It was also inopportune that His Highness had invited his friend Lord Banville to the coronation. His Lordship was expected to arrive on the Berlin train early in the evening. The Englishman was unmarried, thank goodness, but I still had to allocate him two rooms: one for the lord himself and one for his butler. And God forbid that I should make any slips here. I know these English butlers: they are even more lordly than their masters. Especially Mr Smiley, who served His Lordship. Pompous and snobbish – I had had more than enough time to observe him the previous month in Nice.
And so I set aside the first floor for the royal household. The two rooms with windows facing towards the park and the tsar’s palace were for Georgii Alexandrovich – they would be his bedroom and study. An armchair would go on the balcony, with a small table and a box of cigars, while a spyglass would be placed at the window that looked towards the Alexandriisky Palace, to make it more convenient for His Highness to observe the windows of his nephew the emperor. Xenia Georgievna would have the bright room with a view of the river, she would like that. The maid Liza would be beside her. I would put Pavel Georgievich in the mezzanine – he liked to be apart from the other members of the family, and there was a separate staircase leading up there, which was convenient for returning late. Endlung would be next to him, in the former closet. He was not such an important individual. Move in a bed, put a carpet on the floor and hang a bearskin on the wall, and no one would be able to tell that it was a closet. Little Mikhail Georgievich would have the spacious room with windows facing east – just right for a nursery. And beside it there was a very fine room for Mademoiselle Declique. I gave instructions to put a bunch of bluebells in there (they are her favourite flowers). I set aside the last room on the first floor as a small drawing room for peaceful leisure activities in the family circle, in case at least one evening might be left free during the bewildering days ahead.
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.