The Glassmaker

by Tracy Chevalier

Venetians complained about their city becoming a theme park, but Orsola knew that as long as Venice’s canals stank of sewage, its rooms were dark and damp, its people melancholy and sardonic, it would maintain its true nature, which was so seductive. A pearl needs grit to be beautiful; beauty comes from the scar on the lip, the gap in the teeth, the crooked eyebrow.

There was a pricelessness to these tiny, hard things. They endured, and retained the history of their owners, and of their makers.