"She's acting," thought Anania.
"Bostè est sapia che ì s'abba"[17] he said ironically, "upon my word, I don't understand your sermon. What has it to do with Battista Daga? Tell me. Signora Maria."
"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——"