"Care stelle dell'Orsa, io non credea—"
("Dear stars of the Bear, I believed not—")
and tried to forget what he had done, though the thought of it was causing him acute spasms of happiness.
He began the ascent of Orthobene, plucking the leaves, the tufts of grass, throwing stones and laughing aloud. He seemed mad. The turf smelt sweet. The heaven was the colour of cyclamen behind the immense purple rocks of Monte Albo. Anania stood upon a rock looking at the huge cloister of the far mountains, upon which streamed the delicate reflection of the sunrise. Suddenly he became pensive.
Good-bye! To-morrow he would be away beyond the mountains, and Margherita would think in vain of the forgotten buttercup who loved her and who was himself.
A finch sang from its wild nest in the heart of an ilex tree, expressing in its trembling note, all the solitude of the place and of the hour. The note found its echo in the young lad's soul; and he remembered the song of another little bird which had sung from out the damp leafage of a chestnut tree on a morning long ago. A morning long ago, over there, over there, on one of those far distant hills, perhaps on that rosy spur thrust out towards the morning! And again he saw the child merrily descending the slope, beside a sorrowful woman; the child all unconscious of sorrow.
"And now again," he said to himself, "I am glad to go, and who knows what may be awaiting me?"
He came in pale and weary.
"Where have you been, galanu meu (my treasure)? What took you out before sunrise?" asked Aunt Tatàna.
"Give me my coffee," replied Anania.
"Here it is. But what's the matter, dear heart? Cheer up. Get back your colour before you go to your godfather. What? Aren't you going to him to-day? What are you staring at? Has an ant got into your coffee?"