Page:De Amicis - Heart, translation Hapgood, 1922.djvu/306

274 the middle of that desolate prairie, where his body would be torn in pieces by dogs and birds of prey, like the corpses of horses and cows which he had caught sight of every now and then beside the track, and from which he had turned aside his eyes in disgust. In this state of anxious illness, in the midst of that dark silence of nature, his imagination grew excited, and looked on the dark side of things.

Was he quite sure, after all, that he should find his mother at Cordova? And what if she had not gone there? What if that gentleman in the Via del los Artes had made a mistake? And what if she were dead? Thus meditating, he fell asleep again, and dreamed that he was in Cordova, and it was night, and that he heard cries from all the doors and all the windows: “She is not here! She is not here! She is not here!” This roused him with a start, in terror, and he saw at the other end of the car three bearded men enveloped in shawls of various colors who were staring at him and talking together in a low tone; and the suspicion flashed across him that they were assassins, and that they wanted to kill him for the sake of stealing his bag. Fear was added to his consciousness of illness and to the cold; his fancy, already upset, became unbalanced, distorted.

The three men kept on staring at him; one of them moved towards him. Then his reason wandered, and rushing towards him with arms wide open, he shrieked, “I have nothing; I am a poor boy; I have come from Italy; I am in search of my mother; I am alone: do not do me any harm!”

They instantly understood the situation; they took