And, finally, because I don’t believe he’s true.

I don’t believe in these heroes and heroines that cannot keep quiet in a foreign language they have taught themselves in an old-world library.  My fixed idea is that they muddle along like the rest of us, surprised that so few people understand them, begging everyone they meet not to talk so quickly.  These brilliant conversations with foreign philosophers!  These passionate interviews with foreign countesses!  They fancy they have had them.

I crossed once with an English lady from Boulogne to Folkestone.  At Folkestone a little French girl—anxious about her train—asked us a simple question.  My companion replied to it with an ease that astonished herself.  The little French girl vanished; my companion sighed.

“It’s so odd,” said my companion, “but I seem to know quite a lot of French the moment I get back to England.”