I'll sound like a broken record if I keep saying "subjective narration"

the part with the hen was really charming

but it's obvious, even to Stevens himself, that he wants to dwell on the past, and can hardly focus on describing the present

and if something is obvious to Stevens himself it's pretty glaring

the "conference" scene that is the culmination of this chapter has this sense of collapse, really

and you can tell that, while he says it was his finest hour, the reader is supposed to just be going

NO NO YOU POOR THING

that said with no foreknowledge of where the rest of this is going I can expect the political storyline to blow up spectacularly

Lewis might be right, is the thing

the birds and the bees subplot was hilarious, somewhat out of place and absurd but part of the point/general tone is that

a lot of the things happening are absurd and incongruent with each other

that maybe the whole life and system of ideals he has built for himself is absurd

I wonder how Miss Kenton ever ended up getting along with him though, or enough to write him later