‘Everything receives the light that falls upon it, and so registers an eternal imprint of the things around it’: this was the philosophy of William Denton, as articulated in his book The Soul of Things, published in Chicago in 1863. He was a keen student of the new science of photography pioneered by Louis Daguerre. ‘We visit a daguerrean room,’ says Denton, ‘and sit before the camera; while thus sitting our picture is formed on a prepared silver plate, and is distinctly visible upon it; it is taken out of the camera, and now, nothing whatever can be seen; a searching microscopic investigation discovers no line; but, on a suitable application, the image appears as if by magic. It is no more there, now that it is visible, than it was before; all that has been done is to make visible that which already existed on the plate, or no application could have revealed it. Some will object that if the silvered plate had not already been made sensitive, the image of the sitter would never have been retained; but experiment has shown that this is not so. Let a wafer be laid on a sheet of polished metal, which is then breathed upon. When the moisture of the breath has evaporated, and the wafer shaken off, we shall find that the whole polished surface is not as it was before, though our senses can detect no difference. For if we breathe upon it again, the surface will be moist everywhere, except on the spot previously sheltered by the wafer, which will now appear as a spectral image on the surface. Again and again we breathe, and the moisture evaporates, but still the spectral image appears. All bodies throw off emanations in greater or less size and with greater or less velocities; these particles enter more or less into the pores of solid or fluid bodies, sometimes resting upon their surface, and sometimes permeating them altogether. These emanations, when feeble, show themselves in images; when stronger, in chemical changes; when stronger still, in their action on the olfactory nerves; and when thrown off most copiously and rapidly, in heat affecting the nerves of touch; in photographic action, dissevering and recombining the elements of nature; and in phosphorescent and luminous emanations, exciting the retina and producing vision.’
Denton knew from his own experience that the image impressed on a photographic plate could be extraordinarily persistent and difficult to efface; for, after polishing a plate once used, the figure of a former sitter would sometimes reappear, as if breathed into being, reminding one of the bloom that lies at the back of old mirrors, or a body seen through mist. He envisaged molecules streaming radiantly from the sitter to be received permanently into the depths of the plate. It followed that in the world around us, ‘radiant forces were passing from all objects to all objects in their vicinity, and during every moment of the day and night were daguerreotyping the appearances of each upon the other; the images thus made, not merely resting upon the surface, but sinking into the interior of them; there to be held with astonishing tenacity, and only waiting for a suitable application to reveal themselves to the inquiring gaze. You cannot, then, enter a room by night or by day, but you leave on your going out your portrait behind you. You cannot lift your hand, or wink your eye, or the wind stir a hair of your head, but each moment is indelibly registered for coming ages. The pane of glass in the window, the brick in the wall, the paving-stone in the street, catch the pictures of all passers-by, and faithfully preserve them. Not a leaf waves, not an insect crawls, not a ripple moves, but each motion is recorded by a thousand infallible scribes; and this is just as true of all past time, from the first dawn of light upon this infant globe.’ Nothing, according to Denton, is ever lost.
The Third Man
A black limousine glided up out of the fog, its fog lights on. It drew to a halt. A man emerged, attired in a midnight blue chauffeur’s uniform. He opened the rear passenger door and stood to attention. Monsieur Odilon will see us there, said Gordon. Courtesy of the Embassy. Dear Old Ireland, as they say. They boarded the vehicle. The interior smelled of leather and tobacco. Kilpatrick sat to one side of Gordon on the long deep seat. We are twin passengers, he thought, two men who otherwise might have passed each other by, were it not for happenstance. In retrospect it had been preordained that they should meet, as if his thinking of Bourne had brought Bourne closer to him. He thought again of tomorrow evening’s assignation in Rue du Sentier, and what it might imply. The Street of the Path. Or of the Track. The black limousine glided silently through the fogbound streets of Paris. Kilpatrick had no idea where he was and the idea came to him that he was floating down a dark river in the cabin of a motorboat. Mind if I light up? said Gordon. He pressed a button on his armrest and a panel opened to reveal a chromium ashtray. He took out a leather cigar case from an inside pocket. Vintage Dunhill, Kilpatrick noted. Smoke yourself? said Gordon. Well, I used to, said Kilpatrick, and you know, why not. Celebrate the occasion. Let me not be the cause of your downfall, said Gordon. On the other hand … and he extended the case towards Kilpatrick. From our Ireland — Cuba connections, he said. Sancho Panza, maybe not top dollar, but pretty good. Bite or cut? he said. Oh, whatever you’re having yourself, said Kilpatrick. With a magician’s gesture Gordon produced an instrument and neatly snipped the ends of two cigars. He held up the cutter, snapped his fingers, and a lighter appeared in his hand instead. Vintage Dunhill again, nice art deco enamelled chevrons. Well, here’s to us, said Gordon, and he grinned. They lit up.
Nice trick, said Kilpatrick. Oh, something I picked up in Istanbul, said Gordon, they’re very into prestidigitation there. Like most magic, it’s very simple if you know how. You’d be disappointed if I told you how it’s done, so I won’t. Some things should remain a mystery, don’t you think? Some things, said Kilpatrick. And that’s only speaking about the things we know about, said Gordon, what about the things we don’t even know exist, that’s an even greater mystery. Well, I’d like to know about Bourne, said Kilpatrick, the man you took me for. I used to know a John Bourne. You did? said Gordon. Yes, I met him back in the seventies in Belfast. He was a painter too. I met him in the Crown Bar. You remember the Crown? Sunlight falling through the stained glass windows of an afternoon, and you’d hold a glass of beer up to it and watch the bubbles floating upwards through the sunlight. And this afternoon I was sitting at the bar counter, Bourne was two stools away from me. Of course I didn’t know he was Bourne then, but I couldn’t help but notice his gear. Oatmeal Donegal tweed three-button jacket with the middle button done, navy-blue cord trousers, dark tan Oxford brogues. The light glinted on his sky blue silk tie. Nice jacket, said Bourne. He must have caught my eye out of the corner of his eye. I must have been wearing the chocolate brown cord jacket I’d bought a few days ago in the Friday Market. It was a nice jacket, vintage bespoke, made for a Dr T.E. Livingstone according to the label, I wonder what kind of a man he might have been, fitted me almost to a T, as it were. Of course I only say all this in hindsight. I don’t think I appreciated clothes that much back then. I might well not have noticed the things I notice now. And I think it was Bourne who showed me what clothes could be, what they could do for one. And for all I know my memory of what Bourne was wearing has been skewed by what I saw him wear since. A notional ensemble culled from several ensembles. Anyway, I said, Nice jacket yourself, and we began to talk, we talked from afternoon till evening, said Kilpatrick.