Boris Akunin - The Coronation

The two largest rooms downstairs were naturally transformed into the main drawing room and the dining room; I prepared the two most decent bedrooms for the Englishmen, took one for myself (small but located in a strategically important position, under the stairs); and the rest of the servants had to be accommodated several to a room. A la guerre comme à la guerre , or, as we say in Russian, cramped but contented.

All in all, it turned out better than could have been expected.

Then began the troublesome business of unpacking the luggage: dresses, uniforms and suits, silver tableware, thousands of all sorts of small but absolutely essential items which make it possible to transform any shed into a decent and even comfortable refuge.

While the Moscow servants were carrying in the trunks and boxes, I observed each of them carefully to determine what each of them was worth and in which capacity he could be used to the greatest benefit. This is precisely the most important talent of any individual in command: the ability to determine the stronger and weaker sides of each of his subordinates, in order to exploit the former and leave the latter untouched. Long experience of managing a large staff of workers has taught me that there are few people in the world who are completely without talent and absolutely incapable. A use can be found for everyone. When someone in our club complains about the uselessness of a footman, a waiter or a maid, I think to myself, Ah my dear fellow, you are a bad butler. All of my servants become good ones in time. Everyone has to like his own work – that is the secret. A chef must enjoy cooking, a maid must enjoy creating order out of chaos, a groom must like horses and a gardener must like plants.

The supreme skill of the genuine butler is to have a thorough grasp of an individual, to understand what he likes, for, strangely enough, most people do not have the slightest idea of where their own inclinations lie and in what area they are gifted. Sometimes one has to try one thing and then another and then something else before one can get it right. And this is not simply a matter of work, although of course that is important. When a person does what he enjoys, he is contented and happy, and if all the servants in the house are at ease, cheerful and affable, this creates a quite special situation, or as they call it nowadays, atmosphere.

One must always encourage and reward one’s subordinates – but in moderation, not simply for performing their duties conscientiously but for special diligence. It is essential to punish too, but only justly. At the same time, one must explain clearly for what exactly the punishment has been meted out and, naturally, it must under no circumstances be humiliating. Let me repeat: if a subordinate is failing to cope with his work, it is his superior who is to blame. I have forty-two people at the Fontanny Palace, fourteen in Tsarskoe Selo and another twenty-three in the Crimea. And they are all in the right positions, you can take my word for that. Pantaleimon Kuzmich, butler to His Highness the Grand Duke Mikhail Mikhailovich the senior, often used to say to me, ‘You, Afanasii Stepanovich, are a genuine psychologist.’ And he was not too proud to ask my advice in especially difficult cases. For instance, the year before last at the Gatchina Palace he found himself with a junior footman on his staff who was quite indescribably muddle-headed. Pantaleimon Kuzmich struggled and strained with him and then asked my advice. The lad was an absolute blockhead, he said, but he would be sorry to dismiss him. I took on the lad out of a desire to shine. He proved useless in the dining room and in the dressing room, and especially in the kitchen. In short, as the common people say, he was a tough nut. And then one day I saw him sitting in the courtyard, looking at the sun through a shard of glass. My curiosity was aroused. I stopped and observed him. He was toying with that piece of glass as if he had come by some priceless diamond, constantly breathing on it and wiping it on his sleeve. I was suddenly inspired. I set him to clean the windows of the house – and what do you think? My windows began to shine like pure mountain crystal. And there was no need to chase the lad – from morning until evening he polished one window pane after another. Now he’s the finest window cleaner in the whole of St Petersburg and butlers line up to borrow him from Pantaleimon Kuzmich. That is what happens when a person finds his vocation.

No sooner had I wound the clocks in the house and the servants carried in the last hatbox from the last carriage, than the English guests arrived, and I discovered that there was another unpleasant surprise in store for me.

It turned out that Lord Banville had brought a friend with him, a certain Mr Carr.

I remembered His Lordship very well from Nice – he had not changed in the least: a smooth parting midway between his temples, a monocle, a cane, a cigar in his teeth, a ring with a large diamond on his index finger. And dressed impeccably, as always, a fine specimen of an English gentleman, wearing a black dinner jacket, perfectly ironed (and he had just come from the train!), a black waistcoat and a brilliantly white stiffly starched collar. On jumping down from the footboard, he threw his head back and laughed loudly like a horse neighing, which gave the maid Liza, who was hovering nearby, a great fright, but did not surprise me in the least: I was aware that His Lordship was an inveterate horseman who spent half his life in the stables, understood the language of horses and was almost able to communicate in it himself. At least, that was what I had been told by Georgii Alexandrovich, who had made Lord Banville’s acquaintance at the races in Nice.

When he finished neighing, His Lordship held out his hand to help another gentleman out of the carriage and introduced him as his dear friend Mr Carr. This gentleman was a completely different specimen, of a kind that one is rather unlikely to encounter in our parts: hair of a remarkable straw-yellow colour, straight on top and wavy at the sides, which, one would imagine, never happens in nature. A smooth white face with a neat round mole like a velvet beauty spot on one cheek. The shirt worn by His Lordship’s friend was not white but light blue – I had never seen one like it before. A light greyish-blue frock coat, an azure waistcoat with gold speckles and an absolutely blue carnation in the buttonhole. I was particularly struck by his unusually narrow boots with mother-of-pearl buttons and lemon-yellow gaiters. Stepping down gingerly onto the cobblestones, this strange man stretched elegantly and a capricious, affected smile appeared on his delicate doll-like face. Mr Carr’s gaze fell on the doorman Trofimov, who was on duty on the porch. I had previously had occasion to note that Trofimov was quite hopelessly stupid and unfitted for any kind of employment except minding doors, but he looked impressive: a full sazhen in height, broad in the shoulder, with round eyes and a thick black beard. The Englishman approached Trofimov, who stood there as still as a stone idol, as he was supposed to do, and looked up at him, then for some reason tugged on his beard and said something in English in a high-pitched, melodic voice.

Lord Banville’s inclinations had become quite clear in Nice, and Ekaterina Ioannovna, an individual of the very strictest principles, had refused to have anything to do with him, but Georgii Alexandrovich, being a broad-minded man (and also, let us note in passing, only too well acquainted with gentlemen of this kind from his circle of society acquaintances), found the English lord’s predilection for effeminate grooms and rosy-cheeked footmen amusing. ‘Excellent company, an outstanding sportsman and a true gentleman,’ was what he told me in explaining why he had presumed to invite Banville to Moscow – after it had become clear that Ekaterina Ioannovna was not coming to the coronation.