Anania laughed, and his secret fell back on his heart like lead. Not a screen, but an immense and impenetrable wall divided him from his fellows. He must neither ask nor expect help from any one. He must be sufficient to himself. He got up, dressed, sought in his desk for the certificate of his birth. Then he opened the door. "Take the umbrella, of course," yawned Battista; "but why are you going?" Anania did not reply. He went out. It rained without intermission, furiously. Descending the dark stair he listened to the echoing clatter of the rain on the glass roof. It seemed the roar of a cascade which in a moment must smash the glass and inundate the staircase, already overflowed by the noise of the imminent catastrophe. He went out and wandered through the rain-washed streets. He passed through a deserted alley, under a black and mysterious arch; looked gloomily at the damp chiaroscuro of certain interiors, of certain small shops in which pale figures of women, of poor men, of dirty children, moved to and fro; caves where charcoal sellers assumed diabolical aspect, where vegetables and fruits in baskets grew putrid in the muddy darkness, where blacksmiths, and cobblers and washerwomen consumed themselves in the forced labour of an imaginary penitentiary, more sad than the real prison because more hopeless and lasting. Anania thought of the savage surroundings of the widow at Fonni, of the mill, the encompassing poverty, the miserable figures in the poor homes of Nuoro. He seemed condemned always to be in sad places, among the grief-stricken and the poor. After long and useless wandering, he came in and sat down to write a letter to Margherita. "I am mortally sad," he wrote. "On my soul lies a great and bruising weight. For many years I have wished to tell you what I am writing now. I don't know how you will receive it. But whatever you may think. Margherita, never forget that I am impelled by inexorable fate, by a duty which is more bitter to me than a crime. Perhaps--but I will not influence you in any way; only remember that on your decision depends my life or my death. By death I mean moral death; the death which does not kill the body but condemns the whole man to a slow agony. First, let me explain. But oh! I can't, I can't! You will repel me! Yet my sorrow is so lacerating that I feel the need of flinging myself before you, of exposing my anguish----" Having written thus far he stopped and read the letter over. He could not write another word. Who was Margherita? Who was he? Who was _that woman_? What was life? Here were all the stupid questions beginning over again. A long time he looked at the window panes, at the iron rod and the rings and the threads, dropping water, chafed by the wind, against a murky and faded background. He even thought of killing himself.