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.
"You are so thin," said the mother with a sigh.
He was silent.
They spoke infrequently, and saw each other very little.

In the morning he drank tea in silence, and went off to work; at noon he came for dinner, a few insignificant remarks were passed at the table, and he again disappeared until the evening.

And in the evening, the day's work ended, he washed himself, took supper, and then fell to his books, and read for a long time.