This morning the hill behind the square put out a little cardboard sign. The Quiet Sunshine Club was open, the marmots were already in a polite line, and the keeper handed each guest a moss pillow no bigger than a bun.
We asked at the kiosk by the path. A man with a paper cup said he had come to count clouds and stayed because a marmot nodded at him first, then at a daisy, and only then rolled onto its back for a single sunbeam. They take one ray, he told us. The rest of noon they leave for the grass.
A day later the same marmot came back for the same pillow. The keeper still asked, very softly, that nobody wake a neighbor before tea.