by Mark Twain
ITALIAN WITHOUT A MASTER
It is almost a fortnight now that I am domiciled in a medieval villa inthe country, a mile or two from Florence. I cannot speak the language;I am too old now to learn how, also too busy when I am busy, and tooindolent when I am not; wherefore some will imagine that I am having adull time of it. But it is not so. The "help" are all natives; they talkItalian to me, I answer in English; I do not understand them, theydo not understand me, consequently no harm is done, and everybody issatisfied. In order to be just and fair, I throw in an Italian word whenI have one, and this has a good influence. I get the word out of themorning paper. I have to use it while it is fresh, for I find thatItalian words do not keep in this climate. They fade toward night, andnext morning they are gone. But it is no matter; I get a new one out ofthe paper before breakfast, and thrill the domestics with it while itlasts. I have no dictionary, and I do not want one; I can select wordsby the sound, or by orthographic aspect. Many of them have French orGerman or English look, and these are the ones I enslave for the day'sservice. That is, as a rule. Not always. If I find a learnable phrasethat has an imposing look and warbles musically along I do not care toknow the meaning of it; I pay it out to the first applicant, knowingthat if I pronounce it carefully_ he_ will understand it, and that'senough.
Yesterday's word was _avanti_. It sounds Shakespearian, and probablymeans Avaunt and quit my sight. Today I have a whole phrase: _sonodispiacentissimo_. I do not know what it means, but it seems to fitin everywhere and give satisfaction. Although as a rule my words andphrases are good for one day and train only, I have several that stay byme all the time, for some unknown reason, and these come very handywhen I get into a long conversation and need things to fire up within monotonous stretches. One of the best ones is _dov ? il gatto_. Itnearly always produces a pleasant surprise, therefore I save it up forplaces where I want to express applause or admiration. The fourth wordhas a French sound, and I think the phrase means "that takes the cake."
During my first week in the deep and dreamy stillness of this woodsyand flowery place I was without news of the outside world, and was wellcontent without it. It had been four weeks since I had seen a newspaper,and this lack seemed to give life a new charm and grace, and to saturateit with a feeling verging upon actual delight. Then came a change thatwas to be expected: the appetite for news began to rise again, afterthis invigorating rest. I had to feed it, but I was not willing to letit make me its helpless slave again; I determined to put it on a diet,and a strict and limited one. So I examined an Italian paper, withthe idea of feeding it on that, and on that exclusively. On thatexclusively, and without help of a dictionary. In this way I shouldsurely be well protected against overloading and indigestion.
A glance at the telegraphic page filled me with encouragement. Therewere no scare-heads. That was good--supremely good. But there wereheadings--one-liners and two-liners--and that was good too; for withoutthese, one must do as one does with a German paper--pay out precioustime in finding out what an article is about, only to discover, in manycases, that there is nothing in it of interest to you. The headline is avaluable thing.
Necessarily we are all fond of murders, scandals, swindles, robberies,explosions, collisions, and all such things, when we know the people,and when they are neighbors and friends, but when they are strangers wedo not get any great pleasure out of them, as a rule. Now the troublewith an American paper is that it has no discrimination; it rakes thewhole earth for blood and garbage, and the result is that you are dailyoverfed and suffer a surfeit. By habit you stow this muck every day, butyou come by and by to take no vital interest in it--indeed, youalmost get tired of it. As a rule, forty-nine-fiftieths of it concernsstrangers only--people away off yonder, a thousand miles, two thousandmiles, ten thousand miles from where you are. Why, when you come tothink of it, who cares what becomes of those people? I would not givethe assassination of one personal friend for a whole massacre of thoseothers. And, to my mind, one relative or neighbor mixed up in a scandalis more interesting than a whole Sodom and Gomorrah of outlanders gonerotten. Give me the home product every time.
Very well. I saw at a glance that the Florentine paper would suit me:five out of six of its scandals and tragedies were local; they wereadventures of one's very neighbors, one might almost say one's friends.In the matter of world news there was not too much, but just aboutenough. I subscribed. I have had no occasion to regret it. Every morningI get all the news I need for the day; sometimes from the headlines,sometimes from the text. I have never had to call for a dictionary yet.I read the paper with ease. Often I do not quite understand, often someof the details escape me, but no matter, I get the idea. I will cut outa passage or two, then you see how limpid the language is:
Il ritorno dei Beati d'Italia
Elargizione del Re all' Ospedale italiano
The first line means that the Italian sovereigns are coming back--theyhave been to England. The second line seems to mean that they enlargedthe King at the Italian hospital. With a banquet, I suppose. An Englishbanquet has that effect. Further:
_Il ritorno dei sovrani_
a Roma
ROMA, 24, ore 22,50.--_I Sovrani e le Principessine Reali si attendono aRoma domani alle ore_ 15,51.
Return of the sovereigns to Rome, you see. Date of the telegram, Rome,November 24, ten minutes before twenty-three o'clock. The telegram seemsto say, "The Sovereigns and the Royal Children expect themselves at Rometomorrow at fifty-one minutes after fifteen o'clock."
I do not know about Italian time, but I judge it begins at midnightand runs through the twenty-four hours without breaking bulk. In thefollowing ad, the theaters open at half-past twenty. If these are notmatinees, 20.30 must mean 8.30 P.M., by my reckoning.
Spettacolli del di 25
TEATRO DELLA PERGOLA--(Ore 20,30)--Opera. BOHEME. TEATROALFIERI.--Compagnia drammatica Drago--(Ore 20,30)--LA LEGGE.ALHAMBRA--(Ore 20,30)--Spettacolo variato. SALA EDISON--Grandiosospettacolo Cinematografico: QUO-VADIS?--Inaugurazione dellaChiesa Russa -- In coda al Direttissimo -- Vedute di Firenze con granmovimeno -- America: Transporto tronchi giganteschi--I ladri in casa delDiavolo -- Scene comiche. CINEMATOGRAFO -- Via Brunelleschi n. 4.--Programmastraordinario, DON CHISCIOTTE -- Prezzi populari.
The whole of that is intelligible to me--and sane and rational,too--except the remark about the Inauguration of a Russian Cheese. Thatone oversizes my hand. Gimme me five cards.
This is a four-page paper; and as it is set in long primer leadedand has a page of advertisements, there is no room for the crimes,disasters, and general sweepings of the outside world--thanks be! TodayI find only a single importation of the off-color sort:
Una Principessa
che fugge con un cocchiere
PARIGI, 24.--Il MATIN ha da Berlino che la principessaSchovenbare-Waldenbure scomparve il 9 novembre. Sarebbe partita col suococchiere.
La Principassa ha 27 anni.
Twenty-seven years old, and scomparve--scampered--on the 9th November.You see by the added detail that she departed with her coachman. I hopeSarebbe has not made a mistake, but I am afraid the chances are that shehas. _Sono dispiacentissimo_.
There are several fires: also a couple of accidents. This is one ofthem:
Grave disgrazia sul Ponte Vecchio
Stammattina, circe le 7,30, mentre Giuseppe Sciatti, di anni 55, diCasellina e Torri, passava dal Ponte Vecchio, stando seduto sopra unbarroccio carico di verdura, perse l' equilibrio e cadde al suolo,rimanendo con la gamba destra sotto una ruota del veicolo.
Lo Sciatti fu subito raccolto da alcuni cittadini, che, per mezzo dellapubblica vettura n. 365, lo transporto a San Giovanni di Dio.
Ivi il medico di guardia gli riscontro la frattura della gamba destrae alcune lievi escoriazioni giudicandolo guaribile in 50 giorni salvocomplicazioni.
What it seems to say is this: "Serious Disgrace on the Old Old Bridge.This morning about 7.30, Mr. Joseph Sciatti, aged 55, of Casellina andTorri, while standing up in a sitting posture on t
op of a carico barrowof vedure (foliage? hay? vegetables?), lost his equilibrium and fellon himself, arriving with his left leg under one of the wheels of thevehicle.
"Said Sciatti was suddenly harvested (gathered in?) by several citizens,who by means of public cab No. 365 transported him to St. John of God."
Paragraph No. 3 is a little obscure, but I think it says that the medicoset the broken left leg--right enough, since there was nothing thematter with the other one--and that several are encouraged to hope thatfifty days well fetch him around in quite giudicandolo-guaribile way, ifno complications intervene.
I am sure I hope so myself.
There is a great and peculiar charm about reading news-scraps in alanguage which you are not acquainted with--the charm that always goeswith the mysterious and the uncertain. You can never be absolutelysure of the meaning of anything you read in such circumstances; you arechasing an alert and gamy riddle all the time, and the baffling turnsand dodges of the prey make the life of the hunt. A dictionary wouldspoil it. Sometimes a single word of doubtful purport will cast a veilof dreamy and golden uncertainty over a whole paragraph of cold andpractical certainties, and leave steeped in a haunting and adorablemystery an incident which had been vulgar and commonplace but for thatbenefaction. Would you be wise to draw a dictionary on that graciousword? would you be properly grateful?
After a couple of days' rest I now come back to my subject and seeka case in point. I find it without trouble, in the morning paper; acablegram from Chicago and Indiana by way of Paris. All the words saveone are guessable by a person ignorant of Italian:
Revolverate in teatro
PARIGI, 27.--La PATRIE ha da Chicago:
Il guardiano del teatro dell'opera di Walace (Indiana), avendo volutoespellare uno spettatore che continuava a fumare malgrado il diviety,questo spalleggiato dai suoi amici tir`o diversi colpi di rivoltella.Il guardiano ripose. Nacque una scarica generale. Grande panico tra glispettatori. Nessun ferito.
_Translation._--"Revolveration in Theater. _Paris, 27th. La Patrie_ hasfrom Chicago: The cop of the theater of the opera of Wallace, Indiana,had willed to expel a spectator which continued to smoke in spite of theprohibition, who, spalleggiato by his friends, tire (_Fr. Tire, AnglicePulled_) manifold revolver-shots; great panic among the spectators.Nobody hurt."
It is bettable that that harmless cataclysm in the theater of the operaof Wallace, Indiana, excited not a person in Europe but me, and so camenear to not being worth cabling to Florence by way of France. But itdoes excite me. It excites me because I cannot make out, for sure, whatit was that moved the spectator to resist the officer. I was glidingalong smoothly and without obstruction or accident, until I came to thatword "spalleggiato," then the bottom fell out. You notice what a richgloom, what a somber and pervading mystery, that word sheds all over thewhole Wallachian tragedy. That is the charm of the thing, that is thedelight of it. This is where you begin, this is where you revel. You canguess and guess, and have all the fun you like; you need not be afraidthere will be an end to it; none is possible, for no amount of guessingwill ever furnish you a meaning for that word that you can be sure isthe right one. All the other words give you hints, by their form, theirsound, or their spelling--this one doesn't, this one throws out nohints, this one keeps its secret. If there is even the slightest slightshadow of a hint anywhere, it lies in the very meagerly suggestive factthat "spalleggiato" carries our word "egg" in its stomach. Well, makethe most out of it, and then where are you at? You conjecture thatthe spectator which was smoking in spite of the prohibition and becomereprohibited by the guardians, was "egged on" by his friends, and thatwas owing to that evil influence that he initiated the revolveration intheater that has galloped under the sea and come crashing through theEuropean press without exciting anybody but me. But are you sure, areyou dead sure, that that was the way of it? No. Then the uncertaintyremains, the mystery abides, and with it the charm. Guess again.
If I had a phrase-book of a really satisfactory sort I would study it,and not give all my free time to undictionarial readings, but there isno such work on the market. The existing phrase-books are inadequate.They are well enough as far as they go, but when you fall down and skinyour leg they don't tell you what to say.
