The master contemplated his puppet from across the sidewalk and through the scissor legs of the public, who stalked by, oblivious. Up the street the headless accordionist was playing the same old ditty to a new gaggle of mothers and children. What an imbecile, the master thought. Still, there was something not quite right with his own condition. The puppet bore a guitar. Should it be a saxophone? The master smoked and pondered, in the shadow of Notre Dame's arse, of its flying buttresses and clover windows.

This was the territory of postcards and magnets, of sodas and ice cream and pale, doughy panninis to be pressed. Tourist Paris in the dead of winter, the sun pressing in vain against the entrapping sidewalk gray.

We resolved to walk along the Seine.