Parfum d'une autre époque...

[Eric]

Voici une dédicace de Cordwainer Smith, parue en ouverture de l'édition originale de Space Lords (Les Puissances de l'espace), en 1965 :

DEDICATED
to the memory of
ELEANOR JACKSON of LOUISA, VIRGINIA
20 February 1919 to 30 November 1964

Dear Eleanor:

You came out to my house to tend me, Eleanor, while I was sick and trying to finish this book. You died in the little guest room next to my bedroom. You spent the night there because you wanted to get a special breakfast for me, Eleanor, since I was sick at home while my wife had to be taken to a hospital, too.

You died there in my house, Eleanor; you looked very sleepy when you were dead, like one of the little "colored" dolls that they have at the department stores in America.

You were a Negro, Eleanor, and I have been called white. For seventeen years you shared my home, cooking, cleaning, and tending my things in America. You were a woman and I am a man. In seventeen years, we were thousands of times just the two of us in the house, and there was never an indecent gesture or an unchaste word from one of us to the other. I was kind, generous, courteous, and thoughtful toward you, and you were kind, generous, courteous and thoughtful toward me.

Only when the blue-clad police carried your little body away did I finally say to the morgue station wagon those words which I never said to you in life, "I love you, Eleanor. Where are you going, my little brown girl?"

I know where you are, Eleanor. Your little body is in a box somewhere on the other side of the world, in Virginia. I am back here In Australia again. But I can tell you this, Eleanor. I honor and remember the seventeen years of your intelligence and kindness, while I was called master and you were called servant. I'll see the real you again, Eleanor, in a friendly place in Which we both believe.
Cordwainer Smith

Ça procure une assez étrange sensation à lire. Je trouve...