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By Root 289 0

for wealthy Americans and Japanese. The highlight of Nora's trip had come earlier - a five minute tour around the factory floor. She watched the men at work, blowing and shaping the glass, some with serious intent, some with crowd-pleasing theatricals. She looked at the building and the furnaces, and knew they had hardly changed in four hundred years. She wanted very much to be a part of it, knew she could do a little of what these men did. She stood, rapt, and was jostled by a crowd of impatient Germans eager to get to the point of sale.

So that they could buy a conversation piece for their Hamburg dinner table, and say to the Helpmanns over coffee; `Yes, we picked this up in Venice, genuine blown Murano glass, you know.'

This was their endpoint - this large shopping area, well lit, whitewashed, and bright with glass of every sort. Goblets stood in regimental ranks on the shelves, their orderly lines belied by the spectra of coloured helixes that twisted through their stems. Chandeliers and candelabri of astonishing baroque detail hung from the ceilings, crowding each other like the branches of some fantastical forest. Beasts and birds seemed moulded from volcanic larva of all hues of orange and red. Subtle pieces with the clarity and texture of cracked ice jostled with hideously ugly nineteenth century work; fat birds trapped in perpetual song by trellised cages. And the walls were crowded with mirrors, of all sizes, like a collection of portraits which featured only their admirers. I will frame your face, was their fickle promise. You are my subject. I will make you beautiful. Until you pass me by and the next face stares into my depths. Then only that visage will be my concern.

Nora looked now into one such.

Little wonder that a mirror is known as a looking glass. We're all looking for something when we gaze into one. But I am not looki►1c' at myself today, but the glass itself The glass, the glass is what matters.

A mantra which was meant to make her brave again. She looked to the mirror's frame for reassurance.Weaving around it were glass flowers of such delicacy, such colour, that she felt she could pluck one and smell its scents. Such artistry convinced her - not to go on, but to go back.

I am crazy. I will look round a little more and then go home, all the way home, to London. I must have been mad to think that I could come here and expect an entree into one of the oldest and most skilled Venetian professions. Just on the basis of my name and my own small talents.

She clutched the A4 black portfolio which she had brought with her. It contained glossy photographs of the glasswork she had exhibited in Cork Street. She had been proud of it, until she saw this room.

Mad. I will go.

`E motto bello, questo specchio; vetro Fiorato. Vuole guardare la lista dei prezzi?'

The voice came close to her ear, shocking her out of her dismal reverie. It belonged to one of the smooth, well dressed gentlemen that helped the customers with their purchases. He looked elderly, proprietorial, kind. He could see that he had surprised her, and looked regretful.

`Mi scusi, Signorina. Lei, e italiana?'

Nora smiled, in apology for her reaction.

`No, not Italian.' Now was not the time to explain her pedigree. `Sono inglese.'

`I apologize,' said the gentleman in perfect English. `But truly, you have the look of an Italian. A Botticelli,' he smiled with great charm. `Would you like to see our catalogue, our price list?'

Nora screwed up the last of her resolve. His recognizing her for an Italian seemed an invitation into the last chance saloon. `Actually, I wanted to enquire about a job.'

Instantly the man's demeanour changed. Nora had slipped, in his eyes, from wealthy customer to worthless backpacker. He had such enquiries for shopwork daily. Why couldn't they all go to Tuscany and pick grapes? `Signorina, I regret that we don't take foreign nationals to work in the shop!

He made as if to leave her. She said, with desperation, `I don't mean in the shop. I want to work in the fornace. As a glassblower. Una soffiatrice di vetro.'