BONJOUR MADEMOISELLE

The coffee and tea at the Hertog Jan College were frightful, student smoking was only permitted off the grounds or in the courtyard for the upper forms, and many of my first-year classmates were blinkered puritans in too many ways. But this morning I woke up from a dream featuring two exceptions: Bertje Klerk and Babs De Waard. Attractive young ladies; bright, likeable, charming. No, it wasn't what you might think. It involved lunch, sunlight, and softly speaking in German.

At more academic Dutch high schools learning languages was part of the programme. English, French, German. Plus at the Atheneum and Gymnasium, Latin and Greek.

The Hertog Jan College was more academic. At the very least, graduates could expect to go on to further studies, the top nerds could look forward to old respected universities in the north of the country, boven de rivieren ("above the rivers"), as until the twentieth century the idea of educating those southerners was "iffy". Very many of them eventually ended up in Utrecht or Nijmeghen.

I remember the frightfulness of the coffee and tea perhaps somewhat better than any Latin to which I was exposed. The Dutch like caffeinated beverages. Coffee is a social lubricant and study aid. Tea can be a delightful beverage, conducive to mental activity. So there must have been something perverse and cruel about supplying high school students with such horrible swamp water.



I had first noticed both of the young ladies mentioned in French class. So it is both peculiar and inexplicable that we spoke German at lunch in my dream. No, I can't remember what we talked about -- in actual life I did not have many conversations with either of them, because my social life at the Hertog Jan College was somewhat stunted -- but it was very nice. Sunlight from the restaurant windows giving a glow to their hair, the aromas of excellent coffee and tea mixed with girlish perfumes, and the ever-present sharpness of dark shag cigarettes which everyone in the Netherlands smoked. In deference to their delicate sensitivities I had not lit my pipe.

As I said, it was a dream. But a very civilized one.



My German was excellent at one point.
My French, um, not so much.




==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================