Остаток дня / The Remains of the Day

There had been calls for the removal, even the court-martialling, of the general concerned, but the army had defended the latter and he had been allowed to complete the campaign. What is less known is that at the close of the Southern African conflict, this same general had been discreetly retired, and he had then entered business, dealing in shipments from Southern Africa. I relate this because some ten years after the conflict, that is to say when the wounds of bereavement had only superficially healed, my father was called into Mr John Silvers’s study to be told that this very same personage – I will call him simply ‘the General’ – was due to visit for a number of days to attend a house party, during which my father’s employer hoped to lay the foundations of a lucrative business transaction.

Mr Silvers, however, had remembered the significance the visit would have for my father, and had thus called him in to offer him the option of taking several days’ leave for the duration of the General’s stay.

My father’s feelings towards the General were, naturally, those of utmost loathing; but he realized too that his employer’s present business aspirations hung on the smooth running of the house party – which with some eighteen or so people expected would be no trifling affair. My father thus replied to the effect that while he was most grateful that his feelings had been taken into account, Mr Silvers could be assured that service would be provided to the usual standards.

As things turned out, my father’s ordeal proved even worse than might have been predicted. For one thing, any hopes my father may have had that to meet the General in person would arouse a sense of respect or sympathy to leaven his feelings against him proved without foundation. The General was a portly, ugly man, his manners were not refined, and his talk was conspicuous for an eagerness to apply military similes to a very wide variety of matters. Worse was to come with the news that the gentleman had brought no valet, his usual man having fallen ill.

This presented a delicate problem, another of the house guests being also without his valet, raising the question as to which guest should be allocated the butler as valet and who the footman. My father, appreciating his employer’s position, volunteered immediately to take the General, and thus was obliged to suffer intimate proximity for four days with the man he detested.