Date: Sun Oct 29 05:36:40 2006
----------------------------------------------------------
Jehiel gave no indication that he had heard. His faded old blue eyes were fixed steadily on the single crack in the rampart of mountains, through which the afternoon train was just now leaving the valley. Its whistle echoed back hollowly, as it fled away from the prison walls into the great world.
The inventor of the language seems to have taken pleasure incomplicating it in every way he could think of. For instance, if one iscasually referring to a house, HAUS, or a horse, PFERD, or a dog, HUND, he
verbs. The German grammar is blistered all over with separable verbs; andthe wider the two portions of one of them are spread apart, the better theauthor of the crime is pleased with his performance. A favorite one isREISTE AB -- which means departed. Here is an example which I culled from anovel and reduced to English:
The church was icy cold, and he toiled in the cellar, stuffing wood into the flaming maw of the steam-heater, till it was time to ring the bell. As he gave the last stroke, Deacon Bradley approached him. Jehiel, Ive got a little job of repairing I want you should do at my store, he said in the loud, slow speech of a man important in the community. Come to the store to-morrow morning and see about it. He passed on into his pew, which was at the back of the church near a steam radiator, so that he was warm, no matter what the weather was.
