The Remains of the Day

by Kazuo Ishiguro

like many of us, I have a reluctance to change too much of the old ways. But there is no virtue at all in clinging as some do to tradition merely for its own sake.

employees having an unhealthy amount of time on their hands – has been an important factor in the sharp decline in professional standards.

I came up with a plan which, while perhaps not exactly as Mr Farraday had requested, was the best, I felt sure, that was humanly possible.

Almost all the attractive parts of the house could

remain ope...

leaving all the main ground-floor rooms and a generous number of guest rooms.

my staff plan therefore took in the services of a gardener, to visit once a week, twice in the summer, and two cleaners, each to visit twice a week.

for each of the four resident employees mean a radical altering of our respective customary duties.

I undertook for myself a number

of duties which you may consider most broad-minded of a butler to do.

I had nevertheless not been neglectful to incorporate ‘margins’ wherever possible.

expended a significant amount of thought to ensuring that Mrs Clements and the girls, once they had got over their aversion to adopting these more ‘eclectic’ roles, would find the division of duties stimulating and unburdensome.

In the end, I believe the matter to be no more complicated than this: I had given myself too much to do.

one is not struck by the truth until prompted quite accidentally by some external event.

the car could be put to good professional use; that is to say, I could drive to the West Country and call on Miss Kenton in passing, thus exploring at first hand the substance of her wish to return to employment here at Darlington Hall.

one never knows when one might be obliged to give out that one is from Darlington Hall, and it is important that one be attired at such times in a manner worthy of one’s position.

it may well be that in America, it is all part of what is considered good professional service that an employee provide entertaining banter.

It is quite possible, then, that my employer fully expects me to respond to his bantering in a like manner, and considers my failure to do so a form of negligence. This is, as I say, a matter which has given me much concern.

For it is true, when I stood on that high ledge this morning and viewed the land before me, I distinctly felt that rare, yet unmistakable feeling – the feeling that one is in the presence of greatness.

this land of ours Great Britain,

I would venture that the landscape of our country alone would justify the use ...

would say that it is the very lack of obvious drama or spectacle that sets the beauty of our land apart. What is pertinent is the calmness of that beauty, its sense of restraint. It is as though the land knows of its own beauty, of its own greatness, and feels no

need to shout

let me now posit this: ‘dignity’ has to do crucially with a butler’s ability not to abandon the professional being he inhabits.

Continentals are unable to

be butlers because they are as a breed incapable of the emotional restraint which only the English race are capable of.

In a word, ‘dignity’ is beyond such persons.

when you think of a great butler, he is bound, almost by definition, to be an Englishman.

It is with such men as it is with the English landscape seen at its best as I did this morning: when one encounters them, one simply knows one is in the presence of greatness.

I have no wish, let me make clear, to retract any of my ideas on ‘dignity’ and its crucial link with ‘greatness’.

it has never been my position that good accent and command of language are not attractive attributes, and I always considered it my duty to develop them as best I could.

alerted me to the fact that things between Miss Kenton and myself had reached – no doubt after a gradual process of many months – an inappropriate footing. The fact that she could behave as she had done that evening was rather alarming,

There was surely nothing to indicate at the time that such evidently small incidents would render whole dreams forever irredeemable.

should arrive in Little Compton by lunch-time and will, presumably, see Miss Kenton again after all these years. There is, of course, no reason at all to suppose our meeting will be anything but cordial. In fact, I would expect our interview – aside from a few informal exchanges quite proper in the circumstances – to be largely professional in character.

‘But that doesn’t mean to say, of course, there aren’t occasions now and then

– 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.

‘I will, Mr Stevens, thank you. And thank you for the lift. It was so very

kind of you. It was so nice to see you again.’ ‘It was a great pleasure to see you again, Mrs Benn.’

things are quite different today under my present employer. An American gentleman.’

‘American, eh? Well, they’re the only ones can afford it now. So you stayed on with the house. Part of the package.’ He turned and gave me a grin. ‘Yes,’ I said, laughing a little. ‘As you say, part of the package.’

‘Lord Darlington wasn’t a bad 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?’

it was then that he said: ‘You’ve got to enjoy yourself. The evening’s the best part of the day. You’ve done your day’s work. Now you can put your feet up and enjoy it. That’s how I look at it. Ask anybody, they’ll all tell you. The evening’s the best part of the day.’

Perhaps, then, there is something to his advice that I should cease looking back so much, that I should adopt

a more positive outlook and try to make the best of what remains of my day. 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?

Perhaps it is indeed time I began to look at this whole matter of bantering more enthusiastically. After all, when one thinks about it, it is not such a foolish thing to indulge in – particularly if it is the case that in bantering lies the key to human warmth.

Kazuo Ishiguro is the author of seven other novels, including Never Let Me Go and The Remains of the Day,

Ishiguro’s work has been translated into forty languages and has won him many

honors, including the Booker Prize, the Order of the British Empire for service to literature, and the French decoration Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In 201...