They walked to a diminutive temple under pines, beach and ash trees eighty or ninety years old. The temple was a semi-circular building of limestone, a soft brown limestone shell, its roof and pillars in a bad way; a couple of the pillars were lying on the ground, pigeons sitting on curving pediments, weeds among the floor stones.
"It's Rousseau's Temple de la Philosophie ... yeah, but it's falling down ... I used to play here. See that stone slab, lying at the entrance, you can read the inscription."
They bent over the stone but were unable to read the words for weeds and rubble.
"Was the temple made for Rousseau?"
"No ... it was made later ... he lived in the pavilion of the château."
"I've been here lots of times..."
"Have you visited the château? Is it open these days?"
"Lena took me ... it's closed ... but we got to see the place, the wonderful tapestries in the salon ... remember we don't have many châteaux in Wisconsin."
"Canoes," he said. "Canoes instead of châteaux."
"Are you good with the paddle?"