‘mr stevens, i thought these would brighten your parlour a little.’ (the remains of the day)

Je dois m'en aller, Niagara

Anna Valenn, et c'est du cinéma

But what is the sense in forever speculating what might have happened had such and such a moment turned out differently? One could presumably drive oneself to distraction in this way. In any case, while it is all very well to talk of ‘turning points’, one can surely only recognize such moments in retrospect. Naturally, when one looks back to such instances today, they may indeed take the appearance of being crucial, precious moments in one’s life; but of course, at the time, this was not the impression one had. Rather, it was as though one had available a never-ending number of days, months, years in which to sort out the vagaries of one’s relationship with Miss Kenton; an infinite number of further opportunities in which to remedy the effect of this or that misunderstanding. There was surely nothing to indicate at the time that such evidently small incidents would render whole dreams forever irredeemable.

The Remains of the Day / Les Vestiges du jour, Kazuo Ishiguro ; traduit de l'anglais par Sophie Mayoux aux Presses de la Renaissance, et en folio. Kazuo Ishiguro est prix Nobel de littérature. - Mr Stevens est majordome, trente-cinq ans au dévoué service de Lord Darlington auquel il faisait une confiance aveugle. Lord Darlington tombe en disgrâce après guerre, et à sa mort, Darlington Hall est racheté par un américain, majordome inclus. Mr Stevens reçoit une lettre de Miss Kenton, son ancienne collègue, lui annonçant qu'elle quitte son mari. Il entreprend un petit périple automobile pour la revoir. Ce voyage est l'occasion d'une introspection de Mr Stevens sur sa carrière, et sa vie, son histoire d'amour manquée. Bouleversant. (Et matière à réflexion sur la notion de dignité.)

Et l'adaptation cinématographique par James Ivory avec Anthony Hopkins et Emma Thomson, et dans un petit rôle, charming Hugues Grant, et aussi Lena Headey (la Cersei de GoT) est superbe.

Ten minutes or so later came the sound of another car and I opened the door to Herr Ribbentrop, the German Ambassador, by now no stranger to Darlington Hall. His lordship emerged to meet him and the two gentlemen appeared to exchange complicit glances before disappearing together into the drawing room. When a few minutes later I was called in to provide refreshments, the four gentlemen were discussing the relative merits of different sorts of sausage, and the atmosphere seemed on the surface at least quite convivial. Thereafter I took up my position out in the hall – the position near the entrance arch that I customarily took up during important meetings – and was not obliged to move from it again until some two hours later, when the back door bell was rung. On descending, I discovered a police constable standing there with Miss Kenton, requesting that I verify the latters identity. ‘Just security, miss, no offence meant,’ the officer muttered as he wandered off again into the night.