"Bah!" said Aunt Tatàna alarmed by these symptoms of pride, "whatever have you taken into your head?"
Anania panted, bent his head over a book without seeing a word of it. The woman caressed him.
"Well, what do you wish, my son? Cagliari or Sassari? You mentioned them both yesterday. Why on earth should you go further? Jesus! Mary! The sea's a horrible thing! People get sick on the sea—so I have heard—sometimes they die. And the storms. Do you never think of the storms?"
"You don't understand," said Anania, turning his pages.
"You never said a word about it! You mustn't be so capricious. You can study just as well in Sardinia as on the continent? Why should you go to the continent?"
Ah yes, why? What did Aunt Tatàna know of his secret desires? It was not for the sake of his studies that he wanted to cross the sea. Had he not, since the first day, that sunny autumn day when Bustianeddu had led him to the Convent school, had he not been thinking of something very different from mere study?
However Aunt Tatàna's gentle talk calmed his annoyance.
"You are still a child, my son. At seventeen do you want to run about the world alone? Would you die at sea away from every one, or wither in a city which you tell me is as big as a forest? Go to Cagliari. Signor Carboni will give you introductions. He knows everybody at Cagliari, even a Marquis. Well, then, be reasonable. You shall go further when you are older. You are like a leveret just weaned. It leaves the form and runs away to the very wall of the tanca, then it comes back. Presently it goes further, and further still. It learns what it may do; it sees the path along which it will run. You must wait. Think how near we shall be, think how you can run back to us if anything goes wrong. At Christmas you'll be able to come back——"
"Very well. I'll go to Cagliari," said Anania.
Next day he began his leave-takings. He visited the Director of the Gymnasium, a priest who was a great friend of Aunt Tatàna's, the doctor, the Deputy; then the tailor, the grocer, and the shoemaker, Franziscu Carchide, the handsome young man who had been one of the habitués of the olive-mill. Carchide had, however, made a fortune, no one knew how; he had a big shop with five or six workmen, he dressed like a gentleman, talked affectedly and flirted with the young ladies whose feet he measured.