When he saw her, Anania grew red. He felt a morbid kindness for her, yet often thought he hated her. He would have liked to go to his school another way so as to avoid the sight of her; but an occult and malignant force drew his steps always to that street.
[VI]
It was the Easter holiday time.
Anania, studying his Greek grammar as he paced the little path which divided the expanse of ashy green teazles, heard a rap at the gate. He had not the garden to himself. His father was there, hoeing and singing love songs of the poet Luca Cubeddu. Nanna was weeding, helped by Uncle Pera. Efès, in his usual condition, lay on the grass. The weather was almost hot. Rosy clouds chased each other over the milky heaven, disappearing behind the Cerulean summits of Monte Aliena. From the valley, as from an immense verdure-clad shell, indefinite sounds and perfumes rose into the sunny air.
Now and then Nanna raised herself upright putting her hand to her back. She blew kisses to the student. "Bless him!" she said tenderly. "There he is studying away like a little bishop! Who knows what he mayn't turn out! He'll be a judge, or an examining Inspector. All the girls of the place will be picking him up like a sugar plum! Ah, my poor back!"
"Get on with the weeds!" growled Uncle Pera, "or I'll break your back in good earnest. Get on with the weeds and let the boy alone."
"Bad luck to you, old tyrant! If I were a lass of fifteen, you wouldn't be talking like that!" she said, bending over the weeds; but after a minute she looked up again, blowing more kisses to Anania.
When the miller heard the knock he called out—
"Who's there?"
Anania and Efès, one from his book, the other from the grass, looked up with the same look of faint anxiety. Suppose it were Signor Carboni? Efès felt all the weight of his degradation when the benevolent padrone, who never worried him with useless reproaches, sat down and talked to him: Anania thought of his mother and remembered the incongruity between his position and that of Margherita whom he was yet daring to love. The knock was repeated.