THENEWYORKER,FEBRUARY3, 2020 41
ers!” Mansori told me. This kind of lan-
guage is apparently endemic to the
trade. In 1954, Harry Winston told Lil-
lian Ross, of this magazine, “I love the
diamond business. It’s a Cinderella
world. It has everything! People! Drama!
Romance! Precious stones! Specula-
tion! Excitement! What more could
you want?”
Mansori showed me a pair of fifty-
carat pear-shaped diamonds, recently
made by his firm. He estimated that
the pair would sell for between twenty
and twenty-five million dollars. Each
diamond sat snugly in the palm of my
hand. One of them had been cut from
a stone mined at Karowe; the other
came from a stone mined in Lesotho.
Mansori explained that he had seen the
potential for a pair of diamonds sourced
from two mines: together, they were
more than twice as valuable as single,
polished gems. The diamonds were be-
guilingly beautiful. Examining them
with a loupe felt like walking through
a fun house of mirrors.“There’s no software that can solve
everything,” Mansori said. “In the end,
it’s the human who has to decide.”
Cutting a diamond, he explained, is
not merely a question of geometry. Cer-
tain types of stone can change color
during the polishing process. Other
stones contain faults, or “inclusions,”
that need to be worked around. Growth
lines in the diamond—markers of differ-
ent stages of crystal formation within
a stone—must be considered; if you
leave a line at the surface, it cannot be
polished away. All decisions are irre-
versible: a cut diamond cannot be uncut.
Mansori does not polish stones him-
self. He employs specialists for that task,
just as the Asschers used Henri Koe.
Mansori told me that, very occasion-
ally, the task was so highly pressured
that his cutters worked only two days
a week. Such experts also took months-
long holidays between jobs. The cut-
ters, in Mansori’s opinion, are not arti-
sans; they are artists.
Adding to the complexity of the pro-
cess is the subjective nature of diamond
pricing. Every rough diamond is sub-
tly different. Many luxury commodi-
ties, such as gold, have a market value
per weight. A rough diamond’s worth
is determined not only by its carats but
also by its color and clarity. (Gemolog-
ical societies have various scales for rat-
ing a diamond’s clarity, from flawless
to heavily included.) Although guide-
lines exist for diamond prices, they are
not rigid.
In a nearby office, I visited Philip
Hoymans, the urbane director of Bonas
Group, an Antwerp broker that con-
ducts tenders for Lucara. Hoymans told
me that the subjective, fast-moving na-
ture of the diamond business can upset
venders, especially when they imagined
a price wildly different from the final
bid. It is also possible for buyers to feel
that, in the helter-skelter of a tender’s
deadline, they overpaid.
The diamond market is opaque, but
it is also wise. Hoymans told me, “If
the market bids, and you’re not happy,
maybe it’s you who got it wrong.”L
ucara has not only rethought dia-
mond processing; it has disrupted
the market itself. Traditionally, a min-
ing firm tenders its rough diamonds
and walks away with a check. ButThe Wild Boar, for a disagreeable appearance, shall be sentenced to death
by being eaten—and rightly so! Though what good will it do! What, like
you do things differently!
The Bird, for treason, shall be sentenced to death and the confiscation of
property, to teach others to not do it.
The Echidna, for an antihuman appearance and over-all nastiness, shall be
sentenced to be shot with subsequent rehabilitation, so that there will be
some order, after all, and high justice will triumph.
The Elephant, for its huge size, which is an assault on human honor and
dignity, shall be crossed off the list of existing beings, and its ongoing
existence shall be considered an anomaly and a phantom.
For economic, moral, political, and behavioral crimes, the polecat, fox,
squirrel, badger, chipmunk, vole, jay, lark, raven and crow, deer and badger,
kangaroo and its joeys, whale and shark, pike, swan and crab, and all their
ilk shall be sentenced to various terms of punishment in various places,
but with a strictly legal and individual approach to each specific case,
such that no indiscriminate levelling and wholesale depersonalization take
place.
The Cockroach shall simply be sentenced to be shot; this needs no explanation.
The Lion shall be sentenced to public humiliation and degradation, since
it is clear that the king of animals, nature, and everything else is man.
Rivers shall be sentenced to be redirected in all possible directions, as a
result of which they shall run shallow and dry up—which is only fair.
The Sun shall be sentenced to exposure and public repentance, with
consequent removal from the lists of remembrance and glorification of
anything beginning with the words: Long live! So it must be.
Decisions for all the remaining cases are being prepared, and the sentences
will be announced as they are decided within a reasonable period of time.
None will be exempt.
—Dmitri Prigov (1940-2007)(Translated, from the Russian, by Simon Schuchat with Ainsley Morse.)