Read Online Salamander by Thomas Wharton - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Thomas Wharton
Ads: Link
moustache.
– Then we’ll get you some new type. There must be a foundry in Pressburg. Or more likely Vienna, since they can get all the lead they need by mining what passes for brains at court.
– The Countess told me about the metallurgist from Venice who created the automatons. Samuel Kirshner.
– Yes. The ingenious Jew. What of him?
– His foundry makes type as well. The Countess showed me some samples of his work –
– As I’ve found, it can be troublesome doing business with those people. They’re always getting themselves hauled off by the Inquisition or driven out of town by angry mobs, and then where are you? Out of pocket. Or, as in Signore Kirshner’s case, they make grand projections and fail to deliver. But you rate his type-work highly.
– The finest I’ve seen.
– Write to the man, then, if you must. Order what you need, or we’ll bring him here again if we must.
Flood drafted a letter to Kirshner, outlining the nature of the problem and inviting the metallurgist to come in person. He was hoping to avoid it, but mention of the word
infinity
managed to find its way into his letter.
He returned to his platform and lived on it for three days, pacing to the edges while Djinn set type and the automaton printed, looking down into the rumbling chasm of bookcases like a sightseer gazing into the crater of Vesuvius. He neglected to shave, and slept under the press on a bolster, waking up to find food and drink at hand and hoping Irena had been the one to bring it. From time to time the Abbé, wandering by on his own mysterious peregrinations around the castle, would wave distantly to Flood on his platform as if to someone on a ship about to vanish over the horizon.
As she had asked to do, Irena came now and then to watch him work. He took her through the stages, starting with Djinn at the composing desk, turning a manuscript page into neat rows of type. As they watched Djinn’s fingers dance over the compartments in the type case, he told her that each size of type had a name. The smallest, six-point type, was known as
nonpareil
. The sizes most commonly used in books were
long primer
, and
pica
.
– Although I prefer
small pica
. Or as its sometimes known,
philosophy
.
–
Small pica, or philosophy
, she said. It sounds like the title of a novel. With a girl heroine.
He showed her the various parts of the press and how they worked together.
– This sliding carriage is called the coffin. You crank the rounce and –
– I see, she said. The coffin slides under the stone slab —
– The platen –
– And slides back out again. I see now. That’s why the inscription on your books.
Vitam mortuo reddo
. I wondered about it.
Flood nodded.
– I
restore life from death
. It was the motto of the family business long before I was born.
A stab of regret silenced him. He thought of the crude unvarnished box they had laid Meg to rest in. Though they worked side by side for countless hours, there were many days when he and his father said nothing at all to one another, unless it were to correct a fault or call for a brief halt. He looked back on that time in his life as a great silence.
A printer can be of service in many ways
, his father once pronounced when he took a commission for a collection of bawdy ballads.
Sometimes by not printing
.
Books as novelties, as jokes. Books to gratify the whims of a lunatic nobleman, to win the admiration of his daughter. He saw his father, wiping his hands on his greasy apron and shaking his head in dismay. There was little doubt what he would have to say, were he still alive.
Reckless, reckless
.
At last Flood showed Irena his first finished trial piece: ascroll inspired by the Ostrov coat of arms. In order to make sense of the story, one had to unroll it entirely and join the ends into a loop, but with a twist, so that the paper seemed to have (or perhaps did have) only one side. For a text, he used an old legend he found in
– Then we’ll get you some new type. There must be a foundry in Pressburg. Or more likely Vienna, since they can get all the lead they need by mining what passes for brains at court.
– The Countess told me about the metallurgist from Venice who created the automatons. Samuel Kirshner.
– Yes. The ingenious Jew. What of him?
– His foundry makes type as well. The Countess showed me some samples of his work –
– As I’ve found, it can be troublesome doing business with those people. They’re always getting themselves hauled off by the Inquisition or driven out of town by angry mobs, and then where are you? Out of pocket. Or, as in Signore Kirshner’s case, they make grand projections and fail to deliver. But you rate his type-work highly.
– The finest I’ve seen.
– Write to the man, then, if you must. Order what you need, or we’ll bring him here again if we must.
Flood drafted a letter to Kirshner, outlining the nature of the problem and inviting the metallurgist to come in person. He was hoping to avoid it, but mention of the word
infinity
managed to find its way into his letter.
He returned to his platform and lived on it for three days, pacing to the edges while Djinn set type and the automaton printed, looking down into the rumbling chasm of bookcases like a sightseer gazing into the crater of Vesuvius. He neglected to shave, and slept under the press on a bolster, waking up to find food and drink at hand and hoping Irena had been the one to bring it. From time to time the Abbé, wandering by on his own mysterious peregrinations around the castle, would wave distantly to Flood on his platform as if to someone on a ship about to vanish over the horizon.
As she had asked to do, Irena came now and then to watch him work. He took her through the stages, starting with Djinn at the composing desk, turning a manuscript page into neat rows of type. As they watched Djinn’s fingers dance over the compartments in the type case, he told her that each size of type had a name. The smallest, six-point type, was known as
nonpareil
. The sizes most commonly used in books were
long primer
, and
pica
.
– Although I prefer
small pica
. Or as its sometimes known,
philosophy
.
–
Small pica, or philosophy
, she said. It sounds like the title of a novel. With a girl heroine.
He showed her the various parts of the press and how they worked together.
– This sliding carriage is called the coffin. You crank the rounce and –
– I see, she said. The coffin slides under the stone slab —
– The platen –
– And slides back out again. I see now. That’s why the inscription on your books.
Vitam mortuo reddo
. I wondered about it.
Flood nodded.
– I
restore life from death
. It was the motto of the family business long before I was born.
A stab of regret silenced him. He thought of the crude unvarnished box they had laid Meg to rest in. Though they worked side by side for countless hours, there were many days when he and his father said nothing at all to one another, unless it were to correct a fault or call for a brief halt. He looked back on that time in his life as a great silence.
A printer can be of service in many ways
, his father once pronounced when he took a commission for a collection of bawdy ballads.
Sometimes by not printing
.
Books as novelties, as jokes. Books to gratify the whims of a lunatic nobleman, to win the admiration of his daughter. He saw his father, wiping his hands on his greasy apron and shaking his head in dismay. There was little doubt what he would have to say, were he still alive.
Reckless, reckless
.
At last Flood showed Irena his first finished trial piece: ascroll inspired by the Ostrov coat of arms. In order to make sense of the story, one had to unroll it entirely and join the ends into a loop, but with a twist, so that the paper seemed to have (or perhaps did have) only one side. For a text, he used an old legend he found in
Similar Books
