The Coronation Read Online Free Page B

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