Hector's office

Hector's office is only mentioned at the beginning of the novel. The narrator describes it as a typical psychiatrist's office, with scores of books - some unread - an old couch, statuettes of Hindu and Egyptian style, and his desk. Hector's practice is located in a wealthy city where people seem to have everything materialistically they could ever want for, which is probably why Hector has copies of Hindu and Egyptian statuettes, so his patients will know - or at least think - that he is well-off, like them. Though Hector's home country is never named, it is clearly a Westernized city in Europe based on the fact that the novel is originally French and the spelling of some words, i.e. realisation, have an 's' instead of a 'z'.

In his office, Hector sees patients such as Madame Irina, a psychic who sees Hector when she...