48 LOLA 



" Lola, now attend ; you are going to learn to spell : 

 you must rap out a word made of the letters you have 

 learnt ; now Wald (wood or forest) is w, a, 1, d," 

 and I accentuated each letter very distinctly. " How 

 many letters are there in this word ? " I added, and 

 the answer was "4." 



" Good," I said, adding : " What is the first letter ? " 

 and she tapped in reply : " " " ; " and the next ? " 

 " \" ; " and then ? " ^ ; and further ? " " ~." 

 " Lola now listen to all the words I am going to say : 

 essen ( = to eat, also " food "), e, s, s, e, n ; gut 

 ( == good), g, u, t ; milch ( = milk), m, i, 1, c, h " ; 

 and so on. For many days I continued to name the 

 words which lay nearest to her understanding, and 

 each day I got her to do a little spelling, after first 

 having divided the letters. But at the end of eight 

 days I no longer took the words to pieces merely 

 saying, very distinctly : " rap Of en " (= stove), and 

 she would tap: "7 16 5 27 " = o f e n. "Rap 

 Haus " ( = house). This answer was : " 24, 9, 35 " 

 * h, a, u, s. Whenever she rapped I jotted down the 

 figures in order to translate them later on into letters, 

 for it was some time before I could sufficiently memorize 

 their equivalents, and was constantly making mistakes 

 after Lola had become an " expert." Indeed, one's 

 memory is easily liable to play tricks here in a way 

 that may lead to endless confusion, for the sequence 

 of the numbers is so at variance with what one is 

 accustomed to. 



Once I asked by way of experiment-" What is 

 this ? " touching her nose. At first she seemed 

 uncertain, but then came the reply : " 3 " = nein 

 (no) ; so I said : " Lola, that is your nose ; tap nose ! " 

 and she tapped " 27, 4, 35, 5 " = nase (nose) 

 " Good I " I said, " and what is this ? " and I touched 



