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.
The unpleasant surprise that I felt was not due to His Lordship’s having brought his latest flame with him – after all, Mr Carr appeared to be a man of good society. The cause of my dismay was simpler than that: where was I to accommodate another guest? Even if they spent the night together, in order to observe the proprieties I would have to give the second Englishman a separate bedroom. I thought for a moment, and the solution came to me almost immediately: move the Moscow servants, with the exception of Somov, into the attic above the stables. That would free two rooms, one of which I would give to the Englishman and the other to the grand duke’s chef, Maître Duval, who was feeling very aggrieved.
‘Where is Mr Smiley?’ I asked Lord Banville in French, since there were certain things that I had to explain to his butler.
Like most of the alumni of the Court Department, I was taught French and German from my childhood, but not English. In recent years the court has become quite significantly anglicised, and more and more often I have had reason to regret this shortcoming in my education, but formerly English had been regarded as an inelegant language and not essential for our service.
‘He resigned,’ His Lordship replied in French with a vague gesture of his hand. ‘My new butler, Freyby, is there in the carriage. Reading a book.’
I went over to the carriage. The servants were deftly unloading the baggage and a fleshy-faced gentleman with a very haughty air was sitting on the velvet seat with his legs crossed. He was bald, with thick eyebrows and a neatly trimmed beard – in short, he didn’t look anything like an English butler, or any sort of butler at all. Through the open door I saw the book that Mr Freyby was holding in his hands – it had a word in thick golden letters on the cover: ‘Trollope’. I did not know what this English word meant.
‘Soyez le bienvenu!’ I greeted him with a polite bow.
His calm blue eyes gazed at me through his gold-rimmed spectacles. But he didn’t answer.
‘Herzlich Willkommen!’ I said, trying German, but the Englishman’s gaze remained politely neutral.
‘You must be the butler Ziukin?’ he said in a pleasant baritone voice. The sounds were quite incomprehensible to me.
I shrugged and spread my hands.
Then, with an expression of obvious regret, Mr Freyby put his book into the vast pocket of his frock coat and took out another book, much smaller than the first. He leafed through it and then pronounced several comprehensible words, one after the other.
‘Vy . . . dolzhny . . . byt . . . batler Ziukin?’
Ah, that’s an English–Russian dictionary, I guessed, and mentally commended his foresight. If I had known that Mr Smiley, who could, at a pinch, make himself understood in French, was no longer in His Lordship’s service and had been replaced by a new butler, I would also have equipped myself with a lexicon. After all, this Englishman and I would have to solve no small number of complex and delicate problems together.
As if he had been listening to my thoughts, Mr Freyby took another small volume, identical in appearance to the English– Russian dictionary, out of his other pocket. He handed it to me.
I took it and read the title on the cover: Russian–English Dictionary with a reading of English words.
The Englishman leafed through his own manual, found the word he needed and explained: ‘A present . . .’
I opened the small volume he had given me and saw that it was arranged in an artful and intelligent manner: all the English words were written in Russian letters and the stress was marked. I tried out the lexicon immediately. I wanted to ask which baggage belonged to whom. This came out as: ‘Where . . . whose . . . baggage?’
And he understood me perfectly well!
He gestured casually to summon a footman who was carrying a heavy suitcase on his shoulder, and pointed one finger at a yellow label, on which it said ‘Banville’. On looking more closely, I observed that there were labels stuck on all the items of baggage, some of them yellow with His Lordship’s name, others blue with the inscription ‘Carr’ and still others red with the inscription ‘Freyby’. Very rational, I thought; I shall have to adopt the same method.
Evidently considering the problem satisfactorily resolved, Mr Freyby extracted his large tome from his pocket and paid no more attention to me, and I thought that English butlers were of course all very fine and knew their business well, but there was still something that they could learn from us Russian servants. To be precise – cordiality. They simply serve their masters, but we love ours too. How can you serve a man if you do not feel love for him? Without that it is all mere mechanics, as if we were not living people, but machines. Of course, they do say that English butlers do not serve the master but the house – rather like cats, who become attached less to the person than to the walls around him. If that is so, then that kind of attachment is not to my taste. And Mr Freyby seemed somehow very strange to me. But then, I reasoned, a master like that is bound to have odd servants. And it is no bad thing that mon collègue anglais is, as the simple folk say, a bit on the queer side – he will get under my feet less.
There was too little time to contrive a proper lunch, and so I ordered the table to be laid for Their Highnesses’ arrival in casual style, à la pique-nique – with the small silver service, on simple Meissen tableware and without any hot dishes at all. The food was ordered by telephone from Snyder’s Delicatessen: paâté of snipe, asparagus and truffle pies, small fish pies, galantine, fish, smoked chicken and fruit for dessert. Never mind. After all, I could hope that by the evening Maître Duval would have familiarised himself with the kitchen and supper would be more comme il faut. Of course, I knew that in the evening Georgii Alexandrovich and Pavel Georgievich would be with His Imperial Majesty, who was expected at half past five in the afternoon and would go straight from the station to the Petrovsky Palace. The arrival of the emperor had deliberately been set for the sixth of May because that was His Majesty’s birthday. From lunchtime the bells of Moscow – of which there are countless numbers – began pealing. The prayers for His Imperial Majesty and all the royal family to be granted good health and long life had begun. I made a mental note not to forget to have the canopy with the initial N set over the porch of the main entrance. If the sovereign should happen to visit, such a sign of attention from his family would be most appropriate.