Youth by Leo Tolstoy Chapter 23 Page 9

ceased for the moment because Dimitri had left the room on some errand or another.

“Or perhaps you have read Rob Roy before?” she added.

At that period I thought it incumbent upon me, in virtue of my student’s uniform, to reply in a very “clever and original” manner to every question put to me by people whom I did not know very well, and regarded such short, clear answers as “Yes,” “No,” “I like it,” or “I do not care for it,” as things to be ashamed of.

Accordingly, looking down at my new and fashionably-cut trousers and the glittering buttons of my tunic, I replied that I had never read Rob Roy, but that it interested me greatly to hear it, since I preferred to read books