Page:Anthology of Modern Slavonic Literature in Prose and Verse by Paul Selver.djvu/29

Rh intelligent nation! So civilised! I'll grant you, the French are all educated, good-mannered. Quite so. A Frenchman will never lapse into boorish behaviour. He'll bring a lady a chair at the proper moment, he won't eat crabs with a fork, he won't spit on the floor, but he hasn't that spirit No, that spirit isn't in him. I can't make it clear to you, but,—how shall I put it?—a Frenchman is lacking in something or other" (the speaker waves his fingers about) "something or other something juristic. I remember reading somewhere that you've all got an acquired intelligence from books, while our intelligence is innate. If you instruct a Russian properly in the sciences, there's not one of your professors can equal him."

"That may be" says Champune, as though against his will.

"No, not may be, but it is so! It's no good scowling about it, I'm speaking the truth. Russian intelligence is an inventive intelligence. Only, of course, they don't give him free play, and he's not good at bragging. He invents something and smashes it up or gives it to the children to play with, while your Frenchman invents some rubbish and shouts it from the housetops. Just lately our coachman Yona carved a man out of wood; you pull this man by a thread, and it does something indecent. But Yona doesn't brag about it. In general, I don't care for the French.