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Autun, still as a churchyard. Tile roofs, dark with moss. The amphitheater. The great, central square: the Champ de Mars. Now, in the blue of autumn, it reappears, this old town, provincial autumn that touches the bone. The summer has ended. The garden withers. The mornings become chill. I am thirty, I am thirty-four—the years turn dry as leaves.
James Salter, A Sport and a Pastime