The majestic-looking entrance hall was of white marble. Statues of muses or goddesses stood next to armchairs with embroidered upholstery. A red and gold stucco frieze, close to the ceiling, matched a colossal gilded chandelier containing fifty or so candles. Paintings depicting the inevitable classical ruins decorated the walls. Saber flung his sabre and shako on to an armchair and, pointing at a tall double door, invited his friends to follow him. He already considered himself at home. Captain Fanselin seemed to want to examine each canvas.
‘Look at the effect of calm produced by this colonnade in the middle of this park. The place doesn’t exist and yet how I would like to be there.’
‘If you like the painting so much, Captain, take it,’ said Lefine.
‘You have a sense of humour, Sergeant,’ Fanselin guffawed.
Lefine couldn’t see what a sense of humour had to do with his suggestion. Fanselin turned round and spoke to Margont enthusiastically.
‘The world is full of misery, but when I see these artistic masterpieces I say to myself that all is not yet lost. Like you, I have suffered from this gruelling march. However, I have no regrets and I shall often think of all these peasants whose world will never extend further than the patch of land they cultivate.’
In the next room they were confronted by a double flight of steps. At the sides were two doors framed by still lifes. An elderly man suddenly appeared from the right-hand door. The bald crown of his head was encircled by an abundance of grey hair. He looked like a Caesar with a garland of grey laurels. On his huge nose was a pince-nez behind which sparkled small brown eyes. He was dressed in black trousers and a pearl-grey shirt over which he wore a mauve waistcoat.
‘Count, allow me to introduce my—’
Saber broke off when he saw the joyful expression on the other man’s face. Even his wrinkles seemed to smile.
‘A Polish officer!’ he exclaimed, embracing Fanselin.
‘You are mistaken, Count. I am French. It’s my Polish-style uniform that has confused you. I am a lancer of the Guard.’
‘If you are a lancer then you are at least half Polish. The lance is our national weapon,’ replied the count.
It was obvious from the warmth of the introductions how pleased the count was to welcome the Frenchmen. The burnt-out villages seemed a distant memory. No matter how friendly Count Valiuski tried to be, he still radiated an aristocratic authority. It was evident in his discreetly refined and assured gestures, in the modulations of his voice, which was husky with age, in his confident air. Such manners had been fashioned day after day by a sophisticated education, the result of generations of careful thought. Margont felt there was something familiar about the count but he was unable to say what.
‘Please forgive me for not arranging for my major-domo to welcome you but he has left. Half of my servants fled the city when your army’s arrival was announced. The rest are in the kitchens or preparing your bedrooms. Dinner will be served at eight o’clock, if that is convenient to you.’
That was convenient to everyone. Here everything was convenient to everyone.
‘Please excuse me but I must go and settle some important matters and talk to my wife and daughter, whom you will meet this evening.’
‘Your French is remarkable,’ Saber complimented him.
‘All the French are remarkable!’ retorted the count.
He quickly walked away, exclaiming: ‘Long live a free Poland!’
A servant accompanied the Frenchmen to their bedrooms. His eyes were red from crying. He did not utter a word. Fear tightened its grip on his throat, like a foretaste of the noose. Margont thought that Russian propaganda must have spread the rumour that French officers enjoyed testing the sharpness of their sabres by decapitating prisoners and that they loved to hang the servants after breakfast, which of course consisted of a roasted new- born baby. He handed the Russian a coin, which he took, trembling and utterly confused. So he wasn’t going to be killed? He was being given a tip? Where was the trap?
Margont examined the marquetry furniture closely. The four-poster bed looked so comfortable that it might have been an evil spell. Sleeping Beauty must have lain down on a similar mattress, which would explain her story. In the tapestries, handsome gentlemen were depicted bowing to ladies, who were pretending to be flattered or whispering to one another behind their fans. The statue of a centaur decorated the mantelpiece. It symbolised Russia’s untamed spirit.
Margont stood stock-still in front of a mirror. He thought he looked thin and tired. But he had that determined expression that came with critical times, a look that was too harsh, too severe and surly. Even a slightly forced smile scarcely softened its sternness. What if this campaign stops at Smolensk? he wondered.
He went across the corridor to Lefine’s room. Through the windows he could see the soldiers from his regiment. In the area at the foot of the palace a bear keeper was making his animal perform tricks, and dozens of infantrymen had formed a circle around the spectacle. Thunderous applause greeted the bear as it got back up after a forward roll. They were as happy as sandboys.
Lying on his bed, Lefine was gazing at a painting he was holding. But what he was really examining was the gilt frame.
‘You’ll lose one stripe for each painting that goes missing,’ Margont warned.
Lefine casually put the picture down on his bedside table.
‘Not interested. I thought you were Irenee. He’s furious I’m here. When he took his shako off just now I thought he was expecting me to put it on a hat stand for him. It wouldn’t surprise me if he told me to clear off.’
‘Well, if that does happen, send him to me and we’ll soon see which of you will be the first to leave. You’ve got your palace, so now you can finish off your report.’
But Lefine remained motionless, studying the cherubs chasing one another in the clouds in the stuccoed world of the ceiling.
‘What for?’
‘What for?’
‘Why are we searching so hard for this colonel? Because he’s killed someone? So what? How many deaths have there been since the start of this campaign? Ten thousand? Twenty thousand? No, far more. And that’s nothing compared with what will happen when we encounter the whole Russian army.’
Lefine was sincere. A part of him really had been cut in two by that cannonball.
‘You’re going to tell me that the soldiers are fighting for “valid” reasons,’ he went on. ‘Their country, their ideas, glory, for social advancement … Well, that’s exactly it. It’s because of your fine ideas that you’ve been so keen on this wretched investigation from the start, but if we take on a colonel, we risk having our lives buggered up.’
‘Fernand …’
‘Buggered up! With a snap of his fingers a colonel can have us transferred to a nice little French outpost miles from anywhere in the middle of the Spanish countryside. We’ll take over from the sentries who had their throats slit by the guerrillas the preceding week, before our own corpses are replaced the week after … But a colonel doesn’t even need Spain to get rid of us. He needs only to send us both on a foraging expedition and the Cossacks will enjoy nailing our remains to the fir trees for the crows to feed on.’
‘Prince Eugene is supporting us.’
‘Politicians and princes only ever support themselves! If you were so sure of the opposite, you’d have told our dear prince that we suspected a colonel.’
Lefine was beginning to turn red as if the words he was saying were going back down his throat, blocking and obstructing his breathing.
‘If the Russians don’t get us, this investigation will! And you know that perfectly well. That’s the worst thing about it! But dear Captain Margont is on the side of justice – he can’t stand the idea of heinous crimes going unpunished. You’re the plaything of your ideals.’
‘Well, we’re all the playthings of something or someone. Better to be the plaything of my ideals than of greed.’
