A few steps away was an elaborate contraption: a machine that looked like a cross between a fire engine and a calliope and half the technological advances of the twentieth century. It had pistons like you’d see on a locomotive, the dials and meters of a furnace, an elaborate system of eggbeaters. There were multicolored pinwheels and whistles and the horn of a gramophone mounted on a pole.

Standing before it was a little man with the beard and pince nez of Toulouse-Lautrec.

Eve popped the last bite of donut into her mouth and wiped the sugar from her hands.

—So what’s this all about?

—This? the man repeated. Why, this is the Astrologicon.

The three of them surveyed it together.

—You will note, the little man continued, that I said the instead of an. For, it is the only one of its kind in the world.

He explained this somewhat sadly, as if he were speaking of the very last of some fantastic species like the unicorn or chimera.

—But what does it do? asked Olivia.

—Ah . . . , he said. What does it do?

With three fingers and a thumb, he sharpened the point of his beard.

—Once in possession of five essential attributes of a Homo sapiens, the Astrologicon will consult the laws of chemistry and the arrangement of the stars in order to provide an unassailable, incontrovertible, and indismissible instruction. For one dollar.

—Let’s to it, said Eve.

The proprietor accepted Eve’s payment and placed it with ceremony in a small tin box. Then he proceeded to collect the essential attributes of her person and to calibrate the contraption accordingly. He punched the letters of her name into a panel of dislodged typewriter keys. He set three adjacent dials to the year, month, and date of her birth. He took a fingerprint. He turned an arrow embedded in a spectrum of colors to the precise pigmentation of her eyes. And finally, he handed Eve the end of a stethoscope that was cabled back into the inner workings of the machine.

—If you would be so kind, he said, pointing shyly toward her sternum.

Eve slid the stethoscope under the neckline of her dress and you could suddenly hear the beating of her heart broadcast through the gramophone’s horn. As Eve and Olivia realized what they were hearing, the tempo of Eve’s heartbeat increased. But closing her eyes, Eve exhaled and inhaled and exhaled again, until her heartbeat subsided to the tempo of the waves beneath the pier.

The proprietor nodded in sober appreciation. Then after reclaiming the stethoscope, he reached into his watch pocket and produced a hexagon of brass.