"Nil admirari in stone, the waiter"

[Jean Lenauer as the waiter, My Dinner with André (dir. Louis Malle, 1981).]

25 février. — C'est le nil admirari en marbre, que le garçon de café. Le nimbe d'un Jésus à Emmaüs cerclerait la tête d'un dîneur ou bien le truc d'une féérie enlèverait tout à coup la robe d'une femme, qu'il continuerait à servir la femme, comme si elle était habillée, ou le dîneur comme s'il était un simple mortel.

[February 25. — That's nil admirari in stone, the waiter. The halo of Jesus at Emmaus could encircle a diner's head or a woman's dress disappear by magic, he would continue serving the woman as if she were clothed, or the diner as if he were a mere mortal.]

Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, Journal des Goncourt: 1866–1870, vol. 3 (Paris: Charpentier,1888), 29.

[I found this passage via Marthe Bibesco's The Veiled Wanderer: Marcel Proust, translated by Roland Gant (London: Falcon Press, 1949), which refers to it by means of a very loose, embellished paraphrase. The translation is mine. The Latin expression nil admirari means "to be excited by nothing," "equanimity." My Dinner with André has just been re-released on DVD by the Criterion Collection.]