Page 237 - YB1965

After we had passed the room, part way down a multi- tude of corridors we paused, turned about, and listened, What brought the moment was various with us all, for it came, at first merely as a sort of cataloging which the mind does to convince itself that it is still flexible and full and findable. It came the second time when some advertisement, some son or daughter, some wind, dropped words of French into our presence, and while the rest of this portion of the world's conversation continued, we remained behind with a memory of a French you could speak and live with her upraised hand that etched expressions out of the lace-work of the air, and a tilted-back head and a stray wisp of hair which, in the excitement, had fallen gracefully from arched brow to ear, and eyes that rolled in laughter and wore mysterious rose in their depths, and a mercurial mouth that forced you to imitate its wonders. She knew why we spoke French in class. It was essential to pronounce it in order to understand it, for it had lilts and curves and songs, and side- walk cafes, and Sacre Coeur, and Le Petit Prince, and the Tuileries, 'and all of the banks of Paris bound up in its declensions and conjugations. There was no unteachable student, at least in French, and tone-deaf Americans could sing in French, especially if the French songs were carols; so we learned songs, and sang them, and heard the Biblical promise at Christmas, and it did sound better in French, and helped the spring in the garden by acting in plays and somehow-we did all this all for her, and it was for us. Everything kept coming back. The third time it came we had long forgotten the room and had run out of corridors and carols and gardens in our living for whatever it was or we were. Yet it came, not so often as the others had, but soon it was all that came- a sudden tumbling over of exhilaration that made us real- ize that we had chosen for a profession that which and those which we most loved, and we remembered this person who was one of the very few who had ever dared show this to us. !oie de vivre was her favorite expression. The feeling, I am certain, was mutual. William L Tribby 245