最近无意中搜到黄仁宇（Ray Huang）兄长黄竞存的一片纪念文章，才知道原来这位大器晚成的历史学家是死在纽约的一家电影院的前台，死因是心脏病突发。而他想看却未能看到的电影就是这部Snow Falling on Cedars.
2000年的年初，纽约一定很冷，黄那时已经80多岁，和妻子开车20多英里来看这部电影。一路上黄似乎已有预感，论及生死和身后之事，在影院前台，他只说感觉不好就倒地不起，送到医院却为时已晚。真不知道黄离去之际，纽约是否也有落雪呢？
真不知道是什么样的电影有如此魔力，吸引了这位82岁的历史学家呢？或许黄本身就是个充满想象力的人，从他1943年给大公报写的长篇战地通讯，到四十年后发行万历十五年，再到为看电影而死，本身似乎就是一部情节丰富的电影了。
下面是他兄长的原文节选：
I learned that on that day, Ray and Gayle （其妻） went to a movie theater, with Gayle driving. The place was some twenty plus miles from New Paltz. The movie they planned to see was entitled now “Falling on Cedars”. Just as they arrived at the theater, Ray said he did not feel well. On entering the reception area and sitting down, he collapsed. When the ambulance brought him to the Emergency Section of a nearby hospital, it was too late for the doctors to save the patient.
At the time, other than grief stricken, I was somewhat puzzled: My brother Ray was a serious person. He seldom did things out of the ordinary and extravagant. Why would he want to watch a movie on the daytime of a weekend? In order to understand the circumstance, I checked into a Web page in the Internet to find the movie background. Through the Internet, I found that the movie now Falling on Cedars was based on a best-selling novel of the same title first published in 1994. The Chinese version of the book had since been published. The backdrop of the story was a small island town in the bay near Seattle, Washington. During a heavy snowstorm, a local journalist attended the murder trial in the town court. The story involved love between two persons of different racial background. It described the psychology of the local residents, specifically people greed, jealousy, prejudice, as well as friendship and generosity. These aspects were reflected through the eye view of the journalist. Accessing the situation, my conjecture was that my brother Ray had some serious motivation in going to the theater. Ray was interested in writing novels. To watch the movie, he could compare the presentation of one story in two media: in book form and in an audio-visual format.
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