ial
circle or the same family apprehend an expression of feeling precisely
to the same point, namely, the point beyond which such expression
becomes mere phrasing. Thus they apprehend precisely where commendation
ends and irony begins, where attraction ends and pretence begins, in a
manner which would be impossible for persons possessed of a different
order of apprehension. Persons possessed of identical apprehension view
objects in an identically ludicrous, beautiful, or repellent light; and
in order to facilitate such identical apprehension between members of
the same social circle or family, they usually establish a language,
turns of speech, or terms to define such shades of apprehension as exist
for them alone. In our particular family such apprehension was common
to Papa, Woloda, and myself, and was developed to the highest pitch,
Dubkoff also approximated to our coterie in apprehension, but Dimitri,
though infinitely more intellectual than Dubkoff, was grosser in this
respect. With no one, however, did I bring this faculty to such a point
as with Woloda, who had grown up with me under identical conditions.
Papa stood a long way from us, and much that was to us as clear as "two
and two make four" was to him incomprehensible. For instance, I and
Woloda managed to establish between ourselves the following terms, with
meanings to correspond. Izium [Raisins.] meant a desire to boast of
one's money; shishka [Bump or swelling.] (on pronouncing which one had
to join one's fingers together, and to put a particular emphasis upon
the two sh's in the word) meant anything fresh, healthy, and comely, but
not elegant; a substantive used in the plural meant an undue partiality
for the object which it denoted; and so forth, and so forth. At the same
time, the meaning depended considerably upon the expression of the
face and the context of the conversation; so that, no matter what new
expression one of us might invent to define a shade of feeling the other
could immediately understand it by a hint alone. The girls did not share
this faculty of apprehension, and herein lay the chief cause of our
moral estrangement, and of the contempt which we felt for them.

It may be that they too had their "apprehension," but it so little ran
with ours that, where we already perceived the "phrasing," they still
saw only the feeling--our irony was for them truth, and so on. At that
time I had not yet learnt to understand that they were in no way