195). It is in Europe and in
mediaeval and later times that this emphatic gesture seems to have
flourished as a violent method of expressing contempt. It was by
no means confined to the lower classes, and Kleinpaul, in
discussing this form of "speech without words," quotes examples
of various noble persons, even princesses, who are recorded thus
to have expressed their feelings. (Kleinpaul, _Sprache ohne
Worte_, pp. 271-273.) In more recent times the gesture has become
merely a rare and extreme expression of unrestrained feeling in
coarse-grained peasants. Zola, in the figure of Mouquette in
_Germinal_, may be said to have given a kind of classic
expression to the gesture. In the more remote parts of Europe it
appears to be still not altogether uncommon. This seems to be
notably the case among the South Slavs, and Krauss states that
"when a South Slav woman wishes to express her deepest contempt
for anyone she bends forward, with left hand raising her skirts,
and with the right slapping her posterior, at the same time
exclaiming: 'This for you!'" (Kryptadia, vol. vi, p. 200.)
A verbal survival of this gesture, consisting in the contemptuous
invitation to kiss this region, still exists among us in remote
parts of the country, especially as an insult offered by an angry
woman who forgets herself.
Pages:
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225