Often in the afternoon, I turn from the Boulevard Raspail onto the Rue Emile Richard, which on each side is lined by parked cars and the stone walls of the Montparnasse cemetery. It is a straight street, and narrow, and on clear days it is bathed in the setting sun. Motor traffic runs only south, but pedestrians go both ways. All along, plane trees rise from the earth, each starting alone before joining together to hold the sky in perfect silence and dip as one with the still wind. Looking up I am stunned again by the familiar twists of strange branches. Theirs is always the bare truth.