Hector Finds Time E-Book

François Lelord

• Herausgeber: Pushkin Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Seitenzahl: 245

Beschreibung

Poor Hector. Tempus fugit, and our intrepid psychiatrist is not feeling quite as young as he used to. His patients are concerned with time too. One feels she's always in a hurry, as if there's a clock ticking in her tummy - she would like time to slow down. But there's also a boy who wishes time would hurry along and turn him into an adult. And a third patient measures his remaining years in the number of dogs he'll have time to own. Hector feels he must find a solution to the problem of time and so, of course, another journey is required.Follow Hector as he sets off to uncover nuggets of universal wisdom on time.

Leseprobe

Praise for François Lelord

‘Even the most aloof, the most detached reader will be won over by this book’ Cosmopolitan

‘Intelligently naïve’ Marie Claire

‘Hector is a lovable character; put simply, one of us’ Rheinische Post

‘Unexpectedly cheering’ Independent

‘Quite delightful’ Scott Pack

‘François Lelord favours an unashamedly simple style with short sentences and a naïve tone that soothe the reader like a summer breeze. Behind this, however, lie life’s great philosophical questions.’ Bücher

‘Immerse yourself in a book that will give you wings: Hector  and the Search for Happiness.’ Bild

‘At the end of the book readers find themselves with a head full of amusing scenes and clever insights into what happiness really means. It is in this way that Lelord manages to reach the hearts of his readers.’Amazon customer

Hector FindsTime

François Lelord

Translated by Carol Gilogley

Pushkin Press

Contents

PraiseTitle PageHECTOR ISN’T EXACTLY A YOUNG PSYCHIATRIST ANY MOREHECTOR AND THE MAN WHO LOVED DOGSHECTOR AND THE LITTLE BOY WHO WANTED TO SPEED UP TIMEHECTOR THINKS THINGS OVERHECTOR IS CONSCIENTIOUSHECTOR AND THE MAN WHO WANTED TO TURN BACK TIMEHECTOR AND THE LADY WHO WANTED TO STAY YOUNGHECTOR LOVES CLARA; CLARA LOVES HECTORHECTOR HAS A DREAMHECTOR GOES TO TALK TO OLD FRANÇOISHECTOR DISCOVERS A BIG SECRETHECTOR AND THE OLD MONKHECTOR AND ÉDOUARD ARE GOOD FRIENDSHECTOR AND THE LITTLE BUBBLESHECTOR IS COLDHECTOR AND THE PRESENT WHICH DOESN’T EXISTHECTOR LEARNS TO SPEAK ESKIMOHECTOR TRAVELS IN TIMEHECTOR DREAMS UP THE WORLDHECTOR SINGS IN THE SNOWHECTOR HAS A TICKETHECTOR AND THE PRESENTISTSHECTOR AND THE HALF-EMPTY GLASSESHECTOR UNDERSTANDS THE PSYCHIATRISTS’ SECRETCLARA AND THE TICK-TOCK OF TIMEHECTOR AND THE KINGDOM OF HEAVENHECTOR IS A DOG PSYCHIATRISTHECTOR AND LOST TIMEHECTOR GETS SOME PERSPECTIVEHECTOR TALKS TO HIS NEIGHBOURHECTOR AND THE SONG OF TIMEHECTOR MAKES SOME FRIENDSHECTOR IS ON TVHECTOR SINGS ON TOP OF THE MOUNTAINHECTOR AND TIME REGAINEDHECTOR AND THE MAN WHO LOOKED AT THE STARSHECTOR AND THE JOURNEY INTO THE FUTUREHECTOR AND THE LOTTERY TICKETHECTOR AND YING LI AT THE TOP OF THE MOUNTAINHECTOR CAN’T DREAM IN PEACEHECTOR MEETS AN IMPORTANT MANHECTOR IS WORKING, EVEN BY THE SEAHECTOR GOES BACK TO SCHOOLHECTOR LEARNS WHY WE GET OLDHECTOR REALISES THAT DIET ISN’T EVERYTHINGHECTOR HAS A RESTHECTOR AND THE TWO CENTENARIANSHECTOR AND HISTORY, WHICH KEEPS REPEATING ITSELFHECTOR IS A GOOD DOCTORHECTOR DRINKS TOO MUCHHECTOR AND TEMPTATIONÉDOUARD IS A GOOD STUDENTHECTOR AND HISTORY, WHICH KEEPS REPEATING ITSELF (PART II)HECTOR AND THE DISTANT VALLEYHECTOR, THE OLD MONK AND TIMEHECTOR AND ETERNITYHECTOR RETURNSHECTOR AND CLARA AND …HECTOR IN THE GARDENAUTHOR’S ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSLELORD ON HECTORAbout the AuthorAlso by François Lelord:Copyright

HECTOR ISN’T EXACTLY A YOUNG PSYCHIATRIST ANY MORE

ONCE upon a time, there was a young psychiatrist called Hector.

Actually, Hector wasn’t exactly a young psychiatrist any more. Although he wasn’t an old psychiatrist yet, either. From a distance, you could still have taken him for a young student, but up close you could see that he was already a real doctor with some experience behind him.

Hector had a great gift as a psychiatrist: when people talked to him, he always looked as if he was thinking very hard about what they’d told him. Because of that, people who came to see him liked him a lot; they felt that he was thinking about their particular situation (which was nearly always true) and that he was going to help them find a way to get better. At the beginning of his career, he would twirl his moustache when he was thinking things over, but now he didn’t have a moustache; he’d only grown one when he was just starting out in order to look older. These days, since he wasn’t exactly a young psychiatrist any more, there was no point. Time had passed.

But time hadn’t made much difference to the furniture in his office. It was the same as when he’d started out. He had an old sofa his mother had given him when he’d moved in, some nice pictures that he liked and a little statue his friend had brought back from the land of the Eskimos – a bear turning into an eagle, which is quite unusual for a psychiatrist’s office. From time to time, when Hector felt cooped up after spending too much time in his office listening to people, he would look at the bear with huge wings sprouting from its back and dream that he was flying away too. But not for long, because he would quickly begin to feel guilty if he didn’t listen properly to the person sitting in front of him telling him their woes. Because Hector was conscientious.

Most of the time, he saw grown-ups who had decided to come and see a psychiatrist because they were too sad, too worried or just unhappy with their lives. He got them talking, asked them questions and sometimes he also gave them little pills … often all three at once, a bit like someone who juggles three balls at the same time. Psychiatry is difficult like that.

But Hector loved his job. First of all because he often felt he was helping people. And secondly because what his patients told him nearly always interested him.

For example, from time to time, he saw a young woman called Sabine who always said things which made him think. When you’re a psychiatrist, it’s funny but you learn an awful lot just by listening to your patients, whereas they assume you already know nearly everything.

The first time Sabine came to see Hector it was because she was getting upset at work. Sabine worked in an office, and her boss wasn’t very nice to her: he often made her cry. Of course, she always cried in private, but, even so, it was terribly hard for her.

Little by little, Hector helped her realise that perhaps she deserved better than a boss who wasn’t very nice, and Sabine built up enough self-confidence to find a new job. And these days she was happier.

Over time, Hector had gradually changed the way he worked. At the beginning, he mainly tried to help people to change their outlook. Now, he still did that, of course, but he also helped people to change their lives, to find a new life that would suit them better. Because, to put it another way, if you’re a cow, you’ll never become a horse, even with a good psychiatrist. It’s better to find a nice meadow where people need milk than to try to gallop round a racecourse. And, above all, it’s best to avoid entering a bullring, because that’s always a disaster.

Sabine would not have been happy being compared to a cow, even though cows are actually kind and gentle animals, Hector had always thought, and very good mothers too. It’s true that she was also very clever, and sometimes this didn’t make her happy, because, as you might already have noticed, sometimes happiness is not knowing everything.

One day, Sabine said to Hector, ‘I think life is just a big con.’

Startled, Hector asked, ‘What do you mean?’ (That was what he always said when he hadn’t been listening properly the first time.)

‘Well, you’re born, and straight away you have to rush about, go to school, and then work, have children, and then your parents die and then before you know it you get old and die too.’

‘This all takes a bit of time, though, doesn’t it?’

‘Yes, but it goes by so quickly. Especially when there’s no time to stop. Take me, for example, with my work, and evenings with the children and my husband. He’s the same, poor thing … he never stops either.’

Sabine had a nice husband (she’d also had a nice father, which improves the chances of finding a nice husband straightaway) who worked hard in an office too. And two young children, the eldest of whom had started school.

‘I always feel as if I’m up against the clock,’ said Sabine. ‘In the morning, everything needs to be organised, I have to leave in time to take my eldest to school and then dash to the office. I have meetings I have to be on time for, but while I’m in them the rest of my work piles up, and then I have to rush in the evenings too, pick up my child from school, or get home in time for the nanny, and then dinner, and homework … Still, I’m lucky – my husband helps me. We hardly have time to speak to each other in the evening: we’re so tired we both just fall asleep.’

Hector knew all this, and perhaps that was partly why he had slowly started to contemplate getting married and having babies.

‘I’d like time to slow down,’ said Sabine. ‘I’d like to have time to enjoy life. I’d like some time for myself, to do whatever I want.’

‘What about holidays?’ asked Hector.

Sabine smiled.

‘You don’t have children, do you, Doctor?’

Hector admitted that he did not, not yet.

‘Actually,’ said Sabine, ‘I think that’s also why I come to see you. This session is the only point in my week when time stops and my time is completely my own.’

Hector understood precisely what Sabine meant. Especially since he, too, over the course of his day, often felt that he was up against the clock, like all his colleagues. When you’re a psychiatrist, you always have to keep an eye on the time, because if you allow your patient to talk to you for too long, the next patient will get impatient and all your appointments will run late that day. (Sometimes, this was very difficult for Hector – for example, when three minutes before the end of a session, just as he’d start to shift in his armchair to signal that time was almost up, the person in front of him would suddenly say, ‘Deep down, Doctor, I don’t think my mother ever loved me,’ and begin to cry.)

Being up against the clock, thought Hector to himself. It was a real problem for so many people, especially for mothers. What could he possibly do to help them?

HECTOR AND THE MAN WHO LOVED DOGS

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.

HECTOR AND THE LITTLE BOY WHO WANTED TO SPEED UP TIME

EVERY so often, children also came to see Hector, and, when they did, of course it was their parents who had decided to send them.

The children who came to see Hector weren’t really ill – it was more that their parents found them difficult to understand, or else they were children who were too sad, too scared or too excitable. One day, he talked to a little boy who, funnily enough, was called Hector, just like him. Little Hector was very bored at school, and time seemed to go by too slowly for him. So he didn’t listen, and he ended up with bad marks.

Big Hector asked Little Hector, ‘Right now, what do you wish for most in the world?’

Little Hector didn’t hesitate for a second. ‘To become a grown-up straight away!’

Hector was surprised. He had expected Little Hector’s answer to be: ‘For my parents to get back together’, or ‘To get better marks at school’, or ‘To go on a school ski trip with my friends’.

So he asked Little Hector why he wanted to become a grown-up straight away.

‘To decide things!’ said Little Hector.

If he became a grown-up straight away, explained Little Hector, he could decide for himself what time to go to bed, when to wake up and where he could spend his holidays. He could see the friends he wanted, have fun doing what he wanted and not see grown-ups he didn’t want to see (like his father’s new girlfriend). He would also have a real job, because going to school wasn’t a real job. Besides, you didn’t choose to go to school and then you spent hours, days, years watching time passing slowly and getting bored.

Hector thought that Little Hector had let his imagination run away with him about life as a grownup: after all, grown-ups still had to do things they didn’t like doing, and see people they didn’t like seeing. But he didn’t tell Little Hector that, because he thought that, for the moment, it was a good thing that Little Hector was dreaming of a happy future, since his present was not that happy.

So he asked Little Hector, ‘But if you became a grownup straight away, it would mean that you’d already lived for a good few years, so you’d have fewer left to live. Wouldn’t that bother you?’

Little Hector thought it over. ‘Okay, it’s a bit like a video game when you lose an extra life. It’s annoying, but it doesn’t stop you having fun.’ Then he looked at Hector. ‘What about you? Would it bother you to have already lost one or two lives?’

Big Hector thought that Little Hector might become a psychiatrist himself one day.

HECTOR THINKS THINGS OVER

AT the end of each day, Hector thought about all the people he’d listened to who were worried about time.

He thought about Sabine, who wanted to slow time down.

He thought about Fernand, who measured his life in dogs.

He thought about Little Hector, who wanted to speed time up.

And many others …

Hector spent more and more time thinking about time.

HECTOR IS CONSCIENTIOUS

HECTOR noticed that, if he asked them, almost all the people he saw had two kinds of worries.

Sometimes, it was the fear that time was passing too quickly, which is quite a distressing fear to have because you can’t do much about the speed of time. It’s like being on a horse that gallops on without heeding you, which had actually happened to Hector once, and it had given him a real fright.

At other times, it was the feeling that time was passing too slowly, and that … well, that’s like sitting on a donkey that doesn’t want to budge. Of course, it was mostly youngsters who told Hector that, or else very unhappy people who were waiting for things to get better and for whom every day seemed to last for weeks.

Hector thought that in order to help people who were worried about time he could suggest some little exercises to make them think. Because, when you’re a psychiatrist, you can obviously just tell people what they need to do to get better, but the chances are they won’t listen properly. It’s better to help them discover by themselves what would be good for them. Suggesting little exercises to make people think was a method favoured by Hector and quite a few of his colleagues.

Hector took out his notebook and got ready to make some notes. First, he thought of Fernand and wrote:

Time Exercise No. 1: Measure your life in dogs.

This exercise might help people to realise that it was better not to wait too long to do the things you really wanted to do. On the other hand, it could make you even more worried about time passing, and especially about how much of it you had left. Was it such a good exercise then, after all? Hector remembered having learnt at school that some philosophers thought a good life was one which involved thinking every day that one day it would all end. There was even a philosopher who had music played for him every evening at bedtime. Singers would gather at the foot of his bed and sing, ‘He lived!’, as if it was his funeral. But, as Hector knew, some people are a bit crazy, even some philosophers (and don’t tell anyone this, but even some psychiatrists too).

Hector thought of Little Hector.

Time Exercise No. 2: Make a list of what you wanted to do when you were little and dreaming of being grown up.

Again, this could help spur you on to do the things you really wanted to do. But it could just as easily discourage you by making you think it was too late. Hector would have liked to find an exercise which worked for everyone.

Hector thought of Sabine and wrote:

Time Exercise No. 3: Over the course of one day, count how much time you have for yourself. Sleeping doesn’t count (unless it’s at the office).

It was still very hard to tell what the results of this exercise would be. Some people would realise that they didn’t have a moment to themselves and that all their time was spent on other people – he was thinking of Sabine – and others would realise that they had nothing else to do but enjoy themselves or think about themselves. But Hector had already noticed that this didn’t always make those people happy. In fact some of them even wanted to kill themselves!

With his three exercises, Hector was well aware that his list was a bit on the short side. Perhaps, if he kept listening to the people who came to see him, it would give him other ideas.

And if that wasn’t enough? Well, there would always be time to think about that later.

HECTOR AND THE MAN WHO WANTED TO TURN BACK TIME

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.

HECTOR AND THE LADY WHO WANTED TO STAY YOUNG

THE patient just after Hubert was Marie-Agnès, a rather charming young woman who had a tendency to change boyfriends as soon as they fell in love with her. As a result, Hector had been her psychiatrist longer than she’d been with any of her boyfriends. When you’re a psychiatrist, you mustn’t fall in love with your patients, even when they are your type. Marie-Agnès had begun to realise that all her friends were married, and that most of the men she was interested in were married too.

‘When I think of all the perfectly good men I broke up with when I was younger …’

‘Perhaps they weren’t right for you,’ said Hector.

‘Oh, but they were. Besides, when I see how they’ve turned out, I think to myself that I was an absolute idiot not to hold on to them.’

‘All of them?’

‘No, no! Just one.’

‘Do you think this might be a useful lesson for the future?’

‘The future? But, at my age, I’ve got much less choice. I think my future will always be worse than my past.’

‘If you want to live the same way in the future as you did in the past, maybe,’ said Hector.

‘Do you mean that at thirty-nine you can’t keep living like you did at twenty?’

‘What do you think?’

‘Ah, but still … twenty is the most wonderful time of your life.’

Hector thought that this wasn’t true for everyone, but it clearly was for Marie-Agnès.

‘Not having a care in the world, being free and able to choose any guy you want, not thinking about the passage of time, feeling that your life is never going to end … How I wish I could go back!’

‘You were saying a moment ago that you would take the opportunity to choose a good husband quickly,’ said Hector.

‘Well, there, I’m contradicting myself. Maybe I’d do the same thing all over again.’

‘Then why have any regrets?’ asked Hector.

‘I just miss that feeling that my life will never end … because I don’t have that feeling any more,’ said Marie-Agnès.

Hector had read studies on this. There’s a moment when your life seems to stretch out before you like an endless roll of fabric, from which you’ll be able to make all sorts of outfits. And then comes the moment when you realise that the roll does have an end, and that you’ll have to do some careful calculations if you’re going to manage to get even one more set of clothes out of it. (Don’t forget, you’ve known from the beginning that the roll has an end, but, once again, when it comes to knowing and feeling, it’s feeling that counts.) Depending on the person, this feeling that the roll has an end hits them somewhere between two and a half dogs and three. Psychiatrists call this a midlife crisis and it puts a lot of work their way.

‘By the way, Doctor, could you write me a prescription for my vitamins?’

Hector remembered that, even though Marie-Agnès couldn’t slow time down, she tried to slow down its effects on her at least. There were so many things she could try: there were vitamin supplements and supplements of other supplements of every colour imaginable, which she bought on the internet, and workouts three times a week with lots of aerobics. And it’s true that, as Hector sometimes noticed, she had a really stunning figure. Then, of course, there were fruit and vegetables at least four times a day (this made Marie-Agnès’s mother happy, since she could never get Marie-Agnès to eat her vegetables when she was little), no cigarettes at all any more, not much wine and only good fats (that’s to say, none which come from cows or pigs, another reason for not eating those good animals).

Above all, Marie-Agnès avoided sunbathing, because she knew it ages the skin, and she used at least three different sorts of face cream, depending on whether it was morning, night or during the day, and her night cream was called ‘anti-ageing’.

Hector thought all this was very good for her health, and would make Marie-Agnès look younger for longer, but it didn’t stop time passing.

As it was, Marie-Agnès must have thought the same thing sometimes, because one day she said to Hector, ‘When I see myself bouncing up and down in the mirror at the gym or I’m standing in front of all my beauty creams, sometimes I ask myself, what’s the point? Why not just finally let go … stop caring about all that. Basically, it’s a kind of slavery.’

A slave to wanting to stay young. Hector thought that was a very good way of putting it, but he knew that Marie-Agnès would carry on being a slave for quite some time, because the way men looked at her was still very important to her.

When Marie-Agnès had left, Hector looked at himself in the mirror above the mantelpiece just as she had … and he noticed, no two ways about it, that for the first time in his life he had a few grey hairs, which you couldn’t miss, just above his ears.

So he wasn’t exactly a young psychiatrist any more.

In the end, just like all the other times when he had something important on his mind, Hector wanted to talk to his girlfriend Clara about it.

But he took the time to write:

Time Exercise No. 5: Imagine your life as a big roll of fabric, from which you have made all the clothes you have worn since you were little. Imagine the set of clothes you could make with the rest of the roll.