“It’s your prostate,” she says.

You tell her that you resent her recognition that you have un prostate.

“Une prostate,” she corrects. “Your prostate is feminine.”

It’s moments like this when you’re forced to confront the fact that your French will always play second fiddle to your English. You generally don’t mind being corrected for an erroneous conjugation of tenses, other than perhaps a slight embarrassment at the thought that you should have known better. But mistaking the gender of a noun as personal as your prostate is more than linguistic, it touches on your very sense of self. It reminds you of your tenuous grasp on the nature of things. Of course, reproductive anatomy wasn’t on your vocabulary lists in French class in high school, and you managed to live in France for this long without questioning the gender of your prostate. But that’s no consolation for now being informed, however matter-of-factly and by a close friend, that of late you’ve been awakened in the middle of the night by a feminine prostate.

Still, honesty from an old friend is to be accepted with grace. And more comes when, upon your return to the seat, she tells you about her uterus.

She’d been sent for an MRI, she explains, and has just gotten the results. “The doctor says that there’s nothing to worry about, just a few harmless polyps that no one will notice. What’s more disconcerting is that my husband and I aren’t having sex anymore. Not disconcerting for me, but for him, meaning for us, therefore for me, because now we have to talk whenever there’s a problem, but he’s never been good at that, which wasn’t a problem before because we would have sex instead, but now what do we do?, we sulk and imagine we don’t love each other anymore.”

Just then, thankfully, the lights of the theater start to dim and her monologue fizzles out. As the curtain rises you lean over and congratulate her on having une uterus saine (a healthy uterus).

“Un uterus sain,” she corrects, for it turns out that not only is your prostate feminine but her uterus is masculine—and not just hers but all uteri!

The play is a comédie de boulevard, meaning that it’s full of conventional sexism, mistaken identities and witty word play. Aside from some contemporary twists and political commentary, it follows the genre well as the husband, his young would-be mistress, the wife, her young lover the plumber, and several minor characters enter and exit in insatiable, farce-inducing desire and quid pro quo. Though predictable, it’s quite funny and well acted. However, while watching the circus of desire you find yourself stuck with the triply disturbing thought that your testosterone level been decreasing, that your old friend now shares stories about grandchildren and polyps instead of lovers and parties, and that your prostate as it exists in your adopted country is feminine. Admittedly, your testosterone level peaked at 20, your friend adores her grandchildren, and you’ve always lived with une prostate, but being faced with all three at once is disheartening.

You have trouble concentrating on the play, though not much concentration is required as the husband hides his mistress beneath the bed while the wife’s lover hides behind the curtain.

It’s one of those precious, ornate late-19th-century theaters whose red velour seating was installed when the average Parisian man was 5’6”. There’s basically only one way to sit in such a theater: with straight back, knees clamped together and forearms fighting for armrest dominance with the neighbor. Between the confining position and your new understanding of la prostate, you felt a certain pressure down below. While on stage the husband opens the curtain to reveal a shirtless handyman who now tries to explain that his shirt got wet from plumbing work, you need to pee again.

It isn’t urgent; it isn’t even truly a need; it can wait until intermission, but you’ll be thinking about it until then. You sneak a look at your phone to see what time it is. Well, sneak is the intent, but checking the time on your phone lights up the entire row. The actors on stage might well notice the light coming from your lap. The woman sitting to the opposite side of you from your friend certainly does. “Tsk,” she pronounces with a distinctly Parisian accent. This is soon followed by the sound of the vibration of your friend’s phone in her pocket as it presses against the armrest. She can’t resist having a look at the message that it signals, further lighting up the row and eliciting from the neighbor on her other side a Parisian “pff.”

As the curtain falls for intermission, your friend turns to you. “It’s a message from my husband,” she says, with the same eye-roll as the wife on stage.

“What does he want?”

“Reassurance.”

“Well, go reassure him,” I say. “I’ll take a little walk.”

“OK,” she says. “I’ll do what I have to do. You do what you have to do.”

And so, like the aging good friends that we are, we do, before the curtain goes up for more plumbing jokes.

© 2020, Gary Lee Kraut

The post You know you live in Paris when… you have une prostate appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

By Kim Sotman

As I sat on the London Underground listening to the chatter of conversations around me the voices blended together. I couldn’t pick out individual conversations or understand actual words. That’s funny, I thought, what language is that?

Honing in on one single conversation, I listened intently, and suddenly realized that it was English! My ears have grown so accustomed to hearing French wherever I go that I actually didn’t recognize my native language. Granted, it was British English and I’m from Texas, but it was still harder for me to discern than if I’d been listening to a French conversation!

After two months in France, I made a trip to England to visit some friends who are studying there. The sea of people speaking English was a welcome sound to my ears, once I understood that’s what they were speaking, but it also made me realize how ingrained French has become in my brain.

Walking off the Eurostar train at London’s St Pancras station, I saw signs pointing me to the exit written in two languages. The first bold set of words said “Way Out” with an arrow. Way out? I thought …that’s not how I would say exit. I looked below and saw the French translation, “Sortie” which immediately clicked in my head with no hesitation.

How can it be that my native language was suddenly so foreign to me? This continued to happen to me throughout my five-day stay. When walking through a crowd, my first instinct was to utter the French “pardon” or “excusez-moi,” the simple English phrase escaping me. Ordering a coffee was effortlessly simple, and yet I found myself translating the phrase from French in my head when the words came out of my mouth in English. I didn’t have to plan what I was going to say or worry about conjugating my verbs correctly, but my head continued to do it anyway, the French gears still turning.

It was an odd sensation. It felt like my words were going through an extra distillation process—from English to French and back again. It made me realize how much my two months of full immersion in Paris have deepen my knowledge of French and how much deeper it’ll be by the time I leave Europe seven months from now.

Three weeks into my stay in Paris, I had a friend come visit me before her classes started in England for the semester. (She was one of the friends that I was visiting on the above-mentioned trip.) She had decided to study abroad in an English-speaking country because she didn’t speak a foreign language, thus she was pretty nervous about coming to Paris; French was a complete mystery to her.

During her stay, I served as her interpreter. Otherwise she would ask for things by pointing or through elaborate sign language. So I handled all of our transactions, from ordering at restaurants, to buying metro tickets, to conversing with my host family who were kind enough to let her stay with me. Even though I pretty much stuck to the script of communicating her wishes to others, anytime I wasn’t specifically ordering her food, she got nervous that I was talking about her. Paranoid would be a better word. She would become even more nervous if laughter was involved. My host family and I did in fact have a good laugh about this, possibly at her expense, saying that I really could say anything I want about her and she would never know.

I wonder if my friend had a more relaxing time (paranoia aside) not speaking French when in Paris than I did speaking English yet thinking French in London. After all, while in France she got to sit back while I took her words and decoded them for other French speakers. On the other hand, when I was in London my words went from English to French and back again, as though the French gears in my brain were saying “Don’t forget about us!”

But I’m glad to have those French gears turning, even if it sometimes interrupts my English, because it’s a precious sign that I’m learning and changing, and will continue to do so for the rest of my time in Europe.

Kim Sotman is a junior at Tulane University who is studying in Paris for the 2009-2010 school year. She is from Fort Worth, Texas.

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It was a tough assignment, not only because we callously provided no context for understanding Pauline’s mindset but also because those sticky words “organisations impressionnables” are so annoyingly French-Cartesian.

Kudos to those 8 of the 10 that truly wrestled with the text. The other 2, as you’ll read, are the results of on-line translation software, included here as cautionary tales.

First the original, by Alexandre Dumas

Pauline avait une de ces organisations impressionnables comme il en faut aux artistes, et sans laquelle un voyage n’est qu’un simple changement de localités, une accélération dans le mouvement habituel de la vie, un moyen de distraire son esprit par la vue même des objets qui devraient l’occuper : pas un souvenir historique ne lui échappait ; pas une poésie de la nature, soit qu’elle se manifestât à nous dans la vapeur du matin ou le crépuscule du soir, n’était perdue pour elle.

Now the 10 translations

1. A valiant attempt by a Frenchman
Pawleen had one of these sensitive complexions that fit to the artists and of which the absence turns down a trip to a simple change of cities, an acceleration in the usual life motion, a mean of entertainment to one’s mind by the very sight of the objects that should interest it: not a single historical remind would escape to it, not a single poetic manifestation of nature, whether it should happen in the morning mist or in the dawn of the evening, was lost for it.
Translated by J-F.Q., Paris

2. Google this, of Artagnan
Pauline was one of these organizations impressionable as it takes to artists, and without which a trip is simply a change of locations, an acceleration in the movement of normal life, a way to distract his mind by the sight even objects that should occupy: not a historical memory escapes him, not a poetry of nature, it is manifestation of us in the steam of the morning or evening twilight, was lost for her.
Translated by Google

3. Dusk in Canada
Pauline had one of those sensitive constitutions, the kind artists have, without which travel is simply a change of place, an acceleration in the habitual movement of life, a way of distracting one’s mind by simply looking at the things that should otherwise engage it: no historical allusion escaped her; none of the poetry of nature, whether it revealed itself in morning mist or in evening dusk, was lost to her.
Translated by S.T., Montreal

4. Twilight in Philadelphia
Pauline had one of those impressionable dispositions essential to artists, without which a voyage is nothing but a simple change of location, an acceleration of life’s habitual movement, a way of distracting one’s mind even at the sight of those objects that ought to engage it; no historic memory escaped her, no poetry of nature, whether showing itself to us in the morning mist or in the evening’s twilight, was lost to her.
Translated by L.H.M, Philadelphia

5. A New York state of mind
Pauline reacted to life as it came, the way artists do; without that approach travel is simply a change of place, an acceleration in the routine of life, a way of distracting the mind by looking at objects that should stimulate it: no historical memory escaped her; none of the poetry of nature, whether revealed to us in the haze of morning or the dusk of evening, was lost to her.
Translated by J.L., New York City

6. From the streets of Chicago
Pauline, she a sensitive girl, got a psyche like gunpowder, like artists do. She not one of them people go traveling somewhere just to be in a different town and to get the heart pumping by filling the eyes with scenes that supposed to get the juices flowing; nothing escaped that girl; she open to all the songs of nature—she wake up with it, she go to sleep with it; she took it all in.
Translated by Jim, Chicago

7. From the pathways of cyberspace
Pauline had one of these impressionable organizations as it is necessary some for the artists, and without whom a voyage is only one simple change of localities, an acceleration in the usual movement of the life, a means of distracting its spirit by the sight even of the objects which should occupy it: not a historical memory did not escape to him; not a poetry of nature, that is to say that it appeared with us in the vapor of the morning or the twilight of the evening, was not lost for it.
Translated by systranet.fr

8. Mist in Columbia
Pauline’s approach had a sensitive touch as artists are wont to have and without which traveling is merely trading places, a stimulus in life’s continuum, a way to entertain one’s mind through the sight of objects that should nourish its reflection—no historical reference escaped her notice nor was any of nature’s mystique lost on her, whether we felt its presence in the morning’s mist or the evening’s dusk.
Translated by Jean-Marie, Columbia, SC

9. Fog here
Pauline had an impressive organization, the kind an artist would need, and without it, a trip would be nothing but a swapping of places, a sped-up version of the day-to-day, a way to distract the mind at the sight of these objects, objects that should capture her imagination: not a single historical memory escaped her, not a single poetry of nature, be it that it revealed itself to us as the morning fog or as the sunset at dusk, passed her by.
Translated by Anne-Louise

10. Übersetzt d’Artagnan!
Pauline war jemand von diesen beeindruckenden Organisationen großer Künstler für die eine Reise nur ein einfacher Ortswechsel, eine gewohnte Beschleunigung des Tagesablaufs ist, ein Mittel zur Ablenkung des Blicks auf das Immergleiche, das einen beschäftigt: Nicht, um eine historische Erinnerung einzufangen; auch nicht, um die Poesie der Natur zu erleben, wie sie sich uns im Morgen- oder Abend-Tau manifestiert, dies alles entging ihr.
Translated (into German) by E.K., Berlin

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Pauline avait une de ces organisations impressionnables comme il en faut aux artistes, et sans laquelle un voyage n’est qu’un simple changement de localités, une accélération dans le mouvement habituel de la vie, un moyen de distraire son esprit par la vue même des objets qui devraient l’occuper : pas un souvenir historique ne lui échappait ; pas une poésie de la nature, soit qu’elle se manifestât à nous dans la vapeur du matin ou le crépuscule du soir, n’était perdue pour elle.

Anyone interested in giving a try a translating that for us? All valiant efforts will be posted.

A trio of readers sits at the base of the statue of Alexandre Dumas on place du Général Catroux in Paris’s 17th arrondissement.

Here are the top 10 responses.

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* * *

Ever brush against a paranoid schizophrenic in the New York subway? That’s what it’s like when you don’t say Bonjour to a salesperson in Paris. It may seem harmless enough, but you can then nearly read the thoughts of a non-bonjoured salesperson: “The (foreign) bastard didn’t even say bonjour and now he expects me to help him?, who does he think I am, his slave?, etc., etc.” You don’t want to know the rest.

As Americans we believe in the power of the smile; in France it’s a courteous greeting that gets you off on the right foot. Always say “Bonjour” as you enter a small shop or bakery or as you approach a vendor or anyone behind a counter. This equally holds true in situations where you’re requesting information from someone on the street or on the phone. It’s culturally incumbent upon the client or inquirer to begin with bonjour (bonsoir after sunset or 6pm, whichever comes first). Starting with bonjour will not suddenly make salespeople warm and helpful, but failure to say it makes you seem rude and allows them to feel self-righteous for providing shoddy service or information.

When the salesperson or information-giver is busy elsewhere or when you wish to stop someone on the street for information, interrupt with “Excusez-moi” before proceeding with the request—and it can’t hurt to throw in a bonjour or bonsoir there either.

Don’t forget the Bonjour Rule. Otherwise you may just find yourself dealing with that paranoid schizophrenic on the New York subway.

Consider yourself warned.

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