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66 The French Language Revealed On a path unnamed even by a number, rocketing in the shell of our little car, we were beyond tired, demented by notions of cheese, meat, bed, most of all bed. Doomed to being lost forever, sniffing no scent of the mountain town not on our map, we braked beside a man in gray pants, gray jacket, gray hat. A quaint local peasant, skin the color of baked bread, returning from a work day for our benefit. I coveted his paper sack, fantasized hidden bottles, dreamed of a nearby mas bungalow as he twisted a face toward your French. Too much classroom, that’s another of our problems. Asking directions to the village of Mons emerged Où est mon vie?, Where is my life? The man seemed perplexed, then alarmed. Somewhere over hills to the right, Italy boiled in its swarthy oils; behind, money baked on the beaches of the Cote d’Azur. We three waited there, connected by a slender, silent thread. Then the man smiled, opened his arms and pointed grandly up the road before us. ...

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