"Why did Margherita write to me?" said Anania in anguish, "and why have I replied? _That woman_ will always stand between us. What have I been dreaming? To-morrow I must write to Margherita and tell her all."
"But how can I tell her?" he asked, again turning and tossing on his bed. "And if _that woman_ is dead? Why must I renounce my happiness? Doesn't Margherita probably know about my birth? If it shocked her, she would not have written to me. Yes, but she thinks my mother is dead, or at any rate dead for me. While I _feel_ she is alive, and that it is my duty to seek her, and find her, and lift her out of hell. Perhaps she has reformed already. No, she hasn't. I am sure she hasn't! Oh, it's horrible! I hate her! I hate her, hate her! I'll murder her."
Atrocious visions appeared before his eyes. He saw his mother brawling with other women of her own sort, with lurid and bestial men. He heard cries. He shook with hatred and disgust.
At midnight he wept, smothering his sobs, biting the pillow, wringing his hands, tearing his breast. He snatched away the amulet Olì had given him on the day of their flight from Fonni, and flung it against the wall. Could he but tear out and hurl from him the whole memory of his mother!
Suddenly he marvelled at his tears, rose, and found the amulet, but did not again put it round his neck. He asked himself whether he would have minded so much about his mother if he were not in love with Margherita. He answered himself, Yes, just as much. A sort of emptiness filled his mind. He wearied of his self-torment. Then other thoughts came to him. He heard the moaning of the wind, the loud roar of the sea. He thought of a forest searched by the wind, silvered by the moon; he remembered the woods of Orthobene, where so often while he was picking violets the sound of the wind in the ilexes had seemed to him the sound of the sea. Then suddenly the cruel problem assaulted him with renewed fury. "Suppose she has reformed? It will be just the same, just the same. I've got to seek her, and find her, and help her. It was for my good she deserted me. Otherwise, I shouldn't have had a name or a place in society. If I had stayed with her I'd have been a beggar. I'd have lived in shame, I'd have been a thief, a criminal. But isn't it all the same? Am I not ruined just the same? No! no, it's not the same! I am the son of my own deeds. Only Margherita won't have me because--Oh why, why? why shouldn't she have me? Am _I_ dishonoured? What fault is it of mine? She loves me. Yes, she loves me because I'm the son of my own deeds. And probably _that woman_ is dead. Ah, why do I delude myself? She is not dead, I feel it. She's alive, and she is still young! How old is she? Thirty-three, perhaps; ah yes, quite young!"