A small restaurant in Montparnasse. Service is ending, two artists cannot pay. There is as yet no legend, no posterity: a woman has worked, two men owe her money.
She counts, feeds, protects. In her, counting and caring are one and the same act — never the naive innkeeper.
The man who knows the doors — and above all the exits. He stays outside; he cannot bear to be held back.
The one who always goes home to someone, yet cannot bear to be held.
The true main character is not human: it is the fresco born on the wall. It does not speak; its state, its keeper and its value constitute its action. Each scene must change its state, its value, its visibility or its keeper. The humans pass; the work remains — hidden yet active.
Every solution creates a new problem; the concrete cuts short any sentimental flourish.
Tenderness arises from the concrete experience each already has of the other (interlude "La Réserve").
An absent figure governs several accounts; the most reliable testimony sometimes conceals the greatest self-interest.