civita Vecchia? He began to attend the University lectures, studying Civil and Penal Law under Ferri. Here again his ideas were upset. The students were entirely noisy; laughing at and mocking everybody and everything. In Hall IV., while they were waiting for Ferri, the row and the joking passed all limits of decorum. One student would leap upon the chair and deliver a parody of the expected lecture. His fellows shouted, hissed, applauded, cried, "_Viva il Papa!" "Viva St Alphonso di Liguri!" "Viva Pio Nono!_" Sometimes the student in the chair, with red, set face, would mimic the mewing of cats, the crowing of cocks. Then the roaring and the hissing redoubled. Paper balls were thrown and lighted matches; the student persisted till the arrival of the professor, who was received with thunders of applause. Later Anania took part in this noise and tumult, but at first the absurdity, the scepticism, the vanity and egotism of his companions shocked him. He felt more than ever alone, unlike the rest, and he repented that he had come to Rome. But one evening he and Daga were crossing Via Nazionale at the fall of evening. The pavements were deserted, the radiance of the electric lamps was lost in the azure dusk. The windows of the banks were brightly illuminated. "Look!" said Daga. "It seems as if all the gold in the Bank was shining at the windows!" cried Anania. "Bravo!" said the other, "you're getting quite brilliant in my society!" Presently they stopped again. On the left, in the indescribable depth of Via Quattro Fontane, the sky burned with violet clearness; on the right the full moon was rising from the black outline of Santa Maria Maggiore which was silhouetted against a silver background. "Let's go to the Coliseum!" said Anania.