"Je dirais, 'I would like to be able.'"
"Comment, encore! petit cancre! allons—tu es Anglais—tu sais bien que tu dirais, 'I vould vill to can'!"
Then M. Brossard turns to Barty: "A ton tour, Josselin!"
"Moi, m'sieur?" says Barty.
"Oui, toi!—comment dirais‑tu, 'je pourrais vouloir'?"
"Je dirais 'I vould can to vill,'" says Barty, quite unabashed.
"À la bonne heure! au moins tu sais ta langue, toi!" says Père Brossard, and pats him on the cheek; while Barty winks at me, the wink of successful time‑serving hypocrisy, and Bonneville writhes with suppressed delight.
What lives most in my remembrance of that summer is the lovely weather we had, and the joy of the Passy swimming‑bath every Thursday and Sunday from two till five or six; it comes back to me even now in heavenly dreams by night. I swim with giant side‑strokes all round the Île des Cygnes between Passy and Grenelle, where the École de Natation was moored for the summer months.
Round and round the isle I go, up stream and down, and dive and float and wallow with bliss there is no telling—till the waters all dry up and disappear, and I am left wading in weeds and mud and drift and drought and desolation, and wake up shivering—and such is life.
As for Barty, he was all but amphibious, and reminded me of the seal at the Jardin des Plantes. He really seemed to spend most of the afternoon under water, coming up to breathe now and then at unexpected moments, with a stone in his mouth that he had picked up from the slimy bottom ten or twelve feet below—or a weed—or a dead mussel.