"Move that candle! It's setting fire to the calendar! What are you thinking of!" cried the landlady, jumping up, "are you trying to ruin me?" Anania moved the candle and clapped a dictionary on the burning almanac. "What a silly boy! Doesn't he deserve a box on the ear?" said Maria, recovering herself and pulling the tuft of hair which fell on his forehead. "Don't! don't!" cried Anania, shaking his head from her touch. A sudden recollection had shot through him. Yes--in a far distant place, in a long distant time, in a black kitchen guarded by the long funereal cloak of a bandit--Olì, exasperated by poverty and grief, used sometimes to pull the wild locks of a naughty little boy. Anania was moved by the recollection. He seized Signora Obinu's hand and held it tight. Was it the same hand which had struck the child, the hand which had led him to the olive-mill. "A silly boy!" repeated Maria, "if I hadn't been there, there'd have been a fine conflagration. Well, may I go away now?" He raised his head and said: "I feel as if I had seen your hand before now. Some other time this hand has pulled my hair, has boxed my ears, has caressed me----" "Are you going crazy, Signor Anania?" she said, snatching her hand away. "Signora Maria, do you believe in spirits? No? Yet they exist. I believe in them. Last night a friendly spirit came and told me many things, among them, that you are my mother." Maria laughed, somewhat forcedly, as if wishing to hide something. The young man saw he had chosen a very childish method of approaching her. Yet if she was really his mother she could not fail to be upset, finding he had guessed it. However she laughed, perhaps trying to carry off some terror of informing spirits. "You really are crazy. I only wish I were your mother!" she said. The voice of Aunt Varvara was heard calling her mistress. "I can't waste any more time," said Signora Maria, turning to go away. "What shall I say to Daga?" said Anania, brushing his hair. "Say that if he comes here, I shall throw him downstairs. Do you see?" "No, I don't see. Signora Maria! wait! Explain to me, do! Don't go away! What does it all mean?" But she vanished into the darkness of the ante-room, making no reply. "Of course I do see," thought Anania shutting the door. "Well, is it any business of mine what Daga is? and what she is? Hasn't everyone their faults?" [Footnote 16: A dwarf of Sardinian legend.] [Footnote 17: A proverb. Wise as water, viz. very wise.] V The time of vacation was near. "Aunt Varvara," said the student to the old servant as she was preparing the coffee. "How happy I am! I feel wings growing. A few more days--then good-bye! Yes, I have wings. I shall jump on the window-sill, cry zsss--ss--and off! I launch myself in flight, and there I am in Sardinia." And he went to the window pretending to suit the action to the words. "A-a-ah!" cried the old woman terrified, "do get down, sweetheart! You'll break your neck! Oh God!----"