The Method Read Online Free Page A

are we supposed to explain the need for certain rules, if the rules themselves aren’t unerringly rational and valid – or to put it another way, if they’re fallible? Being infallible requires absolute consistency. It’s simply good sense.’
    ‘Listen to him, Mia,’ says the ideal inamorata, ‘he’s talking in sound bites. The man is a machine!’
    ‘Shush,’ Mia tells her.
    ‘Good sense,’ continues the ideal inamorata, ‘is knowing you’re right without knowing why!’
    ‘Stop butting in!’
    ‘I beg your pardon?’ says Kramer.
    ‘Tell me,’ says Mia, turning to face him. ‘What does infallibility mean in human terms?’
    ‘I can see where this is going.’
    ‘How can you expect rules, regulations or procedures to be infallible when they’re devised by humans? Humans change their beliefs, their scientific viewpoints, their entire notion of truth every couple of decades. Haven’t you ever asked yourself whether,
in spite of everything
, my brother could have been innocent?’
    ‘No,’ says Kramer.
    ‘Why not?’ asks the ideal inamorata.
    ‘Why not?’ asks Mia.
    ‘Let’s take the question to its logical conclusion.’ Kramer sets down his cup and leans towards her. ‘What would we get? A legal system of exceptions and anomalies! The fickle rule of the heart, pardoning and punishing with the capriciousness of an absolute monarch. Whose heart should we use? Mine? Yours? With what claim to legality? Would we appeal to a higher authority? Do you believe in God, Frau Holl?’
    ‘I don’t believe in him and he doesn’t believe in me. It’s mutual.’
    ‘What about Herr Kramer’s system?’ says the ideal inamorata. ‘He doesn’t believe in rational objectivity – and it doesn’t believe in him!’
    ‘And emotions?’ counters Mia. ‘They’re hardly a reliable basis for decisions. By definition, they’re merely personal.’
    ‘Human reason is an illusion,’ says the ideal inamorata. ‘It’s nothing but a vessel for the sum of your feelings.’
    ‘Anachronistic, romantic claptrap,’ snaps Mia.
    ‘It didn’t kill Moritz, though. Unlike your intellectual sophisms.’
    ‘Frau Holl!’ Kramer waves a shapely hand as if to dispel a cloud of mist. ‘Please desist from talking to yourself. You’ve lost a brother, not your confidence in the system.’
    ‘Which Moritz despised,’ throws in the ideal inamorata.
    Mia casts a warning look in her direction and walks to the window. It is a beautiful day, straight from a commercial for protein supplements. Mia fights back the urge to close the curtains. The sunlight reveals half-eaten takeaways, discarded items of clothing, and dust gathering in the corners. It reeks of the twentieth century. The bright light seems to magnify the chaos with every passing minute.
    ‘From here I can see two paths,’ says Mia. ‘One is marked misery, the other ruin. I can curse a system founded on a Method to which there is no rational alternative; or I can betray my love for my brother, whose innocence seems as clear to me as the fact of my own existence. Do you see?’ She swings around violently. ‘I
know
he didn’t do it. What course should I take: hell or damnation? Should I fall or should I fall?’
    ‘Neither,’ says Kramer. ‘In certain situations, the error lies not in the choices you make, but in making a decision at all.’
    ‘But … are you of all people telling me there are flaws in the system?’
    ‘Of course.’ His smile, which has never faded, becomes disarming. He looks up at her from the armchair. ‘The system is human, you said so yourself. Inevitably it has its flaws. The human condition is a pitch-black room in which we crawl around like newborn babies, unseeing, unhearing. The best we can do is to avoid bumping heads. Nothing more.’
    ‘Bumping heads? Mine is in pieces.’
    ‘Not in my opinion; not from what I’m seeing right now.’ Kramer extends an arm and points at the middle of Mia’s forehead. ‘You need to rise