The Glass Ocean by Baker Lori

Author:Baker, Lori [Baker, Lori]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2013-08-01T00:00:00+00:00

In the year 79 (by Argument)

THE ERUPTION OF VESUVIUS!

THIS PICTURE

Represents as accurately as can be done, the

GREAT ERUPTION IN THE YEAR 79,

WHEN THE DESTRUCTION OF

HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII

TOOK PLACE

The practical observation and experience

of Mr. Argument

Has enabled him to produce effects never before attempted.

Argument has obtained the new double magic lantern of Negretti and Zambra, and will use it, on alternate Wednesdays, to show, in dissolving view, glass slides he has created himself, using a new and secretive process of etching and enameling: Vesuvius erupting by moonlight, image dissolving into a lurid, rubble-strewn Pompeian dawn; the Great Fire of London gradually reducing St. Paul’s Cathedral to ashes; the flood of the Huskar Pit overwhelming the child laborers of Silkstone . . . fade to a particularly affecting view of the seven mass graves in bright July sunlight . . .

• • •

There is nothing William Cloverdale can do about this—his customers sucked, every Wednesday week, into the inexhaustible maw of Thomas Argument, Showman; into the voyeuristic thrill of all that plummeting, scorching, drowning, exsanguinating humanity, projected onto a neutral wall in a glasshouse; all those thrilling, glowing, palpitating fades, enhanced by rolling voile screens or shades of fine muslin; and later, when the more sensational subjects have begun to pall, those that settle more gently beneath the banner of education and enrichment: sunrise over Tintern Abbey, or, Napoleon, at sunset, facing his men.

• • •

My father’s glass eyes, even those containing, in secret, my mother’s initials, are no competition for this. This is the full emanation, after all, of Thomas Argument’s mania, his passion, and his anger. All that flame and hot lava! The raging floods! The secret unveilings! From behind Cloverdale’s grimy windows my father watches, surreptitiously, the crowds that gather across the street.

• • •

He is looking for her.

She isn’t there, of course. All showings, for her, are private.

• • •

Cloverdale is watching, too, although for different reasons. He gazes narrowly, disapprovingly, upon the ebb and flow of Argument’s public. William Cloverdale dislikes the magic lantern in principle, just as he dislikes kaleidoscopes, stereoscopes, praxinoscopes, thaumatropes, dioramas, panoramas, spectacles in particular and entertainments in general—all of it, in William Cloverdale’s opinion, goes beyond the bounds, just as the idea that there is a place called Venice where latticino glass is made goes beyond the bounds. Such things, for Cloverdale, enter rapidly into the realm of the not possible. We can’t have this, Mister Dell’oro, Cloverdale’s grey glance, cast over, above, and across the mountainous bulk of himself, coming at last to rest upon my father, seems to say. Mister Dell’oro, something must be done!

It is almost as if he knows—He knows!—that it is all Leopold’s fault, as if he knows—He knows!—that Clotilde Dell’oro is at the root of it. Leopold must do something—must mend it. Customers, drawn to Church Street by William Cloverdale’s Gazette advertisements—Master Glassmaker! Exclusive—from the Continent!—are being diverted by Thomas Argument’s poster. They come, they see the poster, they are drawn in. They enter Argument’s Glasswares and they never return.

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