Ballad of the Sad Cafes
By Christopher Dickey, Newsweek Web Exclusive, http://www.newsweek.com/id/179276
I. Fill in the gaps with ONLY ONE WORD. (8 marks)
This winter, the coldest Paris ______seen in years, the sidewalks in front of many cafés are full. Under electric heating lamps, customers sip their coffees or their Cokes or maybe the rare ______of wine or beer, and they smoke. ______a year now the inside of the café, even a "café-tabac" that has a license to sell cigarettes and cigars, has been off limits to those ______want to light up.
The ban was a long ______coming, and the French are adapting to the world's changing norms in their own ______and their own good time. But there's no question that something of the old Paris has gone. The cafés that once served as lounges for the poor, meeting rooms for businessmen, tabletop for artists, ______losing not only clientele but their true character. The smell was part of ______.
II. Fill in the gaps with the words given below. (9 marks)
account, along, clinging, common, disappearing, exists, fight, stand, time
The cafés themselves have been ______for decades, their meals highly taxed, their former clients pressed for ______. I have been ______to Le Central, a café-tabac near my apartment, where the patron, 71-year-old Roger Peresse has always been full of opinions about history and politics, and of ______sense about his own business.
"Why aren't you out protesting?" I asked him in 2007, when other owners were marching in the streets trying to make a last ______against the smoking ban. "You cannot ______the times," he said. "People are smoking less. They do not want this any more." In 2003, he said, he sold 30,000 units of cigars and cigarettes. In 2007, he sold 14,000. Always proud of his collection of Havanas, they used to ______for more than 30 percent of his business, now there were days when he sold only one or two. "A cigar is about pleasure, and pleasure no longer ______," said his wife Madame Peresse, who also runs the establishment, ______with their son, in the old French family way.
III. Parts of the text (A-G) went missing. Fill in the gaps. (7 marks)
1. Monsieur Peresse died
2. apart from the lunch hour
3. it is somehow a sign of the times
4. even when he could no longer work
5. Monsieur Peresse fought against cancer
6. the café rearranged its walls to accommodate smokers outside
7. alcohol was a continuous ritual for many a French working man
When Monsieur Peresse started out in the 1960s, …(A)….: coffee and calvados to start the day, maybe a glass of white wine later in the morning, aperitif, before lunch, red wine with the meal, another calvados, another aperitif in the afternoon, more red wine with dinner. He would laugh and shake his head, almost amazed at the memory.
In recent months, …(B)…. Maybe all those years in the smoke-filled café were part of the reason for his disease. That's not an unreasonable assumption. But his doctors told him he should keep going back to Le Central, …(C)…. They hoped the familiar place would keep him going where their treatments failed. At considerable expense, …(D)…, and many still huddle there at lunch or in the early evening. But inside, …(E)…, the place was empty. In December, after the slowest month that Le Central had seen in 20 years of business, …(F)…. I cannot help but feel that …(G)….
IV. Which subtitle fits best to the article? (3 marks)
A) The death of an icon
B) Smoking is all time high in Paris
C) How Paris is coping with its bistro smoking ban
D) Paris café patrons protesting
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This is the end of the test.
Check your marks with the help of the key on the next page.
Key
I. has, glass (bottle), for, who, time, way, are, that
II. disappearing, time, clinging, stand, fight, account, exists, along
III. alcohol was a continuous ritual for many a French working man; Monsieur Peresse fought against cancer; even when he could no longer work; the café rearranged its walls to accommodate smokers outside; apart from the lunch hour; Monsieur Peresse died; it is somehow a sign of the times
IV. C
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