Мартин Иден / Martin Eden

”

“How do you mean?” He leaned forward, feeling that he ought to get down on his knees before so marvellous a mind. “How do I chop?”

“You don’t complete the endings. �A-n-d’ spells �and.’ You pronounce it �an’.’ �I-n-g’ spells �ing.’ Sometimes you pronounce it �ing’ and sometimes you leave off the �g.’ And then you slur by dropping initial letters and diphthongs. �T-h-e-m’ spells �them.’ You pronounce it-oh, well, it is not necessary to go over all of them.

What you need is the grammar. I’ll get one and show you how to begin.”

As she arose, there shot through his mind something that he had read in the etiquette books, and he stood up awkwardly, worrying as to whether he was doing the right thing, and fearing that she might take it as a sign that he was about to go.

“By the way, Mr. Eden,” she called back, as she was leaving the room. “What is booze? You used it several times, you know.”

“Oh, booze,” he laughed. “It’s slang.

It means whiskey an’ beer-anything that will make you drunk.”

“And another thing,” she laughed back. “Don’t use �you’ when you are impersonal. �You’ is very personal, and your use of it just now was not precisely what you meant.”

“I don’t just see that.”

“Why, you said just now, to me, �whiskey and beer-anything that will make you drunk’-make me drunk, don’t you see?”

“Well, it would, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, of course,” she smiled.

“But it would be nicer not to bring me into it. Substitute �one’ for �you’ and see how much better it sounds.”

When she returned with the grammar, she drew a chair near his-he wondered if he should have helped her with the chair-and sat down beside him. She turned the pages of the grammar, and their heads were inclined toward each other. He could hardly follow her outlining of the work he must do, so amazed was he by her delightful propinquity. But when she began to lay down the importance of conjugation, he forgot all about her.

He had never heard of conjugation, and was fascinated by the glimpse he was catching into the tie-ribs of language. He leaned closer to the page, and her hair touched his cheek. He had fainted but once in his life, and he thought he was going to faint again. He could scarcely breathe, and his heart was pounding the blood up into his throat and suffocating him. Never had she seemed so accessible as now.