“My kurpey,” Fomishka repeated, lowering his voice.
The visitors looked at one another. No one knew what kurpey meant; at least, Markelov knew that the tassel on a Cossack or Circassian cap was called a kurpey, but then how could Fomishka have injured that? But no one dared to question him further.
“Well, now that you have shown off,” Fimishka remarked suddenly, “I will show off too.” And going up to a small bonheur du jour, as they used to call an old-fashioned bureau, on tiny, crooked legs, with a round lid which fitted into the back of it somewhere when opened, she took out a miniature in water colour, in an oval bronze frame, of a perfectly naked little child of four years old with a quiver over her shoulders fastened across the chest with pale blue ribbons, trying the points of the arrows with the tip of her little finger. The child was all smiles and curls and had a slight squint.
“And that was I,” she said.
“Really?”
“Yes, as a child. When my father was alive a Frenchman used to come and see him, such a nice Frenchman too! He painted that for my father’s birthday. Such a nice man! He used to come and see us often. He would come in, make such a pretty courtesy and kiss your hand, and when going away would kiss the tips of his own fingers so prettily, and bow to the right, to the left, backwards and forwards! He was such a nice Frenchman!”
The guests praised his work; Paklin even declared that he saw a certain likeness.
Here Fomishka began to express his views on the modern French, saying that they had become very wicked nowadays!
“What makes you think so, Foma Lavrentievitch?”
“Look at the awful names they give themselves nowadays!”