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Italian Without a Master · The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain

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  Speaker 1: Section fourteen of The thirty thousand Dollars Bequest and Other Stories.
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  Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
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  Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. The thirty thousand Dollar Bequest and
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  Speaker 1: Other Stories by Mark Twain, Section fourteen Italian without a master.
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  Speaker 1: It is almost a fortnight now that I am domiciled
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  Speaker 1: in a medieval villa in the country, a mile or
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  Speaker 1: two from Florence. I cannot speak the language. I am
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  Speaker 1: too old now to learn how also too busy when
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  Speaker 1: I am busy, and too indolent when I am not. Wherefore,
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  Speaker 1: some will imagine that I am having a dull time
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  Speaker 1: of it. But it is not so. The help are
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  Speaker 1: all natives. They talk Italian to me. I answer in English.
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  Speaker 1: I do not understand them, they do not understand me. Consequently,
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  Speaker 1: no harm is done, and everybody is satisfied. In order
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  Speaker 1: to be just and fair, I throw in an Italian
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  Speaker 1: word when I have one, and this has a good influence.
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  Speaker 1: I get the word out of the morning paper. I
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  Speaker 1: have to use it while it is fresh, for I
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  Speaker 1: find that Italian words do not keep in this climate,
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  Speaker 1: they fade toward night, and next morning they are gone.
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  Speaker 1: But it is no matter. I get a new one
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  Speaker 1: out of the paper before breakfast and thrill the domestics
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  Speaker 1: with it while it lasts. I have no dictionary, and
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  Speaker 1: I do not want one. I can select words by
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  Speaker 1: the sound or by orthographic aspect. Many of them have
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  Speaker 1: French or German or English look, and these are the
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  Speaker 1: ones I enslave for the day's service. That is, as
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  Speaker 1: a rule not always. If I find a learnable phrase
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  Speaker 1: that has an imposing look and warbles musically along, I
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  Speaker 1: do not care to know the meaning of it. I
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  Speaker 1: pay it out to the first applicant, knowing that if
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  Speaker 1: I pronounce it carefully, he will understand it, and that's enough.
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  Speaker 1: Yesterday's word was avanti. It sounds Shakespeareian and probably means avante,
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  Speaker 1: and quit my sight. Today I have a whole phrase,
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  Speaker 1: so no dispia sentissimo. I do not know what it means,
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  Speaker 1: but it seems to fit in everywhere and give satisfaction.
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  Speaker 1: Although as a rule my words and phrases are good
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  Speaker 1: for one day and train only, I have several that
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  Speaker 1: stay by me all the time for some unknown reason,
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  Speaker 1: and these come very handy when I get into a
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  Speaker 1: long conversation and need things to fire up with in
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  Speaker 1: monotonous stretches. One of the best ones is dovi el gato.
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  Speaker 1: It nearly always produces a pleasant surprise. Therefore I save
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  Speaker 1: it up for places where I want to express applause
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  Speaker 1: or admiration. The fourth word has a French sound, and
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  Speaker 1: I think the phrase means that takes the cake. During
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  Speaker 1: my first week in the deep and dreamy stillness of
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  Speaker 1: this woodsy, flowery place, I was without news of the
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  Speaker 1: outside world and was well content without it. It has
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  Speaker 1: been four weeks since I had seen a newspaper, and
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  Speaker 1: this lack seemed to give life a new charm and grace,
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  Speaker 1: and to saturate it with a feeling verging upon actual delight.
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  Speaker 1: Then change came that was to be expected. The appetite
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  Speaker 1: for news began to rise again. After this invigorating rest,
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  Speaker 1: I had to feed it, but I was not willing
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  Speaker 1: to let it make me its helpless slave again. I
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  Speaker 1: determined to put it on a diet, and a strict
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  Speaker 1: and limited one. So I examined an Italian paper with
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  Speaker 1: the idea of feeding it on that, and on that exclusively,
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  Speaker 1: on that exclusively and without help of a dictionary. In
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  Speaker 1: this way I should surely be well protected against overloading
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  Speaker 1: and indigestion. A glance at the telegraphic page filled me
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  Speaker 1: with encouragement. There were no scare heads. That was good,
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  Speaker 1: supremely good. But there were headings one liners and two liners,
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  Speaker 1: and that was good too. For without these one must do,
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  Speaker 1: as one does with a German paper, pay our precious
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  Speaker 1: time in finding out what an article is about, only
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  Speaker 1: to discover in many cases that there is nothing in
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  Speaker 1: it of interest to you. The headline is a valuable thing. Necessarily.
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  Speaker 1: We are all fond of murders, scandals, swindles, robberies, explosions, collisions,
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  Speaker 1: and all such things when we knew the people, and
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  Speaker 1: when they are neighbors and friends. But when they are
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  Speaker 1: strangers we do not get any great pleasure out of them.
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  Speaker 1: As a rule. Now, the trouble with an American paper
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  Speaker 1: is that it has no discrimination. It rakes the whole
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  Speaker 1: earth for blood and garbage, and the result is that
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  Speaker 1: you are daily over fed and suffer a surfeit by habit.
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  Speaker 1: You stow this muck every day, but you come by
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  Speaker 1: and by to take no vital interest in it, indeed,
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  Speaker 1: you almost get tired of it. As a rule, forty
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  Speaker 1: nine fiftieth of it concerns strangers only, people away off
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  Speaker 1: yonder a thousand miles, two thousand miles, ten thousand miles
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  Speaker 1: from where you are. Why, when you come to think
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  Speaker 1: of it, who cares what becomes of those people? I
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  Speaker 1: would not give the assassination of one personal friend for
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  Speaker 1: a whole massacre of those others. And to my mind,
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  Speaker 1: one relative or neighbor mixed up in a scandal is
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  Speaker 1: more interesting than a whole sodom and gomorrah of outlanders
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  Speaker 1: gone rotten. Give me the home product every time. Very well.
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  Speaker 1: I saw at a glance that the Florentine paper would
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  Speaker 1: suit me. Five out of six of its scandals and
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  Speaker 1: tragedies were local. They were adventures of one's very neighbors,
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  Speaker 1: one might almost say, one's friends. In the matter of
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  Speaker 1: world news, there was not too much, but just about enough.
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  Speaker 1: I subscribed. I have had no occasion to regret it.
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  Speaker 1: Every morning I get all the news I need for
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  Speaker 1: them day, sometimes from the headlines, sometimes from the text.
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  Speaker 1: I have never had to call for a dictionary, yet
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  Speaker 1: I read the paper with ease. Often I do not
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  Speaker 1: quite understand. Often some of the details escape me, but
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  Speaker 1: no matter I get the idea. I will cut out
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  Speaker 1: a passage or two. Then you will see how limpid
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  Speaker 1: the language is. Il ritorno de biatid' italia elargizione del
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  Speaker 1: rey alospidale Italiano. The first line means that the Italian
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  Speaker 1: sovereigns are coming back. They have been to England. The
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  Speaker 1: second line seems to mean that they enlarged the king
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  Speaker 1: at the Italian hospital with a banquet. I suppose an
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  Speaker 1: English banquet has that effect. Further, Il retorno de sovrani
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  Speaker 1: a roma Roma twenty four or a twenty two fifty
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  Speaker 1: isovrani e le principicine reali si atundono a Roma domani
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  Speaker 1: aye ore fifteen fifty one. Return of the Sovereigns to Rome.
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  Speaker 1: You see date of the telegram Rome, November twenty four,
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  Speaker 1: ten minutes before twenty three o'clock. The telegram seems to
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  Speaker 1: say the sovereigns and the royal children expect themselves at
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  Speaker 1: Rome tomorrow at fifty one minutes after fifteen o'clock. I
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  Speaker 1: do not know about Italian time, but I judge it
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  Speaker 1: begins at midnight and runs through the twenty four hours
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  Speaker 1: without breaking bulk. In the following ad the theaters open
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  Speaker 1: at half past twenty. If these are not matinees, twenty
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  Speaker 1: thirty must mean eight thirty p m. By my reckoning.
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  Speaker 1: Spectacoli del did twenty five Teatro della pergola, or a
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  Speaker 1: twenty thirty opera boem Teatro Ali Feri Compagnia dramatica drago
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  Speaker 1: or twenty thirty La lege A Lambra, or a twenty
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  Speaker 1: thirty Spatacolo bariato Sala Edison, grandioso spatacolo cinematographico, quo vadis inagurazione,
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  Speaker 1: della chiesa rusa encota, alderetissimo, vedute di forenze, con gran
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  Speaker 1: Movimeno America, Transporto tronci gigateenchi iladri and Casa del Diavolo
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  Speaker 1: sine comice cinemato grapho via Bruno Leeschi Number four, Programma
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  Speaker 1: stra Ordinario don ciste presi populari. The whole of that
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  Speaker 1: is intelligible to me and seen and rational too, except
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  Speaker 1: the remark about the inauguration of a Russian Chinese that
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  Speaker 1: one oversizes my hand. Give me five cards. This is
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  Speaker 1: a four page paper, and as it is set in
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  Speaker 1: long primer leaded and has a page of advertisements, there
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  Speaker 1: is no room for the crimes, disasters, and general sweepings
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  Speaker 1: of the outside world. Thanks b today I find only
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  Speaker 1: a single importation of the off color sort Una principesa
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  Speaker 1: che fuge and un cochiere Parigi twenty four il matin
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  Speaker 1: a de Berlino che la principasa chauvinbare waldenbure scomparve il
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  Speaker 1: nine no biembre sarebe partita colswo cochierre la principasa a
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  Speaker 1: twenty seven Ani twenty seven years old and scomparve scampered
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  Speaker 1: on the ninth November. You see by the added detail
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  Speaker 1: that she departed with her coachman. I hope Sarebe has
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  Speaker 1: not made a mistake, but I am afraid the chances
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  Speaker 1: are that she has so no disbiance tissimo. There are
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  Speaker 1: several fires, also a couple of accidents. This is one
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  Speaker 1: of them. Brave des gras Zia sul ponte Vecchio Stamattina
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  Speaker 1: circle seven point thirty mentre Giuseppe Sciati di Anni fifty
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  Speaker 1: five di Cassallina Etori hasava dal ponte veccio stando seduto
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  Speaker 1: sopra un baroccio, carico di verdura, perceeolico, librio icad al
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  Speaker 1: suolo rimanendo conla gambadestro soto unarota del villicolo, los guiati
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  Speaker 1: fu sabito reccoto dlcuni cetadini che formeso dea publica vettura
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  Speaker 1: number three sixty five, Lo transporto a san Giovanni di
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  Speaker 1: dio vil medico di guardia gli risconto, la fratura de
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  Speaker 1: la gambadestra i alcune lieve, escoriazioni judicandolo guaribele in fifty
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  Speaker 1: giorni salvo complicazioni. What it seems to say is this
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  Speaker 1: serious disgrace on the old Old bridge. This morning, about
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  Speaker 1: seven thirty, mister Joseph Sciatti, aged fifty five, of Cassolina
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  Speaker 1: and Torri, while standing up in a sitting posture on
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  Speaker 1: top of a corrico barrow of verdure foliage hay vegetables,
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  Speaker 1: lost his equilibrium and fell on himself, arriving with his
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  Speaker 1: left leg under one of the wheels of the vehicle.
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  Speaker 1: Said Sciati was suddenly harvested, gathered in by several citizens who,
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  Speaker 1: by means of public cab number three sixty five, transported
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  Speaker 1: to Saint John of God. Paragraph number three is a
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  Speaker 1: little obscure, but I think it says that the medicos
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  Speaker 1: set the broken left leg right enough, since there was
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  Speaker 1: nothing the matter with the other one, and that several
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  Speaker 1: are encouraged to hope that fifty days will fetch him
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  Speaker 1: around in quite giucondolo guaribal a way, if no complications intervene.
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  Speaker 1: I am sure, I hope so myself. There is a
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  Speaker 1: great and peculiar charm about reading news scraps in a
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  Speaker 1: language which you are not acquainted with, the charm that
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  Speaker 1: always goes with the mysterious and the uncertain. You can
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  Speaker 1: never be absolutely sure of the meaning of anything you read.
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  Speaker 1: In such circumstances. You are chasing an alert and gamey
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  Speaker 1: riddle all the time, and the baffling turns and dodges
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  Speaker 1: of the prey make the life of the hunt. A
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  Speaker 1: dictionary would spoil it. Sometimes a single word of doubtful
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  Speaker 1: purport will cast a veil of dreamy and golden uncertainty
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  Speaker 1: over a whole paragraph of cold and practical certainties and
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  Speaker 1: leave steeped in a hunting and adorable mystery, an incident
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  Speaker 1: which had been vulgar and commonplace. But for that benefaction,
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  Speaker 1: would you be wise to draw a dictionary on that
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  Speaker 1: gracious word? Would you be properly grateful? After a couple
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  Speaker 1: of days rest, I now come back to my subject
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  Speaker 1: and seek a case in point. I find it without
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  Speaker 1: trouble in the morning paper a cablegram from Chicago and
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  Speaker 1: Indiana by way of Paris. All the words save one
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  Speaker 1: are guessable by a person ignorant of Italian Revolverate and
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  Speaker 1: Teatro Parigi, twenty seven. La Patria ada Chicago, Il guardiano
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  Speaker 1: del tiatro dell opera di Wallas Indiana Avendo voluto, espolare
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  Speaker 1: uno spetatore che continuava a fumare malgrado, il divieti cuisto
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  Speaker 1: spalagiato daisoy amisi tiro diversi colpi di rivotella, il guardiano
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  Speaker 1: ripose nake unascarica generale grande Panico traglis spetatore nessun ferito
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  Speaker 1: translation revolveration in theater Paris, twenty seventh. La Patrie has
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  Speaker 1: from Chicago The cop of the theater of the Opera
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  Speaker 1: of Wallace, Indiana had wiled to expel a spectator which
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  Speaker 1: continued to smoke in spite of the pro ambition, who
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  Speaker 1: Spaligiato by his friends Tire French Tire Anglisse pulled manifold
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  Speaker 1: revolver shots, great panic among the spectators, nobody hurt. It
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  Speaker 1: is betible that that harmless cataclysm in the theater of
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  Speaker 1: the Opera of Wallace, Indiana excited not a person in
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  Speaker 1: Europe but me, and so came near to not being
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  Speaker 1: worth cabling to Florence by way of France. But it
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  Speaker 1: does excite me. It excites me because I cannot make
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  Speaker 1: out for sure what it was that moved the spectator
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  Speaker 1: to resist the officer. I was gliding along smoothly and
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  Speaker 1: without obstruction or accident until I came to that word spalagiato.
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  Speaker 1: Then the bottom fell out. You notice what a rich gloom,
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  Speaker 1: what a somber and pervading mystery that word sheds over
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  Speaker 1: the whole Wallachian tragedy. That is the charm of the thing,
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  Speaker 1: that is the delight of it. This is where you begin,
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  Speaker 1: This is where you revel. You can guess an guess
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  Speaker 1: and have all the fun you like. You need not
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  Speaker 1: be afraid there will be an end to it, none
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  Speaker 1: as possible, For no amount of guessing will ever furnish
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  Speaker 1: you a meaning for that word that you can be
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  Speaker 1: sure is the right one. All the other words give
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  Speaker 1: you hints by their form, their sound, or their spelling.
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  Speaker 1: This one doesn't. This one throws out no hints. This
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  Speaker 1: one keeps its secret. If there is even the slightest
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  Speaker 1: slight shadow of a hint anywhere it lies in the
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  Speaker 1: very meagerly suggestive fact that Spalagiato carries our word egg
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  Speaker 1: in its stomach, well make the most out of it.
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  Speaker 1: And then where are you at? You conjecture that the spectator,
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  Speaker 1: which was smoking in spite of the prohibition and became
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  Speaker 1: reprohibited by the guardians, was egged on by his friends,
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  Speaker 1: and that was, owing to that evil influence that he
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  Speaker 1: initiated the revolveration in theater that has galloped under the
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  Speaker 1: sea and come crashing through the European press without exciting
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  Speaker 1: anybody but me. But are you sure? Are you dead
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  Speaker 1: sure that that was the way of it? No, then
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  Speaker 1: the uncertainty remains, the mystery abides, and with it the
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  Speaker 1: charm guess again. If I had a phrase book of
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  Speaker 1: a really satisfactory sort, I would study it and not
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  Speaker 1: give all my free time to undictionarial readings. But there
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  Speaker 1: is no such work on the market. The existing phrase
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  Speaker 1: books are inadequate. They are well enough as far as
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  Speaker 1: they go, but when you fall down and skin your leg,
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  Speaker 1: they don't tell you what to say. And of Italian
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  Speaker 1: without a master recording by Tricia G.