{"id":752,"date":"2011-10-30T20:47:29","date_gmt":"2011-10-30T19:47:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elmalet.co.uk\/?p=752"},"modified":"2011-11-28T14:58:17","modified_gmt":"2011-11-28T13:58:17","slug":"les-cadeaux-presents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elmalet.co.uk\/?p=752","title":{"rendered":"Les cadeaux – presents"},"content":{"rendered":"

Taken from Catherine Cusset: ‘Un Brillant Avenir’<\/span><\/p>\n

La nuit tombe. Ils ouvrent les cadeaux. Des dizaines de cadeaux que la grand-m\u00e8re a pr\u00e9par\u00e9s depuis des ann\u00e9es pour Alex et sa future \u00e9pouse. Marie se rend compte qu’elle remplit un r\u00f4le qui existait longtemps avant qu’elle rencontre Alex. “Frumos !” r\u00e9p\u00e8te-t-elle apr\u00e8s avoir demand\u00e9 \u00e0 Alex comment on dit ‘beau’. Elle a des crampes dans les zygomatiques \u00e0 force de sourire. Il y a des pulls beiges informes que sa grand-m\u00e8re a tricot\u00e9s avec de la laine de mauvaise qualit\u00e9. Un pour lui, un pour elle. Des sandales trop grandes, o\u00f9 il suffira de fourrer des boulettes de papier journal pour les ajuster, des napperons brod\u00e9s main, des nappes qu’il faut laver et repasser apr\u00e8s chaque usage alors qu’ils n’ont m\u00eame pas de fer \u00e0 repasser; un grand tapis synth\u00e9tique d’un vert \u00e9lectrique \u00e0 suspendre au mur du salon l’hiver pour conserver la chaleur, et toutes sortes d’objets kitsch, parmi lesquels une affreuse sculpture de poulbot grandeur nature, si lourde qu’on dirait du plomb.<\/p>\n

“Un gamin,” dit la grand-m\u00e8re en utilisant le mot fran\u00e7ais.<\/p>\n

“En pierre,” ajoute en riant le grand-p\u00e8re, qui les a mis au d\u00e9fi de deviner la mati\u00e8re.<\/p>\n

The presents.<\/span> From Catherine Cusset :\u00a0‘A Great Future’<\/span><\/p>\n

Night falls. They open their presents. Lots of presents that his grand-mother had been preparing\u00a0over the\u00a0years for Alex and for his future wife. Marie realized that she was fulfilling a role that had existed for a long time before she had met Alex. “Frumos !” she repeated after\u00a0having asked Alex the word for ‘beautiful’. Her cheeks were aching from smiling too much. There were shapeless beige pullovers knitted with low-grade wool. One for him, one for her. Over-large sandals, which would need stuffing with balls of paper to make them fit, hand-embroidered tablemats, tablecloths that would need washing and ironing after every use, even though they did not even possess an iron; a large synthetic carpet in electric green which was for hanging on the living-room wall in winter to keep in the heat, and all sorts of kitsch articles, including a hideous life-sized sculpture of a Parisian urchin, so heavy it appeared to be made of lead.<\/p>\n

“Un gamin,” said his grand-mother, using the french word.<\/p>\n

“In stone,” added his grand-father, laughing, having asked them to guess what it was made of.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Taken from Catherine Cusset: ‘Un Brillant Avenir’ La nuit tombe. Ils ouvrent les cadeaux. Des dizaines de cadeaux que la grand-m\u00e8re a pr\u00e9par\u00e9s depuis des ann\u00e9es pour Alex et sa future \u00e9pouse. Marie se rend compte qu’elle remplit un r\u00f4le … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,26],"tags":[46,16],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4yjly-c8","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elmalet.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elmalet.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elmalet.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elmalet.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elmalet.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=752"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/elmalet.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":754,"href":"https:\/\/elmalet.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752\/revisions\/754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elmalet.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elmalet.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elmalet.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}