The Cossack woman, without unbending, turned her severe but still
handsome face towards him.

'What have you come here for? Want to mock at us, eh? I'll teach
you to mock; may the black plague seize you!' she shouted, looking
askance from under her frowning brow at the new-comer.

Olenin had at first imagined that the way-worn, gallant Caucasian
Army (of which he was a member) would be everywhere received
joyfully, and especially by the Cossacks, our comrades in the war;
and he therefore felt perplexed by this reception. Without losing
presence of mind however he tried to explain that he meant to pay
for his lodgings, but the old woman would not give him a hearing.

'What have you come for? Who wants a pest like you, with your
scraped face? You just wait a bit; when the master returns he'll
show you your place. I don't want your dirty money! A likely
thing--just as if we had never seen any! You'll stink the house
out with your beastly tobacco and want to put it right with money!
Think we've never seen a pest! May you be shot in your bowels and
your heart!' shrieked the old woman in a piercing voice,
interrupting Olenin.

'It seems Vanyusha was right!' thought Olenin. "A Tartar would be
nobler",' and followed by Granny Ulitka's abuse he went out of the
hut. As he was leaving, Maryanka, still wearing only her pink
smock, but with her forehead covered down to her eyes by a white
kerchief, suddenly slipped out from the passage past him.
Pattering rapidly down the steps with her bare feet she ran from
the porch, stopped, and looking round hastily with laughing eyes