Sometimes everything?

Yes. I think you could be right.

I’m sorry. I didnt mean to upset you.

I’m not upset. There’s more where that came from.

Maybe we should take a break.

Okay.

Are you all right?

I’m okay.

We still have twenty minutes.

I know. Fire away.

What is it that you like to do? What do you enjoy?

That sounds like something out of the book. What’s the weirdest answer you ever got?

I’m not sure I could say. But patients will surprise you.

Would they surprise Krafft-Ebing?

I meant in a good way. They sometimes have rather sophisticated interests. Although I have to say that they’re often inclined to give up what they treasure for what makes them miserable. Your principal interest other than mathematics would have been music.

Yes.

How good a violinist were you?

Pretty good. I could never have been a concert violinist.

You werent that good.

I wouldnt practice. I didnt play for weeks at a time. You cant do that.

You werent that interested.

No. I loved it. But I loved mathematics more. I’ve probably spent twenty thousand hours at math.

That’s a lot of hours.

Yes.

Do you remember all of it?

Yes. You have to.

What else.

I dont know. Pick something from your list.

Do you think your relationship with your mother might have had anything to do with this?

You’re making an Eliza joke.

Yes. Anyway, I’ve wanted to ask you your opinion of psychiatrists. As in how bad is it.

Is that on the list?

Why not?

I always thought that in order to want to do psychiatry you would have to be a bit shaky yourself. If your view of the deranged is too clinical you’re at a disadvantage. On the other hand you cant just be bonkers.

You always thought.

Yes.

And now?

What’s the point?

You probably know them better than I do.

I dont know. I guess I dont see you hanging out with a bunch of shrinks. But then I dont know who you do hang with.

I suppose I do find the patients more interesting than the doctors.

Me too.

You dont see what we do as science.

No. The docs seem to pretty much avoid neuroscience. Down there with lantern and clipboard roaming the sulci. Sulcuses? Easy to see why. If a psychosis was just some synapses misfiring why wouldnt you simply get static? But you dont. You get a carefully crafted and fairly articulate world never seen before. Who’s doing this? Who is it who is running around hooking up the dangling wires in new and unusual ways. Why is he doing it? What is the algorithm he follows? Why do we suspect there is one?

I’ve no idea.

The docs dont seem to consider the care with which the world of the mad is assembled. A world which they imagine themselves questioning when of course they are not. The alienist skirts the edges of lunacy as the priest does sin. Stalled at the door of his own mandate. Studying with twisted lip a reality that has no standing. Alien nation. Ask another question. Devise a theory. The enemy of your undertaking is despair. Death. Just like in the real world. You’re not buying this.