"Both of you all alone, so entirely alone, you and your mother: you must be deeply attached to one another."
"Yes," said Luce. "We were very much attached."
"Were?" repeated Pierre.
"Oh!" said Luce, "we always love each other;" still somewhat embarrassed by the word which had escaped her without thinking. (Why must she always tell him more than she meant to? And nevertheless he did not ask, he dared not ask her. But she saw that his heart was putting the question. And it's so nice to confide in someone when one has never had the chance! The silence of the house, the half-shade of the room encouraged her to confess.) She observed:
"There's no saying or knowing what has been going on for the last four years. The whole world is changed."
"You mean to say that your mother, or that you have changed?"
"The whole world," repeated she.
"In what respect?"
"That's hard to define. One feels everywhere among people who know each other, even in the family, that the relations are not the same. One is never sure of anything any more; in the morning one says to oneself: What is it I am going to experience this night? Shall I recognize it? One is as if on a plank in the water just about to upset."
"What is it that's happened?"