James Flecker - The King of Alsander

"You talk it very nicely indeed; it is charming to hear you. It is not at all pleasant for us to hear men from Ulmreich talking Alsandrian. They make a horrible harsh noise, although they talk very carefully. But I think the lazy way you pronounce your o's and e's is charming…"

" I think," said Norman, looking at his watch with a smile, "that it is just twenty minutes since I first saw you and already…"

"Well?"

"I love you very much." He meant only to say "I like you very much," but in southern lands the linguistic distinction does not exist.

The girl seized him by the wrists.

"Don't say things like that, you devil," she cried, "especially if you do not mean it. Yes, say it even if you do not mean it; I love to hear you saying it. But be very careful. We are not like heathen women."

"I mean it!" said Norman, perforce.

"Normano, did you treat all other girls like this in England, and do you think I allow other men…"

"It will be quite different," faltered Norman.

"Say it again!"

"Peronella, I really love you."

Norman could not conceal a little yawn in his voice even at the moment of making this startling declaration; his eyes were heavy with light and he had walked for many hours. The girl perceived at once.

"Why, you are quite tired!" she said, "and talking fearful nonsense. You must come and find a room at once. Have you been walking long?"

"Four or five hours," said Norman.

"You curious person, to go walking in the night. Where have you come from?"

"From Braxea. I had my supper in the inn last night, and I've been walking ever since."

"What a pace you must have put on! Why, it's ever such a way away. Braxea? Why, it's right over the mountains on the frontier. Those long legs!" she added, pointing to them with a laugh. "No wonder they go far. I have never seen such long legs, except on a grass-hopper. And now you will walk into Alsander. But you have not yet answered my question. Where are you going to stay in our city?"

"I don't know a bit, beautiful girl, as I told you. Perhaps you can find me a place, not far away from you."

"Ah, perhaps I might," said she, "and perhaps I might not. I do not think you would be an agreeable neighbour."

"Ah, why not? Should I trouble and annoy you?"

"You have no idea how to behave, none at all," murmured Peronella.

"Oh, I will learn," cried the boy, "if you will teach me."

"And you will promise never, never again to squeeze my breath out in that awful manner?"

"Faithfully I will promise everything you ask."

"Why, then," said Peronella, rising up, with her eyes sparkling, "you had better come and live with my mother and me. We have a little pension and we want a lodger."

"What?" said Norman, not trusting himself to have understood.

"Come – and – live – with – my – mother-and – me, that is, if you like."

"O Peronella, I am afraid." And indeed the boy was really getting seriously frightened of this persistent maiden.

"But will you come? Or will you not have enough rest or amusement? Perhaps you would rather stay at the Palace Hotel. Most foreigners do. Ours is a very poor house. But the Palace Hotel is not really a palace. Will you come? It would be much less expensive for you, and we have no mosquitoes, and mother cooks divinely."

"How dare you ask me, you mad girl? You must think we live in snow houses and get our hearts frozen up in the north. Let us go at once!"

He made as if to accompany her, highly pleased at his proficiency in Alsandrian.

"No, no," said the girl. "That will never do. People are beginning to get up now and would say all sorts of things. You do not know what tongues they have, the old women of the town. I should be shamed and ruined. But I have a beautiful plan. You must walk about thirty yards behind me and follow me home."

Norman shook his head at her, not understanding. It is so much easier to be metaphorical than to be practical in a foreign tongue.

If you do not understand what I mean, consider a moment. You possess, let us say, a little knowledge of Italian, without tears. You are in a restaurant at Rome, and two Counts are discussing at the next table. To your delight you comprehend them perfectly. The Count with the white imperial has just observed, " La vera educazione, il segreto del progresso umano, e ideale. " You admire the limpidity of his thought, the purity of his enunciation, and your own knowledge of a tongue so recently acquired. Then comes the infernal waiter with his coarse, plebeian accent. Where are you now? Minestra, cipolle, rombo, sermone – is the old Count going to preach one? Holding back the scalding tears of shame, you feed the brute with English.

Norman's obtuseness dismayed the girl.

"Oh, dear!" said she. "You don't understand a word. You are dreadfully stupid. What shall I do? Ah, I know!"

Laughing merrily, she picked up two pebbles, one longer than the other.

"You," she said, "and me."

Then she thrust Norman's stick into the grass to represent home, she explained. Then, kneeling down and pulling Norman beside her, she made the pebbles walk after her at even distances towards the stick. She made the short pebble trip along lightly with a mincing gait, while the tall one paced behind in gigantic strides, reverent and slow. At the stick she put another great pebble, squat and dumpy, to do duty for Mamma. The lady pebble tapped at the door and was admitted; the tall pebble thumped a few minutes afterwards; it talked inquiringly to the dumpy pebble, bowed to the graceful pebble, and finally (so Norman contrived to the girl's vast delight) kissed that graceful pebble rapturously behind the squat one's back.

"Now," said she, "do you understand, you stupid?"

Norman understood the little pantomime. She started off. He had to call her back for her forgotten pails. Norman filled them and placed them lovingly on her back. She went a full hundred yards ahead, and then waved her hand, nearly spilling her pails as she did so. He followed, rather frightened, very thrilled, and overwhelmingly tired.

Not otherwise did the Ithacan follow Nausicaa into the city of the Phoeacians whose ships went wisely in the waves.

Norman followed, through the crumbling gateway, past an old fountain half buried in roses, up narrow tortuous ways at the back of a huge cathedral. Then he came to a street of steps. The town was beginning to awake. Little boys and girls had begun to play on the thresholds with portentous solemnity; half-naked men were washing their brown bodies at the pumps; and from the newly opened shutters many a glittering eye marvelled at the fair-haired stranger, as though he were some adventurous prince from the fantastic North, where it snows one half the year and rains the other, and red devils dance and moan in the perpetual fog.

Norman saw Peronella disappear inside a house in the distance; he came up to it and entered. The staircase was a long one, and there were innumerable doors. However, he proceeded up the very dirty steps as long as the splashings from the pail guided him onwards. "She cannot have much water left in that pail," thought Norman. At last the splashing ceased by a door whereon hung the notice:

signifying, as even Norman apprehended, that the lady of the house, a widow, would let rooms. Behind the door he heard Peronella chattering with exaggerated vigour. He rang, and the girl opened, scanned him up and down with mild astonishment (a piece of delicate acting, for which there was no reason whatever, as her mother, the widow Prasko, was busy clanking pans in the kitchen), and asked him what he wanted.