“Personally,” said Etienne, “I think that sort of attitude doesn’t encourage professional development.”

In the evening, I was puzzling over the word, so I looked it up in my dictionary:

Proctologist specialist in proctology.

Since that didn’t get me very far, I looked up “proctology”.

Proctology the branch of medicine that deals with diseases of the anus and rectum.

A job like that was bound to need many years of study, a bit like a dentist. Well, now I knew. I went downstairs to see Dad, who’d turned on the TV and was watching a film called Paris in the Month of August, with Charles Aznavour in the lead role. I really liked it, the plot was very entertaining. It was about an ordinary, unremarkable man, who worked in the fishing equipment section of a department store. While his wife was away on holiday, he fell in love with a very beautiful young English model who was working in Paris. He wanted to spend as much time with her as possible and take advantage of the way moral standards were becoming more relaxed. So in order to get sick leave from work, he had the bright idea of sticking a fish hook deep into his hand. Problem solved, just like that. An excellent film all round, in fact, and very moving too.

Dad was fascinated by the film. I don’t know if it was the empty city flooded in sunlight or the love story between the man and the model that enthralled him, but he seemed to be trying to hypnotize the television: he was almost licking the screen. Anyway, the film gave me an idea and although it was slightly hazy at first, I’d got it all worked out by the next morning. At dawn, I was down in the cellar hunting around for Dad’s fishing equipment. The size twelve hook looked enormous to me, plus it was covered in rust. I made myself think of Paris in the Month of August and Aznavour with the fish hook stuck in his hand. It was in a good cause: I was really doing this for Marie, so that she wouldn’t have to hear me braying at the concert and wouldn’t be disappointed in me. It’s all very well to be a figure of fun, but once you’ve learnt to see things in a slightly more dignified and high-minded way, you get fed up with it, that’s all I can say.

I closed my eyes and stuck the hook into my left hand. I screamed out loud, my eyes dimmed and luckily Dad turned up just in time to catch me before I crashed to the floor. He wrapped my hand in a big cloth that kept getting redder and redder as we drove in the Panhard to the hospital. There were Christmas decorations in the A&E department and a big Father Christmas who seemed to be watching over the patients.