60°10”N, 24°55”E #5
The birds return to Aspsk?r, but elsewhere numbers continue to fall, and nesting charts reveal that breeding pairs are dwindling year upon year.
Marine-bird populations collapse, and there are ever fewer birds of prey.
Hunters are rewarded for culling “detrimental pests and predators”, and their eggs are once again in high demand among collectors.
The forests and rocky shores fall silent, and ornithological societies begin to demand hunting restrictions and measures to protect the birds, but the notion of restricting the collection of eggs is one they raise with some trepidation.
It is easy to condemn the mindless slaughter of birds of prey in the hope of generous rewards, but collecting eggs is the cherished hobby of naturalists the world over.
Of course, science is different from mere hunting, and how can one study birds without gathering samples, skins, eggs and nests?
How can we kindle a love of birds among the youth, if the joy of collecting eggs and experiencing the beauty of egg collections is taken away?
The debate is heated. Those present fail to reach a decision, and John Gronvall leaves the meeting somewhat confused.
After all, he too has cocked his shotgun and allowed pellets to pierce a ptarmigan’s heart.
He too has climbed a spruce and emptied a goldcrest’s nest, but his motives were pure.
He killed those birds and took their eggs out of scientific curiosity, artistic ambition, he harbours nothing but love for birds.
All those countless hours dedicated to his winged friends – could this really be evil disguised as love, had he in fact harmed the thing he most wanted to save?
He can’t relax in his bed but heads off to the one place that will calm his mind.
Fifty thousand eggs, eighteen thousand nests, three thousand two hundred species of bird, all packed into a single room.
Imagine what kind of flock they would have made – ostriches, ducks, chickens, grebes, doves, cuckoos, spinners, cranes, owls, sparrows, penguins, storks, birds of prey – a whole aviary packed away in cabinets, tens of thousands of fledglings pushing free of their shells with a dizzying squawk.
But the collection around him is neat and silent.
Where once there were living, breathing, straggly creatures, now there are rows of empty, beautifully arranged shells, eggs from which the possibility of life was blown away before the beak could form and tap its way to freedom.
Gronvall stands surrounded by cabinets, lists the species and numbers in his head, and for the first time, the collection’s silence feels ear-splitting.
Kreuger doesn’t wait for public opinion to change but sets to work.
The time for private collections has passed, but he has an idea to make sure that his treasures are never seen as mere hunting trophies.
He enters negotiations with the Museum of Zoology: he is prepared to offer his collection for the benefit of science.
The museum is thrilled at the offer. Kreuger’s collection is magnificent, an almost complete catalogue of European nesting birds, only missing the eggs of two species, the wallcreeper and the white-winged snowfinch.
It includes four hundred species that are so rare that they can only be found in the industrial magnate’s boxes.
The museum board accepts the donation and can hardly believe their luck.
In its comprehensiveness, Kreuger’s collection is stunning, but its sheer scope brings with it a number of challenges.
An egg is a demanding exhibit requiring stable conditions, a space designed especially to preserve the shells.
Where can they possibly house 50,000 eggs?
But Kreuger has thought of everything. It’s clear that the Museum of Zoology doesn’t have enough room to house his collection.
To that end, a new space is planned specifically for the eggs.
He has already selected a suitable plot of land and has begun negotiations with the architects, and all city hall and the museum have to do is sign the paperwork.
When the university’s collections moved into the Museum of Zoology, the process was a public spectacle.
People gathered on the streets, took their children along to wave at the stuffed animals as they travelled through the city.
The egg collection, however, moves to its new premises in secret.
The new building doesn’t draw much attention either, and many people walk right past without realising what is held inside it, they don’t notice the dark slate next to the door bearing the mysterious engraving OOLOGICUM R. KREUGER.
Kreuger gets his museum, and it truly is his museum, for it never opens its doors to the public.
The staff at the Museum of Zoology worry that the specimens on display might prove irresistible, that the eggs might rekindle a passion for the very kind of egg collecting that they are trying so hard to snuff out, and their concern is not entirely unfounded.
One day, an English researcher pays a visit to the museum.
Under normal circumstances, nobody is allowed inside unsupervised, as Kreuger has taken it upon himself to be present whenever an expert is given access to the collection, but a rare twist of fate makes this visit very different.
Though usually in fine health, Kreuger is bedridden with such a fever that even he must admit that he won’t be much of a guide, but since the visitor is one of the most respected oologists in the field, Kreuger makes an exception and allows the man into the collection without supervision.
The following day, Gronvall appears at the magnate’s door, beside himself. On the desk he found a note left by the researcher explaining that he had borrowed a few of the rarer eggs from Kreuger’s collection to compare them to those in British collections. The eggs were never returned.
Kreuger’s collection can turn even a researcher into a thief.
Mercifully, Kreuger himself is not there to witness the greatest misfortune to befall his specimens, as this occurs many decades after his death.
The magnate is spared the knowledge that his magnificent collection gave rise to one of the most scandalous environmental crimes in Finnish history.
The Museum of Zoology employs a young intern to look after the eggs.
He shows a great interest in oology, asks insightful, educated questions about the location of certain nesting sites and the process of gathering eggs.
In fact, he asks so many questions that the senior researchers begin to the fear the worst. Once the intern’s tenure comes to an end, he is no longer allowed access to the collection.
Some years later, the police knock on the door of a detached house in rural N?rpio.
A customs office has opened a parcel addressed to the young man containing the eggs of several rare birds.
The police are duly informed of the illegal shipment and drive to N?rpio to raid the man’s house, but nothing can prepare them for the sight that awaits them.
The intern has put together an egg collection of his own.
He has taught himself how to find nests, engaged in secret correspondence with other collectors, exchanged one rarity for another, and over the years his collection has grown so much that the police find more than nine thousand eggs in the house.
In court, the man is asked what drove him to do this, but he can’t give any rationale for his actions.
His only explanation is that he found it impossible to resist the beauty of the eggs, that they consumed him, took over his mind, and he couldn’t stop himself, though he knew that what he was doing was wrong.
Kreuger’s collection is too beguiling, too dangerous, and for this reason it becomes a shrine, a place where mere mortals have no business.
The magnate is lying in bed, staring at the wall.
His mind is a flurry of thoughts – drainage systems, contracts, negotiations.
He is hunting for rest, but sleep eludes him, and eventually he gives up, gets dressed, walks downstairs and opens the door to the egg collection.
He had an apartment built in conjunction with the collection’s new home and asked the architects to add a door directly from his home into the museum.
A strange decision, but Kreuger is paying for such a large chunk of the costs that he can have whatever he wants, and now he opens the door and steps from his living room right into John Gronvall’s workshop.
Gronvall has done a hard day’s work – Kreuger didn’t hear the door close until gone midnight, and he looks at the preparator’s desk.
John has everything he needs in his workshop, and more, because he never throws anything away.
He even saves the greasy paper bags in which he brings fresh cinnamon buns from a local bakery, and the workshop is home to a glorious clutter that would seem more fitting for an alchemist than a pedantic servant of the natural sciences.
Every surface is covered in equipment: tools, pots of paint and ink, packaging, drawing paper, notes, pens, brushes, glass jars full of pigment – the antithesis of Kreuger’s own study, where every piece of paper is in its rightful place, but because he has never found fault with Gronvall’s work, the magnate sees no reason to complain about the state of the workshop and looks instead at the sketchbook left open on the table.