Pearls-for-eyes redux

Francis Spufford, I may be some time:

The ice had preserved John Torrington, John Hartnell, and William Braine as yellowed revenants from 1846. Their lips had drawn back from their teeth, and their eyes, oysters of water-ice when the coffins were first opened, proved to have sunk back beneath the lids [...] the preserving ice does something curious to history. It does not distinguish between the recent dead and the remote dead; all are glazed over alike.

I am returning to this book after a week's travel, exigencies of packing for which have left me with a number of half-read books that I must now try to finish.