But Carmela, even when Donna Concetta had gone off, felt the shiver of shame that bitter voice had sent through her, saying such offensive words; and tired, crushed, without a farthing in her pocket after working a whole day, she again felt envy of her dead mother. Of course, she, too, had that vice of gambling, but it was for good ends--to give money to everyone, to make all her friends happy, if she won, to let Raffaele, or Farfariello, as he was called, draw money from her; but to be so severely punished for this venial sin cut her to the heart. Ah! on some days how willingly she would have thrown herself into the well of the building where the factory was, so as not to hear or feel anything more! But Donna Concetta's thirst was not at all quenched by that drop of water, Carmela's pence, and on her way home every evening, before going in at her door, she hurried to the Rosariella Street cellar where Annarella lived. She was generally seated near the bed, and often in the dark, for she had nothing to buy oil with, saying the Rosary with her daughter. Donna Concetta crossed herself and waited till the Rosary was ended, to ask for her loan back, uselessly as it happened every day. Annarella could do nothing now but answer with a sigh or lament, and when Donna Concetta burst into eloquence she began to cry. Then Teresina broke in, speaking to both women.
'Don't cry, mother, to please me.' And to the money-lender: 'Do you not see, Donna Concetta, that mother has not got any money?'
'Dear girl, my darling!' sobbed her mother, choked by all the sorrows of her life.
The money-lender would not be appeased; she was so accustomed to the sham tears of those who wished to cheat her of her money that she no longer believed in any sorrow; it was only when she had exhausted her whole vocabulary of abuse that she decided to go away, slowly, with that sleek walk of hers, muttering that she would do justice with her own hands, against robbers of her blood. The mother and daughter were left alone in the damp, dark cellar's unhealthy heat, and the poor charwoman, responding to an inward thought, exclaimed:
When Carmela and Annarella afterwards met in the street or the Rosariella cellar, there was a long outpouring of sorrows and interchange of news, when the physical and moral bitterness of their sad existences burst out.