"Well is the die cast?!" he asked tragically.
"Yes," replied Anania, leaning against the wall. For some minutes he also gazed at the Piazza where lamps were beginning to replace the luminous twilight. In the depths of the central street which seemed a road cut through a forest, Monte Mario could be seen, a distant wall against a background of reddened silver. Anania, he knew not why, suddenly remembered that evening when he—a child, had climbed the Gennargentu and seen a fearful heaven—all red, in which hovered the ghosts of dead robbers.
And now too, he felt a mystery hovering round him; and the vision of the city inspired him with fear: the vision of that forest of stone traversed by shining streets, like rivers of which the waves were the heart beats of suffering men.
[15]Police detective inquiry office.
[III]
Yes, as Battista had said, and in the words of the ancient Roman, the die was cast. The police office at Anania's instance undertook the search for Rosalia Derios. Before the end of March her son was informed that a woman answering the description lived at such a number of Via del Seminario, on the top floor, and made her living by letting rooms. This person was called, or had assumed the name of Maria Obinu and said she was a native of Nuoro. She had been fourteen years in Rome and at first had lived—well, a little irregularly. But for some years she had been quite respectable—at least in appearance; and let furnished rooms with or without board.
Anania took the information coolly. The description agreed. He did not precisely remember his mother's face, but knew she was tall with black hair and light eyes. He was sure that at Nuoro there was no family named Obinu, and that no one had a female relative living in Rome and letting rooms. This Obinu Was giving a false name, None the less, he felt instinctively that the woman was not, could not be his mother. This gave him a sense of relief. He had done his duty. Maria Obinu was not Rosalia Derios, Rosalia Derios could not be in Rome if the omniscient Questura failed to find her. He was not obliged to make further search. After days and months of oppression and suspense he at last breathed freely.
The spring had penetrated even into the dreary court of the house in Piazza della Consolazione, to that great yellow well, which exhaled the odours of victuals, and was noisy with the voices of servant maids and the piping of imprisoned canaries. The air was warm and sweet with the fragrance of violet and lilac; over the azure sky passed roseate clouds.
Standing at the window, Anania was again conscious of nostalgia. The scent of violets, the pink clouds, the warm spring breeze reminded him of his home, of the vast horizons, the clouds he had watched from the window of his little bedroom, sinking behind the holm-oaks of Orthobene. Then he remembered the pines of Monte Urpino, the silence of the hills clothed with blue iris and asphodel, the mystery of the paths, the pure eyes of the stars. And against the cerulean background of these nostalgic memories, the delightful figure of Margherita rose supreme, her little feet on the grass of the fresh landscape, her brown hair gold-tipped in the brilliance of the sunshine.
It was these recollections which touched him in the Roman spring; otherwise it seemed artificial, the sunsets too highly coloured, the abundance of flowers and perfumes exaggerated. Piazza di Spagna decked with roses like an altar, the Pincio with its flowering trees, the streets in which flower girls offered baskets of ranunculus and violets to the passers-by—all this ostentation, all this merchandise of spring, gave the Sardinian an idea of a vulgar holiday, which would end in weariness and disgust.