"Ah, you like fruit? Well, we may not so much as speak about it just
now - the cholera, the doctors, the policeman, the prison! I was going to
say salami."
Salami? I thanked her. I know Calabrian pigs and what they feed on,
though it would be hard to describe in the language of polite society.
Despite the heat and the swarms of flies in that chamber, I felt little
desire for repose after her simple repast; the dame was so affable and
entertaining that we soon became great friends. I caused her some
amusement by my efforts to understand and pronounce her language - these
folk speak Albanian and Italian with equal facility - which seemed to my
unpractised ears as hopeless as Finnish. Very patiently, she gave me a
long lesson during which I thought to pick up a few words and phrases,
but the upshot of it all was:
"You'll never learn it. You have begun a hundred years too late."
I tried her with modern Greek, but among such fragments as remained on
my tongue after a lapse of over twenty years, only hit upon one word
that she could understand.
"Quite right!" she said encouragingly. "Why don't you always speak
properly? And now, let me hear a little of your own language."
I gave utterance to a few verses of Shakespeare, which caused
considerable merriment.
