The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre

by Dominic Smith

  The letters went back and forth in a kind of chess game. The writers hedged the Latinate names of minerals and salts, the techniques that issued tone and shade. Niépce divulged that he came from money and had trained for the priesthood before sacred orders were abolished under Napoleon. He was now a full-time inventor and was working on many projects, including a patent for his method of extraction of dye from the woad plant; he hoped this would prove profitable in the face of a continentwide indigo shortage. Niépce said his interest in heliography was primarily to improve lithography, his longtime passion. Louis cared little for the man’s biography or motivation and wrote back more candidly;Did the English show interest in your near-consummate technique? Alas, Niépce wrote back, they seemed uninterested. And I met another man in pursuit of a similar method of sun drawing by the name of William Henry Fox Talbot. He sensitizes paper and places it in a camera obscura, but to very little effect. Still, it shows promise. This sentence made Louis feel ridiculous; he had imagined for a time that his manipulations with the camera were unique. Now there were at least two other men attempting to harness its powers. He returned to his studio in earnest, taking his meals there, and refused to tend any quotidian concerns for months on end. He went back to earlier methods and tried a broad range of chemicals for fixing. Progress was slow and erratic. The letters continued, both men trying to convey that they were more baffled than they actually were. At least three men in Europe now knew that the missing ingredient in photography was the primary fixing agent—the solution that would emblazon the latent image permanently to the plate. And they were all doing it with different motivations: Niépce was trying to improve lithography, Talbot was trying to make up for a deficiency in his drawing ability, and Louis was trying to trap nature. But he was also trying to punish the world, and Isobel, with his fame.

  Thirteen

  Louis Daguerre drove his carriage through the streets towards Pigeon’s flat. It was autumn and the leaves had turned, all gold and wine, and the wind cast them through the alleys like dazed butterflies. Pedestrians—bundled and shawled—sloped into a headwind. The sky hung a high, pale blue. Everything felt cleansed, emptied, the windowpanes a little aqueous in the early morning. The omnibus rang throughout the city, empty and glassine. Paris was on the verge of something.

  Louis now had a very clear portrait of Pigeon in mind. A full-plate daguerreotype depicting a nude with her back partially to the camera. There would be nothing sexual about her womanliness—a swath of flesh caught up in sunlight, shadows in the hollows of her back, perhaps the amorphous suggestion of an amber-tinted breast. Staring away from the camera, she would lend an ambiguity to the end of womanhood. As long as she faces away from the camera she will remain anonymous, an artifact of the end.

  Louis turned in to Pigeon’s street and noticed a cat in a bakery window passively taking in the world. He smiled at it; the rescued dog had given him a feeling of communion with animals. Paris was full of cats, he realized, who held that aloofness of looking down from a height. But mostly they were asleep in wine and cheese-shop windows, Angoras curled and impervious to grief or happiness. They were silent witnesses, spies of the apocalypse. Louis suspected that cats, like the souls of the dead, could not be photographed.

  At eight o’clock on a Sunday morning, Louis stopped his carriage beside the whorehouse with the wide veranda. He was the only moving figure in a street whose daylight hours were reserved for a long, slow ascension from excess. He tied his horses to a hitching post and unloaded his apparatus. Among the many objects were a zinc camera obscura, a wooden tripod, two silver-plated copper sheets, two small phials—one of olive oil and the other of nitric acid—a flask of mercury, a box of carded cotton, a pumice stone in a muslin bag, a wire frame, and a spirits-of-wine lamp. He placed these items on a small dolly he’d made from a wheelbarrow and approached Pigeon’s ground-floor apartment. He knocked loudly on her door. There was no answer, so he moved to the front windows and rapped. He peered inside.

  Pigeon dragged herself from bed, suspecting that a drunken soldier had mistaken her window for the brothel. Still in her cotton nightdress, she pulled back the curtains to reveal Louis Daguerre, flask of mercury in hand, hair tousled by a windy carriage ride, flat-nosed against the plate glass, peering through the gossamer curtains. Startled, Louis visibly jumped back a step and dropped the flask of mercury. The flask shattered, and beads of mercury rolled across the footpath. Louis struck the air with his fists, settled into a burst of violent coughing, cursed and head-bobbed as he attempted to collect the mercury with his hands. To Pigeon, on the other side of the glass, this was a dumb show of lunacy.

  She grabbed her dressing gown and came out onto the front stoop, then down to where Louis was on his hands and knees.

  “Monsieur Daguerre?” she called.

  Louis stood but could not look at her. He held his hands in front of him. Splinters of glass and pinheads of blood shone from his hands. His eyes were unnaturally blue, the vivid blue of illness.

  “My God, your hands,” she said.

  Louis looked down at them. A bead of mercury rolled back and forth in one cupped hand.

  “Come inside, please. I’ll bandage them,” she said.

  “You’re not dressed,” he said, addressing the street.

  “It’s still early, and I danced all night. I told you to come in the afternoon.”

  Louis nodded seriously at the word dance. Finally, he looked at Pigeon. Her hair was down, resting and curled against her collarbones.

  “My barrow,” he said. “I can’t leave it out here.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Pigeon, disappearing into the apartment. When she returned, she carried a towel and handed it to Louis. He wiped some of the blood from his hands and walked over to his equipment. With his right hand—the left was augered with glass shards—he delicately pulled the barrow towards Pigeon’s front door. She held the door open for him and he wobbled it slowly inside. Her apartment was sparse: two rooms, a stove and wooden table in one corner; through a bedroom doorway, her unmade bed on wooden posts.

  Louis stared down at his hands. He did not like the sight of his own blood. “I’m afraid your towel will be ruined.”

  “Let me get the glass out. Come over to the window, where the light is better.”

  Louis followed her to the window and held out his hand. She took him by the wrist and studied his palm. The small tributaries of palm lines and mercury-tinted blood made Louis think of deltas, of drained waterways. Time is running out. Pigeon wiped his hand with the towel. His hand was now relatively bloodless and Pigeon began to pick out the shards of glass. After placing several wedge-shaped pieces into her dressing-gown pocket, she laughed. Her head was down, but Louis could see her small white teeth under the rim of her mouth.

  “You looked like a madman at my window,” she said. “I thought you were a drunk midshipman.”

  “I must have looked a fright.”

  “There’s a piece I can’t get. Right here.” She pointed to the heel of his hand, where the head of a glass shard shimmered. Louis reached inside his waistcoat and retrieved the paring knife he used to scratch powder from pumice stone. He handed it to Pigeon.

  “I don’t know that amputation is called for,” she said.

  Louis looked up from his hand. Ah, yes, a joke. He forced a smile to his lips. “Would you like me to do it? It needs some digging around the flesh.”

  Pigeon nodded at the window. “Look out at the street while I do it. Watch for sailors going home or widows hocking their gold.”

  Louis obeyed and stared outside. He was heartened by the sight of a few people emerging from doorways, dressed in their Sunday best. He had never been much for churchgoing, but he was comforted by those with devoutness, moved by the sound of vesper bells calling them inside a church. Louis felt the paring knife gouge his hand, but the pain came slowly, like an aftertaste.

  “I need my hands,” he said.

  She held the bloody piece of glass b
etween two fingers. “I think that’s the last of it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to dress.” She turned and walked towards her boudoir.

  “I’ll go check on my horses,” he said.

  “As you wish.”

  He went outside and rinsed his hand with a water bottle he kept in his carriage. He dried his hands on a horse blanket and adjusted the straps of his gig. Several minutes passed before he tapped gently on Pigeon’s door. When she opened it, she was dressed in a crinoline dress that fluted out from her hips. Holding his left hand palm up like a beggar, he came inside and unloaded his apparatus, placing the various items on the kitchen table.

  “Would you like some coffee?” she asked.

  “As long as it doesn’t have any hashish in it.”

  They both laughed at this and she moved towards the stove. She said, “I don’t think I’d ever do that again. I had chills for a week after.”

  “I consider myself a scientist as much as an artist, and that was not science,” Louis said, placing the phials beside each other.

  “And this is science? Asking strangers to pose naked for you?”

  “I’m a student of light,” Louis said.

  “And a poet.”

  “No, I leave that to Charles Baudelaire. My job is to capture things before they disappear.”

  “Am I going to disappear, Monsieur Daguerre?”

  “No, I meant—capture things in their essence.”

  She threw pure coffee grounds into the pot. Louis was a little surprised that a whore could afford coffee without chicory. Without turning around, she said, “And what is my essence?”

  He carefully lifted the spirits-of-wine lamp out of its case, taking his time to reply. “I don’t know until I see it on the copper plate.”

  Pigeon brought him a cup of coffee. She had brushed her hair, but it was still down—perhaps she had photogenic ideas of her own. He tried not to stare at her; the past was trapped in her flesh. He dusted the two plates with the fine powder of pumice, then swabbed them with carded cotton and olive oil. Next he rubbed some nitric acid in a circular motion across both plates.

  “Who makes the photo drawings—you or the sun?” Pigeon asked.

  “You might say we are partners. Is the stove still alight?”

  Pigeon nodded. He inserted each plate into a wire holder and took them over to the stove. He ran the plates, silver coating faceup, back and forth above the hot burners for several minutes. “This works even better than the spirit lamp,” he said. He brought the plates back to the table and repeated the coating with pumice dust and acid. “Now, once we’re ready, I’ll set up the camera on a tripod and expose the plate to iodine.” There was little fussing left to do. There came a silence.

  “Your coffee is getting cold,” she said.

  “Yes, of course.” He took up the china cup and drank. “A room that is too warm will adversely affect the image.”

  “Is it too warm in here?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Of course, I won’t have any clothes on.”

  A slight bristling at the back of Louis’s neck. “For the briefest of time. I’m hoping for a short exposure.”

  “How long?”

  “A few minutes, at the most.”

  “That’s an eternity for a naked woman.”

  He looked into his coffee cup; a murky brown eye stared back at him. “And you must remain very still,” he said to the cup.

  Now he looked down at the wide floorboards. Her apartment had no smell and there were few personal effects. She tapped at the edge of the wooden table. The money, he thought. He reached inside his coat, then stopped. Should he pay before or after? He didn’t want to insult what dignity she might have remaining.

  “Mademoiselle, I am most grateful for this opportunity. You will go down in the galleys of history.” He winced from the sound of his own voice and placed a hundred francs on the table.

  She pretended not to notice and took another sip of her coffee. “Are you ready?”

  Louis bit at his mustache.

  “Don’t worry. I have posed for some drawing classes and I am quite comfortable with the procedure of removing my clothes.”

  The procedure? “I see.”

  “In my bedroom?”

  He looked at the poison-blue bottle of iodine. “How is the light in that room?” He made it sound clinical, a doctor’s inquiry—How is the fever?— even while blood jumped through his limbs.

  “There’s a window that overlooks the alley. At this time of the day, it’s quite bright.”

  “Very well, then.”

  “I’ll go and position myself.”

  “Yes, fine. With your back to the window.”

  She left the room and Louis wiped his brow with his kerchief. He fumbled with the cork of the iodine bottle. He poured a small amount into the camera chamber and fixed a plate inside to prepare it to receive light. This is science; fasten your mind to that.

  “Very well, then,” he said audibly.

  “Pardon?” she called from the bedroom.

  “I said nothing.”

  “I’m nearly ready. Crinoline is the curse of the Parisienne.” The sound of her undressing; waves of crinoline. He felt a searing in his cheeks that made him wonder if he’d gotten some nitric acid on his face. He performed a mental inventory of equipment: gauze, camera, tripod, plates. She called from the bedroom. The words were unintelligible, a piping cheeriness. He picked up the tripod, the camera and the plates, and walked delicately towards the bedroom. In his peripheral vision, he could make out her outline on the bed.

  He set the tripod down and attached the camera to it. In a minute, he would have to adjust the unpolished glass to set his focus. There was no way to avoid looking at her. He looked up at the ceiling: a cheap fleur-de-lis was embossed in the molding. He thought for a moment of afternoons in bed with Madame Treadwell.

  “In a moment, mademoiselle, I will insert the plate and find my focus.” He sounded to himself like a stage magician.

  “What position should I assume?” she asked.

  “You may cover yourself while I make some adjustments. If you’d be more comfortable.”

  “Would you be more comfortable?” she asked.

  “It’s of no consequence to me,” he lied.

  He tightened the small tourniquets that held the copper plate in place and sealed the camera. “You would be surprised to know, mademoiselle, the intricacies of light in making the daguerreotype. The exposure time varies by latitude, time of day, and season. Paris outside in June at two in the afternoon may require a minute or two. Whereas Rome in August at noon may require thirty seconds. Do you see the proposition?”

  “Should I be on my stomach or back? Sitting, perhaps.”

  “Your back must be towards the camera, and you should look at something on the opposite wall.”

  He craned down to adjust the focus glass. In his line of sight sat Pigeon, backlit by the light from the alley window, a naked white shoulder rising from the bedsheet she used as a shawl.

  “I need the light to come in from the side. Could you turn and face the other wall?”

  She swiveled her body to accommodate. Louis moved the camera and looked once again. The cut of her white shoulders; a net of hair on her neck.

  “And what if you make a sun drawing at noon in the North Pole in December?” she asked.

  “I would grow into an old man while holding the diaphragm open. There are some places that will never be photographed.” The nervousness had largely disappeared. He was a technician now, coaxing a machine into compliance. He focused the glass by using the lines of her mouth and teeth as benchmarks of clarity. He was in service, dilating the pupil of God. “I believe us to be ready, mademoiselle.”

  She nodded and smiled.

  “I should think if you recline on your feather pillows…”

  When she leaned back against the pillows, the bedsheet slid down her side, exposing her thigh. Louis looked out into the alleyway. But he
managed to notice a small blue bruise on her hip—a tiny sapphire star, as if someone had held a pen nib against her flesh.

  “I think we’ll expose for two minutes, since it is quite light in here. I will, of course, leave the room while the image is registering, but you must remain very still. Any sudden movements could ruin the entire thing. As for your expression, I ask only that you imagine looking back through time.”

  “I’ll try to remember that.”

  “When you’re ready, you may remove the sheet.”

  She cast a glance to the window and pulled the bedsheet off her reclined body. Louis stood for the briefest of moments to ensure the model’s position before beginning the exposure. Her back was to the window at an angle, perpendicular to the light, and her head rested in one hand. Her feet were unexpectedly slender and arched. The serpentine line that extended from ankle to hip to shoulder to head was well lit and would register as milk-stone. The darkened areas—the recesses beneath her arms, the shadow of her hair—would register as rust, brown if the mercury was too hot. Louis opened the diaphragm and hoped for perfection, for a rosewood frailty.

  He sat down at the kitchen table, packed his equipment, and took out his fob watch. He marked the two minutes. How could he bring up the subject of Isobel without arousing suspicion? Was it wrong to withhold his acquaintance with her mother? The minutes passed within such questions. He stood up from the table and walked slowly into the adjacent room, where Pigeon remained in position. He closed the diaphragm and went over to the windows and drew the curtains. Pigeon wrapped the sheet around her. There was an awkwardness between them now. Has something been stolen?