TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE

82. Give a complex analysis of the following texts, paying special attention to the non-finite forms of the verb, cases of inversion, double predicates, sub­stantivized parts of speech.

1. Not for a moment did Miss Honey doubt now, that she had met a truly extraordinary mathematical brain and the word child- genius went flitting through her head. She knew that these sort of wonders do pop up in the world from time to time, but only once or twice in a hundred years. After all, Mozart was only five when he started composing for the piano and look what happened to him. So the teacher could not resist the temptation of exploring still further the mind of this astonishing child. She knew that she ought to be paying some attention to the rest of the class but in vain did she try to do it. She was altogether too excited to let the matter rest.

2. "This particular type of poetry is called a limerick," Miss Honey, the teacher, said. "This one is very famous," she said, pick­ing up the book and returning to her table in front of the class. "A witty limerick is very hard to write," she added, "they look easy but they most certainly are not." "I know," Matilda said. "I've tried quite a few times but mine are never any good." "I insist upon hearing one of them," Miss Honey said, smiling one of her rare smiles. On hearing the limerick, written about her, Miss Honey's pale and pleasant face blushed a brilliant scarlet.

And now Miss Honey's hopes began to expand even fur­ther. She started wondering whether permission might not be got from the parents for her to give private tuition to Matilda after school. "There is no point," she said to the girl, "in you siting in class doing nothing while I am teaching the rest of the form how to spell cat and rat and mouse." The prospect of coaching a child as bright as this appealed enormously to her professional instinct as a teacher. Having got the address from the school records, Miss Honey found a house in a pleasant street. She rang the bell, and while she stood waiting she could hear the television blaring inside.

3. The door was opened by a small ratty-looking man, Matilda's father. "Please forgive me for butting in on you like this. I am Matilda's teacher at school and it is important I have a word with you and your wife. I expect you know that your daughter has a bril­liant mind." "We are not in favour of blue-stocking girls. A girl should think about making herself look attractive. A girl doesn't get a man by being brainy," the father said. Miss Honey could hardly believe what she was hearing. In vain did she try to explain that with the proper coaching Matilda could be brought up to university sta­tus in two or three years. "Who wants to go to university for heav­en's sake! All they learn there is bad habits!" "But if you got sued for selling someone a rotten second-hand car, you'd have to get a law­yer and he'd be a university graduate. Do not despise clever people, Mr. Wormwood, said Miss Honey and away she went."

4. Lavender was in the row behind Matilda, feeling a bit guilty. She hadn't intended to get her friend into trouble.

"You are not fit to be in this school!" The Headmistress was now shouting. "You ought to be behind bars, that's where you ought to be! I shall have you drummed out of this establishment in utter dis­grace! I shall have the prefects chase you down the corridor and out of the front-door with hockey-sticks! I shall have the staff es­cort you home after armed guard! And then I shall make absolutely sure you are sent to a reformatory for delinquent girls for the mini­mum of forty years!"

But Matilda was also losing her school. She didn't in the least mind being accused of having done something she had actually done. She could see the justice of that. It was, however, a totally new experience for her to be accused of a crime that she definitely had not committed. She had had absolutely nothing to do with that beastly creature in the glass!

Matilda, sitting in the second row, cupped her face in her hands, and this time she concentrated the whole of her mind and her brain and her will up into her eyes. Without making any sound at all she kept on shouting inside her head for the glass to go over. She saw it wobble, then, it tilted and fell on the table. Miss Honey's mouth dropped open but she didn't say a word. She couldn't. The shock of seeing the miracle performed had struck her dumb. She had gaped at the glass, leaning well away from it. Never, never in the life had she seen anything of the kind happen! She looked at Matilda. She saw the child white in the face, trembling all over, the eyes glazed, staring straight ahead and seeing nothing.

(From "Matilda" by R.Dahl)