"Now I'll pretend!" he thought, and began a feeble lament. But the woman said nothing.
"Oh God! Oh God!" murmured the youth, sighing aloud, "who is striking my head? Let me alone! Don't murder me! The moon is going out. Mother, do you remember the little song you taught me:"
| Luna, luna, | Moon, moon, |
| Porzedda luna! | Beautiful moon! |
"Why won't you tell me you are my mother? Tell me! Tell me! I know it of course; but you ought to tell me yourself. Do you see the knight with the amulet you gave me that morning? Don't you remember that morning we came down, and the chaffinches sang on the chestnut trees and the clouds vanished behind Monte Gonare? Of course you remember! Tell me! Don't be afraid! I love you, we will live together! Tell me!"
The woman kept silence. The patient was overcome by a spasm of real tenderness and anguish, and began to rave in reality.
"Mother! Mother! speak to me! Don't make me suffer more. I am worn out. If you know what I have suffered! You are Olì, aren't you? There's no use in denying it. You are Olì. What have you been about? Where are your papers? Ah well, we'll be silent about the past. It's all over and done with. Now we will never part again. Oh don't go away! Wait! For God's sake, don't go away!"
He raised himself, his eyes wide; but the figure moved slowly away and disappeared. The knight with the tray was still there motionless in the penumbra, and everything was turning round. Again the figure returned and again it vanished. Anania continued to cry out that he saw his mother; and this impression, made up of sweetness and anguish, he retained even after the fever had left him.
Next morning he awoke early. His limbs seemed bruised as with blows of a stick. He got up and went out without asking for Signora Obinu.
For three or four nights the fever continued to trouble him; but between the phantasms of nightmare the figure of his mother did not return. That made him think. Had it been a real vision? If so, she must have been frightened by his words, and for that reason had kept away.
After this, exhausted by fatigue and the nervous tension of the Examinations, still moreover a little feverish, he daily resolved to solve the enigma, but always in vain. He thought, "I will summon her. I will supplicate, question, threaten. I will tell her the Questura has told me all, I will frighten her with the threat of exposure. She will confess. And suppose it is She—what next?"