"Have patience, my little lamb. My wife will die very soon. And even if she doesn't, I am sure to find the treasure and then we'll go off together to the continent."
Olì protested; wept. She had no great faith in the treasure, but she let the love-making continue.
The sowing season was over, but Anania still came frequently to the farm, to watch the corn coming up, to hoe, and to weed. At the hour of siesta he did not sleep, but amused himself pulling down the nuraghe. He said he wanted stones for a wall; really he was looking for the treasure.
"If it isn't here, then it's there, and I intend to find it," he said to Olì. "You know at Maras a labourer like me found a bundle of bars of gold. He didn't know they were gold and handed them over to the blacksmith. The idiot! I'd have known quick enough! Giants used to live in the nuraghes," he went on, "and they had all their utensils of gold. Even the nails in their shoes were gold. Oh! treasures can always be found if one looks for them! When I was in Rome I saw a place where they keep gold coins and things once hidden away by those old giants. In some parts of the world there are giants alive still, and they are so rich that their scythes and their ploughs are all made of silver."
He spoke seriously, his eyes shining with golden dreams. But he could not have told what exactly he intended to do with the treasure when he had found it. He looked no further than to the flight with Olì. Beyond that all was vague.
About Easter the girl herself had occasion to go to Nuoro. She sought information about Anania's wife, and learned that the woman was elderly but by no means old, and not rich at all.
"Well," he said, when Olì reproached him for having deceived her, "she's poor now, but when I married her she had money. After the wedding I had to go to my military service, and I got ill and spent a lot. My wife was ill too. Oh you don't know how expensive a long illness is! Besides, we lent money and couldn't get it back. And I'll tell you what I suspect! While I was away my wife sold some land and has hidden the money she got for it. There! I'll take my oath that's it!"
He spoke seriously, and again Olì believed. She believed because she wished to believe, and because Anania had got her into the habit of believing anything. He was carried away himself by his imaginations. For instance, in his master's kitchen-garden he found a big ring of reddish metal, and at once concluded it was gold.
"There must be a treasure here also!" he thought, and hurried to tell his new fancy to Olì.
Spring now reigned over the wild country. Elderflowers were reflected in the blue river; voluptuous fragrance rose from the warm grass. In the clear moonlit nights, so soft, so silent, it seemed as though the vibrating air were an intoxicating love-philtre. Olì roamed hither and thither, her eyes misty with passion. In the long luminous twilight, in the dazzling noons, when the distant mountains melted into the sky, her pensive look followed her little brothers, who, half naked and dark as bronze statuettes, made the meadows merry with their bird-like pipings; and she thought of the day when she must leave them to go forth with Anania. For she had seen the gold ring of his finding, and she was filled with hope, and her blood boiled with the poison of the spring.