B12 <=[BTG I The arousing of thought, p. 13]=> B14
Almost the same might be said about my native language, Greek, which I spoke in childhood and, as might be said, the “taste of the automatic associative power of which” I still retain. I could now, I dare say, express anything I wish in it, but to employ it for writing is for me impossible, for the simple and rather comical reason that someone must transcribe my writings and translate them into the other languages. And who can do this?
It could assuredly be said that even the best expert of modern Greek would understand simply nothing of what I should write in the native language I assimilated in childhood, because, my dear “compatriots,” as they might be called, being also inflamed with the wish at all costs to be like the representatives of contemporary civilization also in their conversation, have during these thirty of forty years treated my dear native language just as the Armenians, anxious to become Russian intelligentsia, have treated theirs.
That Greek language, the spirit and essence of which were transmitted to me by heredity, and the language now spoken by contemporary Greeks, are as much alike as, according to the expression of Mullah Nassr Eddin, “a nail is like a requiem.”
What is now to be done?
Ah . . . me! Never mind, esteemed buyer of my wiseacrings. If only there be plenty of French armagnac and “Khaizarian bastourma,” I shall find a way out of even this difficult situation.
Se puede asegurar sin temor a equivocarse que incluso el mejor experto en griego moderno no comprendería absolutamente nada de lo que yo pudiera escribir en la lengua materna que aprendí en mi infancia, debido a que mis queridos «compatriotas», por así llamarlos, inflamados con el deseo de parecerse a toda costa a los representantes de la civilización contemporánea también en su conversación, han tratado a mi amada lengua materna durante estos treinta o cuarenta años exactamente de la misma forma en que los armenios, ansiosos de imitar a la aristocracia rusa, trataron a la suya.
La lengua griega, cuyo espíritu y esencia me fueron transmitidos por la herencia, y el idioma que actualmente habla el pueblo griego se parecen tanto como, según la expresión de Mullah Nassr Eddin, «un clavo a un réquiem».
¿Qué haremos entonces?
¡Ay, ay!… no te aflijas, estimado consumidor de mis «sabihondeces». Si tan sólo dispusiera de abundante Armagnac francés y de «bastourma khaizariana», no tardaría en encontrar una salida incluso para situación tan difícil.