"Aren't you coming too?" asked the boy.
Olì shuddered. "I'll come presently. You must go in first. When you see him, say, 'I am the son of Olì Derios!' Do you understand? Come along!"
They turned back. Anania felt his mother's hand shake and he heard her teeth chatter. They stopped at the big door; she bent down, arranged the charm round the child's neck and kissed him. "Go on," she said, giving him a push.
Anania entered. He saw the other door, faintly illuminated, and went on. He found himself in a black, black place, lighted only by a red furnace upon which a cauldron was seething. A black horse went round and round, turning a large, heavy, very oily wheel in a sort of round vat. A tall man, bareheaded, with his sleeves turned up and all his clothes stained black with oil, followed the horse, stirring the crushed olives in the vat with a wooden pole. Two other men moved backwards and forwards, pushing a screw fixed in a press, from which flowed the black and steaming oil. Before the fire sat a boy with a red cap.
It was this boy who first saw the stranger child.
"Get out!" he shouted.
Anania, frightened, but encouraged by the thought of his amulet, did not speak. He gazed about him, bewildered, and expecting his mother to come in. The man with the pole looked at him with shining eyes, then asked—
"What do you want?"
Could this be his father? Anania looked at him shyly, then pronounced the words his mother had taught him.
"I am the son of Olì Derios."