from Ariel Dorfman's MASCARA

If I began to send drawings to her, it was because I wanted to be invited to her birthday. No matter how unsightly those drawings might be, they were a way of asking for attention. Each morning, when she arrived at her desk, she found the gawky colors I had worked on so hard. It is true that she never thanked me for them, not even casting me one of those smiles which you fabricate, Doctor; but I comforted myself with the thought that she was receiving them like a remote queen who, however accustomed to the cheers of the multitude, nevertheless could feel gratified by an offering from a worm.