He no longer thought of it.
Never had he imagined that his Padrona could look at him like that.
Strong man though he was, he felt as a child might who is suddenly
abandoned by its mother. He began to think now. He thought over all he
had done to be faithful to his dead Padrone and to be faithful to the
Padrona. During many, many years he had done all he could to be
faithful to these two, the dead and the living. And at the end of this
long service he received as a reward this glance of hatred.
Tears rolled down his sunburnt cheeks.
The injustice of it was like a barbed and poisoned arrow in his heart.
He was not able to understand what his Padrona was feeling, how, by
what emotional pilgrimage, she had reached that look of hatred which
she had cast upon him. If she had not returned, if she had done some
deed of violence in the house of Maddalena, he could perhaps have
comprehended it. But that she should come back, that she should smile,
make him sit facing her, talk about Maddalena as she had talked, and
then--then look at him like that!
His /amour-propre/, his long fidelity, his deep affection--all were
outraged.
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