Read Slowness for Free Online Page B

pronounced Tche-kho-rjips-qui.’”
    “Oh, that’s a tough one!”
    “And incidentally, it is not written correctly, either,” says the scientist. He takes up the pen he sees on the table, and above the C and the R he draws the little marks that look like inverted circumflexes.
    The secretary looks at the marks, looks at the scientist, and sighs: “It’s awfully complicated!”
    “Not at all, it’s very simple.”
    “Simple?”
    “You know Jan Hus?”
    The secretary glances quickly over the list of guest conferees, and the Czech scientist hastens to explain: “As you know, he was a great Church reformer in the fourteenth century. A predecessor of Luther. Professor at Charles University, which was the first university to be established in the Holy Roman Empire, as you know. But what you do not know is that Jan Hus was also a great reformer of orthography. He succeeded in making it marvelously simple. In your language, to write what you pronounce ‘tch,’ you must use three letters, t, c, h. The Germans even need four: t, s, c, h. Whereas, thanks to Jan Hus, all we need in our language is a single letter, c, with that little mark above it.”
    The scientist leans again over the secretary’s table, and in the margin of the list, he writes a c, very big, with an inverted circumflex: C; then he looks into her eyes and articulates in a very clear, sharp voice: “Tch!”
    54
    55
    The secretary looks into his eyes too and repeats: “Tch.”
    “Yes. Perfect!”
    “It’s really very useful. Too bad people don’t know about Luther’s reform anywhere except in your country.”
    “Jan Hus’s reform,” says the scientist, acting as if he had not heard the French girl’s gaffe, “is not completely unknown. There is one other country where it is used … you know where, don’t you?”
    “NO.”
    “In Lithuania!”
    “In Lithuania,” the secretary repeats, trying vainly to recall where in the world to place that country.
    “And in Latvia too. So now you see why we Czechs are so proud of those little marks over letters. [With a smile:] We would willingly give up anything else. But we will fight for those marks to the last drop of our blood.”
    He bows to the young woman and moves to the quadrangle of tables. Before each seat is a small card bearing a name. He finds his own, looks at it a long while, takes it up in his fingers
    and, with a sorrowful but forgiving smile, brings it to show to the secretary.
    Meanwhile, another entomologist has stopped at the entrance table to have the young woman circle his name. She sees the Czech scientist and tells him: “Just one moment, Monsieur Chipiqui!”
    The Czech makes a magnanimous gesture to indicate: Don’t worry, mademoiselle, I’m in no hurry. Patiently, and not without a touching modesty, he waits beside the table (two more entomologists have stopped there), and when the secretary is finally free, he shows her the little place card:
    “Look, funny, isn’t it?”
    She looks without much understanding: “But, Monsieur Chenipiqui, see, the accents, there they are!”
    “True, but they are regular circumflexes! They forgot to invert them! And look where they put them! Over the E and the 0! Cechoripsky!”
    “Oh yes, you’re right!” says the secretary indignantly.
    “I wonder,” the Czech scientist says with increasing melancholy, “why people always forget them. They are so poetic, these inverted circumflexes! Don’t you think so? Like birds in
    56
    57
    flight! Like doves with wings outspread! [His voice very tender:] Or butterflies, if you prefer.”
    And he leans again over the table to take up the pen and correct the orthography of his name on the little card. He does it very modestly as if to apologize, and then, without a word, he withdraws.
    The secretary watches him go, tall, oddly misshapen, and suddenly feels suffused with maternal fondness. She pictures an inverted circumflex in the form of a butterfly fluttering around the scientist and