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?"
"I lived in the city about a month, and I came to your factory about
a month ago. I found some good people, your son and a few others.
I will live here for a while," he said, twirling his mustache.
The man pleased the mother, and, yielding to the impulse to repay him
in some way for his kind words about her son, she questioned again:
"Maybe you'd like to have a glass of tea?"
"What! An entertainment all to myself!" he answered, raising his
shoulders.
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