At last he told me that I was
intolerably conceited, and started abusing me thoroughly. Lying
defenceless in bed, and unable to move, I was obliged to ring for Maria,
and whisper to her to fetch a few gentlemen from the Scandinavian Club,
who could take the drunken man home, after he had wasted fully six hours
of my day. I managed in this way to get him out of the door. He was
hardly gone than Maria burst out: "_Che porcheria!_" and then
added, laughing, to show me her knowledge of languages: "_Cochonnerie,
Schweinerei!_" She has a remarkable memory for the words she has
heard foreigners use. She knows a number of French words, which she
pronounces half like Italian, and she also knows a little Russian and a
little German, having, when a young girl, kept house for a Russian
prince and his family.
"I feel," she said to me, "that I could have learnt both French and
German easily, if I could have _compared_ them in a book. But I can
neither read nor write. These wretched priests have kept us in
ignorance. And now I am old and good for nothing. I was forty a little
while ago, and that is too old to learn the alphabet. Do you know,
signore, how it originally came about that I did not believe, and
despised the priests? I was twelve years old, and a tall girl, and a
very good-looking girl, too, though you cannot see that, now that I am
old and ugly.
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