She had at any rate
the beauty that twenty years lends. We arranged for four lessons a week,
to begin with.
The first dragged considerably. My teacher was to correct any mistakes
in pronunciation and grammar that I made in conversation. But we could
not get up any proper conversation. She was evidently bored by the
lessons, which she had only undertaken for the sake of the fees. If I
began to tell her anything, she only half listened, and yawned with all
her might very often and very loudly, although she politely put her hand
in front of her large mouth. There only came a little animation into her
expression when I either pronounced as badly as I had been taught by my
French master at school, or made some particularly ludicrous mistake,
such as _c'est tout egal_ for _bien egal_. At other times she
was distracted, sleepy, her thoughts elsewhere.
After having tried vainly for a few times to interest the young lady by
my communications, I grew tired of the lessons. Moreover, they were of
very little advantage to me, for the simple reason that my youthful
teacher had not the very slightest scientific or even grammatical
knowledge of her own tongue, and consequently could never answer my
questions as to _why_ you had to pronounce in such and such a way,
or by virtue of what _rule_ you expressed yourself in such and such
a manner.
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