arbitrary, critical and sceptical a man as my father, who was
prejudiced so completely by this illusion of his greatness. He would
have looked down scornfully upon the civic pomp of these
seventeenth-century Hollanders and yet that was assuredly finer, even
as was the older Italian civilization, which my father thought to
surpass while he was really living in a state of sad decline.

It is quite comprehensible that in this family feud I sided with my
mother, and that my sister, who was older than I, took my father's
part. Also that my father would by no means submit to this, and that I
very soon began to notice that I myself was the main subject of the
strife, which fact did not tend to increase my modesty. It is strange
how, as children, we take part in these conflicts, apparently wholly
absorbed in our books and games and yet quite aware of the significant
glances, the tears and passions hidden before us, the conversations
suddenly arrested at our entrance, the artificial tone employed toward
us children, the peculiar signs of dreary suspense, of momentous events
beyond our ken imminent in the family circle and which we know we must
pass without comment. Little as I was, I knew full well that the
priests were on my mother's side and that my father fought against a
coalition. But with my mother I felt a sense of warmth, gentleness and
tenderness, and had already been won over to her side long before I
knew what the contest was about. Her beauty, which I heard praised; the
deference I saw her met with; her sanctity, which I recognized as a
great power, which my father, otherwise yielding to nothing or no one,
dared only resist with faltering mockery; the sphere of suffering and
tears in which she lived - all this drew my chivalrous heart to her. I
considered my father a great man, a giant who dared anything and could
get whatever he pleased - but for this very reason would I defend my
mother against him. I went to church with her faithfully, and strictly