Why should such an unfortunate aspire to be a historian? I think I can trace the moment my choice was made. It’s among my earliest memories, and it must have happened about thirty years ago, though I’m sure I lived many years before that—years now lost to me. I was squatting behind thick, dusty curtains in a vestibule, listening to a priest instructing other novitiates, all of pure flesh, about Mortdieu. His words are still vivid.