Grisha stirred nervously, and did not know what to say.
“Why don’t you play?”
“I don’t want to.”
Mitya did not hear him so he asked: “What did you say?”
“I don’t feel like it,” said Grisha somewhat more loudly.
The student, astonished, continued: “Why don’t you feel like it?”
Grisha again did not know what to say; he smiled in a lost way. Mitya was looking at him attentively. Glances of strangers always embarrassed Grisha; it was as though he feared that they might find something absurd in his appearance.
Mitya was silent for a while, as he thought of something else that he might ask.
“What do you collect?” he asked. “You’ve got a collection of something, haven’t you? We all collect: I—stamps, Katya Pokrivalova—shells, Lesha—butterflies. What do you collect?”
“Nothing,” said Grisha, flushing.