“No? Then why do you keep coming round? Haven’t I seen you? You walk a bit, you stand still, you have been round us several times, and now you are standing still again; it is as though you had some evil intention!”
“Go, whatever you are or are not, else you will see I will get rid of you.”
Sandu could hardly stand, a sort of mist darkened his eyes, and his heart was bursting. He would have cried, but he was ashamed for a grown man to be walking across the market-place with tears in his eyes. He suffered and would gladly have told how deeply the words he had listened to had hurt him, but he had no one to whom he could open his heart.
He returned to the innkeeper with whom he was lodging. Tired and spent he threw himself on the bench.
“What is it?” asked the innkeeper.
Sandu looked vaguely at him, then, as if afraid to hear the sound of his own voice, he said:
“Nothing.”
The innkeeper felt sorry for him.
“Have you found a situation?”