its underlying cause not to be something which
concerned the family much more nearly. Although the Princess and Lubov
Sergievna were sitting by in silence, they were following every word,
and evidently tempted at times to take part in the dispute; yet always,
just when they were about to speak, they checked themselves, and left
the field clear for the two principles, Dimitri and Varenika. On my
entry, the latter glanced at me with such an indifferent air that
I could see she was wholly absorbed in the quarrel and did not care
whether she spoke in my presence or not. The Princess too looked the
same, and was clearly on Varenika's side, while Dimitri began, if
anything, to raise his voice still more when I appeared, and Lubov
Sergievna, for her part, observed to no one in particular: "Old people
are quite right when they say, 'Si jeunesse savait, si vieillesse
pouvait.'"

Nevertheless this quotation did not check the dispute, though it somehow
gave me the impression that the side represented by the speaker and her
friend was in the wrong. Although it was a little awkward for me to be
present at a petty family difference, the fact that the true relations
of the family revealed themselves during its progress, and that my
presence did nothing to hinder that revelation, afforded me considerable
gratification.

How often it happens that for years one sees a family cover themselves
over with a conventional cloak of decorum, and preserve the real
relations of its members a secret from every eye! How often, too, have
I remarked that, the more impenetrable (and therefore the more decorous)
is the cloak, the harsher are the relations which it conceals! Yet, once
let some unexpected question--often a most trivial one (the colour of
a woman's hair, a visit, a man's horses, and so forth)--arise in that
family circle, and without any visible cause there will also arise an
ever-growing difference, until in time the cloak of decorum becomes
unequal to confining the quarrel within due bounds, and, to the dismay
of the disputants and the astonishment of the auditors, the real and
ill-adjusted relations of the family are laid bare, and the cloak,
now useless for concealment, is bandied from hand to hand among the
contending factions until it serves only to remind one of the years
during which it successfully deceived one's perceptions. Sometimes to
strike one's head violently against a ceiling hurts one less than just
to graze some spot