«The Pursuit of the Ideal»: when melancholy turns to nostalgia

Cyrille Bertrand, a dreamy twenty-something, imagines a life of literature, pleasure, and adventure. Instead, he’s tossed from one odd job to another and from one disappointment to the next. And he doesn’t understand a thing about his self-righteous era.

In the professional world, as with women, Cyrille feels left out, awkward, almost like he doesn’t belong. He thought that a job—even one without glamour or merit—could integrate him into the grand dance of society and give him time to spread his wings. But the banality of his daily life inexorably drags him into the mediocrity of existence. Endlessly dwelling on his stagnation, yet without earnestly seeking to break free from it, Cyrille sees his salvation arrive through an old friend. The friend tells him that a position at the Ministry of Culture is tailor-made for him. In no time at all, he finds himself hired as an assistant