The Unknown Guest [51]
arithmetic: and so we shall understand each other better and meet on equal terms.
Krall asks me for two numbers to multiply. I give him 63 X 7. He does the sum and writes the product on the board, followed by the sign of division: 441 / 7. Instantly Hanschen, with a celerity difficult to follow, gives three blows, or rather three violent scrapes with his right hoof and six with his left, which makes 63, for we must not forget that in German they say not sixty-three, but three-and-sixty. We congratulate him; and, to evince his satisfaction, he nimbly reverses the number by marking 36 and then puts it right again by scraping 63. He is evidently enjoying himself and juggling with the figures. And additions, subtractions, multiplications and divisions follow one after the other, with figures supplied by myself, so as to remove any idea of collusion. Hanschen seldom blunders; and, when he does, we receive a very clear impression that his mistake is voluntary: he is like a mischievous schoolboy playing a practical joke upon his master. The solutions fall thick as hail upon the little spring-board; the correct answer is released by the question as though you were pressing the button of an electric push. The pony's flippancy is as surprising as his skill. But in this unruly flippancy, in this hastiness which seems inattentive there is nevertheless a fixed and permanent idea. Hanschen paws the ground, kicks, prances, tosses his head, looks as if he cannot keep still, but never leaves his spring-board. Is he interested in the problems, does he enjoy them? It is impossible to say; but he certainly has the appearance of one accomplishing a duty or a piece of work which we do not discuss, which is important, necessary and inevitable.
But the lesson suddenly ends with a joke carried rather too far by the pupil, who catches his good master by the seat of his trousers, into which he plants disrespectful teeth. He is severely reprimanded, deprived of his carrots and sent back in disgrace to his private apartments.
13
Next comes Bette, who is like a big, sleek Norman horse. He makes the calm, dignified, peaceful entrance of a blind giant. His large, dark, brilliant eyes are quite dead, deprived of any reflex power. He feels about with his hoof for the board on which he is to rap his answers. He has not yet gone beyond the rudiments of mathematics; and the early part of his education was particularly difficult. They managed to make him understand the value and meaning of the numbers and of the addition- and multiplication-signs by means of little taps on his sides. Krall speaks to him as a father might speak to the youngest of his sons. He explains to him fondly the easy sums which I suggest his doing: two plus three, eight minus four, four times three; he says:
"Mind! It's not plus three or minus three this time, but four multiplied by three!"
Berto hardly ever makes a mistake. When he does not understand the question, he waits for it to be written with the finger on his side; and the careful way in which he works it out like some backward and afflicted child is an infinitely pathetic sight. He is much more zealous and conscientious than his fellow-pupils; and we feel that, in the darkness wherein he dwells, this work is, next to his meals, the only spark of light and interest in his existence. He will certainly never rival Muhamed, for instance, who is the arithmetical prodigy, the Inaudi, of horses; but he is a valuable and living proof that the theory of unconscious and imperceptible signs, the only one which the German theorists have hitherto seriously considered, is now clearly untenable.
I have not yet spoken of Zarif. He is not in the best of tempers; and besides, in arithmetic, he is only a less learned and more capricious Muhamed. He answers most of the questions at random, stubbornly raising his foot and declining to lower it, so as clearly to mark his disapproval; but he solves the last problem correctly when he is promised a panful of carrots and no more lessons for that morning. The groom enters to lead him
Krall asks me for two numbers to multiply. I give him 63 X 7. He does the sum and writes the product on the board, followed by the sign of division: 441 / 7. Instantly Hanschen, with a celerity difficult to follow, gives three blows, or rather three violent scrapes with his right hoof and six with his left, which makes 63, for we must not forget that in German they say not sixty-three, but three-and-sixty. We congratulate him; and, to evince his satisfaction, he nimbly reverses the number by marking 36 and then puts it right again by scraping 63. He is evidently enjoying himself and juggling with the figures. And additions, subtractions, multiplications and divisions follow one after the other, with figures supplied by myself, so as to remove any idea of collusion. Hanschen seldom blunders; and, when he does, we receive a very clear impression that his mistake is voluntary: he is like a mischievous schoolboy playing a practical joke upon his master. The solutions fall thick as hail upon the little spring-board; the correct answer is released by the question as though you were pressing the button of an electric push. The pony's flippancy is as surprising as his skill. But in this unruly flippancy, in this hastiness which seems inattentive there is nevertheless a fixed and permanent idea. Hanschen paws the ground, kicks, prances, tosses his head, looks as if he cannot keep still, but never leaves his spring-board. Is he interested in the problems, does he enjoy them? It is impossible to say; but he certainly has the appearance of one accomplishing a duty or a piece of work which we do not discuss, which is important, necessary and inevitable.
But the lesson suddenly ends with a joke carried rather too far by the pupil, who catches his good master by the seat of his trousers, into which he plants disrespectful teeth. He is severely reprimanded, deprived of his carrots and sent back in disgrace to his private apartments.
13
Next comes Bette, who is like a big, sleek Norman horse. He makes the calm, dignified, peaceful entrance of a blind giant. His large, dark, brilliant eyes are quite dead, deprived of any reflex power. He feels about with his hoof for the board on which he is to rap his answers. He has not yet gone beyond the rudiments of mathematics; and the early part of his education was particularly difficult. They managed to make him understand the value and meaning of the numbers and of the addition- and multiplication-signs by means of little taps on his sides. Krall speaks to him as a father might speak to the youngest of his sons. He explains to him fondly the easy sums which I suggest his doing: two plus three, eight minus four, four times three; he says:
"Mind! It's not plus three or minus three this time, but four multiplied by three!"
Berto hardly ever makes a mistake. When he does not understand the question, he waits for it to be written with the finger on his side; and the careful way in which he works it out like some backward and afflicted child is an infinitely pathetic sight. He is much more zealous and conscientious than his fellow-pupils; and we feel that, in the darkness wherein he dwells, this work is, next to his meals, the only spark of light and interest in his existence. He will certainly never rival Muhamed, for instance, who is the arithmetical prodigy, the Inaudi, of horses; but he is a valuable and living proof that the theory of unconscious and imperceptible signs, the only one which the German theorists have hitherto seriously considered, is now clearly untenable.
I have not yet spoken of Zarif. He is not in the best of tempers; and besides, in arithmetic, he is only a less learned and more capricious Muhamed. He answers most of the questions at random, stubbornly raising his foot and declining to lower it, so as clearly to mark his disapproval; but he solves the last problem correctly when he is promised a panful of carrots and no more lessons for that morning. The groom enters to lead him