The Solitary Summer

I remember when I was at the age when people began to call me Backfisch, and my mother dressed me in a little scarlet coat with big pearl buttons, and my eyes turned down because I was shy, and my nose turned up because I was impudent, one summer at the seaside with my governess we noticed in our walks a solitary lady of dignified appearance, who spoke to no one, and seemed for ever wrapped in distant and lofty philosophic speculations. "She's thinking about Kant and the nebular hypothesis," I decided to myself, having once heard some men with long beards talking of both those things, and they all had had that same far-away look in their eyes. "Qu'est-ce que c'est une hypothese nebuleuse, Mademoiselle?" I said aloud. "Tenez-vous bien, et marchez d'une facon convenable," she replied sharply. "Qu'est-ce que c'est une hypothese--" "Vous etes trap jeune pour comprendre ces choses." "Oh alors vous ne savez pas vous-meme!" I cried triumphantly, "Sans cela vous me diriez." "Elisabeth, vous ecrirez, des que nous rentrons, leverbe Prier le bon Dieu de m'Aider a ne plus Etre si Impertinente." She was an ingenious young woman, and the verbs I had to write as punishments were of the most elaborate and complicated nature-- Demander pardon pour Avoir Siffle comme un Gamin quelconque, Vouloir ne plus Oublier de Nettoyer mes Ongles, Essayer de ne pas tant Aimer les Poudings, are but a few examples of her achievements in this particular branch of discipline. That very day at the table d'hote the abstracted lady sat next to me. A ragout of some sort was handed round, and after I had taken some she asked me, before helping herself, what it was.