Mrs. Willoughby and the Foreign Tongues

by MARY ELIZABETH PLUMMER

1

MR. and Mrs. James Peter Willoughby had taken up the study of Portuguese. “Why in the world are you studying Portuguese?” their friends often asked.

“Because we wish to speak the language,” Mrs. Willoughby would reply; or, loftily, “I am studying Portuguese because I want to be a Good Neighbor.” On occasion, her husband denatured this noble remark by adding, “Especially to personable Latin Americans of the opposite sex.”

Gretchen Hall and three more of Mr. and Mrs. Willoughby’s friends were learning Portuguese in the same class. When Gretchen was asked, “Why Portuguese?” she replied pointedly, “Because I don’t want to go to seed.”

Mrs. Willoughby doubted the wisdom of this reply, because a Good Neighbor should be kind, in a New York drawing room as well as in the Mato Grosso.

Nevertheless Mrs. Willoughby was exasperated by the question, “ Why Portuguese? ” in this age, with Portuguese-speaking Brazil so important culturally and nearly as populous as all the other countries of South America combined. (Or more populous — Mrs. Willoughby had forgotten which.) Anyway it was four-fifths as large as Europe, and the fourth largest country in the world. Doubtless she and James Peter Willoughby would go to Rio some day, and would speak limpid, fluent Portuguese up and down the Avenida Rio Branco, the street of mosaic marble. Or they might sometime be stuck in Lisbon, as so many people were these days, and would be able to inquire in Portuguese, “When will the Clipper leave?” (Although of course the Lisbon accent was somewhat different from the Brazilian accent.)

Mrs. Willoughby’s way of attacking her Portuguese lesson each week was to copy in longhand from the textbook all the things she intended to learn. The result of this labor was a Janet Willoughby Portuguese Dictionary and Grammar — handwritten by Mrs. Willoughby for her own use. At least it was the first section of such a grammar, the other parts to follow later. It was just like her printed textbook, except less legible and less complete.

Her subconscious reason for doing this copying was that it postponed the pain of actually learning the conjugations of the Portuguese irregular verbs and the rules for pronoun objects. Mrs. Willoughby had a natural human wish to avoid pain as much as possible. Somewhere she had read that Herbert Hoover hated to go to the dentist, and ever since had hoped some day to discuss this bond with the former President at Palo Alto. She knew that Mr. Hoover would loathe learning Portuguese pronoun objects too, although he spoke some Chinese.

By the time Mrs. Willoughby finished her copying of each Portuguese lesson, there was no time left to study what she had copied. Usually, while copying, she thought about other matters, particularly about how much she enjoyed foreign tongues.

Her hand would move down the page, copying the endings of a past subjunctive, and she would be thinking, “If I only had a singing voice, I might have become an opera star, because I certainly like foreign languages.” Or she would think of faraway peoples speaking Bengali and Efik, and of the neat little gilt signs on New York shop windows that said, Se habla español and On parle français. So lovely.

Mrs. Willoughby spoke a modicum of several languages, although she could not be said to have facility in any of them except English and boarding-school French. She had primers in Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, and could read the first pages in each. She wished she could find a primer in Arabian. Although she did not know how Arabian sounded, it would be nice to speak a few words of Arabian sometime — say at an exhibition of fantastic art.

Mrs. Willoughby loved to browse through her language primers. She enjoyed reading about the foreign children in their schoolrooms somewhat as she enjoyed talking with her own children. They helped keep her point of view young.

The primers really were quite similar, except for the language. Only the pictures, and the names of the children, were really different.

Her first old French reader had a familiar picture of Jeanne d’Arc and a view of Paris, Capitale de la France. There were the stirring opening lines of “La Marseillaise”: —

The children in the primer were the enfants of Monsieur et Madame Lemercier: un fils, Jean, et une fille, Marguerite. Jean was six, Marguerite five. Jean went to the lycée.

The Italian first reader contained fascinating pictures of an Italian soccer football team, of Dante as a boy, and of the boy Columbus gazing into the blue bay of Genoa, dreaming.

The children were named Maria and Carlo. (Maria è grande; Carlo è piccolo.) They went to a scuola. There also were two small boys named Roberto and Alberto, who conversed with a Mr. Zini.

In the Spanish book one of the children was Pedrillo (little Peter). Mrs. Willoughby liked this because it was the name of her own son. Pedrillo attended an escuela. Her Portuguese literature concerned the Ribeiro family (parents José and Maria; children Carlos and Guiomar). She also could read about the Mendes people (Emília and Filipe), and an adult named Uncle Ferdinand.

The stories in the various languages dealt with going to classrooms, where there was business with wastepaper baskets, maps, blackboards, and desks, and with returning afterward to uniformly happy homes.

Sometimes, looking over these books, Mrs. Willoughby felt a pang of grief for the troubled world.

In the Italian reader, under the caption, “Translate into Italian,” she read: —

“Sicily is a beautiful island. It is the land of sunshine and flowers. Even the nights are beautiful, with the moon, and the sky full of stars. All the seasons are mild in Sicily, and there is no snow.

“We are happy in Italy because Italy is beautiful. The sky is always blue, the sea is clear, the air is mild, and there are always flowers. Italians love flowers very much.”

Deeply worried about Maria (the grande), and Carlo (the piccolo), Mrs. Willoughby would return to her Portuguese copying.

Off and on for months Mrs. Willoughby slaved over her Portuguese, but her knowledge of the language remained spotty and it had a way of winging away from her the minute she saw a Brazilian. Her husband was quick to admit that he did not know much Portuguese; however, when he saw Latin Americans he readily said all he knew.

After several moderately apt Portuguese amenities, he would say, “Minha senhora, D. Janet, ama a linguagem Brasileira (My wife, Dona Janet, loves the Brazilian language).” The Brazilians then would look expectantly at Mrs. Willoughby.

Mrs. Willoughby would launch forth on a Portuguese pleasantry, and get stuck. She then searched for a word, — any word, — meanwhile gazing fixedly into the eyes of some Brazilian man, who usually thought she was flirting with him. The beautifully mannered Brazilians always came to her rescue. After this, she would return to English, raising her voice in the subconscious belief that anyone can understand English if it is spoken loudly.

Mr. and Mrs. Willoughby and their fellow pupils practiced Portuguese each Wednesday night in the Willoughbys’ living room on Sutton Place South. The main characteristic of these meetings was (1) the extreme fatigue of the scholars on Wednesday night, or (2) their extreme ebullience, and their wish to make the Portuguese lesson a festa.

In the latter mood, they would make poor jokes in their newly acquired Portuguese, such as saying, “Do not be a horse. Be a flower.” Then the scholars would scream with delight, and the Professor would respond with a wintry smile.

Once, after rapping to no avail for order, the Professor put aside his book and shouted, “Let us be gay!” and gamboled about the room with sportive abandon.

After such outbursts, the pupils were like docile children the next lesson.

2

Suddenly Mr. and Mrs. Willoughby were going to Rio do Janeiro. Jim was being sent down to make a survey for the office of the Coördinator of Inter-American Affairs, and he obtained a flight priority for Mrs. Willoughby through the State Department. Mrs. Willoughby was so inspired by the idea of going along on this trip that she started reviewing, and made a great discovery.

“House” was casa in Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian.

“Garden” was jardín in Spanish, jardin in French, and jardim in Portuguese.

“Overcoat” was soprabito in Italian, sobretodo in Spanish, and sobretudo in Portuguese.

Mrs. Willoughby told Jim about it that evening; but Jim was not impressed, because, he said, the similarity of the Romance tongues was a well-known fact.

“But I found it out for myself,” said Mrs. Willoughby. “Scholarship is such a pleasure.”

The other Portuguese scholars saw Mr. and Mrs. Willoughby off at La Guardia Field with fervent shouts of “Olá Rio!”

Mrs. Willoughby had her longhand dictionary and grammar of the Portuguese language under her arm, thinking that she would get in some licks on her irregular verbs on the way down. She also carried a little book, Speak Spanish at once without Study or Effort, which had chapters on “Moneys of Spanish America and Spain,” “Spanish Oaths and Interjections,” and a chapter headed “Home. House. Garden. Fitments.”

She arrived in Rio de Janeiro knowing the same amount of Portuguese that she knew when she left New York, but greatly invigorated by having seen so much terrain.

“O telefone,” Mrs. Willoughby said in Portuguese, laying her hand firmly on the telephone, when she and Jim entered their hotel room in Rio de Janeiro.

She went to the window, looked out and saw an automobile down on the street.

“Automovel! ” exclaimed Mrs. Willoughby. Then, in sheer excess of pleasure, she gave the plural: “Automoveis.”

That evening, Senhor João Carlos Mendes, of the Departamento de Imprensa e Propaganda, dined with them at their hotel.

“And how do you like Rio?” Senhor Mendes asked Mrs. Willoughby, in perfect English, as they took their seats in the dining room.

“Ah!” said Mrs. Willoughby. “ Sinto a felicidade e o contentamento (I feel happiness and contentment).”

Senhor Mendes smiled with satisfaction.

Mrs. Willoughby was so pleased with her initial effort that she decided to have Portuguese dialogue with this pleasant Brazilian, but the only other words she could think of immediately were o livro (book), a poesia (poetry), and o rato (rat). She pondered how to combine these into a suitable sentence.

“Passa-me o sal, por favor (Please pass me the salt),” said Jim, not offering much of a lead for conversation.

Suddenly a sentence from the primer returned to Mrs. Willoughby.

“O sol está no eéu. É dia (The sun is in the sky. It is day),” she said happily. Then she realized that this was untrue. It was night, and the lights were gleaming along the harbor. Her remark had not been pertinent.

Senhor Mendes replied amiably in swift Portuguese, in the course of which Jim chuckled twice; but Mrs. Willoughby did not understand.

“Sim, sim (Yes, yes),” she said when he finished. He waited for her to continue.

The thought crossed her mind that he might be related to the Mendes family in her primer.

“Você estd meu amigo (You are my friend),” she suddenly told him. This sentence was from the primer. Immediately she remembered that amigo also meant “lover.”

“Eu passo a meu amigo o livro (I give my friend the book),” said Mrs. Willoughby hastily. She added in Portuguese, “I give the book to Pedro.”

The conversation seemed to be bogged down in the schoolroom.

Suddenly Jim, Senhor Mendes, and Mrs. Willoughby started whooping with amusement, and felt that they had known each other since childhood. They were all Good Neighbors. After that, they conversed in English and the dinner passed off delightfully.

“You speak beautiful English,” said Senhor Mendes, lightly kissing Mrs. Willoughby’s hand when he bade them good night.

“And so do you,” said Mrs. Willoughby, feeling great fellowship not only for him and for all other Brazilians, but for Argentinians, Chileans, Venezuelans. “ Os Argentinos . . . os Chilenos . . . os Venezuelanos.” Now that the immediate need to speak Portuguese had passed, she remembered more of the words.

“English is a beautiful language,” said Senhor Mendes.

“And so is Portuguese,” said Mrs. Willoughby warmly. (Early tomorrow, she would go over her Portuguese vocabulary; and when she and Jim met Senhor Mendes again, she would converse fluently on many topics,.in gratitude for Brazilian kindness.)

“Boa noite,” said Senhor Mendes.

“ Boa noite.”

Mr. and Mrs. Willoughby went to their room in a glow of good feeling. For a long time they sat in their window, looking down on the lights of the bay and of the avenidas. It was a beautiful night. Lights showed irregularly in the apartamentos; the Sugar Loaf was a dark shape.

thought Mrs. Willoughby.

In what simple words the English poet had said it.

What a wonderful language English was — just as Senhor Mendes had said.

“Tonight is the first time,” she thought, “that anyone ever told me I spoke beautiful English.” How nice it had been. So many people took one’s English as a matter of course. But after all, she was only on the periphery of her understanding of the English language. She could speak it much better. How haltingly, how carelessly many spoke it, but what an implement in the hands of a master!

“‘Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels . . .'”

That was beautiful English — the English of the King James Version. And there was the man whom she had heard speak beautifully at the worst public dinner she ever attended. There had been all these frightful speeches, and then this man had risen and had said briefly, easily, exactly what he intended to say. The speech had been about scrap rubber.

“‘You speak beautiful English, senhora.'”

It wasn’t really true — yet. Senhor Mendes had been overgenerous. “But I do hope,” she thought, “that some day it will be true.” In New York, when people asked, “Are you still studying languages, Mrs. Willoughby? ” she would say, “Yes. I am learning English.”

Then, when eyebrows lifted, she would say, “It is my favorite language. I should like to speak it well.”