Arthur and Clementine

An adaptation for beginner level ADULT LEARNERS

2. A nice spring day, Arthur and Clementine, two young and beautiful tortoises, meet by a pond. That very same afternoon they realise they are in love and get married.

3. Clementine, cheerful and unconcerned, makes many plans for their future life, while they walk along the pond banks and fish something for dinner.

4. Clementine says: ‘we’ll be very happy together. We’ll travel and know new places and different turtles, we’ll discover new fish, and other plants and flowers in the banks it’ll be a wonderful life! We can even travel abroad. You know what?… I’ve always wanted to go to Venice… and Arthur just smiles and nods.

5. But every day is the same by the pond bank. At lunch time, he asks Clementine: ‘how are you, darling? ’and Clementine says: I’ve been very bored!’ Waiting for you all day long!’ bored! Arthur protests. ‘You say you are bored? Only the stupid ones get bored! Clementine feels ashamed.

6. One day, when Arthur comes back, Clementine tells him: ‘I want to have a flute and learn how to play; But Arthur does not like the idea: you! Playing the flute? You don’t even know the scales! You just can’t learn!. You are not gifted!. Clementine is worried about her stupidity.

7. And that very same night, Arthur comes with a lovely gramophone, and …..

……he ties it to Clementine’s shell, and he says: ‘this way you won’t lose it… you are so absent- minded!

8. That night before she goes to sleep, she asks herself: why do I have to carry this heavy gramophone?

9. For a few days Clementine listens to the gramophone. Then, she gets tired. She feels bored again. She tells Arthur “I want to be a painter” but Arthur answers: ‘Don’t be ridiculous! Do you think you are an artist?’ ‘That’s stupid! He laughs! Clementine is still very worried but she says nothing.

10. Some days later, Arthur buys a picture for Clementine because she is very interested in art. “. Here you are. Tie it up firmly, or you’ll lose it. You are so absent-minded!’”

11. Arthur buys more and more. One day, he adds a Murano crystal vase to her shell: “Here you are. Tie it up firmly, or you’ll lose it. You are so absent-minded!”

12. Another day he comes home with a collection of Austrian smoking pipes in a glass cabinet.

13. Then, an encyclopedia that makes Clementine want to learn to read.

14. Now it is the time to add another floor to Clementine’s house.

15 Clementine thinks: “it is difficult to move with a two storey house on my back.”

16. Arthur adds more floors to Clementine’s house!

17. Clementine’s house is now a skyscraper, and one spring morning she decides…

18. …to go out for a walk without her shell: it is wonderful but very short.

19. Little by little, the walk becomes a habit and Clementine feels happier with her new life. But Arthur doesn’t know anything, and says: ‘what the hell are you laughing about? You look stupid!’

20. But Clementine isn’t worried this time.

21. One day Arthur finds the house empty

22. He is very angry, and doesn’t understand. Years after, he still tells his friends: ‘she is really ungrateful that Clementine, she had everything she could wish. A twenty-five floor house she had! All full of treasures

23. Tortoises live many years and it is possible that Clementine is still travelling happily the world. It is possible that she plays the flute and paints beautiful flowers and plants with watercolours. If you happen to meet a houseless tortoise, try to call her ‘Clementine, Clementine!’ and if she answers, that’s her!