"Couldn't you do me the favour of buying an umbrella?"
Anania sat up on his bed, put his lips to the screen, and said slowly—
"I've got to go to the Questura."
Again he hoped a fraternal voice would ask his reason. His heart beat considering how he should explain.
But Daga only asked from behind the screen, "Are you going to get the rain taken up?"
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.