"No, it's not Renato. Perhaps its Eudorus, who on the sea rocks of wild Gallia dreamed of the flowers in his distant Hellas. No, it is not Eudorus; it's just a poet thinking—"
"'This granite rock supreme above the sea
What does it here?'"
But the rock and the church and the path and the silhouette of the uncertain personage have all disappeared. Strange questions are still, however, troublesome in Anania's mind, falling without answer like stones thrown into the sea.
Why should he not stop on this wild, gently melancholy coast? Why should not the half seen figure on the rocks be his own? Why not build a house on the ruins of that church? Why waste himself in this stupid sentimentality? Why was he going to Rome? why studying Law? Who was he? What was life? Nostalgia? Love? What was Margherita doing? Why did he love her? Why was his father a mere servant? Why had his father told him to visit, the moment he got to Rome, those places where gold coins were kept which had been found among the ruins? Was his father a criminal or only a monomaniac? Had he inherited monomania from his father? Monomania in a different form? Was it monomania, a mental disease, this continual thinking of his mother, of that woman? And was she really in Rome, and would he find her?
"'Anninia,'"[14] said the drawling tones of the mocking student from Campidano, using the nickname which Anania's companions had fastened on him, "are you asleep? Wake up! Life's just this, a circular ticket giving the right to stop longer or shorter time at definite places. At least give thanks that sea-sickness won't interrupt your love dreams."
The priest, who was young and narrow-minded, also had his gibe. "Don't be so gloomy, man. 'There's trout even in hell.' We are leaving our beloved fatherland, but at least we shan't be sea-sick!"
The sea was certainly smooth, and the passage began under the best auspices. The moon was near setting and threw strange gleams on the rock of Capo Figari, which suggested a cyclopean sentinel guarding the melancholy sleep of the abandoned isle. Good-bye! good-bye! island of exile and of dream!
Anania remained motionless leaning on the rail of the deck till the last vision of Capo Figari had disappeared and the little scattered islets which rose blue from the waves like petrified clouds, were absorbed into the vaporous distance. Then he sat on a little bench, and scornfully rubbed tears from his eyes. Battista Daga, his companion, who was always sea-sick no matter what the condition of the sea, soon retired. Anania remained alone on the deck, numbed by the damp breeze, and saw the moon, red like molten iron, sink into a turbid and sanguinous distance. At last he too turned in, but was long ere he slept. He felt as if his body were incessantly growing longer and shorter. An interminable line of carts seemed crossing over his torpid person. The most unpleasant recollections of his life came into his head. The clashing of the waves cut by the keel seemed the wind in the widow's cottage at Fonni. Oh what a vain, useless, odious thing was life! What was the good of living at all? However at last sleep vanquished his sufferings.
In the morning he felt another person, agile, strong, happy! He had closed his eyes on a gloomy grief-stricken land, on livid waves and a bloody moon. He awakened in a sea of gold, in a land of light. He was close to Rome.
Rome! His heart beat with joy. Rome! Rome! Eternal country, mother and lover, siren and friend, healer of all sorrows, river of oblivion, fountain of promise, abyss of every ill, source of every good!