Читать книгу The Further Adventures of O'Neill in Holland - J. Irwin Brown - Страница 6

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“So our friend Jack had to ask always for the sounds of the words. That would be right good for him,” said Bart, “and should have made his talk intelligible.”

“Well of course it did,” said O’Neill. “They always understood the words I used. It was the applications I made that hampered them.

“I had great trouble with a chatty old gentleman in the tram one morning going down to Scheveningen. It was just seven—I was hurrying to get an early dip, and he seemed bent on the same errand.

Attracted by my blazer and towel he opened conversation about sea-bathing, and then proceeded to discourse on the beauties of the landscape. He seemed chilled by the poverty of my adjectives, though I worked them vigorously.

A LOFTY CANOPY OF GREEN.

“Deze weg vin je zeker wel mooi?” he said at last, looking up at the arched green overhead. “Of houd U niet van de natuur?”

“Ja, zeker wel!” I hastened to assure him. “Ik houd er erg van—Het is prachtig! Net een tunnel van geboomte—van loofgroen.”

Then observing the pleasure my encomiums gave him, I ventured on something a little more lofty and poetic. My landlady had occasionally talked about a “canopy,” which, so far as I had understood her, I took to mean the vast cupola of hangings over the old-fashioned bed in my lodging. She used to say that the canopy was new and beautiful, and needed constant dusting.

I had always agreed to this, but never dreamt of hunting up a word that to all intents and purposes seemed the same as in English.

“Indrukwekkend schoon,” I added. “Wij zitten, als het ware, onder een canopey (that was my landlady’s pronunciation) van bladeren.”

“Een kanapé, mijnheer?”

“Ja,” said I, “een verheven canopy, niet waar?

Wij zeilen onder een groene canopy—verbazend—magnifique!”

BENT U EEN DICHTER?

“Hoe bedoelt U dat?” said the old gentleman more and more puzzled, and determined to find out my meaning.

“Wij zitten hier, niet waar?” I began slowly; then pointing to the roof of green over our heads, I explained: “dat alles vormt een prachtige canopy boven ons heen. Zeker wel?”

“Ik geloof het niet”, said the chatty old gentleman. “De tram gelijkt ook niet op een kanapé; of meent U dat?”

“De tram niet,” I exclaimed, “maar de boomen; kijk; het gebladerte, het geboomte en de hooge dak dat ze maken—dat alles zoo schitterend groen, dat is, mijns bedunkens, niets dan een canopy, uitgehangen zoo te spreken, over ons heen, in uitgestrekte schoonheid.”

The old gentleman surely was a little dull. He said, “Ik begrijp niet goed wat u zegt. Waar is de canapé? Of bedoelt U soms een badstoel—op het strand?”

“Nee”, I answered with a deprecating smile; “Ik sprak maar poetisch. Verheven”, I added with a wave of my towel towards the greenery overhead.

“Hé,” said he with friendly interest, “bent U een dichter? Ik had U voor een schilder gehouden,” he explained with a glance at my blazer.

THE CLOTURE.

“Ik—een dichter!” I returned modestly. “Neen; niet erg. Op een kleine schaal, misschien.” On a small scale, I meant to say; but I must have mangled the sch badly, for he didn’t catch the point, and I heard him mutter: “Een sjaal! een sjaal, EN een kanapé!!”

“Ja zeker, mijnheer,” I reasoned; “U ziet het zelf voor U—daar onder de boomen—dat IS hier een canopy—”

“Pardon”, he interrupted, “dat is niet waar. Dat zijn gewone houten banken,” he persisted argumentatively. “En wat bedoelt U met een sjaal?”

How pertinacious the old gentleman was! He stuck to me like a leech. I couldn’t shake him off; and we were still far off the Kurhaus.

It was clearly a case for Boyton’s conversational method.

AN INTERLUDE AND AN APPLICATION.

“Mejuffrouw!” I said firmly, leaning towards him, “Ik ken Uwe edelmoedigheid genoeg. Maar”—and here I added two nice little local idioms from the rich stores of my memory—“maar—U komt pas te kijken.”

That told him he wasn’t looking at the matter in true philosophic perspective.

But this I followed up, in a more authoritative way, with the assurance that I didn’t at all agree with him. “Waarempeltjes,” I whispered with elaborate distinctness, “ik heb het land aan je!”

The chatty old gentleman got off at the next halte.