Читать книгу Hector Finds Time - Francois Lelord - Страница 7

HECTOR had another patient called Fernand, a man who was not particularly remarkable, except for the fact that he had no friends. And no wife or girlfriend either. Was it because he had a very monotonous voice or because he looked a little like a heron? Hector didn’t know, but he thought it very unfair that Fernand didn’t have any friends, since he was kind and said things that were very interesting (although sometimes slightly odd, it has to be said).

One day, out of the blue, Fernand said to Hector, ‘Anyway, Doctor, at my age, I’ve got no more than two and a half dogs left.’

‘Sorry?’ said Hector.

He remembered that Fernand had a dog (one day, Fernand had brought it with him, a very well-behaved dog that had slept right through their session), but not two, and he couldn’t even begin to imagine what half a dog might be.

‘Well,’ said Fernand, ‘some dogs live for fourteen or fifteen years, don’t they?’

Hector came to understand then that Fernand was measuring the time he had left in the number of dogs he could have over the rest of his life. As a result, Hector set about measuring the life he had left to live in dog lives (that is, which he probably had left, for ye know neither the day nor the hour, as somebody who died quite young once said) and he wasn’t sure if it would be four or five. Of course, he thought to himself, this figure could change if science made incredible advances that would enable people to live longer, but perhaps on the other hand it wouldn’t change, since scientists would no doubt make dogs live longer too, which, you can be sure, no one will ask their opinion about.

Hector spoke to his friends about this method of measuring your life in dogs and they were absolutely horrified.

‘How awful!’

‘Not only that, thinking of your dog dying … it’s too sad for words.’

‘Exactly. That’s why I just couldn’t have another, because when our little Darius died it was far too upsetting.’

‘You really do see some complete loonies!’

‘Measuring time in dogs?! And why not in cats or parrots?’

‘And if he had a cow, would he measure it in cows?’

Listening to all his friends talking about Fernand’s idea, it dawned on Hector that what they didn’t like at all was that measuring your life in dogs makes it seem shorter. Two, three, four dogs, even five, doesn’t make it sound as if you’re here for very long!

He understood better why Fernand unnerved people a bit with his way of seeing things. If Fernand had measured his life in canaries or goldfish, would he have had more friends?

In his own lonely and odd little way, Fernand had put his finger on a real problem with time. For that matter, lots of poets had been talking about it for ever, and Sabine had too.

They said … the years fly, time is fleeting, and time goes by too quickly.