fledermaus

We read a lot of books here. Often, the books the kids ask for are the ones they have already memorized, so I listen to the story and try to throw in an English word or two when the opportunity presents itself.

-So, Henry, this here is a bat.
-Nein, Mary, es ist ein Fledermaus.
-Well, that’s true, but in English, we say bat.
-Nein.
-Yes we do.
-NEIN! Nein das ist ein Fledermaus. Looouuiis, was ist das??
-Das ist ein Fledermaus, Henry. Natürlich.

Case closed.

Last night Begona and I hung out at a comfortable local, loudly speaking German in our respective American and Spanish accents. We each drank four glasses of a rather weak Austrian red wine to sweeten the broken syntax and limited word choice of Europe’s economic problems.

Thomas predicted all this, last week. And this past week that justified his sibylline strength was the best of his life, or so he claimed at breakfast. I imagine he is right. That our world will not be that of our parents.

When I am not studying German, I am reading 19th Century French literature in preparation for my soon approaching trip to Bordeaux. Now I am reading Le Père Goriot, the first of Balzac’s Comedie Humaine. There are many characters, Parisian types, all of them. The note on the deformed French of Madame Hanska provides the reader wih a passage from the author’s diary: “commencé une grande oeuvre...j’y ai placé tyeuillieus en riant comme un fou. And then later on after the first installment of the work: “Tieuilles a fait rire. Je vous renvoie ce success.” I like Balzac. His emphasis on orality especially. I wish I could hear the humor too. But I’m not even certain that the French themselves can. I have to ask Raphael.

Today promises nice weather. I will try out my bike for the first time, maybe bike down to the island in the Danube, or maybe just explore further parts of the city. Henry has a birthday in the afternoon and Eva has made a train cake in honor of it. Hooray for locomotion!