The Eternal Adam and other stories (14 page)

Master Zacharius, as if guided by an
irresistible hand, seemed sure of his way, and strode along with rapid step. He
reached an old worm-eaten door, which fell before his blows, whilst the bats
described oblique circles around his head.

An immense hall, better preserved than the
rest, was soon reached. High sculptured panels, on which serpents, ghouls, and
other strange figures seemed to disport themselves confusedly, covered its
walls. Several long and narrow windows, like loopholes, shivered beneath the
bursts of the tempest.

Master Zacharius, on reaching the middle of
this hall, uttered a cry of joy.

On an iron support, fastened to the wall,
stood the clock in which now resided his entire life. This unequalled
masterpiece represented an ancient Roman church, with buttresses of wrought
iron, with its heavy bell-tower, where there was a complete chime for the
anthem of the day, the ‘Angelus’, the mass, vespers, compline, and the
benediction. Above the church door, which opened at the hour of the services,
was placed a ‘rose’, in the centre of which two hands moved, and the archivault
of which reproduced the twelve hours of the face sculptured in relief. Between
the door and the rose, just as Scholastique had said, a maxim, relative to the
employment of every moment of the day, appeared on a copper plate. Master
Zacharius had once regulated this succession of devices with a really Christian
solicitude; the hours of prayer, of work, of repast, of recreation, and of
repose, followed each other according to the religious discipline, and were to
infallibly insure salvation to him who scrupulously observed their commands.

Master Zacharius, intoxicated with joy,
went forward to take possession of the clock, when a frightful roar of laughter
resounded behind him.

He turned, and by the light of a smoky lamp
recognised the little old man of Geneva.

‘You here?’ cried he.

Gerande was afraid. She drew closer to
Aubert.

‘Good-day, Master Zacharius,’ said the
monster.

‘Who are you?’

‘Signor Pittonaccio, at your service! You
have come to give me your daughter! You have remembered my words, "Gerande
will not wed Aubert."‘

The young apprentice rushed upon
Pittonaccio, who escaped from him like a shadow.

‘Stop, Aubert!’ cried Master Zacharius.

‘Good-night,’ said Pittonaccio, and he
disappeared.

‘My father, let us fly from this hateful
place!’ cried Gerande. ‘My father!’

Master Zacharius was no longer there. He
was pursuing the phantom of Pittonaccio across the rickety corridors.
Scholastique, Gerande, and Aubert remained, speechless and fainting, in the
large gloomy hall. The young girl had fallen upon a stone seat; the old servant
knelt beside her, and prayed; Aubert remained erect, watching his betrothed.
Pale lights wandered in the darkness, and the silence was only broken by the
movements of the little animals which live in old wood, and the noise of which
marks the hours of ‘death watch’.

When daylight came, they ventured upon the
endless staircase which wound beneath these ruined masses; for two hours they
wandered thus without meeting a living soul, and hearing only a far-off echo
responding to their cries. Sometimes they found themselves buried a hundred
feet below the ground, and sometimes they reached places whence they could
overlook the wild mountains.

Chance brought them at last back again to
the vast hall, which had sheltered them during this night of anguish. It was no
longer empty. Master Zacharius and Pittonaccio were talking there together, the
one upright and rigid as a corpse, the other crouching over a marble table.

Master Zacharius, when he perceived
Gerande, went forward and took her by the hand, and led her towards
Pittonaccio, saying, ‘Behold your lord and master, my daughter. Gerande, behold
your husband!’

Gerande shuddered from head to foot.

‘Never!’ cried Aubert, ‘for she is my
betrothed.’

‘Never!’ responded Gerande, like a
plaintive echo.

Pittonaccio began to laugh.

‘You wish me to die, then!’ exclaimed the
old man. ‘There, in that clock, the last which goes of all which have gone from
my hands, my life is shut up; and this man tells me, "When I have thy
daughter, this clock shall belong to thee." And this man will not rewind
it. He can break it, and plunge me into chaos. Ah, my daughter, you no longer
love me!’

‘My father!’ murmured Gerande, recovering
consciousness.

‘If you knew what I have suffered, far away
from this principle of my existence!’ resumed the old man. ‘Perhaps no one
looked after this timepiece. Perhaps its springs were left to wear out, its
wheels to get clogged. But now, in my own hands, I can nourish this health so
dear, for I must not die, -I, the great watchmaker of Geneva. Look, my
daughter, how these hands advance with certain step. See, five o’clock is about
to strike. Listen well, and look at the maxim which is about to be revealed.’

Five o’clock struck with a noise which resounded sadly in Gerande’s
soul, and these words appeared in red letters:

YOU MUST EAT OF THE FRUITS OF THE TREE OF
SCIENCE.

Aubert and Gerande looked at each other
stupefied. These were no longer the pious sayings of the Catholic watchmaker.
The breath of Satan must have passed over it. But Zacharius paid no attention
to this, and resumed —

‘Dost thou hear, my Gerande? I live, I
still live! Listen to my breathing, – see the blood circulating in my veins!
No, thou wouldst not kill thy father, and thou wilt accept this man for thy
husband, so that I may become immortal, and at last attain the power of God!’

At these blasphemous words old Scholastique
crossed herself, and Pittonaccio laughed aloud with joy.

‘And then, Gerande, thou wilt be happy with
him. See this man, – he is Time! Thy existence will be regulated with absolute
precision. Gerande, since I gave thee life, give life to thy father!’

‘Gerande,’ murmured Aubert, ‘I am thy
betrothed.’

‘He is my father!’ replied Gerande,
fainting.

‘She is thine!’ said Master Zacharius.
‘Pittonaccio, thou wilt keep thy promise!’

‘Here is the key of the clock,’ replied the
horrible man.

Master Zacharius seized the long key, which
resembled an uncoiled snake, and ran to the clock, which he hastened to wind up
with fantastic rapidity. The creaking of the spring jarred upon the nerves. The
old watchmaker wound and wound the key, without stopping a moment, and it
seemed as if the movement were beyond his control. He wound more and more
quickly, with strange contortions, until he fell from sheer weariness.

‘There, it is wound up for a century!’ he
cried.

Aubert rushed from the hall as if he were
mad. After long wandering, he found the outlet of the hateful château, and
hastened into the open air. He returned to the hermitage of Notre-Dame-du-Sex,
and talked so despairingly to the holy recluse, that the latter consented to
return with him to the château of Andernatt.

If, during these hours of anguish, Gerande
had not wept, it was because her tears were exhausted.

Master Zacharius had not left the hall. He
ran every moment to listen to the regular beating of the old clock.

Meanwhile the
clock had struck, and to Scholastique’s great terror, these words had appeared
on the silver face: —

MAN OUGHT TO BECOME THE EQUAL OF GOD.

The old man had not only not been shocked
by these impious maxims, but read them deliriously, and flattered himself with
thoughts of pride, whilst Pittonaccio kept close by him.

The marriage-contract was to be signed at
midnight. Gerande, almost unconscious, saw or heard nothing. The silence was
only broken by the old man’s words, and the chuckling of Pittonaccio.

Eleven o’clock struck. Master Zacharius
shuddered, and read in a loud voice: —

MAN SHOULD BE THE SLAVE OF SCIENCE,

AND SACRIFICE TO IT RELATIVES AND FAMILY.

‘Yes!’ he cried, ‘there is nothing but science in this world!’

The hands slipped over the face of the
clock with the hiss of a serpent, and the pendulum beat with accelerated
strokes.

Master Zacharius no longer spoke. He had
fallen to the floor, his throat rattled, and from his oppressed bosom came only
these half-broken words: ‘Life – science!’

The scene had now two new witnesses, the
hermit and Aubert. Master Zacharius lay upon the floor; Gerande was praying
beside him, more dead than alive.

Of a sudden a dry, hard noise was heard,
which preceded the strike.

Master Zacharius sprang up.

‘Midnight!’ he cried.

The hermit stretched out his hand towards the
old clock, – and midnight did not sound.

Master Zacharius uttered a terrible cry, which must have been heard in
hell, when these words appeared: —

WHOEVER SHALL ATTEMPT TO MAKE HIMSELF THE EQUAL OF
GOD, SHALL BE FOR EVER DAMNED!

The old clock burst with a noise like
thunder, and the spring, escaping, leaped across the hall with a thousand
fantastic contortions: the old man rose, ran after it, trying in vain to seize
it, and exclaiming, ‘My soul, – my soul!’

The spring bounded before him, first on one
side, then on the other, and he could not reach it.

At last Pittonaccio seized it, and,
uttering a horrible blasphemy, ingulfed himself in the earth.

Master Zacharius fell backwards. He was
dead.

The old watchmaker was buried in the midst
of the peaks of Andermatt.

Then Aubert and Gerande returned to Geneva,
and during the long life which God accorded to them, they made it a duty to
redeem by prayer the soul of the castaway of science.

The American Way of Life

On a March day in 1863 I boarded the steamboat
Kentucky,
which travels back and forth between New York and Albany.

Traffic between the two cities was heavy at
that time of year, because of the large volume of merchandise arriving in the
country. Not that there was anything unusual about this, for New York merchants
are always in contact, through their agents, with even the most remote regions.
This enables them to distribute goods imported from the Old World at the same
time as they export domestic products to other countries.

My departure for Albany gave me a new
opportunity to admire the hustle and bustle of New York. Travellers came
flocking from all directions, some berating the porters who carried their
numerous pieces of luggage, others walking alone, like true English tourists
whose entire wardrobe can fit into one inconspicuous bag. Everyone was in a
hurry to reserve passage on the steamboat, to which they all seemed to
attribute the peculiarly American quality of elasticity.

The bell had already rung twice, spreading panic among
the late-comers. The wharf groaned under the weight of the latest arrivals (who
are inevitably the very ones whose journey cannot be postponed without the most
dire consequences). Eventually, however, the whole crowd was accommodated.
Parcels were piled up and travellers were packed together. The fire roared in
the boiler tubes and the
Kentucky’s
deck shuddered. With a great effort,
the sun broke through the morning mist, giving a little warmth to the March
atmosphere, which makes you turn up your coat collar, shove your hands into
your pockets, and say to yourself, ‘It will be fine tomorrow.’

Since I was not travelling on business,
since my portmanteau was big enough to hold everything I needed and a bit more,
and since my mind was not preoccupied by speculative ventures or by business
deals, I let my thoughts wander idly, trusting to chance, that intimate friend
of tourists, to find me some source of pleasure and entertainment on the way.
Suddenly I noticed Mrs Melvil, standing not a dozen feet from me, smiling her
most charming smile.

‘Why madam!’ I exclaimed, as surprised as I
was pleased, ‘are you really braving the dangers and the crowds of a Hudson
River steamboat?’

‘I most certainly am, my dear sir,’ she
replied, offering me her hand after the English fashion. ‘But I’m not alone. My
trusty old Arsinoe is with me.’

She pointed to her faithful black serving
woman, who was sitting on a bale of wool and gazing at her affectionately. The
word ‘affectionately’ deserves to be underlined here, for no one but a black servant
is capable of such a look.

‘Even with all the help and support that
Arsinoe can give you, madam,’ I said, ‘I consider myself fortunate to have the
privilege of being your protector during this journey.’

‘If that’s a privilege,’ she answered with
a laugh, ‘I’ll be under no obligation to you. But what brings you here? You
told us you were not going to Albany for several days yet. Why didn’t you tell
us yesterday that you were leaving?’