Uit: The Greater Glory , hoofdstuk 64 “Success”.
“So this was your secret. What a linguist you must be.”
“Oh no; I have always spoken more French than Dutch at – home. But don’t think that this bird has come falling into my mouth ready-roasted. It has taken a lot of labour and patience to catch and to kill. I’ve been hard at work for years, trying to get things inserted in the Parisian reviews. Nobody ever knew anything about it, except, quite towards the end, a dear little cousin, who hid away my secret as soon as she had discovered it. It used to be so funny, sometimes, people asking me, for instance, whether I ever read the French reviews?”
“How can people find out if you don’t tell them?”
“True, but I couldn’t. Nor would you have turned the love of your bosom naked into a dancing-room. There, I’m growing coarse and accurate. Do you think it wrong of me to write in French?”
“No more wrong than for the pastor of a small country-parish to accept a call to a great city-church. Dutch is at best but the language of one family, with a large proportion of deaf-mutes among its children. French is the language of the civilized world.”
“That’s what I have always thought, and I considered my efforts in Dutch altogether secondary, but of course others may judge differently; I can’t help that. Well, it has been a hard struggle, but success, or something veryy like the beginning of success, has come at last.”
Uit: Maarten Maartens, The Greater Glory, hoofdstuk 64 “Success”.
