He worked faithfully, without intermission and without incurring
fines. He was taciturn, and his eyes, blue and large like his
mother's, looked out discontentedly. He did not buy a gun, nor did
he go a-fishing; but he gradually began to avoid the beaten path
trodden by all. His attendance at parties became less and less
frequent, and although he went out somewhere on holidays, he always
returned home sober. His mother watched him unobtrusively but
closely, and saw the tawny face of her son grow keener and keener,
and his eyes more serious. She noticed that his lips were compressed
in a peculiar manner, imparting an odd expression of austerity to
his face. It seemed as if he were always angry at something or
as if a canker gnawed at him. At first his friends came to visit him,
but never finding him at home, they remained away.

The mother was glad to see her son turning out different from all
the other factory youth; but a feeling of anxiety and apprehension
stirred in her heart when she observed that he was obstinately and
resolutely directing his life into obscure paths leading away from
the routine existence about him--that he turned in his career
neither to the right nor the left.

He began to bring books home with him. At first he tried to escape
attention when reading them; and after he had finished a book, he
hid it. Sometimes he copied a passage on a piece of paper, and
hid that also.

"Aren't you well, Pavlusha?" the mother asked once.

"I'm all right," he answered.