BELGRADE, THURSDAY

“I HAVE PROVEN it by an equation. The dominant impulse of human life is a spiteful envy; its half-sibling is a determined hate. And if you dig deep enough into anyone you will find these two supping together and laughing at us all.”

Recently divorced Professor Friedrich Raucous says he came to these conclusions after ten sleepless nights working out how much he had to pay his ex-wife in maintenance and a property settlement. “It took fifteen bottles of vodka to come up with the equation and more cocaine than I have ever managed, but I got there. Bitter? No. Realistic.”

Professor Raucous, who researches emotional anthropology, says that natural selection uses envy as its general fuel and hate as its supercharger. “So where envy does not immediately inspire forward momentum, we up a gear to hate and that helps us succeed. The mathematics doesn’t lie. It is amazing how bitter an individual can become just watching friends – no one really has friends, that’s a myth – live their lives. We appear predisposed to envy even where there is no obvious reason for it. It’s remarkable. The more envious and hateful have always been more successful – which shows how nature can achieve its aims with a lie. Because their very success means these people’s envy was inevitably misplaced. Hate is a little different. Envy is a fluid thing. You envy someone, you pass them out, you cease to envy them but you envy someone else. Hate is a fixed point. Like a lighthouse, warning of danger. You can measure your life by your hates. Sculpt your destiny.”

And love?

“Love is a divorce court. It gives everything to ….”

The professor stopped talking at this point and returned to his vodka and equations.