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added to which his baldness is coming along nicely. Fine, all this could still be arranged; but what isn't fine is his face. He has the exact appearance of a buffalo toad - thick, gross, heavy, deformed features, the very opposite of handsome. His shiny acned skin seems to permanently exude a greasy fluid. He wears bifocal glasses, because he's extremely short-sighted to boot
    - yet if he had contact lenses it wouldn't change anything, I'm afraid. What's more, his conversation lacks finesse, fantasy, humour; he has absolutely no charm (charm is a quality which can sometimes substitute for physical beauty - at least in men; anyway, one often says `He has loads of charm', or `The most important thing is charm'; that's what one says). Given all this, he is obviously terribly frustrated; but what can I do about it? So I gaze out at the landscape.

    A bit later he engages the student in conversation. We skirt the Seine, scarlet, completely drowned in the rays of the rising sun - one would really think the river gorged with blood.

    Around nine we arrive in Rouen. The student says her goodbyes to Tisserand - she refuses to give him her telephone number of course. For a few minutes he will feel a certain despondency; it's going to be me who has to find a bus.

    The Departmental Headquarters for Agriculture building is evil-looking and we are late. Here, work begins at eight - this, I will learn, is often the case in the provinces. The training session gets going immediately. Tisserand is first to speak; he introduces himself, introduces me, introduces our company. After that I assume he'll introduce the computer, the integrated software, their advantages. He could also introduce the course, the work method we are going to follow, lots of things. All this should take us to around midday, no problem, especially if there's a good oldfashioned coffee-break. I take off my parka, place a few sheets of paper before me.

    The audience is made up of fifteen or so people; there are some secretaries and middle management, some technicians I imagine - they have the look of technicians. They don't seem particularly hostile, or particularly interested in computers either - and yet, I say to myself, computers are going to change their lives.

    I spot straightaway where the danger lies: an extremely young guy in glasses, tall, lanky and lithe. He has installed himself at the back so he can watch everybody; I silently dub him `the Serpent', but in actual fact he will introduce himself to us after the coffee-break by the name of Schnäbele. Here in the making is the future boss of the computer service, and he has a very satisfied air about it. Sitting at his side is a guy of fifty-odd, extremely well-built, unpleasant-looking, with a fringe of red beard. He must be an ex-sergeant-major, or something of the sort. He has a beady eye - Indochina, I imagine - which he will keep trained on me for ages, as if summoning me to explain the reason for my presence. He seems devoted body and soul to the Serpent, his boss. He has something of the mastiff about him - the kind of dog which never lets go its bite, in any event.

    All too soon the Serpent will fire off various questions whose object is to throw Tisserand, make him look incompetent. Tisserand is incompetent, this is a fact, but he's come across such types before. He's a professional. He will have no difficulty in parrying the various attacks, now dodging with grace, now promising to return to them at some later point in the course. He will sometimes even succeed in suggesting that the question might indeed have had a point at an earlier period in the development of computers, but that it has now been rendered meaningless.

    At midday we are interrupted by the strident and disagreeable ringing of a bell. Schnäbele sidles up to us: `Do we eat together?' The question admits of no reply.

    He tells us that, sorry, he has a few little things to do before lunch. But we can go with him, like that he can