长日将尽the remains of the day
“The evening’s the best part of the day. You’ve done your da’s work. Now you can put your feet up and enjoy it.”
老公进门的时候，我刚好合上这本书。我来不及跟他打招呼，只是重重地身体向后仰在椅子里，深深地呼出一口气。悲伤、惋惜和对他今后会怎样，感到同情。孤独，就像他一生恪尽职守的父亲，临死时都没有人在身边一样的，孤独。可怜这位像他父亲一样把自己一生都奉献给了Darlington hall的管家Mr Stevens，不要世俗，也不要爱情，没有欢笑也不流泪，克制、隐忍，一辈子都把自己装在工作的套子里，装在dignity的框架里，当这位一生尽忠职守却韶华已逝的身影最终孤独地走在落日的余晖里，这一切是不是值得？
战后的英国已辉煌不再、长日将尽，盛极一时的英国庄园Darlington也被一位美国富商Mr Farraday买去了，Mr Stevens 在步入了职业甚至人生的晚年时，终于在新主人的劝说下，也走出这座庄园，开着这位美国先生的福特车开始了他为期七天的旅行。其实干嘛不承认呢？都是因为接到当时的女管家Miss Kenton小姐的信才最终决定出发的，即便二十年没见，他还是在接到信的刹那做出决定，这样一份厚重的情感，在Kenton小姐因接到姨母死讯而流泪时没有说；在为了拿到你手中的书而贴近你胸口时没有说；在Kenton小姐告诉你订婚消息时对你愤怒随即又向你致歉时也没有说，直到这二十年后的重逢……你深藏在内心的还是隐忍。
相处共事时，你选择站在Mr Darlington这边辞退Kenton小姐雇来的两位犹太女佣，一年后才说出自己的真实想法时，Kenton小姐对你的呐喊：“Do you realise, Mr Stevens, how much it would have meant to me if you had though to share your feeling last year? You knew how upset I was when the girls were dismissed. Do you realise how much it would have helped me? Why, Mr Stevens, why, why, why do you always have to pretend?”连问四声“为什么？”如此情形，最终相见，当你欲言又止发出疑问时，Kenton小姐说：“I suppose, Mr Stevens, you’re asking whether or not I love my husband……Yes, I do love my husband. I didn’t at first for a long time……For a long time, I was very unhappy, very unhappy indeed……When you think to yourself:’what a terrible mistake I’ve made with my life.’And you get to thinking about a different life, a better life you might have had. For instance, I get to thinking about a life I may have had with you, Mr Stevens.….. After all, there’s no turning back the clock now.”
是啊，时间不能倒转，人这一生，谁人没有一些说不出咽不下悔不当初的决定呢？浑厚得像大山一样的StevenS也不得不承认自己内心的感受：“Indeed—why should I not admit it?—in that moment, my heart was breaking.”
石黑一雄笔触细腻、平实、优雅，从管家Stevens先生的视角将整个故事娓娓道来。困扰StevenS先生整部小说的两大主题是“What is dignity?”和“How can he understand Mr Farraday’s banter?”高贵和世俗，在他眼中昔日辉煌的英国是高贵的，后进的美国是世俗的；曾经的主人Darlington先生是高贵的，现在的美国富商Farraday先生是世俗的。作为一位高贵的管家，讲究的不仅仅是地道完美英伦发音，百科全书似的博学多才，更是像他所看到的英国乡村景色一样，“What is pertinent is the calmness of beauty, its sense of restraint. It is as though the land knows of its own beauty, its own greatness, and feels no need to shout it.”是克制的，是无声的，便是盖世英雄汉，愿做低头扫地僧。他习惯的是忙碌于来Darlington Hall开会的达官显贵之中，沉默高效的运营好整个庄园的后勤工作，不习惯的是汽车抛锚时借宿在的乡村人家，下里巴人家长里短。
正如文中所说：“The fact is, of course, I gave my best to Lord Darlington. I gave him the very best I had to give, and now, well, I find I do not have a great deal more left to give.”
他尽职尽责，恪尽职守，他真的没有更多付出给这个庄园和曾经的主人了，可是到最后，这一切是不是真的值得？
当cardinal先生（老主人的教子）向他痛声疾呼：“你知道现在楼上正在谈论什么吗？你知道Darlington先生正在滑向深渊吗？”的时候，他还是那么“沉稳”的尽职尽责，我们不能责怪任何人，管家有管家的职责，他当然不能插手主人的政事，这也是Stevens理解的dignity的一部分，即便最终老主人死去，他也清楚的明白Darlington先生是近德亲纳粹的人。如果Darlington先生真的在那晚说服英国领导人去访德，被希特勒扣留，没有敦刻尔克大撤退，没有为英国存留实际战斗力，英国败德国胜，历史被改写，老主人成为卖国贼，他的忠诚是帮凶还是尽职？谁也说不清楚，历史没有对错。
像Stevens说的，Darlington先生不是坏人：“Lord Darlington wasn’t a bad man. He wasn’t a bad man at all. And at least he had the privilege of being able to say at the end of his life that he made his own mistakes. His lordship was a courageous man. He chose a certain path in life, it proved to be a misguided one, but there, he chose it, he can say that at least. As for myself, I cannot even claim that. You see, I trusted. I trusted in his lordship’s wisdom. All those years I served him, I trusted I was doing something worthwhile. I can’t even say I made my own mistakes. Really—one has to ask oneself—what dignity is there in that?”他只是选择了一条他认为对的路而已，像当时的汪精卫，他也只是选择了一条他认为对的路而已。
从另一方面看，即便像这样能左右一个国家命运的名门望族也不能看清自己的道路，普普通通的我们又能做对做错多少呢？Stevens先生，就像他的情感一样，时钟没有倒转，他的职业也是如此，质问如果在生命的某个点上做了另一件事会怎样？只会让人抓狂。
文中说：“After all, what can we ever gain in forever looking back and blaming ourselves if our lives have not turned out quite as we might have wished? The hard reality is, surely, that for the likes of you and I, there is little choice other than to leave our fate, ultimately, in the hands of those great gentleman at the hub of this world who employ our services. What is the point in worrying oneself too much about what one could or could not have done to control the course one’s life took? Surely it is enough that the likes of you and I at least try to make our small contribution count for something true and worthy. And if some of us are prepared to sacrifice much in life in order to pursue such aspirations, surely that is in itself, whatever the outcome, cause for pride and contentment.
……
But what is the sense in forever speculating what might have happened had such and such a moment turned out differently? One could presumably drive oneself to distraction in this way. In any case, while it is all very well to talk of “turning points”, one can surely only recognise such moments in retrospect. Naturally, when one looks back to such instance today, they may indeed take the appearance of being crucial, precious moments in one’s life; but of course, at the time, this was not the impression one had. Rather, it was as though one had available a never-ending number of days, months, years in which to sort out the vagaries of one’s relationship with Miss Kenton; an infinite number of further opportunities in which to remedy the effect of this or that misunderstanding. There was surely nothing to indicate at that time that such evidently small incidents would render whole dreams forever irredeemable.
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