Je ne parle pas français

Je ne parle pas français is a 1917 short story by Katherine Mansfield. It was first published by the Heron Press in 1920, and a revised version was later published in "Bliss and Other Stories". [Katherine Mansfield, "Selected Stories", Oxford World's Classics, explanatory notes]

Plot introduction

A French writer expounds his encounter with an English waiter and all that that brought on.

Title explanation

The title is French for, 'I do not speak French'. Those are the first words spoken to Raoul on Mouse's arrival.

Plot summary

The narrator describes a café he likes to go to, with the matron and the waiter. Then he recounts how, as a child, his maid would kiss his ears and give him cakes. He explains that he is a writer, lives in a rented flat, is 'rich' and has never dated women. Later, in the café he orders a whisky, which he hates but orders because he intends to write about a Frenchman, and he listens to the waiter sing an English song. He recounts how he met the waiter, Dick, at a party, and how he was invited to dinner a few days later. There they talked about literature 'but not only of literature'; by the end of the dinner, Dick sang his song again, and Raoul started crying... From then on, they spent a lot of time together, at his flat or so.

Out of the blue, Dick says he is leaving to England the following day and Raoul is offended. However, he then receives a nice letter from him, and finally another letter to say he is coming back indefinitely, and moving in with a woman and Raoul himself if he so wishes. After being bothered by his concierge, Raoul arrives at the train station, where he meets the woman, Mouse. They then go to a hotel by taxi together. There, after hauling the luggage up the stairs, Mouse orders tea, and Dick asks Raoul to send a letter to his mother. Mouse is crying and admits that things are bad. Later, Raoul reads out loud a letter by Dick to Mouse, in which he is breaking up with her. She is in despair, as she had already told her friends they were married.

At the end, Raoul says he never saw Mouse again, and he continues to go to seedy cafés.

Characters in "Je ne parle pas français"

*Raoul Duquette, the narrator, a Parisian man who likes to sit in a specific café. He has a published book out, "False Coins", and studies French literature.
*Madame, the matron at the helm of the café.
*Dick Harmon, the waiter in the café, an Englishman who speaks excellent French. He studies English literature.
*the concierge, which Raoul attempts to get away from.
*Dick's mother
*Mouse, Dick's girlfriend.

References to other works

* The opening speech by Orsino in Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare, through the use of the phrase 'dying fall' in brackets. [Katherine Mansfield, "Selected Stories", Oxford World's Classics, explanatory notes]
* Rudyard Kipling is mentioned when Raoul talks about literary soirées.
* Raoul refers to Puccini's opera Madame Butterfly upon reading his letter from Dick (Pinkerton being an absent husband). [Katherine Mansfield, "Selected Stories", Oxford World's Classics, explanatory notes]

Literary significance

The text is written in the modernist mode, without a set structure, and with many shifts in the narrative.

Footnotes

External links

* [http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/mansfield/bliss/francais.html Full Text]