My father stopped, and, turning sharply on his heel, went back.
When he was on a level with Zinaida, he made her a courteous bow.
She, too, bowed to him, with some astonishment on her face, and dropped her book.
I saw how she looked after him.
My father was always irreproachably dressed, simple and in a style of his own; but his figure had never struck me as more graceful, never had his grey hat sat more becomingly on his curls, which were scarcely perceptibly thinner than they had once been.
I bent my steps toward Zinaida, but she did not even glance at me; she picked up her book again and went away.
Chapter VI
The whole evening and the following day I spent in a sort of dejected apathy.
I remember I tried to work and took up Keidanov, but the boldly printed lines and pages of the famous text-book passed before my eyes in vain.
I read ten times over the words: 'Julius Caesar was distinguished by warlike courage.' I did not understand anything and threw the book aside.