"Mihail Ivanitch, when is your birthday?" he asked all, of a sudden.

"You'd much better be thinking about your work.

Birthdays are of no importance to a rational being.

It's a day like any other on which one has to do one's work.

" Seryozha looked intently at the teacher, at his scanty beard, at his spectacles, which had slipped down below the ridge on his nose, and fell into so deep a reverie that he heard nothing of what the teacher was explaining to him.