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over his glass, as his dark brown eyes became troubled and pensive. Then he would start to shake his head, saying : betrayal! betrayal!, meaning that he himself, since he had become an employee of the State, was behaving like a traitor towards his comrades and brothers. A teacher, if he was honest, facing those poor little creatures in the school, should preach anarchy, total rejection of the established order, of the society that raised them to be exploited or used as cannon fodder . . . At this point, the worri Nora would run to close the doors and windows, to muffl these subversive notions from the ears of neigh bors or passersby. And, for his part, he would stand squarely in the center of the room and start quoting in a full voice, louder and louder, holding up one fi
    ". . . the State is the authority, the rule and the organized force of the propertied and self-styled enlightened classes over the masses. It guar
    antees always what it finds: to the former, freedom based on ownership; to the latter, serv fatal consequence of their poverty. BAI    ". . . Anarchy, nowadays, means attack, war on all authority, on all power, on all government. In the society of the future, anarchy will be defense, the obstacle opposed to the reestablishment of any authority, any power, any government. CAFIERo!"
    At this point Nora would begin to plead : "Ssssh . . . sssh . . ." lurching from one wall to another, like a possessed creature. Even when the doors and windows were closed, she was convinced that certain words and certain names, uttered in the house of the two schoolteachers, would create a universal scandal: as if around their poor, closed, barr rooms there were an enormous crowd of listening witnesses. In reality, though she was as much an atheist as her husband was, she lived as if subject to a vindictive jailer-God, who spied on her.
    "Freedoms are not granted. They are seized. KROPOTI    "Ah, what a cross! Quiet, I tell you. You want to plunge this house hold into the abyss of shame and dishonor! You want to drag this family in the mire!"
    "What mire, Noruzza sweetheart? The mire is on the white hands of

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    landowners and bankers! Mire is our rotten society! Anarchy isn't mire! Anarchy is the honor of the world, the true and holy name of the only new history immense, implacable Revolution!!"
    "Ah! I curse the day, the hour, the minute when I won that competi tion! I curse my infern destiny, that brought me down among these Southerners, all of them highway bandits, the lowest scum of the earth, infamous creatures, worthy of hanging, one and allll"
    "You want us hanged, Non]? Hanged, light of my life?!"
    In his amazement, Giuseppe sank back into a chair. But half-sprawled, he would irresistibly be inspired to sing once more, his eyes on the ceiling, like a wagon-driver singing to the moon:

    "Dynamite the churches, blast the palaces, Death to the hated bourgeoisie! . . . "

    ". . . Aaaaaha! Be quiet! Murderer! Be quiet, criminal! Or I'll throw myself out of the window!"
    To make sure the neighbors couldn't hear her, Nora was careful to keep her voice low, but the eff made her veins swell, as if she were choking. Finally, strangled and exhausted, she would fl herself on the little sofa, and then Giuseppe, concerned, would go to her and apologize, kissing her hands, as if she were a great lady, those thin hands, already aged, and chapped from housework and chilblains. And after a moment, she would be smiling at him, consoled, her ancestral anguish temporari allayed.
    From her little colored chair ( bought by her father specially to suit her size), Iduzza would follow these quarr ey wide, naturally not understanding anything of them. From birth, she never had the slightes tendency towards subversion, to be sure; but if she could have expressed an opinion, she would have said that, between the two litigants, the more subversive was her mother! In any case, all she could understand was that her parents disagreed on certain