The Siege of Krishnapur - J. G. Farrell [50]
Fleury gazed at the muslin tent bewildered. He could hear Hari muttering angrily to himself as he made the metal plate sensitive to light by passing it through his two wooden coating boxes, which between them were largely responsible for the toxic fumes which Fleury could feel assailing his powers of reason. Each box contained a blue-green glass jar: in one jar there was a small amount of iodine crystals, in the other, a mysterious substance called “quickstuff” which contained bromine and chlorine compounds and served to increase the sensitivity of the plate. By holding the plate over the evaporating iodine crystals for less than a minute Hari allowed a thin layer of light-sensitive iodide of silver to form over it; when it had turned orange-yellow he held it over the “quickstuff” until it turned deep pink, then back over the iodine for a few seconds. Then, grinding his teeth with rage, he slipped the sensitized plate into a wooden frame to protect it from light while it was not in the camera, and emerged trembling from his dark muslin tent.
“Perhaps this is not progress also?” he repeated, waving the boxed plate in front of Fleury’s pinioned head in a threatening manner. “To make metal sensitive to light.”
“Yes, it is progress, of course...but, well, only in the art of making pictures. Mind you, that is no doubt wonderful in its way. But the only real progress would be to make a man’s heart sensitive to love, to Nature, to his fellow men, to the world of spiritual joy. My dear Hari, Plato did more for the human race than Monsieur Daguerre.”
Hari put the plate in the camera and pulled out the protective slide. “I beg you not to insult any more my ancestors nor this very worthy gentleman, Mr Daguerre.”
“Please don’t think I mean to insult them,” cried Fleury. “That’s the very last thing I want to do. It’s just that we must change the direction of our society before it’s too late and we all become like these engines which will soon be galloping across India on railway lines. An engine has no heart!”
“Keep still!” Hari, watch in hand, snatched the cap off the lens and by the look on his face he might have been wishing it was the muzzle of a cannon that was pointing at Fleury.
“Oh dear!” thought Fleury, “I seem to have offended him somehow.”
Hari counted off two minutes, replaced the lens cap, snatched out the plate and slipped it over the heated mercury bath. Fleury goggled at him, dismayed.
“I am very sad,” declared Hari with frosty dignity, “that you, Fleury, should reveal yourself so frightfully backward.”
He shook his head over the mercury bath with lofty distress. “This will be portrait of very backward man indeed, I am very much regretting to say.”
A discouraged silence fell between the two young men as they waited for the fine mercury globules to settle on the parts of the plate which had been affected by light. When this process had been accomplished Hari picked the plate up with a pair of pliers and poured over it a solution of hyposulphite of soda to wash off the unchanged iodide and make the image permanent; then, still holding it with pliers he washed it with a solution of gold chloride to increase the brilliance of the image. All that now remained to be done was to wash the plate in water, dry it over the spirit lamp, and put it into a frame behind glass for the image was as delicate as the wing of a butterfly and as easily harmed. This done, Hari sighed and took it over to show Fleury, whose head was still clamped in the ring. Hari’s anger had given way to sadness and disapproval.
“It looks as if it has been drawn by the brush of the fairy queen Mab,” said Fleury, hoping that this conceit would soothe Hari’s wounded feelings.
“It is the portrait of a very backward man indeed,” replied Hari severely. And with that he turned and trudged out of the room with heavy steps,