 | Mark Twain's sketches |  |
5. BACK FROM “YURRUP.”
Have you ever seen a family of geese
just back from Europe—or Yurrup, as
they pronounce it? They never talk to
you, of course, being strangers, but they
talk to each other and at you till you are
pretty nearly distracted with their clatter;
till you are sick of their ocean experiences;
their mispronounced foreign names; their
dukes and emperors; their trivial adventures;
their pointless reminiscences; till
you are sick of their imbecile faces and
their relentless clack, and wish it had
pleased Providence to leave the clapper
out of their empty skulls.
I traveled with such a family one eternal
day, from New York to Boston, last week.
They had spent just a year in “Yurrup,”
and were returning home to Boston.
Papa said little, and looked bored—he
had simply been down to New York to
receive and cart home his cargo of traveled
imbecility. Sister Angeline, aged 23,
sister Augusta, aged 25, and brother
Charles, aged 33, did the conversational
drivel, and mamma purred and admired,
and threw in some help when occasion
offered, in the way of remembering some
French barber's—I should say some
French count's—name, when they pretended
to have forgotten it. They occupied
the choice seats in the parlor of the
drawing-room car, and for twelve hours I
as they would have said in their charming
French way.
Augusta.—“Plague that nahsty (nasty)
steamer! I've the headache yet, she rolled
so the fifth day out.”
Angeline.—“And well you may. I never
saw such a nahsty old tub. I never want
to go in the Ville de Paris again. Why
didn't we go over to London and come in
the Scotia?”
Augusta.—“Because we were fools.”
[Endorsed that sentiment.]
Angeline.—“Gustie, what made Count
Nixkumarouse drive off looking so blue,
that last Thursday in Pairy? (Paris she
meant.) Ah, own up, now!” (tapping her
arm so roguishly with her ivory fan.)
Augusta.—“Now, Angie, how you talk!
I told the nahsty creature I would not receive
his attentions any longer. And the
old duke his father kept boring me about
him and his two million francs a year till
I sent him off with a flea in his ear.”
Chorus.—“Ke-he-he! Ha-ha-ha!”
Charles.—[Pulling a small silken cloak
to pieces.] “Angie, where'd you get this
cheap thing?”
Angeline.—“You Cholly, let that alone!
Cheap! Well, how could I help it? There
we were, tied up in Switzerland—just
down from Mon Blong (Mont Blanc,
doubtless)—couldn't buy anything in those
nahsty shops so far away from Pairy. I
had to put up with that slimpsy forty-dollar
rag—but bless you, I couldn't go
naked!”
Chorus.—“Ke-he-he!”
Augusta.—“Guess who I was thinking
of? Those ignorant persons we saw first
in Rome and afterwards in Venice—those
—”
Angeline—“Oh, ha-ha-ha! He-he-he!
It was so funny! Papa, one of them called
the Santa della Spiggiola the Santa della
Spizziola! Ha-ha-ha! And she thought
it was Canova that did Michael Angelo's
Moses! Only think of it! Canova a
sculptor and Moses a picture! I thought
I should die! I guess I let them see
by the way I laughed, that they'd made
fools of themselves, because they blushed
and sneaked off.”
[Papa laughed faintly, but not with the
easy grace of a man who was certain he
knew what he was laughing about.]
Augusta.—“Why Cholly! Where did
you get those nahsty Beaumarchais gloves?
Well, I wouldn't, if I were you!”
Mamma.—[With uplifted hands.] “Beaumarchais,
my son!”
Angeline.—“Beaumarchais! Why how
can you! Nobody in Pairy wears those
nahsty things but the commonest people.”
Charles.—“They are a rum lot, but then
Tom Blennerhasset gave 'em to me—he
wanted to do something or other to curry
favor, I s'pose.”
Angeline.—“Tom Blennerhasset!”
Augusta.—“Tom Blennerhasset!”
Mamma.—“Tom Blennerhasset! And
have you been associating with him?”
Papa.—[Suddenly interested.] “Heavens,
what has the son of an honored and
honorable old friend been doing?”
Chorus.—“Doing! Why his father has
endorsed himself bankrupt for friends—
that's what's the matter!”
Angeline.—“Oh, mon Dieu, j'ai faim!
Avez-vous quelque chose de bon, en votre
poche, mon cher frere? Excuse me for
speaking French, for, to tell the truth, I
haven't spoken English for so long that it
comes dreadful awkward. Wish we were
back in Yurrup—c'est votre desire aussi,
n'est-ce pas, mes cheres?”
And from that moment they lapsed into
barbarous French and kept it up for an
hour—hesitating, gasping for words, stumbling
head over heels through adverbs and
participles, floundering among adjectives,
working miracles of villainous pronunciation—and
neither one of them by any
chance ever understanding what another
was driving at.
By that time some new comers had
entered the car, and so they lapsed into
English again and fell to holding everything
American up to scorn and contumely
in order that they might thus let those newcomers
know they were just home from
“Yurrup.” To use their pet and best beloved
phrase, they were a “nahsty” family
of American snobs, and there ought to be
a law against allowing such to go to
Europe and misrepresent the nation. It
doubt, to get done turning up their noses
at everything American, and making dam
aging comparisons between their own
country and “Yurrup.” Let us pity their
waiting friends in Boston in their affliction.
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