Rubies, the fourth "r"

A long time ago, it was reading, writing and rithmatic. Now I've added rubies with a minor in emeralds and sapphires or I have tried to. This time my studies took place at l'Ecole off the rue de la Paix in Paris which looks absolutely nothing like P.S. 79 on Morris Avenue where I used to win spelling bees.

Van Cleef & Arpels, a global star in high jewellery, created this school. It occupies a handsome building around the corner from its flagship store near Place Vendome. When I was invited to take one of its courses I was pleased to be asked but not keen to accept. With subject titles like "Stories and Inspirations," or one session offering advice from a stylist  I reckoned the courses were intended to be a luxe and chatty interval between lunch and cocktails. But then people I know who had been said I should give it a chance. I did.

The course I elected was:  "Gemstone Identification: Recognize the Stones."  I doubt that I'd be crazy about rocks even if I could afford them. But looking at beautiful stones even small ones when set in jewels is appealing and it would be good to know if what I am ogling is the real thing or glass.  I know that rubies are red, emeralds green and sapphires blue and even that this is not necessarily so. But how to tell a ruby from a spinel? Or a ruby that was made by a devious man not amoral Mother Earth?  So off I went to Paris to my class, student numbers limited to 16.

Orientation was civilized. Coffee, tea, varieties of water and juices plus thinly veiled social awkwardness. Then it was into class.The large, light classroom looked like a lab with one long table edged with high stools. Tweezers, magnifying loops provided. .Scientific equipment (who know what kind or for what?) on a table along the back. We were told to divide into three groups of four each. But on the day we were only 11. Ours was the odd group out. The three of us would be examining rubies--real and otherwise. Another group got sapphires and the last emeralds.  I will not go into all the paperwork we had to do as we weighed and measured and looked for imperfections (inclusions)-- which it transpired are a good thing if not overdone at least in colored stones like these. The other members of my team were two French women. Very fast my team turned out to be their team with me an undesirable burden. Team Sapphire included a good- humored daughter and mother from Mexico; the former giving the entire two week series of courses to the latter for her birthday-- plus two men in suits who work in high end watches..the kind that feature gems. Team Emerald I never worked out.
  The instructor was a gem expert with long years at Van Cleef&Arpels. He was kind, patient, spoke clearly but very soon I was in way over my head. It was fairly easy to work out which ruby was glass (too perfect) and I was quick to learn the correct way to wrap each example in the special squares of  paper so the stone wouldn't fall out by mistake. Alas it wasn't enough. The biggest lesson I learned was that French women can be ferociously competitive--one of my team mates was desperate to "win" which meant to correctly identify the real ruby in our batch. Her country woman (on her own entirely agreeable) joined the race as she did not want to appear slack.  I was the odd woman out. I just wanted to learn what I could. I did not perceive that this was a contest. Well being the odd woman out is a department in which  I qualify as an expert for all the good it did me.
    Yet it was far from a waste of time. I came home with an appreciation of the skills that go into mastering the identification of gem stones and the determination of their quality. The pros have to be able to do this in seconds in the market place in India or Sri Lanka. We simply have to be dazzled by what they take home.  And being able to tell glass from a gem stone is not a bad lesson for one afternoon's hard work.