The Secret Language of Stones Read Online Free

desperate.
    â€œLet’s go into the showroom, it’s more comfortable,” I said as I got up. “It’s this way.” The workshop was no place for clients. In the middle of the well-lit room were four U-shaped wooden tables, all facing one another like a four-leaf clover. Now only two of the stations were occupied, Monsieur Orloff’s and mine. I was the sole full-time jeweler employed by the firm. Not only were precious metals and gems on our tables, but dangerous apparatuses also lay about: soldering guns and metal files.
    â€œA piece of jewelry should be a marvel,” Monsieur Orloff once had told me. “A little miracle the buyer looks at with awe and amazement, not understanding how it came together.” He wore a perpetually serious expression and had deep frown lines etched upon his brow, but when he spoke about his jewels, a child’s delight shone in his eyes and echoed in his voice.
    He loved invisible settings and was famous for them, as well asthe otherworldly gems he searched out and used in his pieces. His artist’s eye found rubies that resembled wine turned to stone, emeralds as clear as a pool of water, sapphires that captured the essence of night, diamonds like stars pulled out of the sky, pearls glowing with the luminescence of the moon.
    â€œHow do you do it? How do you speak to those who have passed?” Madame Alouette whispered as I escorted her toward the private viewing room.
    â€œI don’t think I do speak to them directly,” I said as I opened the door. “It feels more like I am able to access messages soldiers left behind as they passed over.” Or , I considered, it could be that I read your mind and hear what you wish he were saying. But I’d never admit that to a client.
    â€œAs if the messages are in the sky and you pull them out?”
    â€œYes.” I shrugged. “But I can’t be sure.” I held out a chair for her. “Here, have a seat,” I said.
    She sank down with the relief of someone who’d been on her feet for days.
    â€œCan I get you coffee or some tea?”
    â€œCoffee, yes, please.”
    Returning to the workroom, I turned on the kettle, prepared the press with grinds, then stocked a silver tray with Monsieur Orloff’s Limoges china service: cups and saucers with a green, gold, and purple Russian imperial pattern.
    Milk and sugar were often scarce because of the war, but we tried to always have some for clients, even if it meant going without ourselves.
    Arranging the silver pitcher, sugar bowl, and coffee, I returned to the showroom to find Madame Alouette no longer at the table but standing, studying The Tree of Life .
    Monsieur had wanted La Fantaisie Russe to be as much a work of art as the jewels inside its walls. An Art Nouveau masterpiece, the shop was one of the architectural commissions my father was mostproud of. He’d chosen the themes of the wisteria vine and peacocks, the wisteria for welcome and the birds for their jewel-toned feathers. Walnut-veneered panels inlaid with purplish amaranth wood, to represent the cascading blossoms, covered the walls. The dual motifs were carried out in the carved showcases, as well as in the furniture, doorknobs, drawer pulls, lamp bases, and cabinet handles. Climbing vines carved into the wood led up from the floor to give way to blossoms hanging from the moldings, and vines framed the cabinets, doors, and windows. When it came to the lighting fixtures, standing lamp bases echoed the vines’ twisting trunks and the glass shades evoked the clusters of blossoms. The peacock color palette—amethyst, turquoise, sapphire, emerald—carried throughout the upholstery, rugs, and tiles laid around the shell-shaped fireplace and on the mosaic floor.
    No artwork decorated the walls; rather, tall mirrors, their carved frames suggesting peacock feathers, reflected back the jewels. In each corner, overlaid on the mirror, were peacocks,