Watch Out for the Aura

I suppose I'm quoting this guy too much but I thought this funny:

It had become known that he was a neo-Platonist--the term obviously drew a blank with most people, but nevertheless prevented one from raising one's voice, slamming a door or, unimaginably worse, engaging in guttersnipe whistling.

--Gregor von Rezzori, The Snows of Yesteryear 108 (1989)

Guttersnipe whistling: is there any other kind?

Afterthought: A pretty dumb title for such an arresting book. I see the original German was Blumen in Schnee--"Flowers in Snow," which strikes me as an improvement.

Language Hash

Gregor von Rezzori again--and what kind of name is von Rezzori, anyway? Remarkably, there is an answer to that: Evidently his father was a Sicilian aristo who washed up in the Austrian Empire, and the name was originally d'Arrezo [though, come to think of it, Arrezo is nowhere near Sicily, so maybe there is even more to be said].

Now this marvel of linguistic hash on the nanny at the family home in Bukovina:

We were never able to determine her nationality with any degree of certainty. Most probably she was a Huzule--that is, a daughter of the Ruthenian-speaking tribe of mountain Gorals, who, it is said, are the purest-bred descendants of the Davians who fled before the Roman invaders into the impenetrable fastness of the forests. Yet Cassandra just as wlel could have been a Romannian--that is, a product of all those innumerable populations who coursed through my country during the dark centuries of the decaying Roman dominion. She spoke both Romanian and Ruthenian, both equally badly--which is not at all unusual in the Bukovina--intermixing the two languages and larding both the with bits from a dozen other idioms. The result was that absurd lingua franca, understood only by myself and scantily by those who, like her, had to express themselves in a similarly motley verbal hodgepodge. ... [T]here can be no doubt that linguistically I was nourished by her speech. The main component was a German, never learned correctly or completely, the gaps in which were filled with words and phrases from all the other tongues spoken in Bukovina--so that each second or third word was either Ruthenian, Romanian, Polish, Russian, Armenian or Yiddish, not to forget Hungarian.

--Gregor von Rezzori, The Snows of Yesteryear 43-4 (1989).

Von Rezzori's Wiki says that he himself was fluent in German, Romanian, Italian, Polish, Russian, Yiddish, French and English, and that he lived some of his life as a "stateless person"--so the habit of deracination apparently stuck with him.

Cassandra? Cassandra? Indeed. von Rezzori says he has no idea where that came from.

Update: A Google search for "Huzule" turns up about as near to nothing as a Google search will ever yield: web pages in German and Dutch, mostly about a horse.

No Wonder They Started a World War

Basic training was easier in my day:

[T]hose were no swords, or sabers, or épées, but light rapiers, used only in student duels. You didn't pierce with them, you fenced. Standing with legs astraddle, motionless, your body swathed to the ears in leather and cotton armor, one hand behind your back, you dueled with your other hand, likewise heavily swathed, lifting it over your head and aiming only at the opponent's skull and cheeks. If you struck in such a way that the rapier's edge cut into him, then the seconds interrupted the match and inspected the wound. The referee was asked to verify a “bloody” for either participant. When such “bloodies” were sewn up, their scars became the “cicatrices” which a German academic could be proud of. The duel consisted of fifteen rounds, each with a fixed number of exchanges. It was settled by the number of “bloodies,” unless one “bloody” was so serious that the physician—the “barber-surgeon,” as he was known in corps lingo—stopped the duel and declared the wounded party “disabled.” It was not shameful to be “disabled.” But woe to either of the duelers if, upon receiving a “bloody,” he twitched even slightly or actually tried to withdraw—that is, to evade the adversary's stroke with his head. If that happened, he was instantly suspended, put under “beer blackball” for the length of his suspension. He was not allowed to take part in any drinking session or wear the colors, namely the cap and ribbon across his chest; and he was most certainly ostracized from the drinking bouts—all this until he had purged himself of his shame by fighting a new and more difficult match. But he was not granted such a chance for rehabilitation twice. If he chickened out a second time, then he was expelled. His erstwhile brothers cut him dead. He was no longer “qualified to give satisfaction.”

--Gregor von Rezzori, Memoirs of an Anti-Semite 35-6 (1981)