Section 24 Summary

This section begins with the phrase, "The first thing Paraprine said..."

Bardamu returns to Paris, where his resourceful colleague, Dr. Paraprine, finds him a post working with magnetic wave therapy in an asylum (or 'rest-home') for the depressed and insane. The two ways humans express their innermost being, Bardamu concludes, are war and madness. The decades-long effort to avoid reverting to our true natures is what exhausts us so much.

Bardamu's new boss, Baryton, does his best to keep their asylum up-to-date, because the families are always demanding more up-to-date modes of treatment. At discount sales and second-hand shops, he acquires a variety of electric, pneumatic and hydraulic equipment, to stay ahead of rival asylums. The routine work of running the asylum bores him after so many years and he likes nothing more than to hear stories of Bardamu's travels. Bardamu is paid...