"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.