"On Friday night," "Our Hero was asked to a party by someone from work." "As usual, absolutely nothing happened." "A few years ago Our Hero had, as they say, a "breakdown"." "A dreadfull ethargy crushed him for months." "He saw the universe as a furtive gathering of elementary particles," "a fleeting shape on the way to chaos." "Human life would vanish." "The cold, empty heavens would vanish too, streaked by the dim light ofdyingstars." "This girl came to work in a mini-miniskirt!" "Up to her bum!" "Wear what you want, I say, but you don't have to pull every guy!" "What matters most is the inner you." "To love yourself." " Right!" "Who needs men?" " Stuff them." "The last dregs of the collapse of feminism." "On a normal weekend," "I saw nobody." "I hung around at home, feeling quietly depressed," "did some housework..." "But today I had to find my car." "A Peugeot 104." "I'd parked it in Boulogne, but where?" "I must say, ever since I bought it that car was nothing but trouble." "Countless obscure repairs, small accidents..." "The other drivers always act cool, get out their insurance and say "no problem", but if looks could kill!" "It's very unpleasant." "And, when I thought aboutit," "I mostly stayed in at weekends." "For holidays, I usually took package tours or stayed at resorts." "Why have a car?" "I could report it stolen." "Carthefts were on the rise, especially in the suburbs." "Everyone would understand." "The insurance company, and my colleagues." "I couldn't admit I'd lost it." "I'd be a laughing stock." "A freak." "A clown." "This wasn't the stuff of comedy." "This was how reputations and friendships got made and broken." "I know life." "I've been there." "To admit losing your car is to commit social suicide." "Thank you, Jesus!" "No thanks." "Asshole!" "Thank you, Lord, for all your help." "Thy will be done." "Thou art the Lord!" "Thy mercy is everlasting!" "After a chaotic start," "Our Hero did quite well at school." "Now, as a middle manager earning 2.5 times the minimum wage, he had a respectable income." "He looked set for a shining career within the company." "He was generally content with his status." "His sex life, however, was less dazzling." "He'd known a few women, but briefly." "Since Véronique and I split up 2 years ago," "I'd had no sex at all." "Had a good weekend?" "Don't ask." "I'm knackered." "My half-hearted attempts had all failed, predictably." "Two years sounds long, but in fact, if you're working, it goes fast." "Ask anyone." "It goes very fast." "Our Hero shared his offiice with Bernard, fresh out of Electronics and Automation School." "I wondered what he did with his life, except watch movies and buy CDs." "If he'd had any children, something might have come from the swarm of baby Bernards," "but no, he wasn't even married." "Dried fruit." "But I didn't really pity him." "Good old, dear old Bernard." "I dare say he was happy to his own, limited extent, on a Bernardian scale." "It's strange." "There's a bad smell in my house, on the stairs." "Probably a dead rat!" "Bad odours make good talking points," "I'd already noticed." "I always felt a bit nervous about meeting new clients." "There'd be human beings, arranged in a certain order," "with whom I'd have to interact." "Tomorrow, okay." "No problem." "I can be there at 7." "I get off at 6." "I can make it by 7." "Just a sec..." "Room 317, please." "2nd floor, turn right." "The stairs are behind you." "Experience soon taught me that the people I had to meet" "were, if not exactly identical, very similar in their habits, opinions, tastes and basic attitudes to life." "In theory, there was nothing to fear." "Business meetings, especially, are normally quite safe." "Can I help you?" "I'm due to meet Catherine Lechardoy." "I'm not sure she's in." "I saw her earlier." "You can wait in her office." "However," "I'd noticed that people like to differentiate themselves in nasty little ways, using tics, mannerisms, etc..." "AGRICULTURE MINISTRY SOFTWARE PROJECT ...to make others see them as full individuals." "So A plays tennis," "B enjoys riding and C goes in for golf." "Different paths for different lives." "So, although the first meeting is mapped out, there is always, alas, a margin of uncertainty." "Your vanishing act wasn't appreciated by the Agriculture Ministry." "Our Hero had done wrong." "We're at our clients' service." "In our business, second chances are rare." "The only excuse I could find was that my car had been stolen." "I said I was traumatized, but I would fight it." "Your car?" "A German anti-historical philosopher died in 1860 believing the universe looks like an aimless game but is really, in itself, absolute free will." "The concepts he laid down could still be seen in modern life, but in such altered form that they barely seemed valid." "Supermarket Logic had the effect of splintering desire." "Supermarket Man became unable to have just one desire." "This caused a dulling of the will in Modern Man." "TORRID RUM" "WHITE LOAF 63.60, please." "At times, when I wanted to be happy," "I thought I'd learn ballroom dancing." "For later." "For another life... which I'd live by night, mainly by night," "and not alone." "Why did women flee from my sight?" "Did I look too needy?" "Fanatical?" "Angry or perverse?" "I didn't know." "I'd probably never know." "But it blighted my life." "Frankly, we had a big problem with your previous software." "Of course, I don't choose what we buy." "I'm just a servant." "I clean up the mess." "I don't choose what we sell." "Granted!" "But if everyone followed basic programming rules, we'd have less anarchy." "But they don't!" "They just do what they like!" "No cooperation!" "No planning!" "No harmony!" "Paris is a ghastly city." "Nobody connects." "It's all superficial." "Nobody cares - hello - about their work." "They're gone at 6, even if the job's not done!" "In Paris you could die in the street, nobody'd lift a finger." "Where I come from, in Béarn, life is real." "People know me, and they know I know them." "Every weekend," "Catherine went home to Béarn." "She was taking night classes to get ahead." "In 3 years, with luck, she might get a degree." "What do you study?" "Financial control, factoral analysis, accountancy, algorithms." "Must be hard work." "It was hard work." "But she wasn't scared of work." "She worked till midnight alone in her bed-sit, studying." "You have to fight for what you want, no?" "That's what I think, anyway." "Maybe Catherine and I would hit it off." "She seemed determined to keep control." "All I had to do was turn up and teach." "That suited me fine." "The next Saturday, from 8 to 11," "Our Hero socialized with a priest friend." "They'd met as students, when they were 20." "The restaurant was good." "No problem there." "But was he still my friend?" "After graduating, he entered a seminary." "He branched off." "Now he's a priest in Vitry." "Not an easy parish." "Society's so-called "obsession with sex"" "in advertising, magazines and the other media, is just a fiction." "Most people quickly tire of it, but pretend they don't." "An odd, inverted hypocrisy." "Our civilization, actually, is tired of life." "Under Louis XIV, the lust for life was huge but carnal pleasure was firmly condemned." "Worldliness was seen to be imperfect and God, the one true source of happiness." "An impossible message today!" "We need adventure and eroticism to keep reminding us our lives are fun and thrilling, because we rather doubt it." "Nowadays, everyone feels like a failure." "At some point in life, I mean." "Come back to God, or see an analyst." "I don't claim to be perfectly well-balanced" "You're lonely." "Much too lonely." "It's unnatural." "Accept your divine nature!" "Accept your divine nature." "I'll give it a try." "Our Hero managed to live by the rules." "Sometimes barely, sometimes very barely, but all in all he managed it." "I filed my tax returns, paid my bills on time, always carried my ID... but I had no friends." "The rules were complex, multifarious." "In his free time he had to shop, with draw cash from ATMs and pay the various authorities which governed his life." "Buying a bed was fraught with problems." "For one thing, delivery." "It means taking half a day off work." "That's a lot of hassle." "Then maybe it doesn't arrive, or the bed's too big for the stairs, and there goes another half-day." "It's true for all big items." "The accumulated worries can seriously upset a sensitive being." "But the bed, of all furnishings, poses its own, very painful problem." "To keep the salesman's respect, you have to buy a double," "whether or not you need it or have room for it." "To buy a single bed is to admit you have no sex life, nor any plans for one in the near or distant future." "Beds last ages today." "Longer than the warranty." "Much longer than marriages." "It's a major investment." "But buying a standard double bed isn't enough." "Even a queen-size makes you look cheap and petty." "To salesmen, only a king-size bed is worth purchasing." "That's how you get their respect and esteem, maybe even a knowing grin." "We're closing." "Really?" "Late November." "By all accounts, a sad time of the year." "Lacking more tangible events, the weather played a bigpart in my life." "Old people, they say, talk of nothing else." " Cold out, eh?" " Quite." "Health is what matters." "Having lived so little, I imagined I might never die." "I couldn't believe that a human life could be so empty." "I told myself something had to happen one day." "Big mistake." "A life can be both empty and short." "The days trickle by, leaving no marks or memories, then suddenly stop." "Sometimes, I felt I'd get used to an empty life." "A relatively painless boredom would lead me through the motions of life." "Another mistake." "Boredom is not a long-term option." "In time, it creates a feeling of pain." "Positive pain." "I'd had a life." "Hard to remember, but I once had a life." "I had photos to prove it." "Probably during my adolescence, or soon after." "How hungry for life I was then!" "How full of possibilities life seemed!" "I might become a pop star, move to Venezuela..." "Well." "I think we'll have to review our agenda." "In any case..." "Odder still, I'd had a childhood." "When I was seven," "I played with toy soldiers on the rug." "I took a keen interest in these miniature wargames." "It was long ago, but I remember it." "These meetings are a waste of time!" "Go ahead." "I'll be back in 5 minutes." "Our relations with the regions have tended to be too "up-down", rather than "client-vendor"." "Now the water's cold." "I'm far from shore." "So far from shore I" "I swim on, but each stroke takes me nearer to drowning." "I'm choking." "My lungs are aching." "The water seems colder, more and more bitter." "I'm not so young." "I'll die one day." "But I keep going and remember how I entered the struggle." "So sorry!" "One more tiny detail, and I'm with you." "Two minutes!" "Of the meeting," "Our Hero remembered little." "Nothing concrete was decided until 15 minutes before lunch, when a training tour of the regions was agreed upon." "He never assimilated the Merise method." "He's been sidelined." "I had no lust for Ms. Lechardoy." "But I admired her courage." "That hole in her crotch must feel so useless." "You can always cut off a prick, but how to forget an empty vagina?" "The situation seemed desperate." "What should I do?" "I quite agree." "They still print paper phone books!" "Ask her to step out and fuck in an office?" "On the desk, the floor, wherever." "I felt up to making the moves... but I stayed silent." "We'll have to harmonize our working methods in the coming weeks." "Anyway, she'd have refused." "Or else I'd have had to embrace her, tell her she's beautiful, kiss her gently on the lips." "There was no solution." "In practice, Our Hero's journey would take him to Rouen for two weeks," "Dijon for a week and La Roche-sur-Yon for 4 days." "He'd start on December 1st and be back to spend Christmas with his family..." "A human touch." "I dreaded these training tours." "I often had to do it, but it was always a hassle." "You had to buy your own ticket." "The train times were never convenient." "We sometimes worked in pairs." "We never knew who our partner would be until the last minute." "Nobody bothered to tell us beforehand." "I could think of 4 or 5 likely people." "It was Tisserand." "I knew him a bit." "It's okay!" "I got the tickets." "We'd talked by the coffee machine." "He mostly told dirty jokes." "This guy had four bollocks..." "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard this train to Le Havre." "Stopping at Rouen..." "Raphael Tisserand's problem, the key to his personality, was that he repelled women." "He couldn't get laid." "He tried." "How he tried!" "But he couldn't." "They just didn't want him." "Why's it called "Sycamore"?" "It's a nice name." "So you're all looking for jobs?" "Are you in software?" "No, marketing." "We're students." "Right, but you need to specialize." "In a year or two..." "We're developing a great program called "Sycamore"..." "Bye!" "If I hear of a job, have you got a phone number?" "No, I just moved and I've got exams." "That's a pity." "The trainees were ready an hour ago!" "Tisserand usually began by introducing himself, then me, the company, obviously, and the course of study he'd planned." "All this would easily take us until lunch time." "If you open the booklet at page 1, you'll see six stages." "Stage 1:" "Installation." "Installation is..." "A computer..." "I spotted the danger at once." "Schnabele was the future Systems Officer." "I dubbed him "The Snake"." "The hard disk is like..." "Yes?" "Why is the program called Sycamore?" "Very good question!" "Tisserand was incompetent, yes, but he was no novice." "He was a professional." "He had no trouble fending off the Snake." "...and a fine point." "If you don't mind, we'll come back to it." "How about lunch?" "The meal was endless." "Schnabele kept boasting about being a Systems Officer at 25, or on the verge of it, anyway." "Three times before the main course, he said:" "I'm 25." "It sounds young, but with my skills and CV, it's quite natural." "Responsibility's not about age." "I was asked to reshape the company." "I began with personnel..." "I hired them young." "Computing's a fast world." "What's your background?" "I got my MBA in Bastia," "then I did various software studies." "My partner's a systems engineer." "Long before it was "in", our firm had a corporate culture based on dialogue and openness." "As our Chairman liked to say, we led our clients through change." "Our primary challenge was to distil the vendor-client matrix into a partnership." "Well?" "How's it going?" "It's going fine." "Let's have a look." "We're in the program." "Good." "Then what?" "Goodbye." "Have a nice evening." "I ask you this, as the systems man:" "Do I need a UPS to stabilize the network power supply?" "I've heard conflicting views." "A recent study makes it clear." "Above a certain threshold, a UPS pays for itself in less than 3 years." "I'll fax you the article from Paris." "Thank you." "Good night." "I booked about a week ago." "Two rooms." "Two rooms, is it?" "The name is Tisserand." "Certainly, sir." "Room 202." "Good night, sir." "Welcome to the Mercure Hotel, Rouen" "...stop the massacres." "Hundreds of Algerians joined the march, supporting the French artists and aid agencies who organized this protest against the killings." "It's me!" "Ready!" "Let's go." "I knew why Tisserand valued my company." "I never spoke of my girlfriends or boasted about my conquests." "This allowed him to deduce, correctly, in fact, that for some reason or other, I had no sexlife." "It lightened his load." "It eased his ordeal." "I remember witnessing a painful occasion when Tisserand first met Thomassen, a new recruit." "Thomassen was Swedish, very tall and very well-built." "You felt you were facing a superman or demigod." "Thomassen shook my hand, then went to Tisserand." "Tisserand stood up, saw that Thomassen was 15 inches taller," "and promptly sat down, beet-red, with murder in his eyes." "It was appalling." "Tisserand, thank God, hadn't yet travelled with Thomassen" "but whenever a training tour came up," "I know the idea of it ruined his sleep." "How about a drink somewhere fun?" "This way." "The Backpackers' Guide called La Bohème "A Rouen nightspot favoured by sales reps in search of classic beats and easy lays."" "We had to score, here and now." "The place was designed for it." "Bourbon and water." "A beer." "Revulsion always builds up at night." "Dread has its own schedule." "I'm not sure... but I think so." "The inner void expands." "That's it." "You detach from events and hang in the void, held half way from reality" "by magnetic forces of immense strength." "Let's go." "Gotta be up early." "Come on." "The first day in Rouen was over, and Our Hero knew with absolute certainty that every other day would be identical." "Good night." "How had it come to this?" "When could I have branched off to happiness?" "As a kid, I loved science." "Especially the new concepts in quantum mechanics." "I didn't go very far with it." "I had enough trouble coping with real life." "I couldn't believe it!" "The ambulance came too late." "They could have saved him." "43 francs 20." "But I probably wouldn't have acted differently, even in different circumstances." "All things considered, as Schopenhauer said," "I didn't do too badly." "Rather absurdly, I spent the weekend in Rouen." "Tisserand was surprised." "I told him I wanted to sightsee," "I had nothing to do in Paris." "But it wasn't to sightsee." "Yet there are medieval remains and some nice old houses in Rouen." "At one point in history, motion was studied as an art form." "It flourished for several years, producing some shots in films which confirmed its value as Art." "Then it disappeared, apparently forever." "What was lef to fit?" "A few traces, mainly in films by veterans of the silent era... bits of experimental films, science documentaries, even B-movies." "The scenes were easy to spot." "Dialogue was ruled out." "Even music would have seemed a bit kitsch, a bit heavy," "a bit vulgar." "Our Hero always adored these moments when everything grinds to a halt." "The whole system goes out of joint, portending a destiny, not just a moment, and affording a rare glimpse of eternity." "Thinking back on May '68, some people said it was a wonderful time for them." "Chatting with strangers..." "Everything seemed possible..." "I believed them." "Others recalled that no trains ran, and there was no fuel." "I believed them, too." "Both versions agreed on one thing:" "magically, for a few days, a huge, oppressive machine had stopped." "There was a wavering, an uncertainty." "A state of suspense." "A certain calm spread over France." "Of course, afterwards the machine ran even faster, more ruthlessly." "May '68 had repealed the few moral rules that had hindered its devouring force." "All the same, there had been a pause, a hesitation," "a moment of metaphysical doubt." "The next night, Our Hero fellsick." "My left shoulder hurt." "The pain was moving towards my heart." "I felt that at this rate, I'd die soon." "Within hours." "Anyway, before dawn." "To die so suddenly seemed unfair." "I hadn't overindulged in life." "Okay, the last few years had been tough, but that was no reason to pack it in." "Far from it." "In all fairness, life owed me a break." "It all seemed so badly arranged." "What's more, I hated Rouen and its people." "I didn't want to die, let alone in Rouen." "The thought of dying here was odious." "The local jerks weren't worthy of it." "Excuse me." "I need a hospital." "A hospital!" "Contrary to my fears, it wasn't a heart attack." "It was pericarditis." "The first symptoms are identical, but while a heart attack can kill, pericarditis is very benign." "Boy, you scared us!" "You vanished." "I called everywhere!" "The regional office, police," "Paris..." "It's only pericarditis." "I'll be out in 2 weeks." "They said that?" "About the job..." "I'll cope by myself." "I'll square it with Paris." "You need anything?" "Biscuits?" "Books?" "You're okay." "You'll be fine." "For a full week, Our Hero was in a bad way." "No desire to move or talk." "But you soon adapt to hospitals." "Despite the forced lifestyle and climate of danger, nobody seemed to complain." "Everyone seemed quite content." "His roommate, a labourer aged 55, was on his 6th visit." "He was happy here." "I'm in for a thrombo." "A bypass." "In ordinary life, he was an active guy:" "DIY, gardening, minding his grandchildren." "but once in the hospital, he let go." "He surrendered his body to science." "He loved the way it was so well-organized." "One day he'd die here, that was clear." "A spare pair of pyjamas." "That, too, was organized." "Newspaper, a book to relax you," "some fruit..." "Anything else, just say." "Compared with him, I felt like a bad patient." "I had trouble regaining possession of myself." "It's an odd sensation." "Seeing your legs as distant from your mind," "connected to it only by chance, and badly." "Have a nice day." "Seeing yourself as a set of jerky limbs." "Boy!" "Sexy nurses!" "It's hot in here, you dirty dog!" "The second week was harder." "I'd begun to recover and wanted to get out." "Life wanted me back, as they say." "What about my thrombo, doc?" "So, it's a pericarditis?" " Blood pressure?" " 120/l80." "No infection?" "No." "He's on 250mg of aspirin." "Good." "A few more days, then discharge him on aspirin." "Bye, gentlemen." "So the world went on." "Thestruggle wenton." "All we care about is having you well again." "But still, could I just ask..." "Will you make it to La Roche-sur-Yon for the 19th?" "I don't know." "It's my heart's desire." "If you want to call anyone else, go ahead." "Thanks, there's nobody." "I got out sooner than the doctors would have liked." "They try to keep patients in, to boost their occupancy rates." "But at Christmas, they took pity." "Breathe in." "Mouth open." "Deeper." "I'll be nice and let you out for Christmas." "My roommate was out of surgery." "I brought some pie." "All had gone well." "Care for some?" ""Courage, mate!"" "he said as I left." "He was right." "Courage always comes in handy." "How I loathed this world." "I hated the society around me." "Advertising made me sick." "Computers made me vomit." "As a programmer, all I did was amass data and criteria for making decisions." "It was pointless." "It was even harmful." "A useless strain on the neurons." "One thing the world didn't need was more information." "My only mail was the bill for a sex chat I'd had on the "Roxanne" hotline," "and a mail-order firm presenting its new online service, "Coo-Coo-Tel"." "As a privileged customer," "I could subscribe now." "Our programmers had slaved to have it ready for Christmas." "Wrong number, but leave a message." "Moron!" "There was nothing to keep me in Paris." "I'll be frank with you." "Computers?" "Stuff 'em." "I'm not changing my methods just to be trendy." "Our system works fine." "It'll stay fine as long as I'm around." "I let you come here to keep the Ministry happy, but the day you go," "I'll lock up your junk and forget it." "First, they made us move here just after we redid our old place, so..." "Don't get me started." "The boss isn't hot on computers." "But his secretary's nice." "A very sensitive girl." "A bit fragile." "Just starting analysis." "Véronique was in analysis." "I wish I'd never met her." "But I loved her." "If only I'd broken her arms..." "Women in analysis, forget them." "Once a shrink gets hold of them, they're damaged goods." "Shit..." "Under the pretence of rebuilding the self, psychoanalysts destroy human beings." "With total cynicism, they grab nice girls and make them fucking bitches, whose selfishness" "defies belief..." "Shit!" "...fit only to inspire disgust." "I don't believe this." "Small-minded, selfish, stupidly arrogant, devoid of moral fibre, chronically unable to love." "That, in a nutshell is Woman ln Analysis." "Véronique had one of those white noteboards." "She wrote things like "Peas", "Laundry" on it." "After a session one day, she wrote a Lacan quote:" ""The viler you are, the better it gets."" "I smiled but I shouldn't have." "It was a policy statement." "She implemented it." "I'm going skiing in January with the 18-35 Club." "You know the deal:" "Disco parties, late breakfasts..." ""Old farts need not apply."" "Sometimes I feel like a shrink-wrapped chicken leg." "Or a frog in ajar." "I look a bit like a frog." "Don't I?" "Raphael..." "Damn it." "I'm 28 and still a virgin." "Why not pay for a whore?" "Clearly, in our society, sex was another form of segregation," "quite apart from money but equally pitiless in its segregating power." "The effects of both were equivalent." "Like totally free economics and for the same reasons, totally free sex created a class of paupers." "Some people had sex daily." "Others, only 5 or 6 times." "Or never." "Some men had dozens of women." "Others had none." "It's called "market forces"." "I've worked it out." "I can afford a whore a week." "Saturdays would be nice." "Maybe I will one day, but I know there are men who get it for free, and love with it." "So..." "I'd rather try that." "For now, I'll keep trying." "In an economic system that outlawed layoffs, everyone would find some kind of job." "In a sexual system that outlawed adultery, everyone would find some kind of bedmate." "In a completely free economy, some people amassed big fortunes while others rotted in poverty." "Have a good weekend." "In the free sex system, some people had an exciting, varied sex life." "Others masturbated alone." "Economic liberalism extended the struggle to people of every age and social class." "Sexual liberalism, too, extended the struggle to people of every age and social class." "In economic terms, Tisserand was a winner." "In sexual terms, he was a loser." "Some people won both ways, others lost both ways." "The stress and strain were huge." "Early on Saturday, Our Hero found a taxi at the station to take him to Sables d'Olonne." "I pictured the old fishermen." "Sunday Mass in the little church." "Praying together while the wind blew and the ocean pounded the shore." "A life with no distractions or fuss." "Just hard, risky work." "A plain, rustic life." "Quite noble... and quite stupid, too." "Then, to picture a family on holiday in Buccaneer House, scoffing steak à la pirate while Baby gets bonked in the Bounty Bar, annoyed me." "But I couldn't help it." "Our Hero ate a Brazilian crêpe at The Valparaiso, and spoke with a dentist." "Saturday morning, I'm out in my boat, a small 30-footer, all season long." "I normally hated dentists." "I sawthem as money-grabbers with one aim, to extract enough teeth to buy a Mercedes with a sunroof." "This one was clearly no exception." "I took some great photos in Burundi, on Lake Tanganyika." "Great black-and-white." "Superb." "I printed them in my darkroom in Nantes." "Somewhat absurdly, I felt obliged to say I'd come here to buy a flat in Buccaneer House." "A sound investment, I'd say." "Sunday was non-existent." "Monday was particularly dreary." "49.50, please." "But I had the first inklings of a plan." "Tisserand's weekend had been shitty." "Predictably." "It was already December 22nd." "What are you doing for Christmas?" "A family meal?" "We don't do Christmas." "I'm Jewish." "My parents are Jewish." "Let's go out on Christmas Eve." "There's a club near Les Sables, the Malibu." "It's good." "Will anyone be there?" "Isn't Christmas Eve a family thing?" "True, New Year's Eve's better." "Girls like to get laid then." "But Christmas Eve's not bad." "They eat oysters with the family, open their presents, then go dancing." "Tisserand proved easy to persuade." "What time is it?" "Nine-thirty." "A bit early, no?" "Yeah, no point going before midnight." "Damn it." "What do we do till then?" "I easily found my way back to the Malibu." "I'd had some terrible times there." "More than 10 years ago, but bad memories fade slower than you think." "Catch you later." "I almost approved of his choice." "She definitely had condoms in her bag." "May I have the same again?" "I knew all about it." "The broad hips, the buttocks, firm and smooth," "the supple waist and soft, round breasts..." "Taking her by the waist, cupping the curve of her hips." "If I shut my eyes, I'd remember." "You come here often?" "I'll have the same as him." "Coming up." "In love, Véronique belonged to a doomed generation, raised on Snoopy and market forces." "Be right back." "Once, she was able to love." "She still wanted to, but it was too late." "A rare, late-flowering creation," "Love blooms only in mental conditions which rarely occur" "in today's hostile climate of loose morality." "In fact, repeated acts of sex in adolescence quickly destroy any chance of feeling romantic love." "One becomes, quite soon, as unable to love as a dishrag." "Véronique overdid the discos and lovers." "It's a lifestyle that stunts people and leaves them permanently damaged." "Same again?" "No, a bottle for the table, there." "You look shaky, pal." "The milk of human kindness!" "Yeah, right." "Dance?" "C'mon, let's rock!" "Let's slow it down." "Good luck, girls." "Good hunting, guys." "Raphael!" "What can I do?" "Go and jerk off." "So it's hopeless?" "Of course it is." "It always was." "From the start." "You'll never be a girl's erotic dream." "Get used to it." "It's not for you." "Anyhow, it's too late." "All your sexual failures since adolescence, the frustration dogging you since puberty, have scarred you forever." "Even if you could find a woman, which I frankly doubt," "it wouldn't work." "It'll neverwork." "You're orphaned by the teenage loves you never had." "It's already hurt you." "It'll keep getting worse." "An agonizing bitterness will fill your heart." "There's no redemption." "No release." "That's how it is." "But revenge isn't completely beyond your reach." "These women you so desire..." "You can possess them." "The most precious part of them." "And what's that precious part, Raphael?" "Their beauty?" "No, not their beauty." "Don't kid yourself." "Or their vagina." "Or their love." "That all disappears when their lives do." "And you can possess their lives." "Believe me, my friend." "Take up a career as a murderer." "It's your last chance." "When you have those women trembling with your knife, begging you for their youth, you'll be the master!" "They'll be yours, body and soul." "You might even, before the sacrifice, get them to pleasure you." "A knife, Raphael, is a tremendous ally!" "I'd rather kill the guy." "No reason why not." "They're leaving together, it seems." "If you want access to her body, you have to kill him." "I happen to have a knife." "Where'll they do it?" "Her parents' house, probably." "That's the routine." "Have to stop them first." "Once we hit a side road, we ram the scooter." "They'll be stunned." "You can finish him off easily." "We could run them over, to make sure." "It's amazing!" "They don't suspect a thing." "What's going on?" "Slow down." "They were in the dunes." "He had her dress and bra off." "She was... unzipping him." "She went down on him." "I couldn't bear it." "I walked away through the dunes." "I could've killed them." "They heard nothing." "Nothing." "They didn't notice me." "One stab, they'd be dead." "I jerked off." "I couldn't kill them." "Blood doesn't help." "Blood's everywhere." "So is sperm." "I've had it." "I'm going back to Paris." "We've just heard." "His family just telephoned." "Mr. Tisserand died on Christmas Day" "in a car crash." "We'll be sent the funeral details later." "Thank you all." "We discussed the sadness of his death and the hazards of driving in fog." "Then went back to work, and that was that." "Next day, Our Hero didn't go to work." "No reason." "He just didn't want to." "For two days, he did little." "He thought about suicide, its ironic usefulness." ""To destroy oneself, the moral agent, "" "wrote Kant," ""expels that much morality from the world."" "For all its apparent naiveté, this argument remained the only one." "Only our sense of duty keeps us alive." "In concrete terms, if you wantto have a useful duty," "make another being's happiness depend on your existence." "Next Monday Our Hero returned to work, just for the sake of it." "I got the 20-watt speakers." "10 watts is too weak, 30's too expensive, just for the car." "I have 4 speakers." "2 in front, 2 behind." "So this was it." "Life went on." "It was December 29th." "I had to do something on the 31st." "That's what people do." "Dishwashing liquid" "I knew my boss had taken the week off," "probably to go skiing." "I felt there'd be nobody." "Nobody could remotely relate to me." "That night, he called the Suicide Hotline." "The line was busy." "As always, during the holidays." "Please put out your cigarette." "I have an analyst's appointment." "I'm prescribing a week off work." "You wouldn't consider a short stay in a clinic?" "No." "I'm having a breakdown." "In this business, we're under terrible pressure." "Not really." "Fine." "Take all the time you need." "After 2 months sickleave, they'd fire me." "They always do, with breakdowns." "The next few weeks were a slow decline, with painful interludes." "Our Hero only saw his psychiatrist." "At night, he went to buy cigarettes and bread." "After that night," "I took the psychiatrist's advice about a clinic." "Fine, I'll bring you in." " Can we go to Maxisave?" " No, Max's sick." "It dawned on me that all of them, men and women, weren't remotely crazy." "They simply lacked love." "Their gestures and attitudes revealed their craving to be touched, caressed." "Of course, it was impossible." "Over the weeks, I became convinced I had a mission, as in the Gospels, when Christ fulfilled the prophesies." "I also had a growing hunch that my visit was only the first of many, increasingly long stays in harsh, closely guarded mental wards." "The prospects addened me deeply." "Calm down, Bernadette." "No, don't." "Bruno!" "Daniel!" "Calm down, Bernadette." "Stand up, Mr. René." "Madam, madam..." "May I tape us?" "If you want." "Try to focus on yourself." "I'm a bit sick of myself." "Now, as a psychologist," "I can't condone that kind of talk at all." "You keep implicating society." "It's a barrier you hide behind." "Until I break down that barrier, we can't work on your problems." "This standoff went on for over two months." "Excuse me." "Do you know Mrs. Duval?" "She's me." "Some beings are terrified of living with themselves." "They can't bear to look at their own life and see it all, without shadows or backgrounds." "By existing, they defy the laws of nature, not only because their inability to adapt serves no genetic purpose, but also because it presupposes a lucidity which clearly transcends the perceptual norms of everyday life." "Interesting." "But try to be more direct." "Aren't you being a little abstract?" "Perhaps." "But I can't see, tangibly, how people can live." "They ought to be miserable, you understand?" "The world is so simple." "There's a system based on domination, money, fear..." " a masculine system - and a feminine system based on seduction and sex." "That's all." "As a late 19th-century realist," "Maupassant believed that." "It drove him raving mad." "You mix things up." "Maupassant's madness was caused by syphilis." "Everyone accepts your two systems." "No." "He saw it too clearly." "Matter, nothingness, death." "He saw nothing else." "He made a total separation between his existence and the world's." "There's no otherway to view the world today." "Look at reality." "Who speaks of the soul or psychological depths today?" "To explain someone's behaviour, they check a list of numerical parameters:" "hormones, neurotransmitters, that's it." "But what do you think?" "Personally?" "I've always had my doubts." "Look at old photos of yourself." "You can't recollect the thoughts you had." "Even your memories are fragmented." "Basically, individual existence isn't a demonstrable fact." "Can you rephrase that?" "I have... another reason for doubting individual existence." "I think that the desires... the opinions... the ways people respond to life... aren't their own." "They're not personalized." "The only individuality... resides in... ageing, decaying organs and death." "No human can bear the concept of ageing and death." "In our societies, it expands to fill our entire consciousness." "It excludes anything else." "Desire itself disappears." "There's only bitterness, jealousy and fear." "Mostly bitterness." "An immense, inconceivable bitterness." "When did you last have intercourse?" "Just over 2 years ago." "You see?" "How can you expect to enjoy life?" "Would you make love with me?" "That's not my role." "As a psychologist, my role is to revive your appetite to pursue... and resume normal relations with women." "Thereafter, she was replaced by a male colleague." "About my life after the clinic, they gave no exact instructions." "I had to report back once a week." "Tisserand had fought to the end." "The singles club, the ski trips..." "He never backed down, never gave up." "Despite all his failures, he kept looking for love." "Crushed in his mangled 205 GTi, wrapped in his gaudy suit and shiny tie on the empty road," "his heart kept up the struggle." "The wish and will to struggle." "Now you'll dance in pairs, with music." "It's harder." "Pay attention." "Men, right foot forward on the first beat." "Ladies, left foot back, obviously." "Stay together." "Start on the count of six." "Okay?" "Everybody got it?" "Choose your partners." "Stay close together." "Men forward on the first beat." "Ladies, heads slightly to the left." "Keep your arms up." "Follow the beat." "Steady." "Subtitles:" "Nigel Palmer and Andrew Leigh" "Processed by C.M.C." " Paris"