"I turned back to the St. Michel fountain. St. Michel, the archangel, battling the devil with his sword--battling and winning. It was an odd fountain, backed up as it was against a building rather than being in the middle of the square and open on all sides. But it was massive, and I think I was always half open-mouthed whenever I looked at it, just staring. The waiter interrupted my catatonia with a third cup of coffee, one I hadn't ordered. "Do you know the story to the fountain?" he asked. I shook my head. "First, it was supposed to depict some symbol of peace," he said. "Then the sculptor changed his mind, or had it changed for him, and it was going to be Napoleon Bonaparte. But then there was an uproar about that, so we got the sword-swinging angel instead. "It is the Paris way. Only at the very end, after exhausting the other possibilities, do we choose the fighter."" -- from the back cover.
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