The whole way from Nuoro to Macomer, Anania stood in the corridor of the railway carriage, violently shaken by the jerks of the little train. Few persons got in or out at the desolate stations, where bored acacia trees seemed waiting for the train, to hurl upon it companies of fast yellowing leaves.
"Take them!" said the acacias to the train, "take them, contemptuous monster; we are stuck always here, and you move about. What more do you want?"
"Yes," thought the joyous student, "life is movement." And he understood the jocund strength of running water. Till now his soul had been a morass, its edge smothered in fetid weeds. Yes! the acacias stuck in the stagnant Sardinian solitudes knew the truth. Yes! move, run, hurry! that is to live!
"Is this devil of a train never going on!" asked the student during one of the interminable delays.
The railway official, who knew Anania by sight as he knew almost all his passengers, calmly lit his pipe and said, sucking its stem:—
"You'll arrive all in good time. If you're in a hurry get out and fly."
Ah t if he could fly! Anania looked at a black nuraghe on a high rock, like a nest of gigantic birds, and wished he could fly thither with Margherita; to be alone with her and with the memories which floated on the wild scent of the heather; alone, inspired by the shadows and by the phantoms of epic passions. Ah, how great he felt!
But now the cerulean heights of his native Barbagia vanished at the horizon. One peak of Orthobene towered behind the others, violet against the pale sky. Still an outline—a point, one alone—then nothing. The mountains were setting like the sun or moon, leaving a pensive twilight in the soul of the spectator.
Good-bye, good-bye! Anania felt a moment's sadness, then again his thoughts turned to Margherita's kiss. Ah! he seemed to have the delicious creature beside him. The vivid impression of her person, the electric contact of her fresh lips, still gave him delirium. At moments he shivered. Had it not all been a dream? If she were to forget? or to repent? But hope soon returned: pride, intoxication, and the joy in his new existence, endured for days. Everything went well with him. Fortune favoured him in the smallest things. Arrived at Cagliari, he found at once a delightful room with two balconies to the windows. From one he could see the hills and the great luminous sea, sometimes so calm that the reflection of steamers and sailing-boats was clear as if engraved on steel. From the other, almost the whole town was visible, rising like a Moorish city in bastions to the castle, overgrown with palms and flowers.
At first Anania liked this balcony best. Beneath was a wide white street, opposite a row of small old houses tinted with rose colour (like old painted beauties), and with Spanish balconies full of carnations and of ragged coloured garments put out to dry in the sun. Anania scarcely noticed the cottages. His fascinated eye passed on to the grand view of the Moorish city, where coloured houses rose one above the other to the pyramid of mediæval towers profiled against an oriental sky.