“Look what Granny has brought for Gheorghitza,” she said.
It was her habit to bring some toy for him.
Now that he had a plaything, Gheorghitza was no longer ill. His kind Granny made him forget it. The old lady watched him for some time, and then she looked at Sandu.
“How is the work getting on?”
“Well.”
“And business is profitable?”
“Profitable.”
As Sandu said this Mistress Veta came into the ante-room, took a plateful of cakes out of a cupboard and went quickly away again.
During the noise she made the old lady looked intently towards the window.
“She takes them upstairs, but she did not invite me,” and her eyes filled with tears. “That is how she esteems me,” said the old lady, steeped in bitterness. “It’s a sad world. I have reached an old age when my own daughter is ashamed of me. She sends me out of the house as if I were a nobody. May God not punish her, for she has children. But it hurts me to see her pay no attention to me just because of some bankrupts, some wretches who have fled from Temishoara to avoid their creditors. But I did not come to get something out of her. I did not come like those bankrupts to get something to eat. Thank God I have all I need at home, but that she should belittle me in such a way as to make me ridiculous in their eyes—Lord, Lord, did I rear her for this? Is it for this I watched over her?”