Читать книгу Hector Finds Time - Francois Lelord - Страница 11

AHA, thought Hector, I feel a new idea coming on. He was listening to Hubert, who was an astronomer. He observed and listened to the stars with such expensive equipment that it took several different countries to pay for it all. Then Hubert and his colleagues did some very complicated calculations to work out how the world had begun a very long time ago. They even wondered what things were like before the world began, and even whether time existed back then.

Hubert had had a complete breakdown the day he realised that, as a result of spending all his time thinking about the stars, he hadn’t been paying enough attention to his wife, and she had left him for a man who did nothing much in life, but who was apparently quite funny. Hector was helping Hubert to understand that you shouldn’t dwell too much on the past. (It was a bit like the business with the beginning of the world: Hubert was spending all his time trying to understand how this business between his wife and this man had started.) Hector explained to Hubert that knowing whose fault it was wasn’t all that important. It would be better for Hubert to look to the future and try to take better care of the next nice woman he met, even if that meant that the next big theory of the beginning of the world was a little delayed.

But Hubert couldn’t let it go. ‘I wish I could go back in time, back to the time when she still loved me.’

When Hubert said ‘to the time when she still loved me’, he couldn’t stop tears welling up in his eyes. It was terribly sad.

‘Now, I’d know how to love her; I’d pay attention; I wouldn’t make the same mistakes again. If only I could go back …’

And yet, with his very complicated research on stars, Hubert of all people should have known that you can’t turn back time – or else it would completely change our understanding of the world and how it works. But, despite this, he didn’t stop thinking about it.

‘Anyway, Doctor, at our age, you really have to take stock of your life.’

Hector was startled – he thought he was a lot younger than Hubert. He didn’t say anything, but afterwards he checked Hubert’s date of birth. Sure enough, Hector was younger, but, as it turned out, not by that much.

Hector was a bit disappointed. The only idea Hubert had given him was that he wasn’t exactly a young psychiatrist any more, and he already knew that anyway. The only difference was that now he actually felt it, and, as psychiatrists well know, when it comes to knowing and feeling, it’s feeling that’s important.

In the end, Hubert did give Hector another idea.

Time Exercise No. 4: Think of all the people and things you are not paying enough attention to now, because one day they will be gone and then it will be too late.