Sashka shuffled contemptuously, and went behind the partition, from whence might be heard the heavy breathing of his father, Ivan Savvich, who was in a chronic state of shivering, and was now trying to warm himself by sitting on the heated bench of the stove with his hands under him, palms downwards.
“Sashka! the Svetchnikovs have invited you to the Christmas tree. The housemaid came,” he whispered.
“Get along with you!” said Sashka with incredulity.
“Fact! The old woman there has purposely not told you, but she has mended your jacket all the same.”
“Non—sense,” Sashka replied, still more surprised.
The Svetchnikovs were rich people, who had put him to the grammar school, and after his expulsion had forbidden him their house.
His father once more took his oath to the truth of his statement, and Sashka became meditative.
“Well then, move, shift a bit,” he said to his father, as he leapt upon the short bench, adding:
“I won’t go to those devils. I should prove jolly well too much for them, if I were to turn up. Depraved boy,” drawled Sashka in imitation of his patrons. “They are none too good themselves, the smug-faced prigs!”
“Oh! Sashka, Sashka,” his father complained, sitting hunched up with cold, “you’ll come to a bad end.”