the Great Obsession. Which was everything at once: love and intoxication, blindness and clear-sightedness, meaning and madness. Colleagues spoke now and then about excitement, but this was something else, something special. He had never told anyone about the Obsession or made any attempt to analyze it. He hadn’t dared. All he knew was that it helped him, drove him, fueled the job he was appointed to perform. He didn’t want to know any more. He really didn’t.