Three Men on the Bummel Part 25

"Too much bush fruit and not enough tree, is the fault I find," said Harris. "Myself, I should have liked a few more greengages."

"Here is a man coming up the hill," I observed, "who looks like a native. Maybe, he will know where we can find some more greengages."

"He walks well for an old chap," remarked Harris.

He certainly was climbing the hill at a remarkable pace. Also, so far as we were able to judge at that distance, he appeared to be in a remarkably cheerful mood, singing and shouting at the top of his voice, gesticulating, and waving his arms.

"What a merry old soul it is," said Harris; "it does one good to watch him. But why does he carry his stick over his shoulder? Why doesn't he use it to help him up the hill?"

"Do you know, I don't think it is a stick," said George.

"What can it be, then?" asked Harris.

"Well, it looks to me," said George, "more like a gun."

"You don't think we can have made a mistake?" suggested Harris. "You don't think this can be anything in the nature of a private orchard?"

I said: "Do you remember the sad thing that happened in the South of France some two years ago? A soldier picked some cherries as he pa.s.sed a house, and the French peasant to whom the cherries belonged came out, and without a word of warning shot him dead."

"But surely you are not allowed to shoot a man dead for picking fruit, even in France?" said George.

"Of course not," I answered. "It was quite illegal. The only excuse offered by his counsel was that he was of a highly excitable disposition, and especially keen about these particular cherries."

"I recollect something about the case," said Harris, "now you mention it. I believe the district in which it happened-the 'Commune,' as I think it is called-had to pay heavy compensation to the relatives of the deceased soldier; which was only fair."

George said: "I am tired of this place. Besides, it's getting late."

Harris said: "If he goes at that rate he will fall and hurt himself. Besides, I don't believe he knows the way."

I felt lonesome up there all by myself, with n.o.body to speak to. Besides, not since I was a boy, I reflected, had I enjoyed a run down a really steep hill. I thought I would see if I could revive the sensation. It is a jerky exercise, but good, I should say, for the liver.

We slept that night at Barr, a pleasant little town on the way to St. Ottilienberg, an interesting old convent among the mountains, where you are waited upon by real nuns, and your bill made out by a priest. At Barr, just before supper a tourist entered. He looked English, but spoke a language the like of which I have never heard before. Yet it was an elegant and fine-sounding language. The landlord stared at him blankly; the landlady shook her head. He sighed, and tried another, which somehow recalled to me forgotten memories, though, at the time, I could not fix it. But again n.o.body understood him.

"This is d.a.m.nable," he said aloud to himself.

"Ah, you are English!" exclaimed the landlord, brightening up.

"And Monsieur looks tired," added the bright little landlady. "Monsieur will have supper."

They both spoke English excellently, nearly as well as they spoke French and German; and they bustled about and made him comfortable. At supper he sat next to me, and I talked to him.

"Tell me," I said-I was curious on the subject-"what language was it you spoke when you first came in?"

"German," he explained.

"Oh," I replied, "I beg your pardon."

"You did not understand it?" he continued.

"It must have been my fault," I answered; "my knowledge is extremely limited. One picks up a little here and there as one goes about, but of course that is a different thing."

"But they did not understand it," he replied, "the landlord and his wife; and it is their own language."

"I do not think so," I said. "The children hereabout speak German, it is true, and our landlord and landlady know German to a certain point. But throughout Alsace and Lorraine the old people still talk French."

"And I spoke to them in French also," he added, "and they understood that no better."

"It is certainly very curious," I agreed.

"It is more than curious," he replied; "in my case it is incomprehensible. I possess a diploma for modern languages. I won my scholarship purely on the strength of my French and German. The correctness of my construction, the purity of my p.r.o.nunciation, was considered at my college to be quite remarkable. Yet, when I come abroad hardly anybody understands a word I say. Can you explain it?"

"I think I can," I replied. "Your p.r.o.nunciation is too faultless. You remember what the Scotsman said when for the first time in his life he tasted real whisky: 'It may be puir, but I canna drink it'; so it is with your German. It strikes one less as a language than as an exhibition. If I might offer advice, I should say: Misp.r.o.nounce as much as possible, and throw in as many mistakes as you can think of."

It is the same everywhere. Each country keeps a special p.r.o.nunciation exclusively for the use of foreigners-a p.r.o.nunciation they never dream of using themselves, that they cannot understand when it is used. I once heard an English lady explaining to a Frenchman how to p.r.o.nounce the word Have.

"You will p.r.o.nounce it," said the lady reproachfully, "as if it were spelt H-a-v. It isn't. There is an 'e' at the end."

"But I thought," said the pupil, "that you did not sound the 'e' at the end of h-a-v-e."

"No more you do," explained his teacher. "It is what we call a mute 'e'; but it exercises a modifying influence on the preceding vowel."

Before that, he used to say "have" quite intelligently. Afterwards, when he came to the word he would stop dead, collect his thoughts, and give expression to a sound that only the context could explain.

Putting aside the sufferings of the early martyrs, few men, I suppose, have gone through more than I myself went through in trying to I attain the correct p.r.o.nunciation of the German word for church-"Kirche." Long before I had done with it I had determined never to go to church in Germany, rather than be bothered with it.

"No, no," my teacher would explain-he was a painstaking gentleman; "you say it as if it were spelt K-i-r-c-h-k-e. There is no k. It is-." And he would ill.u.s.trate to me again, for the twentieth time that morning, how it should be p.r.o.nounced; the sad thing being that I could never for the life of me detect any difference between the way he said it and the way I said it. So he would try a new method.

"You say it from your throat," he would explain. He was quite right; I did. "I want you to say it from down here," and with a fat forefinger he would indicate the region from where I was to start. After painful efforts, resulting in sounds suggestive of anything rather than a place of worship, I would excuse myself.

"I really fear it is impossible," I would say. "You see, for years I have always talked with my mouth, as it were; I never knew a man could talk with his stomach. I doubt if it is not too late now for me to learn."

By spending hours in dark corners, and practising in silent streets, to the terror of chance pa.s.sers-by, I came at last to p.r.o.nounce this word correctly. My teacher was delighted with me, and until I came to Germany I was pleased with myself. In Germany I found that n.o.body understood what I meant by it. I never got near a church with it. I had to drop the correct p.r.o.nunciation, and painstakingly go back to my first wrong p.r.o.nunciation. Then they would brighten up, and tell me it was round the corner, or down the next street, as the case might be.

I also think p.r.o.nunciation of a foreign tongue could be better taught than by demanding from the pupil those internal acrobatic feats that are generally impossible and always useless. This is the sort of instruction one receives:

"Press your tonsils against the underside of your larynx. Then with the convex part of the septum curved upwards so as almost-but not quite-to touch the uvula, try with the tip of your tongue to reach your thyroid. Take a deep breath, and compress your glottis. Now, without opening your lips, say 'Garoo.'"

And when you have done it they are not satisfied.

CHAPTER XIII

An examination into the character and behaviour of the German student-The German Mensur-Uses and abuses of use-Views of an impressionist-The humour of the thing-Recipe for making savages-The Jungfrau: her peculiar taste in laces-The Kneipe-How to rub a Salamander-Advice to the stranger-A story that might have ended sadly-Of two men and two wives-Together with a bachelor.

On our way home we included a German University town, being wishful to obtain an insight into the ways of student life, a curiosity that the courtesy of German friends enabled us to gratify.