Pirgnon grasped Margont’s hand and shook it warmly.
‘I admit you without further ado to membership of my next salon: the Moscow Club. I hope we will also number some Russian members. Ah! Moscow … We all dream of it, don’t we?’
Pirgnon began to display his acquisitions. A silver samovar that he liked so much that he had taken to drinking tea for the sole pleasure of using it. An iconostasis, a wooden screen decorated with icons, used for separating the nave from the sanctuary in Orthodox churches. Pirgnon explained that at the centre of the iconostasis saints were depicted interceding with Christ on behalf of the faithful.
‘What about you, Colonel? What do you ask of the saints?’
Pirgnon looked at Margont in surprise. He pointed at the paintings he had bought from some Italian soldiers who had been preparing to make a fire out of them so they could cook their meat.
‘I was – indirectly – one of the instigators of the decree of 14 Fructidor in the year IX, by order of which the Consulate created fifteen museums. The very idea of a museum fascinates me: bringing art within everyone’s reach. Show a Leonardo da Vinci to a tramp or a road sweeper and you open windows in their minds. In antiquity the Greeks reserved seats in their amphitheatres for the poor so that they could see Sophocles being performed. I shall give some of these treasures to museums. Man is nothing, only art matters.’
Margont remained silent, even if this statement shocked his sense of values.
‘But,’ added Pirgnon, ‘as I’m not a saint worthy of an icon, I shall keep the iconostasis and the samovar.’
He strode over to an impossibly cluttered corner of the room and rummaged among a jumble of paintings and elaborately framed mirrors before straightening up triumphantly, holding a canvas in his hands.
‘Do you know what this is?’
Margont had no idea. The portrait of a young woman in a pale green dress made him feel uneasy. Strands of her long, wet hair stuck to her face. Strangely, she was standing in a riverbed, indifferent to the icy water swirling around her delicate waist. Stranger still, her pallid complexion contrasted with the beauty of her features. Her skin seemed to be fashioned from the same snow that lay on the ground round about.
‘She looks rather poorly,’ Margont ventured.
‘That’s not surprising. She’s dead. She’s a rusalka. In Eastern European folklore, when a young girl commits suicide by drowning herself, she becomes a rusalka, a creature of the waters who uses her female form to seduce passers-by before drowning them. Some claim that it’s in order to devour them, others that it is simply the reflex action of her suffering soul, condemned to wander because it may not enter paradise.’
‘I wonder whether they co-operate with the Cossacks because one of them almost skewered me next to a river.’
Pirgnon was studying the rusalka’s expression. The seductive look she was displaying had a hint of coldness about it.
‘What realism! But let’s not be morbid. Do you enjoy classical mythology, Captain?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘The Russians do too!’ Pirgnon exclaimed, delighted that the whole world shared his passion.
In fact, Margont was not madly keen on this topic but he was glad to get away from the rusalka. The colonel stepped over rolled-up carpets, inviting Margont to follow him. He was so devoted to Greek and Roman culture that anything remotely connected with it was carefully exhibited, contrasting with the surrounding mess and waiting only to be seen by the visitors Pirgnon would bring along. It seemed highly unlikely that French museums would ever get a glimpse of these marvels …
‘Here is Minerva, my favourite goddess.’
Margont went closer to examine in detail a buxom-looking woman girded with a coat of mail. She was combing her tumbling mass of golden hair whilst watching over an array of vases and sculptures.
‘You see, Captain, Minerva is the Roman goddess of wisdom and the arts. But the Romans – unlike the Greeks, for whom she was Athena – also gave her a martial dimension. To such an extent that the Roman legions dedicated their war treasures to her. So it’s natural that I should give her pride of place in this collection, don’t you think?’
Margont agreed, not knowing what else to do. He did not know how to react to this remark. Was it humour? Or irony? A show of contempt towards him because he had been shocked by the systematic looting of Russia’s artistic heritage? Pirgnon’s personality seemed indistinct to him, elusive.
The colonel, carried away by his guided tour, was now pointing at another subject. It was a gigantic fresco occupying an entire wall. A mass of combatants were slaughtering one another at the foot of walls lined with defenders. The figures, some naked and some wearing helmets and breastplates or sheltering behind broad, decorated shields, were attacking each other with a ferocity that was convincing in its realism. The complexity of the setting was in contrast to the sobriety of the colours, which were limited to either black or ochre. Margont recognised the Trojan War. The Trojans had made a sortie to attempt to recover the body of Hector, one of their heroes, whom Achilles had just struck down.
‘The centuries pass, men remain the same,’ Margont remarked.
‘Men? You mean the gods! Well, demigods. Achilles was the son of Thetis, a sea nymph, and of an ordinary mortal, hence his extraordinary destiny.’
Of all the warriors swarming across the canvas, Pirgnon had eyes only for Achilles, his arm brandishing a forbidding-looking spear and his foot resting on the face of the dead Hector. The Trojans would not recover his mortal remains and for twelve days Achilles would drag them behind his chariot around the tomb of his friend Patroclus, himself slain in combat by Hector.
Pirgnon spoke of Hercules and his mythical labours, Ulysses and the adventures he had on his travels … His knowledge of ancient mythology seemed as inexhaustible as the horn of plenty. He was passionate about it and his enthusiasm was infectious. Antiquity made him radiant.
As time was getting on, the sergeant-major came to make sure that all was well. In fact, it was on his side that everything was going badly: on the staircase the soldiers thought that Margont was exhausting Pirgnon’s purse and there was almost a riot. So Pirgnon ordered the next salesman to be sent in and turned towards Margont.
‘Captain, I must ask you to leave me but I am counting on you for my Moscow Club.’
Margont saluted and went out. He had at last managed to meet the elusive Pirgnon but he didn’t feel any the wiser. Delarse, Barguelot and Pirgnon: he hadn’t really been able to eliminate any of the three. And he was fuming at still not having had the opportunity to talk to Fidassio. He chased away these thoughts as he wandered along the streets, feasting his eyes on Russian architecture, gilded domes and the orchards that carpeted the steep slopes surrounding the city.
CHAPTER 19
AT precisely eight o’clock in the evening, Margont made his way to the Valiuskis’ drawing room, wearing his full-dress uniform. He cut a fine figure in his brilliant white trousers, immaculate dark blue coat, gilded buttons, epaulettes and with his self-assured air. He was disappointed to notice that exactly the same could be said of his friends. Worse than this, Fanselin’s scarlet red was particularly striking because of its unusually bright colour. A servant in fir-green livery and white silk stockings begged them to forgive the count and the two countesses, who would be arriving shortly.
The walls of the room were covered in brown wooden panelling. Lefine found this oppressive, as if he were in the cabin of a ship, so he stayed near the window and, having pulled back the heavy yellow, silver-fringed curtains, observed the comings and goings in the street. Piquebois was examining a collection of pipes closely, lost in admiration for the boundless imagination shown by their makers in varying the shapes and sizes. He wondered if it was possible to do the same with life, to make each day in some way unique. Saber, who was comfortably installed in an armchair, was running his fingers along a harpsichord, content to run up and down the scale, while Fanselin seemed fascinated by a globe, which he turned incessantly.
