Down went the meat-axe again, and, with eyes and mouth wide open, the boy stood speechless before me.
Thus we were both inanely staring at each other when the back door flew open, and a burly lump of tumid humanity stumbled through it with a curse, wanting to know why the boy was not at work. The poor apprentice caught up his cleaver again, and I faced the man who had just entered.
“Do you want any Wurst?” he asked.
“No, no.” And I went over the whole story once more with such perspicuity as shipwrecked patience would naturally inspire in a person thoroughly at sea in a language. In the thick of my oration I detected a cloudy gleam of intelligence spreading itself over the red face of my hearer. My eloquence had touched him at last. I had not quite reached my peroration when—
“Doch!” interrupted my fat friend, as he pulled me briskly to the door. “You see that shop, three houses farther down the street?”
“Yes,” said I.
“You are sure you see the right one?”
“Yes, yes.”
“Well, you go right down there. There is a Frenchman down there. His wife is from Italy. I think, maybe, he can understand the Russian language: I can’t!”
It was at that moment, I think, I learned to make the distinction between the degrees of benefit one derives from a book-knowledge of a language: it may help you to understand others, but it can hardly be said to help others to understand you.