The Eternal Adam and other stories (11 page)

When the exact sciences began at last to
make some progress, watch- and clockmaking followed in their path, though it
was always arrested by an insurmountable difficulty, – the regular and
continuous measurement of time.

It was in the midst of this stagnation that
Master Zacharius invented the escapement, which enabled him to obtain a
mathematical regularity by submitting the movement of the pendulum to a
sustained force. This invention had turned the old man’s head. Pride, swelling
in his heart, like mercury in the thermometer, had attained the height of
transcendent folly. By analogy he had allowed himself to be drawn to
materialistic conclusions, and as he constructed his watches, he fancied that
he had discovered the secrets of the union of the soul with the body.

Thus, on this day, perceiving that Aubert
listened to him attentively, he said to him in a tone of simple conviction, —

‘Dost thou know what life is, my child?
Hast thou comprehended the action of those springs which produce existence?
Hast thou examined thyself? No. And yet, with the eyes of science, thou
mightest have seen the intimate relation which exists between God’s work and my
own: for it is from his creature that I have copied the combinations of the wheels
of my clocks.’

‘Master,’ replied Aubert eagerly, ‘can you
compare a copper or steel machine with that breath of God which is called the
soul, which animates our bodies as the breeze stirs the flowers? What mechanism
could be so adjusted as to inspire us with thought?’

‘That is not the question,’ responded
Master Zacharius gently, but with all the obstinacy of a blind man walking
towards an abyss. ‘In order to understand me, thou must recall the purpose of
the escapement which I have invented. When I saw the irregular working of
clocks, I understood that the movements shut up in them did not suffice, and
that it was necessary to submit them to the regularity of some independent
force. I then thought that the balance-wheel might accomplish this, and I succeeded
in regulating the movement! Now. was it not a sublime idea that came to me, to
return to it its lost force by the action of the clock itself, which it was
charged with regulating?’

Aubert made a sign of assent.

‘Now, Aubert,’ continued the old man, growing
animated, ‘cast thine eyes upon thyselfl Dost thou not understand that there
are two distinct forces in us, that of the soul and that of the body - that is,
a movement and a regulator? The soul is the principle of life: that is, then,
the movement. Whether it is produced by a weight, by a spring, or by an
immaterial influence, it is none the less in the heart. But without the body
this movement would be unequal, irregular, impossible! Thus the body regulates
the soul, and, like the balance-wheel, it is submitted to regular oscillations.
And this is so true, that one falls ill when one’s drink, food, sleep - in a
word, the functions of the body – are not properly regulated; just as in my
watches the soul renders to the body the force lost by its oscillations. Well,
what produces this intimate union between soul and body, if not a marvellous
escapement, by which the wheels of the one work into the wheels of the
other?This is what I have discovered and applied; and there are no longer any
secrets for me in this life, which is, after all, only an ingenious mechanism!’

Master Zacharius looked sublime in this
hallucination, which carried him to the ultimate mysteries of the Infinite. But
his daughter Gerande, standing on the threshold of the door, had heard all. She
rushed into her father’s arms, and he pressed her convulsively to his breast.

‘What is the matter with thee, my
daughter?’ he asked.

‘If I had only a spring here,’ said she,
putting her hand on her heart, ‘I would not love you as I do, Father.’

Master Zacharius looked intently at
Gerande, and did not reply, Suddenly he uttered a cry, carried his hand eagerly
to his heart, and fell fainting on his old leathern chair.

‘Father, what is the matter?’

‘Help!’ cried Aubert. ‘Scholastique!’

But Scholastique did not come at once.
Someone was knocking at the front door; she had gone to open it, and when she
returned to the shop, before she could open her mouth, the old watch-maker.
having recovered his senses, spoke: —

‘I divine, my old Scholastique, that you bring
me still another of those accursed watches which have stopped.’

‘Lord, it is true enough!’ replied
Scholastique, handing a watch to Aubert.

‘My heart could not be mistaken!’ said the
old man, with a sigh.

Meanwhile Aubert carefully wound up the watch, but it would not go.

Poor Gerande would have lost her life with
that of her father, had it not been for the thought of Aubert, who still
attached her to the world.

The old watchmaker was, little by little,
passing away. His faculties evidently grew more feeble, as he concentrated them
on a single thought. By a sad association of ideas, he referred everything to
his monomania, and a human existence seemed to have departed from him, to give
place to the extra-natural existence of the intermediate powers. Moreover,
certain malicious rivals revived the sinister rumours which had spread
concerning his labours.

The news of the strange derangements which
his watches betrayed had a prodigious effect upon the master clockmakers of
Geneva. What signified this sudden paralysis of their wheels, and why these
strange relations which they seemed to have with the old man’s life? These were
the kind of mysteries which people never contemplate without a secret terror.
In the various classes of the town, from the apprentice to the great lord who
used the watches of the old horologist, there was no one who could not himself
judge of the singularity of the fact. The citizens wished, but in vain, to get
to see Master Zacharius. He fell very ill; and this enabled his daughter to
withdraw him from those incessant visits which had degenerated into reproaches
and recriminations.

Medicines and physicians were powerless in
presence of this organic wasting away, the cause of which could not be
discovered. It sometimes seemed as if the old man’s heart had ceased to beat;
then the pulsations were resumed with an alarming irregularity.

A custom existed in those days of publicly
exhibiting the works of the masters. The heads of the various corporations
sought to distinguish themselves by the novelty or the perfection of their
productions; and it was among these that the condition of Master Zacharius
excited the most lively, because most interested, commiseration. His rivals
pitied him the more willingly because they feared him the less. They never
forgot the old man’s success, when he exhibited his magnificent clocks with
moving figures, his repeaters, which provoked general admiration, and commanded
such high prices in the cities of France, Switzerland, and Germany.

Meanwhile, thanks to the constant and
tender care of Gerande and Aubert, his strength seemed to return a little; and
in the tranquillity in which his convalescence left him, he succeeded in
detaching himself from the thoughts which had absorbed him. As soon as he could
walk, his daughter lured him away from the house, which was still besieged with
dissatisfied customers. Aubert remained in the shop, vainly adjusting and
readjusting the rebel watches; and the poor boy, completely mystified,
sometimes covered his face with his hands, fearful that he, like his master,
might go mad.

Gerande led her father towards the more
pleasant promenades of the town. With his arm resting on hers, she conducted
him sometimes through the quarter of Saint Antoine, the view from which extends
towards the Cologny hill, and over the lake: on fine mornings they caught sight
of the gigantic peaks of Mount Buet against the horizon. Gerande pointed out
these spots to her father, who had well-nigh forgotten even their names. His
memory wandered; and he took a childish interest in learning anew what had
passed from his mind. Master Zacharius leaned upon his daughter; and the two
heads, one white as snow and the other covered with rich golden tresses, met in
the same ray of sunlight.

So it came about that the old watchmaker at
last perceived that he was not alone in the world. As he looked upon his young
and lovely daughter, and on himself old and broken, he reflected that after his
death she would be left alone without support. Many of the young mechanics of
Geneva had already sought to win Gerande’s love; but none of them had succeeded
in gaining access to the impenetrable retreat of the watchmaker’s household. It
was natural, then, that during this lucid interval, the old man’s choice should
fall on Aubert Thun. Once struck with this thought, he remarked to himself that
this young couple had been brought up with the same ideas and the same beliefs;
and the oscillations of their hearts seemed to him, as he said one day to
Scholastique, ‘isochronous’.

The old servant, literally delighted with
the word, though she did not understand it, swore by her holy patron saint that
the whole town should hear it within a quarter of an hour. Master Zacharius
found it difficult to calm her; but made her promise to keep on this subject a
silence which she never was known to observe.

So, though Gerande and Aubert were ignorant
of it, all Geneva was soon talking of their speedy union. But it happened also
that, while the worthy folk were gossiping, a strange chuckle was often heard,
and a voice saying, ‘Gerande will not wed Aubert.’

If the talkers turned round, they found
themselves facing a little old man who was quite a stranger to them.

How old was this singular being? No one
could have told. People conjectured that he must have existed for several
centuries, and that was all. His big flat head rested upon shoulders the width
of which was equal to the height of his body; this was not above three feet.
This personage would have made a good figure to support a pendulum, for the
dial would have naturally been placed on his face, and the balance-wheel would
have oscillated at its ease in his chest. His nose might readily have been
taken for the style of a sun-dial, for it was narrow and sharp; his teeth, far
apart, resembled the cogs of a wheel, and ground themselves between his lips;
his voice had the metallic sound of a bell, and you could hear his heart beat
like the tick of a clock.

This little man, whose arms moved like the
hands on a dial, walked with jerks, without ever turning round. If anyone
followed him, it was found that he walked a league an hour, and that his course
was nearly circular.

This strange being had not long been seen
wandering, or rather circulating, around the town; but it had already been
observed that, every day, at the moment when the sun passed the meridian, he
stopped before the Cathedral of Saint Pierre, and resumed his course after the
twelve strokes of noon had sounded. Excepting at this precise moment, he seemed
to become a part of all the conversations in which the old watchmaker was
talked of; and people asked each other, in terror, what relation could exist
between him and Master Zacharius. It was remarked, too, that he never lost
sight of the old man and his daughter while they were taking their promenades.

One day Gerande perceived this monster
looking at her with a hideous smile. She clung to her father with a frightened
motion.

‘What is the matter, my Gerande?’ asked
Master Zacharius.

‘I do not know,’ replied the young girl.

‘But thou art changed, my child. Art thou
going to fall ill in thy turn? Ah, well,’ he added, with a sad smile, ‘then I
must take care of thee, and I will do it tenderly.’

‘O Father, it will be nothing. I am cold,
and I imagine that it is -’

‘What, Gerande?’

‘The presence of that man, who always
follows us,’ she replied in a low tone.

Master Zacharius turned towards the little
old man.

‘Faith, he goes well,’ said he, with a
satisfied air, ‘for it is just four o’clock. Fear nothing, my child; it is not
a man, it is a clock!’

Gerande looked at her father in terror. How
could Master Zacharius read the hour on this strange creature’s visage?

‘By-the-bye,’ continued the old watchmaker,
paying no further attention to the matter, ‘I have not seen Aubert for several
days.’

‘He has not left us, however, Father,’ said
Gerande, whose thoughts turned into a gentler channel.

‘What is he doing then?’

‘He is working.’

‘Ah!’ cried the old man. ‘He is at work
repairing my watches, is he not? But he will never succeed; for it is not repair
they need, but a resurrection!’

Gerande remained silent.

‘I must know,’ added the old man, ‘if they
have brought back any more of those accursed watches upon which the Devil has
sent this epidemic!’

After these words Master Zacharius fell
into complete silence, till he knocked at the door of his house, and for the
first time since his convalescence descended to his shop, while Gerande sadly
repaired to her chamber.

Just as Master Zacharius crossed the
threshold of his shop, one of the many clocks suspended on the wall struck five
o’clock. Usually the bells of these clocks – admirably regulated as they were –
struck simultaneously, and this rejoiced the old man’s heart: but on this day
the bells struck one after another, so that for a quarter of an hour the ear
was deafened by the successive noises. Master Zacharius suffered acutely: he
could not remain still, but went from one clock to the other, and beat the time
to them, like a conductor who no longer has control over his musicians.