The Cézanne Chase [antikvár]

CUfU^I 5. ^t. Petersburg, for all its frayed edges, has remained the jewel among Russian cities. The city and its people survived revolution, a nine-hundred-day siege in Wodd War II in which nearly a million died, then a kind of benign neglect brought on by decades of Communist rule. It is a city of islands and bridges, built on the banks of the twisting Neva river. In spite of all, St. Petersburg's important institutions have survived, as has the spirit of the natives, who affectionately call their city "Pete" as they did during the years when it was known as Petrograd or Leningrad. In spite of decades of adversity, the university, the libraries, and the museums have held together with remarkable tenacity. One museum in particular was enjoying a renaissance: the Hermitage. Catherine the Great decreed that the magnificent salons of the Winter Palace be made into its galleries. From Peter the Great until the Revolution, agents of the czars and empresses scoured the worid for great art, until the royal collection bulged to eight thousand paintings and five times that many drawings. Four buildings compose the Hermitage, a giant sprawl in which there are a thousand rooms and 117 staircases. It was early morning. Pigeons scavenged on the broad sidewalks then separated as a young woman walked with a purposeful stride to a door leading to the administration offices. Ilena Petrov came early to the museum every morning. It was this show of dedication and her recent completion of studies in European art history that had helped bring recognition and a recent promotion. She had been appointed assistant curator for European art and sculpture of the period 1850 to 1917, a position of immense responsibility. The collection of paintings in the Hermitage from those years was among the worid's largest and, without question, of incalculable value. Ilena carried a heavy cloth sack, in which were books and notepads and a thermos filled with strong tea as well as a thick slice of plushka, 1