Aunt Tatàna goes on and on; always sedate and slow. She seems almost afraid of arriving. Having reached the fatal limit, the great shut door, silent and dark like the gate of Destiny, she hesitates, arranges her rings, her ribbons, her belt, her apron; wraps her chin in the end of her veil, at last makes resolution to knock.
That knock seemed to strike Anania on his chest. He jumped to his feet, seized the candle, and looked at himself in the glass.
"I do believe I am white! What an idiot! I will think no more about it."
He went to the window. Daylight was dying in the closed court, the motionless elder tree was a dark mass. Perfect silence! the hens slept, the little pig slept. Stars came out, sparks of gold in the ashy blue of the warm twilight. Beyond the courtyard in the silence of the little street a little shepherd on horseback, passed singing—
| Inoche mi fachet die | And the night it seems to me day |
| Cantende a parma dorada. | As I sing on my golden way. |
Anania thought of his childhood, of the widow, of Zuanne. What was the young monk doing in his convent? the monk who had meant to be a brigand.
"I should like to see him!" thought Anania. "In the course of this month I will certainly visit Fonni."
Ah! His thought returned violently thither where his fate was being decided. The old dove has arrived; she is there in Signor Carboni's simple and orderly study. There is the desk where one evening a young lad had rummaged among the papers—good Lord! is it possible he ever behaved so shamefully? Yes, when one is a boy one has no conscience, anything seems easy and allowable, a positive crime can be committed in perfect innocence. Well! Aunt Tatàna is there. And Signor Carboni is there—stout, composed, and bland, with the shining gold chain across his ample chest.
"Whatever will the dear old thing say!" thought Anania smiling nervously. "I wish I could be there unseen. If I had the ring which gives invisibility! I'd slip it on my finger and in a moment I'd be there. If the big door was shut—I'd knock, Mariedda would open and rage against the children who knock and run away. But I——Pshaw! such childish nonsense. I'll think no more about it." He left the window, went down to the kitchen and sat by the fire, suddenly remembered it was summer and laughed. For a long time he looked at the red kitten which sat watching by the oven, motionless, his whiskers stiff, his tail stiff, expecting the appearance of a mouse.
"You shan't be allowed to catch it!" said Anania, "I'm so happy that not even a mouse shall suffer in this house to-night. Shoo!" he cried, jumping up and running at the kitten, who shook all over and leaped on top of the stove. The young man's restlessness now made him march up and down the kitchen. Once or twice he stood still, fingering the sacks of barley.