Some of my pupils would have rated less complimentary remarks, like that young man from the Balkans with the completely bald pate and reckless lady-killer manner, or that woefully plain young girl from the Near East with whose afflictions (chief among them rebellious and hardy tufts of hair on chin and upper lip, and – I suppose one would say- sideburns!) I duly commiserated, but who nevertheless subjected my eyes to not a little anguish during lessons. / It was this incurably persevering (and hopeless) pedagogical case that caused me one day during a private lesson to make an exclamation that my wife happened to overhear and which she was fond of telling on me. “Mademoiselle,” my wife heard me splutter and stutter, after a particularly excruciating agglomeration of sounds brought forth by her peculiar, stiff, rapierlike bowing, “Mademoiselle”… 'Vous jouez comme'…you’re playing like a….like a…” (my wife held her breath, fearing the worst) “…like a naval officer!” / What must have gone on in my mind during the outraged moments that preceded this outburst, what made me sublimate the insulting comparisons which were bubbling up to my lips into “naval officer,” must remain one of those minor mysteries of the subconscious that no amount of psychological insight will ever fathom. << less