He has recently suffered a heart attack but has returned to work. He is appreciated by his patients, and is being harassed by Old Brézé, the owner of a nearby medical clinic, who is losing clients and cannot stand competition. In league with his sons and son-in-law, Brézé uses insinuations close to blackmail. Losseray also learns about the story of Doctor Jean-Pierre Berg, another surgeon with a very different lifestyle from Losseray, who was similarly hassled by the same man fifteen years before. He becomes obsessed with it as he discovers what it was about.