from some barely perceptible smile or movement--from a casual glance
between two persons who live as constantly together as do brothers,
friends, man and wife, or master and servant--particularly if those
two persons do not in all things cultivate mutual frankness? How many
half-expressed wishes, thoughts, and meanings which one shrinks from
revealing are made plain by a single accidental glance which timidly and
irresolutely meets the eye!

However, in my own case I may have been deceived by my excessive
capacity for, and love of, analysis. Possibly Woloda did not feel at
all as I did. Passionate and frank, but unstable in his likings, he was
attracted by the most diverse things, and always surrendered himself
wholly to such attraction. For instance, he suddenly conceived a passion
for pictures, spent all his money on their purchase, begged Papa,
Grandmamma, and his drawing master to add to their number, and applied
himself with enthusiasm to art. Next came a sudden rage for curios, with
which he covered his table, and for which he ransacked the whole house.
Following upon that, he took to violent novel-reading--procuring such
works by stealth, and devouring them day and night. Involuntarily I was
influenced by his whims, for, though too proud to imitate him, I was
also too young and too lacking in independence to choose my own way.
Above all, I envied Woloda his happy, nobly frank character, which
showed itself most strikingly when we quarrelled. I always felt that
he was in the right, yet could not imitate him. For instance, on one
occasion when his passion for curios was at its height, I went to his
table and accidentally broke an empty many-coloured smelling-bottle.

"Who gave you leave to touch my things?" asked Woloda, chancing to enter
the room at that moment and at once perceiving the disorder which I had
occasioned in the orderly arrangement of the treasures on his table.