And as for our compatriots, they must be differentiated. Labourers needed a concise and simple account. Office workers required some concentration; some of them were quite erudite. They’ve read a lot of Pikul, Rozhdestvensky, Meylakh… Gleaned ludicrous facts from Novikov…*
The intelligentsia were the most contentious and cunning. They would do their homework in preparation for their touristic voyage. Some random fact would get stuck in their memory. A distant relative. A curious escapade, rejoinder, incident… An inconsequential reference… And so on.
On my third day of work a woman with glasses asked me:
“When was Benckendorff* born?”
“In the Seventies,” I replied.
Uncertainty was discernible in my answer.
“And more precisely?” she pressed.
“Unfortunately,” I said, “I’ve forgotten.”
And I thought to myself, why am I lying? Why not simply admit: “Who the hell knows?” There’s no great thrill in Benckendorff’s coming into the world.
“Alexander Christopherovich Benckendorff,” the woman reproached, “was born in 1784. In June, incidentally…”
I nodded, letting her know that I valued this information.
From that moment on an ironic smile did not leave her. As if my indifference towards Benckendorff betrayed my complete poverty of spirit…
And so I started working. The methodologists usually don’t listen to your first tour. They give you a chance to feel your way around, to get comfortable. And that is what saved me, because this is what happened.
I successfully navigated through the vestibule. Pointed out the drawing by the land surveyor Ivanov. Talked about Pushkin’s first exile. Then the second. I made my way to Arina Rodionovna’s room: “The only person who was truly close to the poet was his nanny, a serf…” It was all going smoothly. “She was both forgiving and curmudgeonly, naively religious and exceptionally businesslike…” Bas-relief by Seryakov…* “She was offered freedom, but refused it…”
And finally:
“The poet often turned to the nanny in verse. For instance, everyone knows these heartfelt lines…”
For a second I lost my train of thought, and shuddered at the sound of my own voice:
“Still around, old dear? How are you keeping?
I too am around. Hello to you!
May that magic twilight ever be streaming
Over your cottage as it used to do.”
I was mortified. Any moment someone would cry out:
“You fool and ignoramus! This is Yesenin – ‘A Letter to Mother’…”
I continued reciting, feverishly trying to come up with something to say.
“Yes, comrades, you are absolutely right. Of course this is Yesenin. Yes, his ‘Letter to Mother’. But please note just how close Pushkin’s intonation is to the lyricism of Sergei Yesenin. How organically it is realized in Yesenin’s poetics…” And so on.
I continued reciting. Somewhere at the end a Finnish knife flashed ominously…* “Blah-blah-blah in a drunken tavern scuffle, blah-blah-blah a Finnish knife into my chest…” An inch away from this shining, menacing blade I was able to stop. I waited for a storm after the ensuing silence. But everyone was quiet. Their faces appeared impassioned and stern. Only one elderly tourist pronounced weightily:
“Yeah, there were men…”
In the next room I attributed Mnemosyne to Delvig.* Then called Sergei Lvovich “Sergei Alexandrovich”.* (Evidently, Yesenin had firmly occupied my subconscious.) But these were mere trifles. And I won’t even mention the three dubious literary speculations.
At Trigorskoye and in the monastery the tour went well. I had to think up logical transitions between the rooms. Find the so-called links. For a long time, I had difficulty with one particular passage – between Zizi’s room and the parlour. Finally I came up with this lacklustre tie-in and used it unfalteringly:
“My friends! I see it’s a little tight in here. Let’s move into the next room!”
At the same time, I would listen to other tours and in each find something interesting for myself. I befriended guides from Leningrad who for many years had spent their summers in the Preserve.
One of them was Volodya Mitrofanov. He was the one who sold me on the idea and came here right in my footsteps. More must be said about this man.
During his school years, Mitrofanov was known for his “photographic memory”, as they say. He would memorize entire chapters from textbooks with ease. He was presented as a miracle child. What’s more, God had blessed him with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. His was a combination of limitless curiosity and phenomenal memory. A brilliant career in the sciences awaited him.
Everything interested Mitrofanov: biology, geography, field theory, ventriloquism, stamp-collecting, Suprematism,* the fundamentals of animal training… He read three serious books a day. He graduated from school triumphantly and was accepted to the philology department at the university without any effort.
His professors were stumped: Mitrofanov knew absolutely everything and demanded new information. For his benefit, distinguished scientists spent days in libraries, poring over long-forgotten theories and science disciplines. Concurrently, Mitrofanov attended lectures on law, biology and chemistry.
The combination of a unique memory and an immeasurable thirst for knowledge worked wonders. But a shocking circumstance came to light: Mitrofanov’s personality was completely and fully exhausted by these qualities. He possessed no other attributes. He was born a genius of pure learning.
His first paper was left unfinished. Or rather, he put down only the first sentence. Actually, the beginning of the first sentence. Specifically: “As we all know…” At this juncture, the brilliantly conceived work was cut short.
Mitrofanov grew into a fantastic sloth, if one can call lazy a man who had read ten thousand books.
Mitrofanov did not wash his face, did not shave and did not attend Communal Work Saturdays. He did not repay his debts and did not lace his boots. He was too lazy to put on a hat. He simply laid it on top of his head.
He failed to appear for mandatory work placement at a collective farm. He just didn’t show up, without explanation.
The university expelled Mitrofanov. His friends tried to find him a job. For a short while, he was a personal secretary to the academic Firsov. At first everything was perfect. Mitrofanov spent hours at the Academy of Sciences library, gathering research material for Firsov. And he readily shared the information already stored in his memory. The elderly scholar came to life. He offered Volodya a partnership in the development of his diatonal geomorphogenetic theory (or something like that). The academic said:
“You will do the writing. I am short-sighted.”
The next day Mitrofanov was gone. He was too lazy to take notes.
For several months he did nothing. He read another three hundred books and learnt two languages: Romanian and Hindi. He ate at his friends’ homes, repaying them with brilliant, wide-ranging lectures. People gave him their old clothes.
Friends tried to get him a job at the Lenfilm Studios. What’s more, a special position was created just for him: Consultant on All Matters. This was a rare stroke of luck. Mitrofanov was familiar with the costumes and customs of every era. He knew the fauna of every corner of the globe and the tiniest details in the flow of prehistoric events. He remembered paradoxical statements made by secondary government officials, the number of buttons on Talleyrand’s waistcoat and the name of Lomonosov’s wife…*
Mitrofanov failed to fill out the application form. Even its sections that read “underline where applicable”. He was lazy…