The Club Dumas

“Not the case here,” said Corso, pointing at the book.

The bookbinder held a page against the light.

“Rag-content paper, which is as it should be. Good paper handmade from rags, it’ll withstand both the passage of time and human stupidity.... No, I tell a lie. It’s linen. Authentic linen paper.” He put down the lens and looked at his brother. “How strange, it’s not Venetian paper. It’s thick, spongy, fibrous. Could it be Spanish?”

“From Valencia,” said his brother. “Jativa linen.”

“That’s right. One of the best in Europe at the time. The printer could have got hold of an imported batch.... He really did things properly.”

“He was very conscientious,” said Corso, “and it cost him his life.”

“Risks of the trade.” Pedro accepted the crushed cigarette Corso offered him. He lit it immediately, coughing. “As you know yourself, it’s difficult to fool anyone about paper. The ream used would have had to be blank, from the same time, and even then there would be differences: the sheets go brown, the inks fade and change over time.... Of course, the added pages can be stained, or darkened by being washed in tea. Any restoration work, or addition of missing pages, should leave the book all of a piece. It’s these small details that count. Don’t they, Pablo? Always the damned details.” “What’s your diagnosis?”

“So far, we have established that the binding is seventeenth century. That doesn’t mean that the pages match this binding and not another. But let’s assume they do. As for the paper, it seems similar to other batches whose origin has been authen­ticated.”

“Right. The binding and paper are authentic. Let’s look at the text and illustrations.”

“Now, that’s more complicated. We can approach the typog­raphy from two different angles. One: we can assume that the book is authentic. The owner, however, denies this, and ac­cording to you he has ways of knowing. So authenticity is pos­sible but not very probable. Let’s assume that it’s a forgery and work out the possibilities. On the one hand, the entire text might be a forgery, a fabrication, printed on paper dating from the time and bound using boards from the time. This is un­likely. Or, to be more precise, not very convincing. The cost of such a book would be enormous.... On the other hand, and this is reasonable, the forgery might have been made shortly after the first edition of the book. I mean that it was reprinted with alterations, disguised to resemble the first edition, some ten or twenty years after this date of 1666 that appears in the frontispiece. But to what end?”

“It was a banned book,” Pablo Ceniza pointed out.

“It’s possible,” agreed Corso. “Somebody who had access to the equipment—the plates and types—used by Aristide Torchia might have been able to print the book again.”

The elder brother had picked up a pencil and was scribbling on the back of a printed sheet. “That would be one explana­tion,” he said. “But there are other alternatives that seem more plausible. Imagine, for instance, that most of the book’s pages are authentic but that some were missing, either torn out or lost, and that somebody replaced those missing pages using pa­per that dates from the time, good printing techniques, and a lot of patience. In that case, there are two further possibilities: one is that the added pages are reproductions of those from a complete copy. Another is that, in the absence of the original to reproduce or copy, the contents of the pages were in­vented.” The bookbinder showed Corso what he had been writ­ing. “It would be a true case of forgery, as illustrated by this diagram.”

While Corso and Pablo were looking at the paper, Pedro again leafed through The Nine Doors.

“I am inclined to think,” he added after a moment, once he had their attention again, “that if some pages were interpolated, it was done either around the time of the original edition, or now, in our time. We can discount the time between the two, because such a perfect reproduction of an ancient work has become possible only very recently.”

Corso handed back the diagram and asked, “Imagine you were faced with a book that had pages missing. And you wanted to complete it using modern techniques. How would you go about it?”

The Ceniza brothers sighed deeply in unison, professionally relishing the prospect. They were now both staring intently at The Nine Doors.

“Let us suppose,” Pedro said, “that this hundred-and-sixty-eight-page book has page 100 missing. Pages 100 and 99, since one sheet has two sides. And we want to replace it. The trick is to locate a twin.”

“A twin?”

“As we say in the trade,” said Pablo, “another complete copy.”

“Or at least a copy where the two pages we need to duplicate are intact. It would also be advisable to compare the twin with our incomplete copy, to see if the depths of the type impressions in the paper are different or if the letters have worn differently. As you know yourself, types were moveable then and could easily wear down or be damaged. So with manual printing, the first and last copy of the same print run could vary greatly. They might have crooked or broken letters, hold the ink dif­ferently, things like that. Examining such variations allows you to add or remove imperfections on an interpolated page so that the page matches the rest of the book. We would then proceed with photomechanical reproduction and produce a plastic pho-tolith. And from that we would obtain a polymer or a zinc.”

“A plate in relief,” said Corso, “made of resin or metal.”

“Exactly. However perfect the reproduction technique, we would never get the relief, the mark on paper typical of old printing methods that used inked wood or metal. So the entire page has to be reproduced using a moldable material—resin or metal. Such a plate creates very similar effects to printing with the kind of movable lead types used in 1666. We put the plate on the press and print the page manually, as was done four centuries ago ... using paper that dates from the same time, of course, or treated both before and after with artificial aging methods. The composition of the ink must be thoroughly re­searched. The page is treated with chemical agents so that it matches the other pages. And there you are, the crime is carried out.”

“But suppose the original sheet doesn’t exist. Suppose there’s no model from which to copy the two missing pages.”

The Ceniza brothers both smiled confidently.

“That,” said Pedro, “makes it even more interesting.”

“Research and imagination,” added Pablo.

“And daring, of course, Mr. Corso. Suppose Pablo and I have that copy of The Nine Doors with pages missing. The other one hundred sixty-six pages provide us with a catalogue of all the letters and symbols used by the printer. We take samples until we have obtained an entire alphabet. We reproduce the alphabet on photographic paper, which is easier to handle, and then multiply each letter by the number of times it appears on the page. The ideal, the artistic flourish, would be to reproduce the types in molten lead, as ancient printers used to do. Un­fortunately this is too complicated and expensive. We make do with modern techniques. We divide up the letters with a blade into loose types, and Pablo, who has a steadier hand, composes the two pages on a template, line by line, just as a compositor would have done in the seventeenth century. From that we produce another proof on paper and eliminate any joins or im­perfections in the letters, or we add faults similar to those found in the letters of the original text. Then all we need do is make a negative. From the negative you get a reproduction in relief, and there you have your printing plate.”

“What if the missing pages are illustrations?” “It makes no difference. If we had access to the original engraving, of course, the technique for making a copy would be easier. In this case, the fact that the engravings are all woodcuts, which have lighter lines than copperplate or dry-point, means that we can produce an almost perfect piece of work.”

“Suppose the original engraving no longer exists.” “That’s not a problem either. If we know of it-from refer­ ences, we can imitate it. If not, we can invent it. After studying the technique used for the book’s other engravings, of course. Any good draftsman could do it.” “What about printing it?”

“As you know, a woodcut is an engraving in relief. A cube of wood is cut with the grain and covered with a white back­ground. The picture is drawn on top. Then the wood is carved and the ink applied on the crests, or ridges, so that it can be transferred onto paper. When reproducing woodcuts, there are two options. One is to make a copy of the drawing, preferably in resin. The alternative, if you have a good engraver, is to make another real woodcut, with the same techniques that were used to produce the original engravings, and to print directly from that. In my case, as I have a good engraver in my brother, I would hand print it from a woodcut. Wherever possible,