Setting: A small café in the heart of Paris in 1942. It is a crisp spring afternoon, and the last traces of snow have just melted away. The surrounding streets are full of bustling Parisians running their daily lives, completing task after task in a monotonous fashion. M. Guy de Champlain is sitting at a two-person table next to the window. The publisher of French-Algerian writer and philosopher, Albert Camus, is reading Camus' newest paper, The Myth of Sisyphus. Champlain glances outside where

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... he sees a smartly dressed woman in a navy suit and straw hat crossing the street, her string of pearls glinting brightly in the sun. A blonde German officer walks past the window with a lofty gait, the only evidence he sees of the Nazi occupation that exists in Paris. Yet, seeing children run excitedly down the street and a group of assorted people chatting in an animated manner on the café's sunlit terrace, their salads providing bright splashes of color on the tabletops, provide Champlain with a reminder that life goes on.