He looked at her
openly and kindly, and a merry sparkle played in the depths of his
transparent eyes. In the entire angular, stooping figure, with its
thin legs, there was something comical, yet winning. He was dressed
in a blue shirt, and dark, loose trousers thrust into his boots.
She was seized with the desire to ask him who he was, whence he came,
and whether he had known her son long. But suddenly he himself
put a question, leaning forward with a swing of his whole body.
"Who made that hole in your forehead, mother?"
His question was uttered in a kind voice and with a noticeable
smile in his eyes; but the woman was offended by the sally. She
pressed her lips together tightly, and after a pause rejoined with
cold civility:
"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.
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