-dum_! I was vexed, but I understood him for all that!

In like manner he taught me modern history. I did not understand, it is
true, the words which he spoke, but as he constantly drummed while
speaking, I knew what he meant. This is, fundamentally, the best method.
The history of the storming of the Bastile, of the Tuileries, and the
like, cannot be correctly understood until we know how _the drumming_
was done on such occasions. In our school compendiums of history we
merely read: "Their Excellencies the Barons and Counts and their noble
spouses, their Highnesses the Dukes and Princes and their most noble
spouses were beheaded. His Majesty the King, and his most illustrious
spouse, the Queen, were beheaded."--But when you hear the red march of
the guillotine drummed, you understand it correctly for the first time,
and with it the how and the why. Madame, that is really a wonderful
march! It thrilled through marrow and bone when I first heard it, and I
was glad that I forgot it. People are apt to forget things of this kind
as they grow older, and a young man has nowadays so much and such a
variety of knowledge to keep in his head--whist, Boston, genealogical
registers, decrees of the Federal Council, dramaturgy, the liturgy,
carving--and yet, I assure you that really, despite all the jogging up
of my brain, I could not for a long time recall that tremendous time!
And only to think, Madame! Not long ago I sat one day at table with a
whole menagerie of counts, princes, princesses, chamberlains,
court-marshalesses, seneschals, upper court mistresses, court keepers of
the royal plate, court hunters' wives, and whatever else these
aristocratic domestics are termed, and _their_ under-domestics ran about
behind their chairs and shoved full plates before their mouths; but I,
who was passed by and neglected, sat idle without the least occupation
for my jaws, and kneaded little bread-balls, and drummed with my
fingers, from boredom, and, to my astonishment, I found myself suddenly
drumming the red, long-forgotten guillotine march.

"And what happened?" Madame, the good people were not in the least
disturbed, nor did they know that _other_ people, when they can get
nothing to eat, suddenly begin to drum, and that, too, very queer
marches, which people have long forgotten.

Is drumming now an inborn talent, or was it early developed in me?
Enough, it lies in my limbs, in my hands, in my feet, and often
involuntarily manifests i