Foreign Tongue (35 page)
Authors: Vanina Marsot
V
ANINA
M
ARSOT
holds an MFA in literature and creative writing from the Bennington Writing Seminars. She has translated numerous television shows and feature film scripts. She divides her time between Paris and Los Angeles.
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FOREIGN TONGUE
. Copyright © 2009 by Vanina Marsot. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Adobe Digital Edition March 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-187193-1
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The story is entirely true, since I imagined it from start to finish.
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Desire possesses an indestructible persistence.
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There are two histories: the official, dissembling one, and the secret one, where the true causes of events are to be found.
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For in Paris almost all the lovers of a well-known woman are friends.
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I wanted to see that love in you.
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The verb “to love” is difficult to conjugate: its past is never simple, its present is but indicative, and its future is always conditional.
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What all the men I’ve loved have in common? Me!
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Happiness is empty, unhappiness is full.
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Does the soul of the cello disappear in the cry of a broken string?
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We think that when one thing ends, another one begins right away. No. In between, it’s chaos.
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In the realm of the sentiments, the real is no different from the imaginary.
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There is no greater misfortune than one’s own.
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And the seagulls delight in our anecdotes.
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One should not let intellectuals play with matches.
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The world, dear Agnes, is a strange affair.
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Why do your knees make me want to invent transitive verbs?
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The cock is feminine. The cunt is masculine. A matter of luck.
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French was not the language of European courts for several centuries because, as popular wisdom would have it, it is the most precise language, but because it is the language in which one can be most precisely imprecise.
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Nothing is more irresistible than a stranger. A man who walks into a bar is worth all the men one has lived with for twenty years.
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I loved you unfaithful, what would I have done if you were true?
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Irène: I’m hesitating between a sugar waffle and a love affair.
Old lady: Well, have the waffle!
Irène: Okay, a sugar waffle.
Cook: With lots of sugar?
Irène (sighing): Oh, yes.
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Certain sad and timid women blossom in the warmth of an admiring gaze, like flowers in sunlight.