Connections

My last post was about a book I've read, and I commented there about the association with the theater. This is one of those circumstances that makes you pause and think, "How peculiar!" I know very little about the theater in general, and nothing at all about Polish theater, but it appears that I am going to become acquainted with it.

A lady who teaches at the university on the subject of Polish theater wants to be prepared to give a series of lectures in English. She is going to write out her lectures and deliver them to me (an audience of one) so that I can correct her grammar or vocabulary as needed. Her English is quite excellent (better than my Polish, I think), but she wants her lectures to be spot-on, 100% perfect, and that is difficult to achieve in a foreign language, no matter how fluent you are.

We and met and visited over a cup of tea this afternoon, and I am looking forward to this fellowship. She is a reader, so among other things we discussed books. She is the very first person who has told me that she reads in English for pleasure, and not just to improve her language abilities. That gives me some hope that perhaps I may eventually be able to read Polish for pleasure as well, rather than as a mere exercise. She has read Jane Austen in Polish, but Charlotte Bronte in English.

And, like every Polish person I have ever met, she laughed when I told her about Anielka. They all have to read it for school, like The Red Badge of Courage or something, and wouldn't dream of reading it by choice.

We are going to meet once a week for English conversion and theatrical lectures, and perhaps another time for Polish conversation. I am always looking for ways to work on my Polish without working too hard, and I think chatting with a well-read, book-loving professor of Polish drama will be more fun than work.

Oh--and the other connection. The theater mystery Death at the Dolphin involved a very particular glove, and when my guest left, she had to come back just a minute later. Because she had forgotten her gloves.