The Chalk Circle Man by Fred Vargas Read Free Book Online Page A

sent the information to Mathilde, and promptly forgot about it.
    Well, René Vercors-Laury isn’t all that impressive, was Adamsberg’s first reaction. He was disappointed in the psychiatrist, since he always set out feeling hopeful and disillusion was invariably painful.
    Not impressive at all, in fact. And exasperating with it. The psychiatrist kept interrupting himself with questions like: ‘See what I mean?’, ‘You follow me?’ or statements such as: ‘You’ll agree with me, won’t you, that the Socratic method of suicide is not the only model?’ – without waiting for Adamsberg’s reply, since the intention was simply to show off. Vercors-Laury expended an inordinate amount of time and words showing off. The portly doctor would first lean back in his armchair, fingers clutching his belt, seeming to think deeply, and would then hurl himself forward to begin a sentence: ‘ Commissaire , this is no ordinary case.’
    If one set all that aside, the man wasn’t lacking in intelligence; that much at least was clear. After the first quarter of an hour, things went better; still not impressive, perhaps, but better.
    ‘Our subject,’ said Vercors-Laury, launching into a peroration, ‘does not fit the normal pattern of subjects with a compulsive disorder, if you are asking for my clinical opinion. Compulsives are by definition compulsive , and one should never forget that – do you follow me?’
    He was clearly highly satisfied with this formula. He went on:
    ‘And because they are compulsive, obsessive, they’re precise, careful, and ritualistic. You follow me? But what do we find with this subject? No ritual governing the choice of object, no ritual governing the choice of district, or the time of night, or even the number of circles to draw on any given night. So! You see the immense discrepancy? All the parameters of his actions vary unpredictably: object, place, time, quantity, as if they were entirely determined by chance circumstance. But, Commissaire Adamsberg, in the case of a compulsive personality nothing is determined by chance circumstance. Are you with me? And that is, in point of fact, the defining feature of the compulsive subject: he will make the chance circumstance bend to his will, rather than allow it to drive him. No contingency is strong enough to halt the relentless progress of his obsession. You see what I’m driving at?’
    ‘So what we have here is no common-or-garden crank? Not a compulsive personality at all?’
    ‘That’s right, commissaire , we could almost swear to it. And that opens up a whole field of inquiry. If we’re not dealing with an obsessive-compulsive personality in the clinical sense of the term, then the circles must be in pursuit of some aim which has been thoroughly thought through by their perpetrator, and our subject must have a genuine interest in the objects that he’s bringing to our attention, as if he meant to show us something. You follow me? Or to tell us something. For instance, that people don’t think enough about the objects they throw away. Once these objects have ceased to be useful, once they have served their purpose, our eyes don’t even see them as material any more. I could show you a pavement and say: “What do you see on the ground?” and you could reply: “Nothing.” Whereas in reality ‘ (heavy emphasis) ‘there are dozens of objects there. You follow? This man appears to be grappling with a painful investigation of some kind: metaphysical, philosophical, or perhaps – why not? – poetic, about the way human beings choose to make the reality of the material world start and stop, something for which he has elected himself the arbiter. Whereas in his eyes, it may be that material objects continue their existence outside our perception of them. My sole aim, when I took an interest in this man, was to say: Take care, don’t joke about this obsessive behaviour pattern, the chalk circle man may be someone of perfectly lucid mind,