There are many decisions to be made when binding a book, over and above the choice of binding material. The inlays, onlays, gilding, embossing, stitching, stamping, endpapers, ex libris, boards, frontispiece, edges, headband, glue, joints, marbling, slipcase, the title page—all these were choices about which the Baroness, for all the trust she invested in me, liked to be consulted before any work could begin. That evening, I opened the package to inspect it. Seven lustrous pearls tumbled out of their black velvet purse. The enclosed leather was dyed coral-red. The ivory miniature was not, as is traditionally the case with Cosway-style binding, a portrait, but a stylized illustration in black ink of an open eye. Finally, I took in hand the manuscript itself. Even when specifically instructed not to read it, the most scrupulous bookbinder cannot help but accidentally glimpse certain words or phrases. In this case, the handwritten title leaped out at me: Crossings. Underneath the title was a long jumble of figures, also handwritten, seemingly without any bearing on the manuscript. It consisted of what appeared to be three separate documents, all written by hand in French, although one of them was significantly older than the other two and written in a different hand. The manuscript appeared to have had an eventful existence: many of the pages were creased, folded over or mottled with damp, and the paper itself was yellowing and pungent with the chocolatey, nutty aroma that old paper exhales as it decays.

It took me a week to call the Baroness, a little longer than usual, and when I finally did so a man’s voice I didn’t recognize answered the telephone and informed me she’d very recently passed away, peacefully, in her sleep. When I inquired about the funeral, I was told it had taken place only the day before, at her Belgian estate. The news so surprised me that I forgot to ask what to do about the manuscript.