Patrice is a figure impossible to circumvent at the same time of the surgery , and surgery of the foot. He draws up us through his personal course a history on the development of the faculty of Nancy, the development of the surgery of the foot, and warns to us on known techniques like on the percutaneous surgery.

MO: Which is your course?

P.D.: I made traumatology in Nancy with the , which is the same type of establishment as that of Strasbourg. I always knew that I will make csotcina.comedy. I had leaning marked enough for the hand surgery: it was the great period with Jacques , of which I was the first intern into 1969/70, in the autonomous service of hand surgery. I liked that much and Jacques was a tempting man and a surgeon of talent and innovator. Unfortunately for me, and as much of old interns, it had a son-in-law and who was also a friend! Evening at the following day, I found myself without post of . It had just opened a post with the urgencies of the new of Nancy attached at a department of surgery visceral. At the time, the guard was general-purpose, J made traumatology there but I did not have any intention to make career there. Then I left for Burgundy, because my family had fasteners there; my parents like my brother and my sister lived there. A post opened in a very new hospital with Tonnerre, where I made traumatology, and general surgery. It is very a good memory.

. : Are your true roots ?

P.D.: My family was established in Alsace. In 1870, Alsace and the north of Lorraine become German. People who live the area of Strasbourg, like my back grandfather, pass the Vosges and settle in Nancy. Forty years later, in 14-18, the things evolve/move unfavourably, and at this time my family which had experience of the preceding war, needed a sure place to protect the metallurgical products which they manufactured. They thus open a workshop in Auxerre, which remained during more than fifty years the area of holidays of my paternal and maternal family. I made all my studies in Nancy, but Burgundy had for me the idyllic image of the holidays during which we settled in Auxerre. It was into 78. I was already installed departmental manager with Tonnerre, I was frightened routine and trouble which were promised to me in spite of a certain success in my practice and the fidelity of the wine medium of Windfallen wood. I did much traumatology at the time, the consultation lasted twelve minutes, one spoke nine minutes about wine, three minutes of the radio, I then had the project to leave for Australia! I told myself that I was going to pass by again the diplomas in the United States. Then I went in College, the evening after the hospital. The first nobody with which I wrote to have a training course, in the United States, was called , in New York which made surgery of the foot. A remarkable man, who also trained Mr. . It accommodated me in an exceptional way, and there I reported myself that the vision of the surgery of the foot was completely different from what was done in Europe. On the other hand I reported myself that I wanted neither to live, nor to practice in the United States. I returned with the project to import the American approach in particular that of biomechanics. One of my friends csotcina.comedist, installed into private in Nancy proposed an association to me: it is a little by chance that I returned to my starting point. In spite of the unfavourable consulting of a certain number of former colleagues (“you nevertheless will not make surgery of the foot, initially that hurt, and it is not profitable”), I settled in surgery of the foot, into 82.

. : Were you perceived like an original?

: How a ! The hand surgery and of the rachis started to be born, one started to organize the prosthetic surgery.

. : In 1982, when you, how much you were to make only surgery of the foot?

: Perhaps ten. It was really very little. But it should be explained why Nancy represents a typical location. In 1870, Alsace becomes German, and the university of Strasbourg, medical faculty in particular, is expatriated. In France, there were three large universities; Paris, Lyon and Montpellier. All the three refuse to accommodate it. The only university which accepts is Nancy which becomes a very large medical college. When Freud comes to Nancy, it comes to see which is of Strasbourg. When I was internal in Nancy, Nancy still corrected at the time, the proofs of the medical specialties of Strasbourg, , of Lille, and Besancon. The regional influence was large. These historical reasons make it possible to understand the possibility of practicing a speciality. The patients come easily to Nancy, including the Of Strasbourg one, Luxembourg, the south of Belgium, the border with Germany, Alsace, Rheims, Dijon… That allows a recruitment without any measurement with the size of the city.

. : Was the population rather rich?

: It is about an industrial area, but one knew years since that industry would be sacrificed, the mining regimes, those of the steel-works were relatively privileged.

. : Have the customers changed for 20 years?

: What I observe for me, it is the development of the reasons for consultations. I became in spite of me a surgeon of rebuilding of the before-foot more than of the back foot and ankle. When I started, I made separately equalizes ankle, the back foot and the before-foot.

. : You are attached to the town of Nancy?

: Absolutely. On the professional level, it is a town of mean size in which displacements that it is towards the private clinics or my cabinet are easy and fast. On the cultural level, it is a very large university which counts 53 017 students. There is a very beautiful opera, a good jazz festival, a great festival of choir singing, theaters, concert halls, restaurants, bars. The architectural quality of the east city development and of course all the are attached to the school of Nancy, , Galle, for most known of the glass Masters.

. : People of the East have as a reputation to be workers and serious. It is pleasant?

: One is high in this tradition, pleasant or not, one accepts it! 

. : You made little of ankle: it is a choice of your share not to disperse you like , or it is less tiring on the surgical level?

: I for a long time belong to people who were interested much in the prosthesis of ankle. The first prosthesis that I posed, it was there is more than 20 years. But if I wanted to really develop this activity, it would be necessary that I find time that I do not have. When you made surgery of recovery, the patients come because they exhausted any other alternative. I continue to work on the prosthesis but currently I seek a young surgeon who would deal with the , of the prosthesis of ankle.

. : How is your recruitment carried out usually?

: I saw recently an multi-operated patient, 10 times on a side, 6 of the other, which arrives to me like much by the word of mount. The general doctors, the kinesitherapists, the chiropodists, the shoemakers also take part in recruitment.

. : Without wanting to make you slander does your fellow-members, of which type of recoveries act?

: provides me enormous customers. The intervention of , the osteotomies of are sources of repetitions or malformations which require the recoveries. I think that the percutaneous one will give us what to work at least during 20 years, if it is used wrongly and through.

. : Are the failures of to badly made due, or is this the technique itself which is in question?

: In fact the indications are badly posed, more rarely of the technical errors. is of all the osteotomies most difficult. It notes the first department, by the compression generated by osteosynthesis, and causes metatarsalgias very quickly.

. : Why according to you the herringbone is adapted more?

: Because the cut being very short, he is easy inside towards the outside to forward the lower face of the metatarsal to him, thus giving him a plan obliques in bottom and outwards. The translation then has an automatic negotiable instrument of lowering. That is indeed shown by the diagrams of my item.

. :  You simply take again much because it is generally carried out, or for other reasons?

: Not, it is not that, I believe that it is really a phenomenon of mode. I took again much , much of Mac Bride…, which were with the mode like all the techniques. Curiously Mac Bride, which was one of the most used techniques, was a relatively iatrogenic technique. There was between 10 and 15% of , there were about 25% of repetition.  While gave some much more…

. : Which is the advantage of the herringbone?

: It is an osteotomy which is less dangerous because it is a short osteotomy. The herringbone has an advantage compared to the other osteotomies, that perhaps made by very small openings, one would say today that it is the invasive minicomputer. That could be a surgery with the mode for that.

. : Which is the history of the herringbone?

: The herringbone is a surgery conceived by podiatrists in the Sixties, taken again by the csotcina.comedists, like and the percutaneous one. It is the theorist Johnson who will return in the Eighties the herringbone accessible to the community from csotcina.comedists. I knew it in 1982. It is the great beginning of the osteotomies in the surgery of the hallux valgus but what changes it is that the herringbone is the first stable osteotomy.

. : How the herringbone is introduced in Europe?

: The situation is the following one: the herringbone arrives to France 10 years before is not interested in . It made at the time of Mac Bride. Nancy was the school of , that Jacques had brought back after having made an exchange of chief at . In Jacques , one still made of with transposition of the supply main. In this context represents the modern intervention which takes the top. When I go to the United States into 82, I meet which will become the chairman of the US company of surgery of the foot. It is him which it first shows me the herringbone.

. : It is you who introduced it in France? It is you who disseminated it?

: Yes, it is me which introduced it while re-entering to France. When I return, I then show it in in Nancy which remains however very favorable to Mac Bride. What allured it much thereafter in is the use of the two screws.

. : Did the herringbone thus appear before ?

: Yes! well before . will arrive to France 10 years after the herringbone. The herringbone it is the first modern osteotomy. it is a missed herringbone.

. : How disseminate it to you in France?

: It remained rather confidential. At the time, I did not have the support of industry. I worked much above before making it evolve/move and to share it, it was trade-guild.

. : Can't one recognize in a facility of osteosynthesis due to his longer rods?

: Doubtless. What made its success it is that it was thought that it was easier, it was necessary to put two screws, it was more stable. The surgeons adore the screws. The problem it is that these screws by their capacity of tightening raise… You would not have this negotiable instrument of tightening! I am not against the screws but in the herringbone, one cannot have negotiable instrument of front elevation. In fact screws existed since decades with a single thread cutting. They were less dangerous. You saw much nonunion of ? I do not believe, there are some pseudarthroses in the herringbone.

. : Disassembling by an early, inopportune support exists, one is nevertheless reassured by a screw which compresses well!

: I believe that this support is more source of fractures disassemblings! I have this impression.

. : You in your career of the privileged relations with certain laboratories, can you had describe them to us?

: I come from a family of engineers. I naturally, had relationship with the industry which pointed out the family tradition to me, although I would not have become engineer because not rather good in maths. I always had the passion of the design offices, the design and manufacture. I am pleased to work with the manufacturers for that. For geographical reasons, in the East of France, I approached and Hospital Goods. It is with the latter that I worked in first as for surgery of the foot. They dealt primarily with the large hinges. It was very difficult to convince them of the interest of the foot. After I worked with Colorado on the screws, one has quite advanced in this field. After, there was the adventure of , which while separating from launched out without reserve in the management of the foot. I worked more recently on the materials with society. I worked a long time on materials with memory of form. In all I collaborated with 7 society, each time on different projects, while trying to confine me with each partner with projects which were not competitive. Today it became intricate because the ranges are recut. There are copies, and copies of copies.

. : How that this master key currently?

: I work with , bought up by Integra, and a little less with Hospital Fournitures. I am always enthusiastic to collaborate with industry, I with the engineers. Despite everything I find that fantastic things are made. Our brawl with the engineers is related to the fact that they do not go as an operating room. They have fantastic ideas, but out of the context. We, one is there to think of the product, and to try to bring something moreover to the patient. The problem it is that a project takes an enormous time. One arrives while telling: I have a project. It interests the industrialist, who will seek an engineer. You ask for the product to him to pose for the following week because you have a patient… The conflict comes from what time industrial, medical, of the experimentation, the time of work and reflection is completely different. We are the designers, but we engage the money of the industrialists who trust us. The return on the investment it is not we who assume it. All is not perfect in this world.

. : Is it still possible today that a doctor layer designer can have a dialog with industry if the laboratory did not preserve a family dimension?

: I think that it is possible. But it is true that the more important society is, plus it is difficult to go quickly. One cannot jump the stages. Between the idea, the drawing and the realization, three or four years occur, it is something of very frequent. I know people who work on prostheses which one will start to speak in 10-12 years.

. : Do you think that it is possible to today be taken with serious by industry if one is not in a network prescriber?

: Yes. We are there to make projects, to conclude them, to prove that they are serious and viable, we are not there to make figure. It is the commercial system of the industry which must make the figure, it is not with us to do it. We do not have to be a prescriber or not-prescriber. It is a complete error. It is very difficult to explain to the industrialists who the aim is not to be one of their large accounts. I is there to be sure that the product corresponds well to the needs for my fellow-members, it is all. The sale, they are its commercial which must do it. When you known as that with an industrialist, it is annoyed! If the sales network is good it is sold, if the sales network is null you can have the best idea of the world, it remains in cartons. What I defend, it is the design. What I try to bring, it is a reflection purely biomechanical, functional, surgical, not a product.

. : Which is for you the great contribution of the screw of Herbert?

: Compression.

. : You had his hardware before ?

: Yes of course.

. : They were perforated?

: Yes, then the screws known as came of of which the manufacturing first was besides then, thereafter, .

. : You remain faithful to the herringbone at the time of the introduction of ?

: When I started to make of , I broke many metatarsals. I continued to try to find specific indications to him, otherwise that did not bring anything moreover, there is in particular much more translation with a herringbone

. : Don't you impose more important stresses to the patients by not authorizing the support in the continuations? those which make primarily of reduced the complexity of the continuations by allowing an earlier support in particular, sometimes even without specific shoe.

: makes go all its osteotomies of immediately. Me I do not do it. It is not a problem of osteotomy, nor of patient, it is a problem of surgeon, stress. It is the same thing for the drainage, for the post-operative shoe, rehabilitation. It is in your phantasm of the surgery that you make safe yourselves.

. : What do you recommend like continuation of a herringbone?

: I use the shoe known as of . I am unable to say honestly if it is important.

. : Do rehabilitation, you begin it when?

: Immediately, immediately, with one the first week followed by car-rehabilitation. But there too I am not able to tell you if it is really important or if it is for me that I do it. A randomized study would have to be made.

. : You have the impression that the herringbone has the best continuations with regard to the edema?

: Ca also, I will be unable to tell you that. It would be dishonest person to say the herringbone is better. I saw of with very little edema, others with large feet, herringbones with normal feet. I think in any event that the important thing is to reconstitute the anatomy on the level of the soft parties and to make an osteotomy of good quality which puts the head on the .

. : Can you enumerate us the various techniques which a surgeon of the foot must know?

: Any surgeon of the foot must know to make an osteotomy of phalange, for the first department , a herringbone, an osteotomy of , , of for the pallet , a circular semi osteotomy, , an arthrodesis of the first department, as well as osteotomies of opening and closing in very precise information. A surgeon of the foot must know to make at least ten interventions on a first metatarsal. He must do it in a simple way and well.

. : Do you think that there is a school in France which is able to inculcate them to you?

: It is very difficult because one returns in the concept of schools. However, it is that today for political reasons, economic, or others it is a restrictive concept. The penetration of an idea coming besides in a academic world is extremely slow, and once returned one emphasizes it with difficulty. For example it took 20 years to make re-enter Mac Bride to Marseilles, but to make it leave that was a whole history. The problem is this confrontation between the concept of school thus of authority, and young generation of assistants fills with enthusiasm it which brings back novel ideas. Brutal separation between deprived and the public, the loss of the role of the attaches in the services worsened the things. It is necessary to report to you of a thing which is that our controlling does not know what they want to do between the private sector and public, in particular to leave or not the surgery regulated the public area. The question is there. The public hospital it will continue to keep the “cold surgery”, nobody does not know which is, on the level of the PERSONNEL DEPARTMENTS, the comprehensive view of the future.

. : That raises the question of teaching.

: I think that there is nevertheless a fantastic complementarity between deprived and public. There is no exclusiveness. Today one may find it beneficial no to work in his corner, to seek, if one does not forward.

. : In is the years which come, possible that teaching is made elsewhere than in the ?

:  Yes, but I believe that it will initially be necessary to learn the bases from csotcina.comedy. That it is wanted or not it is institutional, and is done with the .

. : Which is the course which you advise with a young person who would like to make surgery of the foot? Who does it have to go to see apart from Patrice ?

: It is necessary that it learns general csotcina.comedy, then that he goes abroad a year, because our French schools are extremely stereotyped. 99,9% of the surgery in the world are not done with the French manner and people survive it nevertheless. Thus it is necessary to see elsewhere, it is absolutely fundamental. I think in addition that is needed an important biomechanical formation, and to add with that indeed one or two six-month periods of formation in the private one.

. : Who is it necessary to go to see in ?

: Lyon, Toulouse and Bordeaux are good training centres. The problem of Paris is a little difficult, because the school of is very established.  There is very an other field where I am extremely careful, that of percutaneous truth. I do not have the medium-term follow-up yet and do not know what that will give on the long run. I have much evil to accept the percutaneous one on the first department, contrary to the side departments. If you ask me for my opinion, except for certain surgeons who still seek, and of rare indications, I think that for the moment it is a swindle.

. : What do you think of the line of ?

: It is a intellectual design. I adore Michel, but that makes me laugh each time because projection on a plan of a curve, they is false. It is amusing on the esthetic level; It is pretty to look at, it is funny, it is an good idea, but it should not be calculated mathematically, because they is false.

. : If is shorter, that poses even a problem as?

: Shorter has importance only if you have metatarsalgias of transfer, at this time it is necessary that you equalize. On the other hand, if you have runs but with a certain slope compared to the ground, it will be in charge, one then should not equalize the pallet within sight of a simple radio of face.

. : You can explain us in detail what you think of the percutaneous surgery?

: The developments in the technologies of the surgery showed the enrichment of the traditional surgery with open sky, by the endoscopic surgery then the invasive mini surgery. One can understand it with the rigor, the channels initially are aggressive, the cicatrization is long, with adherences. But the percutaneous one I do not understand completely the indication of it. What one does into percutaneous is a simple projection on a plan. You regulate the problem of soft-tissues, neither that of the meniscus, nor what east articular, therefore you made a half surgery. There is no real scientific justification. It is told us that there is less of pains! Is a subcutaneous osteotomy, it a fracture thus a fracture today they are not more painful? Doesn't Ca give any more an hematoma, more edema? One could call that the American miracle… or the mirage. It is acted in fact of an indication marketing. That is debatable all the same when surgery is made. The surgery of the hallux valgus is a benign surgery which must have a minimum of complication. In a 20 year old patient, when you pass from a benign intervention to an intervention which is likely to be a catastrophe for before foot, in more for reasons of marketing, I estimate that you are not any more in your role of surgeon. The osteotomy of which is the ancestor of the invasive minicomputer had 20% of complications between the vicious cal in or . Does in Italy call now it , that decreases the complications?
Between 15 and 18 years, to make an osteotomy of subtraction of in the head when there is no deformation of soft-tissues, to abolish the , can conceive itself, but it should be fixed.

. : And for the soft parties?

: One makes again of Mac Bride to the blind man: in the , the nervous pedicle is located against the side , and you release the supply main of the side without knowing where it is. If you cut it in somebody who is twenty years old, it is catastrophic. Why take risks for a surgery which should not contain some? The problem is there. Currently people who began percutaneous first department stopped all, except people who need a recruitment marketing. This negotiable instrument is justified in the United States for purely technical reasons and of organization, i.e. the podiatrists do not have an access to the hospitalization, they cannot thus make a regulated surgery, or there is an unspecified risk of complication. Thus this development is justified in a social system which is not ours. In the United States, few podiatrists make the percutaneous one.  is not very known there, and K. Johnson had fought much against the percutaneous one

. : With regard to the side departments?

: I do not have anything against the percutaneous surgery side departments. There are three or four indications. On the other hand, neither luxation is needed, nor metatarsophalangeal subluxation and not of really important claw. To transform is a claw into intrinsic toe, a success or a substitute?

. : If the term of school is taken again, is there a school of surgery of the foot in Nancy, or there are individuals?

: There is a school of surgery of the foot in Nancy because despite everything one left the school of the hand of Jacques . It was somebody who had a great creativity but especially a great independence of mind and which had a great tolerance. I think that one nevertheless left this school.

. : For us, seen outside, there is no school of the foot in Nancy. There is .

: It is a perhaps Parisian sight. But nowhere, at the present time, there is school of the foot; it is completely dispersed. The basic crop misses in spite of the efforts.

. : You feel isolated in Nancy?

: I do not feel too much not isolated I was likely to see a very great circulation of experts come to Nancy, with whom I could swap, to discuss. In Nancy, the weather is cold in winter, when it rains or that the sky is gray, one is well as an operating-room. I have also a very large activity of congress and publications.

. : They come on your name?

: Undoubtedly because I have a rather specific practice and that I do not organize my planning according to the visitors. They can come at any time, to see me operating and see my radios of control where my final consultations. I cheating not, one as many learn his failures of his successes. I kept this taste of the exchange on the level of the theory and comprehension. 

. : Let us speak now about the learned societies: you do not have any more a function within French Association of Surgery of the Foot?

: I is founding member of the , former chief executive it is largely sufficient. I gave, place with the young people. One starts at the bottom of the room, after one arrives in front of the dais, after one goes up on the dais, after one chairs the dais, and one turns over to the content of the room. I set out again there, I can listen.

. : That enables you to have a point of view. What do you think of the current location of the , its relationship with the French company of Medicine and Surgery of the foot?

: I find that separation is detrimental. It is time and lost energy. The members of two society are people of quality, they should for a long time have found a compromise. When we founded the , which at the time was called the in reference to the , it was because Jacques Montagne who was chairman of the at the time me had told: “you us with your surgery”. It was right. I estimate that when the surgeons are between them, they need to make operative technique, and the was made for that. That made forever at the beginning to admit doctors, physios, chiropodists. It was to make csotcina.comedy. It is besides a society girl of the . After there were problems of people who have anything to see neither with the scientific transmission, nor with the interest of society. These problems were very acute when it was necessary to organize a European Society i.e. the , consisted of surgical society, except for one or two countries. For historical reasons in fact the was put within the , then certain members of the did not appreciate felt excluded. The did not want two society of the same country. It is there that truths problems began.

. : Is the newspaper of surgery of the foot, it the part of the ?

: Yes. I was opposite there. It is read by nobody and is very expensive. When I was in the leading authorities of the French company, I wished that it be abolished. I did not change an opinion. A certain number of members of the office of the continuous to wish that this review be a part of connection between the various members of society. I think that there can be more economic means like connection. There is on the other hand a European review published in English who is excellent. I think that the French items must be published in a European English newspaper. If it is wanted that the French ideas are recognized, it should be published in English, one will be read, if one is read one will be referred, if one is referred, one is in the bibliographies, that advances. I must say that the Anglo-Saxon authors are in the field of the bibliography much more that the French authors. You are always referred in their items. To make progress the ideas, despite everything it is like that, it is necessary to go on their premises. I reported myself that if one wanted to make pass our ideas it was necessary theirs to bring. It is necessary that they inside are faced. It is not a large obstacle. Society is entered more than it is not believed provided that one wants to do it.

. : What misses when a foreign language badly is had a command of they are all the nuances…

: There are no nuances to have in the exhibition of methodology or from the results of a series, you will publish your results. There are only you who have the impression that you will not be understood. However the nuances can appear more in the discussion that in the talk of the corpus. It does not remain about it less than when you want to forward something, it is necessary that it is formal, simple, that people find themselves there and that it is relatively repetitive.

. : But it is the interest of the French language to have this subtlety…

: Listen, me I published in English, I never read in the text. I do not say that I am a distinguished english-speaking.

. : It is you who translated?

: Today not, but I am able to make an American item. I know the code, the way in which the Americans write their items. It is a pure question of technique and the Americans are relatively more flexible in the way in which they forward the things. From the moment when you know the formulas! So on the following day I write item in French and that I translate it by a translator who uses a perfect English, it will be necessary that I rewrite certainly the unpublishable English text but in the United States.

. : How is that learned?

: While adapting and while going to listen to them. At the end of 20 years, you know how to write an item in the United States. I thus arrived there everyone can do it. Indeed, between publishing an item in the and writing a poem of , there are completely different nuances. But it is not that in question, it is necessary to forward the things in a clear way, so that they are accepted by a reader who reads Spanish, Italian, French items. What you expose must be rigorous. There there are not many nuances.

. : Speak us about your leisures: you made sport?

: I did many sports, ski, tennis but I had a serious distorsion of the knee, and that left me after-effects I continue to do a little gym in room the winter and the golf in summer.

. : what made you of other?

:  I cultivate bonsais for a long time, I cut them myself: I make them and herringbone, as for the feet. That was for me an extraordinary meeting: in 1966, I saw with the Floral festivals of the Bonsais of the Emperor of Japan which had been brought to France. I saw for the first time of the bonsais which were 450 years old. It is incredible to think of 40-50 generations of man which the every day worked them! It is only thereafter, when I went to Japan which I understood how they were able to do them. The bonsais remain dwarf that because one the roots. If you plant a bonsai in your garden, the following year you will have a shaft, it is finished. From the moment when the roots take volume, the dwarf disappears. One cannot on the other hand the flowers and the fruits. One doesnot can make. For example, I made a which with the size of this pot since 12 years, but the bunches of flowers have a normal height. It is very difficult to arrange!

. : Thus does the sexual aircraft resist to the gardener?

: Absolutely. In addition, in the stores, one thus sells to you exotic bonsais of interior. You will not find a oak, or of charm. To have these bonsais it is outside necessary to have place. As the majority of the stores are downtown, they put shafts of interior. To make bonsais of outside, you identify a seedling in nature, you on the spot cut the roots through the ground by hoping that somebody will not find it, you return to take it the following year!

. :  Finally the percutaneous one has advantages!

: Indeed! More simply you find places or the shafts rather spontaneously, and which then constitute a starting good base of patience! There too the only valid results are those at 20 years….

. : Which are your other leisures?

: I must specify as a preliminary that I do much surgery. I operate five mornings and I consult three days per week. I like much the wine, and I was likely to look after many vine growers. Everyone can thus come in my sucker, my children are not deprived any. In addition, I am impassioned of American literature, and I go rather regularly to the opera.