"We are their image. We are their antonym. We are their complement." The mayor lifted his head. "It’s not a bad death, Rodolphe. Some of us never find it in ourselves to leave this place. I’ll die here too someday, I swear it!" He raised his hand, and his voice. "We cannot be defeated! Even if Paysage itself were demolished, street by street, there would still be places like it in spirit. Our immortality is no less than theirs. Our life is the glow of renewal in the secret heart of age. It is the shadow of dissent, cast from resignation, in the restless light of hope!"