"Avram Davidson - The Montavarde Camera" - читать интересную книгу автора (Davidson Avram)

As he spoke, Mr. Collins felt his self-possession returning, and went on with increased confidence to say:
“Now, just for example, my own particular avocation is photography. But if you have nothing displayed
to show you sell anything in that line, I daresay I would pass by here every day and never think to stop
in.”
The proprietor’s smile increased slightly, and his eyebrows arched up to his curl.

“But it so happens that I, too, am interested in photography, and although I have no display or sign to
beguile you, in you came. I do not care for advertising. it is, I think, vulgar. My equipment is not for your
tuppeny-tintype customer, nor will I pander to his tastes.”

“Your equipment?” Mr. Collins again surveyed the place. “Where is it?” A most unusual studio—if studio
it was—or shop, he thought; but he was impressed by what he considered a commendable attitude on
the part of the slender gentleman—a standard so elevated that he refused to lower it by the most
universally accepted customs of commerce.

The proprietor pointed to the most shadowy corner of the shop. There, in the semidarkness between the
showcase and the wall, a large camera of archaic design stood upon a tripod. Mr. Collins approached it
with interest, and began to examine it in the failing light.

Made out of some unfamiliar type of hardwood, with its lens piece gleaming a richer gold than ordinary
brass, the old camera was in every respect a museum piece; yet, despite its age, it seemed to be in good
working order. Mr. Collins ran his hand over the smooth surface; as he did so, he felt a rough spot on the
back. It was evidently someone’s name, he discovered, burned or carved into the wood, but now
impossible to read in the thickening dusk. He turned to the proprietor.

“It is rather dark back here.”

“Of course. I beg your pardon; I was forgetting. It is something remarkable, isn’t it? There is no such
work-manship nowadays. Years of effort that took, you know.” As he spoke, he lit the jet and turned up
the gas. The soft, yellow light of the flame filled the shop, hissing quietly to itself. More and more shops
now had electric lights; this one, certainly, never would.

Mr. Collins reverently bowed his head and peered at the writing. In a flourishing old-fashioned script,
someone long ago had engraved the name of Gaston Montavarde. Mr. Collins looked up in
amazement.

“Montavarde’s camera? Here?”

“Here, before you. Montavarde worked five years on his experimental models before he made the one
you see now. At that time he was still—so the books tell you—the pupil of Daguerre. But to those who
knew him, the pupil far excelled the master; just as Daguerre himself far excelled Niepce. If Montavarde
had not died just as he was nearing mastery of the technique he sought, his work would be world famous.
As it is, appreciation of Montavarde’s style and importance is largely confined to the few—of whom I
count myself one. You, sir, I am pleased to note, are one of the others. One of the few others.” Here the
slender gentleman gave a slight bow. Mr. Collins was extremely flattered, not so much by the bow—all
shopkeepers bowed—but by the implied compliment to his knowledge.

In point of fact, he knew very little of Montavarde, his life, or his work. Who does? He was familiar, as
are all students of photography, with Montavarde’s study of a street scene in Paris during the 1848
Revolution. Barricades in the Morning, which shows a ruined embattlement and the still bodies of its