The Romany Rye

by George Borrow

  CHAPTER XIV

  PREPARATIONS FOR THE FAIR--THE LAST LESSON--THE VERB SIRIEL

  It might be about five in the evening when I reached the gypsyencampment. Here I found Mr. Petulengro, Tawno Chickno, Sylvester, andothers, in a great bustle, clipping and trimming certain ponies and oldhorses which they had brought with them. On inquiring of Jasper thereason of their being so engaged, he informed me that they were gettingthe horses ready for a fair, which was to be held on the morrow, at aplace some miles distant, at which they should endeavour to dispose ofthem, adding--'Perhaps, brother, you will go with us, provided you havenothing better to do?' Not having any particular engagement, I assuredhim that I should have great pleasure in being of the party. It wasagreed that we should start early on the following morning. Thereupon Idescended into the dingle. Belle was sitting before the fire, at whichthe kettle was boiling. 'Were you waiting for me?' I inquired. 'Yes,'said Belle, 'I thought that you would come, and I waited for you.' 'Thatwas very kind,' said I. 'Not half so kind,' said she, 'as it was of youto get everything ready for me in the dead of last night, when there wasscarcely a chance of my coming.' The tea-things were brought forward,and we sat down. 'Have you been far?' said Belle. 'Merely to thatpublic-house,' said I, 'to which you directed me on the second day of ouracquaintance.' 'Young men should not make a habit of visitingpublic-houses,' said Belle, 'they are bad places.' 'They may be so tosome people,' said I, 'but I do not think the worst public-house inEngland could do me any harm.' 'Perhaps you are so bad already,' saidBelle, with a smile, 'that it would be impossible to spoil you.' 'Howdare you catch at my words?' said I; 'come, I will make you pay for doingso--you shall have this evening the longest lesson in Armenian which Ihave yet inflicted upon you.' 'You may well say inflicted,' said Belle,'but pray spare me. I do not wish to hear anything about Armenian,especially this evening.' 'Why this evening?' said I. Belle made noanswer. 'I will not spare you,' said I; 'this evening I intend to makeyou conjugate an Armenian verb.' 'Well, be it so,' said Belle; 'for thisevening you shall command.' 'To command is hramahyel,' said I. 'Ram herill, indeed,' said Belle; 'I do not wish to begin with that.' 'No,' saidI, 'as we have come to the verbs, we will begin regularly; hramahyel is averb of the second conjugation. We will begin with the first.' 'Firstof all tell me,' said Belle, 'what a verb is?' 'A part of speech,' saidI, 'which, according to the dictionary, signifies some action orpassion--for example, I command you, or I hate you.' 'I have given youno cause to hate me,' said Belle, looking me sorrowfully in the face.

  'I was merely giving two examples,' said I, 'and neither was directed atyou. In those examples, to command and hate are verbs. Belle, inArmenian there are four conjugations of verbs; the first end in el, thesecond in yel, the third in oul, and the fourth in il. Now, have youunderstood me?'

  'I am afraid, indeed, it will all end ill,' said Belle. 'Hold yourtongue,' said I, 'or you will make me lose my patience.' 'You havealready made me nearly lose mine,' said Belle. 'Let us have nounprofitable interruptions,' said I. 'The conjugations of the Armenianverbs are neither so numerous nor so difficult as the declensions of thenouns; hear that, and rejoice. Come, we will begin with the verb hntal,a verb of the first conjugation, which signifies to rejoice. Come along;hntam, I rejoice; hntas, thou rejoicest: why don't you follow, Belle?'

  'I am sure I don't rejoice, whatever you may do,' said Belle. 'The chiefdifficulty, Belle,' said I, 'that I find in teaching you the Armeniangrammar, proceeds from your applying to yourself and me every example Igive. Rejoice, in this instance, is merely an example of an Armenianverb of the first conjugation, and has no more to do with your rejoicingthan lal, which is also a verb of the first conjugation, and whichsignifies to weep, would have to do with your weeping, provided I madeyou conjugate it. Come along; hntam, I rejoice; hntas, thou rejoicest,hnta, he rejoices; hntamk, we rejoice: now, repeat those words.'

  'I can't,' said Belle, 'they sound more like the language of horses thanof human beings. Do you take me for--?' 'For what?' said I. Belle wassilent. 'Were you going to say mare?' said I. 'Mare! mare! by-the-by,do you know, Belle, that mare in old English stands for woman; and thatwhen we call a female an evil mare, the strict meaning of the term ismerely bad woman. So if I were to call you mare, without prefixing bad,you must not be offended.' 'But I should, though,' said Belle. 'I wasmerely attempting to make you acquainted with a philological fact,' saidI. 'If mare, which in old English, and likewise in vulgar English,signifies a woman, sounds the same as mare, which in modern and politeEnglish signifies a female horse, I can't help it. There is no confusionof sounds in Armenian, not, at least, in the same instance. Belle, inArmenian, woman is ghin, the same word, by-the-by, a sour queen, whereasmare is madagh tzi, which signifies a female horse; and perhaps you willpermit me to add that a hard-mouthed jade is, in Armenian, madagh tzihsdierah.'

  'I can't bear this much longer,' said Belle. 'Keep yourself quiet,' saidI; 'I wish to be gentle with you; and to convince you, we will skiphntal, and also for the present verbs of the first conjugation, andproceed to the second. Belle, I will now select for you to conjugate theprettiest verb in Armenian; not only of the second, but also of all thefour conjugations; that verb is siriel. Here is the present tense:siriem, siries, sire, siriemk, sirek, sirien. You observe that it runson just in the same manner as hntal, save and except that e issubstituted for a; and it will be as well to tell you that almost theonly difference between the second, third, and fourth conjugations, andthe first, is the substituting in the present, preterite, and othertenses, e, or ou, or i for a; so you see that the Armenian verbs are byno means difficult. Come on, Belle, and say siriem.' Belle hesitated.'Pray oblige me, Belle, by saying siriem!' Belle still appeared tohesitate. 'You must admit, Belle, that it is much softer than hntam.''It is so,' said Belle; 'and to oblige you, I will say siriem.' 'Verywell indeed, Belle,' said I. 'No vartabied, or doctor, could havepronounced it better; and now, to show you how verbs act upon pronouns inArmenian, I will say siriem zkiez. Please to repeat siriem zkiez!''Siriem zkiez!' said Belle, 'that last word is very hard to say.' 'Sorrythat you think so, Belle,' said I. 'Now please to say siria zis.' Belledid so. 'Exceedingly well,' said I. 'Now say yerani the sireir zis.''Yerani the sireir zis,' said Belle. 'Capital!' said I; 'you have nowsaid, I love you--love me--ah! would that you would love me!'

  'And I have said all these things?' said Belle. 'Yes,' said I; 'you havesaid them in Armenian.' 'I would have said them in no language that Iunderstood,' said Belle; 'and it was very wrong of you to take advantageof my ignorance, and make me say such things.' 'Why so?' said I; 'if yousaid them, I said them too.' 'You did so,' said Belle; 'but I believeyou were merely bantering and jeering.' 'As I told you before, Belle,'said I, 'the chief difficulty which I find in teaching you Armenianproceeds from your persisting in applying to yourself and me everyexample I give.' 'Then you meant nothing after all?' said Belle, raisingher voice. 'Let us proceed,' said I; 'sirietsi, I loved.' 'You neverloved any one but yourself,' said Belle; 'and what's more--''Sirietsits, I will love,' said I, 'siriestsies, thou wilt love.' 'Neverone so thoroughly heartless,' said Belle. 'I tell you what, Belle, youare becoming intolerable; but we will change the verb, or rather I willnow proceed to tell you here, that some of the Armenian conjugations havetheir anomalies; one species of these I wish to bring before your notice.As old Villotte {97} says--from whose work I first contrived to pick upthe rudiments of Armenian--"Est verborum transitivorum, quoruminfinitivus--" But I forgot, you don't understand Latin. He says thereare certain transitive verbs, whose infinitive is in out-saniel; thepreterite in outsi; the imperative in oue: for example,parghatsoutsaniem, I irritate--'

  'You do, you do!' said Belle; 'and it will be better for both of us, ifyou leave off doing so.'

  'You would hardly believe, Belle,' said I, 'that the Armenian is in somerespects closely connected with the Irish, but so it is; for example,that word parghatsoutsaniem is evidently derived
from the same root asfeargaim, which, in Irish, is as much as to say I vex.'

  'You do, indeed!' said Belle, sobbing.

  'But how do you account for it?'

  'O man, man!' said Belle, bursting into tears, 'for what purpose do youask a poor ignorant girl such a question, unless it be to vex andirritate her? If you wish to display your learning, do so to the wiseand instructed, and not to me, who can scarcely read or write. Oh, leaveoff your nonsense; yet I know you will not do so, for it is the breath ofyour nostrils! I could have wished we should have parted in kindness,but you will not permit it. I have deserved better at your hands thansuch treatment. The whole time we have kept company together in thisplace, I have scarcely had one kind word from you, but the strangest--'And here the voice of Belle was drowned in her sobs.

  'I am sorry to see you take on so, dear Belle,' said I. 'I really havegiven you no cause to be so unhappy. Surely teaching you a littleArmenian was a very innocent kind of diversion.'

  'Yes, but you went on so long, and in such a strange way, and made merepeat such strange examples, as you call them, that I could not bearit.'

  'Why, to tell you the truth, Belle, it's my way; and I have dealt withyou just as I would with--'

  'A hard-mouthed jade,' said Belle, 'and you practising yourhorse-witchery upon her. I have been of an unsubdued spirit, Iacknowledge, but I was always kind to you; and if you have made me cry,it's a poor thing to boast of.'

  'Boast of!' said I; 'a pretty thing indeed to boast of; I had no idea ofmaking you cry. Come, I beg your pardon: what more can I do? Come,cheer up, Belle. You were talking of parting; don't let us part, butdepart, and that together.'

  'Our ways lie different,' said Belle.

  'I don't see why they should,' said I. 'Come, let us be off to Americatogether.'

  'To America together?' said Belle, looking full at me.

  'Yes,' said I; 'where we will settle down in some forest, and conjugatethe verb siriel conjugally.'

  'Conjugally?' said Belle.

  'Yes,' said I; 'as man and wife in America, air yew ghin.'

  'You are jesting as usual,' said Belle.

  'Not I, indeed. Come, Belle, make up your mind, and let us be off toAmerica; and leave priests, humbug, learning, and languages behind us.'

  'I don't think you are jesting,' said Belle; 'but I can hardly entertainyour offers. However, young man, I thank you.'

  'You had better make up your mind at once,' said I, 'and let us be off.I shan't make a bad husband, I assure you. Perhaps you think I am notworthy of you? To convince you, Belle, that I am, I am ready to try afall with you this moment upon the grass. Brynhilda, the valkyrie, sworethat no one should marry her who could not fling her down. Perhaps youhave done the same. The man who eventually married her, got a friend ofhis, who was called Sygurd, the serpent-killer, to wrestle with her,disguising him in his own armour. Sygurd flung her down, and won her forhis friend, though he loved her himself. I shall not use a similardeceit, nor employ Jasper Petulengro to personate me--so get up, Belle,and I will do my best to fling you down.'

  'I require no such thing of you, or anybody,' said Belle; 'you arebeginning to look rather wild.'

  'I every now and then do,' said I. 'Come, Belle, what do you say?'

  'I will say nothing at present on the subject,' said Belle; 'I must havetime to consider.'

  'Just as you please,' said I, 'to-morrow I go to a fair with Mr.Petulengro--perhaps you will consider whilst I am away. Come, Belle, letus have some more tea. I wonder whether we shall be able to procure teaas good as this in the American forest.'