He had always liked
languages and had picked up Arabian with great ease--of this he was very
proud. For instance--the Arabian way of saying "Give me to eat" was this;
when you wanted wine you said so and so; "Nice day" was something else.
He thought I could pick it up inasmuch as I had done so creditably with
French. He was absolutely certain that English was much easier to learn
than French, and would not be moved. Now what was the American language
like? I explained that it was a sort of Argot-English. When I gave him
some phrases he was astonished--"It sounds like English!" he cried, and
retailed his stock of English phrases for my approval. I tried hard to
get his intonation of the Arabian, and he helped me on the difficult
sounds. America must be a strange place, he thought....
After two hours walking he called a halt, bidding us rest. We all lay
flat on the grass by the roadside. The moon was still battling with
clouds. The darkness of the fields on either side was total. I crawled on
hands and knees to the sound of silver-trickling water and found a little
spring-fed stream. Prone, weight on elbows, I drank heavily of its
perfect blackness. It was icy, talkative, minutely alive.
The older presently gave a perfunctory "_alors_"; we got up; I hoisted my
suspicious utterances upon my shoulder, which recognized the renewal of
hostilities with a neuralgic throb.
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