The Signature of All Things

perturbing to be discussed in front of their child. If Alma did not understand what was being said, Beatrix reasoned, it would merely give her more motive to improve her intellect, so as not to be left behind next time. If Alma had nothing of intelligence to contribute to the conversation, Beatrix taught her to smile at whomsoever had spoken last and murmur politely, “Do go on.” If Alma should find herself bored at the table, well, that was certainly no one’s concern. Dinner gatherings at White Acre were not ordered around a child’s entertainment (indeed, Beatrix submitted that precious few things in life should be ordered around a child’s entertainment), and the sooner Alma learned to sit still in a hard-backed chair for many hours on end, listening attentively to ideas far beyond her grasp, the better she would be for it.
    Thus Alma spent the tender years of her childhood listening to the most extraordinary conversations—with men who studied the decomposition of human remains; with men who had ideas for importing fine new Belgian fire hoses to America; with men who drew pictures of monstrous medical deformities; with men who believed any medicine that could be swallowed could just as effectively be rubbed over the skin and absorbed into the body; with men who examined the organic matter of sulfuric springs; and with one man who was an expert on the pulmonary function of aquatic birds (a subject which he claimed was more fraught with thrilling interest than any other in the natural world—although, from his droning presentation at the dinner table, this statement did not prove true).
    Some of these evenings were entertaining to Alma. She liked it best when the actors and explorers came, and told stirring tales. Other nights were tense with argument. Other nights still were torturously dull eternities. She would sometimes fall asleep at the table with her eyes open, held upright in her chair by nothing more than absolute terror of her mother’s censure, and the bracing stays on her formal dress. But the night Almawould remember forever—the night that would later seem to have been the very apogee of her childhood—was the night of the visit from the Italian astronomer.
----
    I t was late summer of 1808, and Henry Whittaker had acquired a new telescope. He had been admiring the night skies through his fine German lenses, but he was beginning to feel like a celestial illiterate. His knowledge of the stars was a sailor’s knowledge—which is not trifling—but he was not up-to-date on the latest findings. Tremendous advances were being made now in the field of astronomy, and Henry increasingly felt that the night sky was becoming yet another library that he could barely read. So when Maestro Luca Pontesilli, the brilliant Italian astronomer, came to Philadelphia to speak at the American Philosophical Society, Henry lured him up to White Acre by hosting a ball in his honor. Pontesilli, he had heard, was a zealot for dancing, and Henry suspected the man could not resist a ball.
    This was to be the most elaborate affair the Whittakers had ever attempted. The finest of Philadelphia’s caterers—Negro men in crisp white uniforms—arrived in the early afternoon and set to assembling the elegant meringues and mixing the colorful punches. Tropical flowers that had never before been taken out of the balmy forcing houses were arranged in tableaux all over the mansion. Suddenly an orchestra of moody strangers was milling about the ballroom, tuning their instruments and muttering complaints about the heat. Alma was scrubbed and packed into white crinolines, her cockscomb of unruly red hair forced into a satin bow nearly as big as her head. Then the guests arrived, in billows of silk and powder.
    It was hot. It had been hot all month, but this was the hottest day yet. Anticipating the uncomfortable weather, the Whittakers did not commence their ball until nine o’clock, long after the sun had set, but the day’s punishing heat still lingered. The ballroom quickly became a greenhouse itself, steaming and damp, which the tropical plants enjoyed, but which the ladies did not. The musicians suffered and perspired. The guests spilled out of doors in search of relief, lounging on the verandahs, leaning against marble statues, trying in vain to draw coolness from the stone.
    In an effort to slake their thirst, people drank a good deal more punch than they had perhaps intended to drink. As a natural result,