Even with its backdrop of skyscrapers, the building in front of them, all enormous statues of lions and white columns and broad stone stairs, has a comfortingly familiar aesthetic. For Bastien, anyway. But that isn't the main draw. He didn't drag Ellis on this field trip to look at the lions. He brought him because of the words public and library.

"—and everyone who lives here has an account, because they pay for it all together with their taxes, and they can borrow books whenever they like," he's saying. "Most of them can read them, too. More than eighty percent of people here are literate. Eighty."

It's cold, but not so bad in the middle of the day like this. He's wearing a hoodie. He's enamored with the ability to use the front pocket as a muff.

"I know it isn't real, here, for us, but—can you imagine? Eighty."