“Trilby” by George du Maurier (post 3): “Trilby speaking English and French were two different beings” — “transformation” characterizes “Trilbyness”

Most people are a little different when speaking different languages, due to the languages themselves and the circumstances in which each language was acquired. But the narrator chooses to emphasize that “transformation” characterizes “Trilbyness”:

“Trilby speaking English and Trilby speaking French were two different beings. Trilby’s English was more or less that of her father, a highly-educated man…

“Trilby’s French was that of the Quartier Latin—droll, slangy, piquant, quaint, picturesque—…funny without being vulgar…

“…she handled her knife and fork in the dainty English way…

“But enter a Frenchman or two, and a transformation effected itself immediately—a new incarnation of Trilbyness—so droll and amusing that it was difficult to decide which of her two incarnations was the more attractive” (1, p. 75).

Many of the characters in this novel are bilingual, but Trilby is the only character prone to “transformation” (switches in personality).

1. George du Maurier. Trilby [1894]. London, Everyman/J. M. Dent, 1994.