Is there any hope that you can explain to me why this makes sense?

In Vanya's family, silence had never meant surrender, only tactical retreat

Before the story he refused to even think about it; after the story, it became conceivable to him, and, once he could conceive of it, it soon became inevitable

Was she being ironic? Vanya had never been able to guess about mother

I goggled. Her words did not appear to make sense. They seemed the mere aimless vapouring of an aunt who has been sitting out in the sun without a hat.

Reason gains all people by compelling none.

Analogies prove nothing, that is quite true, but they can make one feel more at home.