Consider the ortolan: Years ago, I was, improbably, on the Champs-Elysées, drinking in a sidewalk cafe late at night with my then-girlfriend and a Belgian stranger. He was named, improbably, Claude Souvenir (he swore it wasn't a pseudonym). We met him at a small, dark restaurant run by a blind Frenchman-the owner and only waiter-whose daughter was
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