"And what business is it of yours, sir?"
With the same swing of his whole body toward her, he said:
"Now, don't get angry! I ask because my foster mother had her head smashed just exactly like yours. It was her man who did it for her once, with a last—he was a shoemaker, you see. She was a washerwoman and he was a shoemaker. It was after she had taken me as her son that she found him somewhere, a drunkard, and married him, to her great misfortune. He beat her—I tell you, my skin almost burst with terror."
The mother felt herself disarmed by his openness. Moreover, it occurred to her that perhaps her son would be displeased with her harsh reply to this odd personage. Smiling guiltily she said:
"I am not angry, but—you see—you asked so very soon. It was my good man, God rest his soul! who treated me to the cut. Are you a Tartar?"
The stranger stretched out his feet, and smiled so broad a smile that the ends of his mustache traveled to the nape of his neck. Then he said seriously:
"Not yet. I'm not a Tartar yet."
"I asked because I rather thought the way you spoke was not exactly Russian," she explained, catching his joke.
"I am better than a Russian, I am!" said the guest laughingly. "I am a Little Russian from the city of Kanyev."
"And have you been here long?"