Avinovitsky recovered his calm for a moment, and looking at his son with a tenderness that did not altogether become his overgrown and angry face, he said:
"Now run along, sonny, and tell her to bring us something to drink and some zakouska."
The boy leisurely walked out of the room. His father looked after him with a pleased and proud smile. But while the boy was still on the threshold Avinovitsky suddenly frowned savagely and shouted in his terrible voice which made Peredonov tremble:
"Look alive!"
The schoolboy began to run and they could hear how impetuously he slammed the doors. Avinovitsky, smiling with his heavy red lips, again renewed his angry-sounding conversation:
"My heir—not bad, eh? What's he going to turn out like? What do you say? He may become a fool, but a knave, a coward or a rag—never!"
"Well—a——" mumbled Peredonov.
"People are trivial nowadays—they're a parody of the human race!" roared Avinovitsky. "They consider health a trifle. Some German invented under-waistcoats. Now I would have sent that German to hard labour. Imagine my Vladimir suddenly in an under-waistcoat! Why all summer he walked about in the village without once putting his boots on, and then think of him in an under-waistcoat! Why, he even gets out of his bath and runs naked in a frost and rolls in the snow—think of him in an under-waistcoat. A hundred lashes for the accursed German!"
Avinovitsky passed from the German who invented under-waistcoats to other criminals.
"Capital punishment, my dear sir, is not barbarism!" he shouted. "Science admits that there are born criminals. There's nothing to be said for them, my friend. They ought to be destroyed and not supported by the State. A man's a scoundrel—and they give him a warm corner in a convict prison. He's a murderer, an incendiary, a seducer, but the tax-payer must support him out of his pocket. No-o! It's much juster and cheaper to hang them."