Works of Jules Verne/The Watch's Soul/Chapter 1
The Watch's Soul
CHAPTER I
A WINTER'S NIGHT
THE city of Geneva is situated at the western extremity of the lake to which it gives—or owes —its name. The Rhone, which crosses the city on emerging from the lake, divides it into two distinct quarters, and is itself divided, in the center of the city, by an island rising between its two banks. This topographical situation is often to be observed in the great centers of commerce or industry. Doubtless the earliest inhabitants were seduced by the facilities of transportation afforded by the rapid arms of the rivers,—"those roads which advance of themselves," as Pascal says. In the case of the Rhone, they are roads which run. At the period when new and regular buildings had not as yet been erected on this island, anchored like a Dutch galiot in the midst of the river, the wonderful mass of houses huddled the one against the other offered to the eye a confusion full of charms. The small extent of the island had forced some of these buildings to perch upon piles, fastened pell-mell in the strong currents of the Rhone. These big timbers, blackened by time and worn by the waters, looked like the claws of an immense crab, and produced a fantastic effect. Some yellowed nets, real spiders' webs stretched amid these venerable substructures, shivered and trembled in the shade as if they had been the foliage of these old oaks, and the river, engulfing itself in the midst of this forest of piles, foamed with melancholy groans.
One of the habitations on the island struck the observer by its strange appearance of extreme age. It was the residence of the old clockmaker, Master Zacharius, his daughter Gerande, Aubert Thun, his apprentice, and his old servant, Scholastique.
What an original personage was this Zacharius! His age seemed incalculable. The oldest inhabitants of Geneva could not have told how long his lean head had wavered on his shoulders, nor the first day on which he had been seen walking along the streets of the town, his long white locks floating waywardly in the wind. This man did not live. He oscillated after the manner of the pendulums of his clocks. His features, dry and cadaverous, affected somber tints. Like the pictures of Leonardo da Vinci, he had put black in the foreground.
Gerande occupied the best room in the old house; whence, through a narrow window, her gaze rested sadly upon the snowy summits of the Jura. But the bedroom and shop of the old man were in a sort of cellar, situated on a level with the river; the flooring rested on the piles themselves. From an immemorial period Master Zacharius had not been known to emerge thence, except at meal-time, and when he went forth to regulate the different clocks of the city. He passed the rest of the time at a bench covered with numerous clockmaking instruments, which, for the most part, he had himself invented.
For he was a man of talent. His works were very popular throughout France and Germany. The most industrious workmen in Geneva freely admitted his superiority, and that he was an honor to the city. They pointed him out, saying, "To him is due the glory of having invented the escapement!"
Indeed, it is from this invention, which the labors of Zacharius will later make clear, that is to be dated the birth of the real science of clockmaking.
One winter's evening old Scholastique was serving supper, in which, according to ancient usage, she was aided by the young apprentice. Though carefully prepared dishes were offered to Master Zacharius in fine blue-and-white porcelain, he ate nothing. He scarcely replied to the soft questionings of Gerande, who was visibly affected by the gloomy silence of her father; and the garrulousness of Scholastique herself only struck his ear like the grumblings of the river, to which he no longer paid attention. After this silent repast the old clockmaker left the table without embracing his daughter, nor did he, as usual, bid the rest "good-evening." He disappeared through the narrow door which conducted to his retreat, and the staircase fairly creaked under his heavy tread.
Gerande, Aubert, and Scholastique remained silent for some moments. The weather was gloomy; the clouds dragged themselves heavily along the Alps, and threatened to dissolve in rain; the severe temperature of Switzerland filled the soul with melancholy, while the midland winds prowled among the hills and whistled drearily.
"Do you know, my dear demoiselle," said Scholastique at last, "that our master has kept wholly to himself for some days? Holy Virgin! I see he has not been hungry, for his words have remained in his stomach, and the Devil himself would be adroit to force one out of him!"
"My father has some secret trouble which I cannot even guess," replied Gerande, a sad anxiety betraying itself in her countenance.
"Mademoiselle, do not permit so much sadness to overshadow your heart. You know the singular habits of Master Zacharius. Who can read his secret thoughts in his face? Something annoying has no doubt happened to him, but he will have forgotten it by to-morrow, and will repent having made his daughter anxious."
It was Aubert who spoke thus, glancing at Gerande's lovely eyes. Aubert was the first apprentice whom Master Zacharius had ever admitted to the intimacy of his labors, for he appreciated his intelligence, discretion, and goodness of heart; and this young man had attached himself to Gerande with that mysterious faith which presides over heroic denouements.
Gerande was eighteen years of age. The oval of her face recalled that of the artless Madonnas, whom veneration still displays at the street corners of the antique towns of Brittany. Her eyes betrayed an infinite simplicity. She was beloved as the most delicate realization of a poet's dream. Whilst, night and morning, she read her Latin prayers in her iron-clasped missal, Gerande also discovered a hidden sentiment in Aubert Thun's heart, and comprehended what a profound devotion the young workman had for her. Indeed, the whole world in his eyes was condensed in this old house of the clockmaker, and he passed all his time near the young girl, when, the hours of work over, he left her father's workshop.
Old Scholastique saw all this, but said nothing. Her loquacity exhausted itself in preference on the evils of the times, and the little worries of the household. Nobody tried to stop its course. It was with her as with the musical snuff-boxes which they made at Geneva; once wound up, unless you broke her, she would play all her airs through.
Finding Gerande absorbed in a melancholy silence, Scholastique left her old wooden chair, fixed a taper on the end of a candlestick, lit it, and placed it near a small waxen Virgin, sheltered in her niche of stone. It was the family custom to kneel before this protecting Madonna of the domestic hearth, and to beg her kindly watchfulness during the coming night; but on this evening, Gerande remained silent in her seat.
"Well, well, dear demoiselle," said the astonished Scholastique, "supper is over, and it is time to go to bed. Why do you tire your eyes by sitting up late? Ah, Holy Virgin! It is much better to sleep, and to get a little comfort from happy dreams! In these detestable times in which we live, who can promise herself a fortunate day?"
"Ought we not to send for a doctor for my father?" asked Gerande.
"A doctor!" cried the old domestic. "Has Master Zacharius ever listened to their fancies and pompous sayings? He might accept medicines for the watches, but not for the body!"
"What shall we do?" murmured Gerande. "Has he gone to work, or has he retired? "
"Gerande," answered Aubert, softly, "some mental trouble annoys your father, and that is all."
"Do you know what it is, Aubert?"
"Perhaps, Gerande."
"Tell us, then," cried Scholastique, eagerly, prudently extinguishing her taper.
"For several days, Gerande," said the young apprentice, "something absolutely incomprehensible has been going on. All the watches which your father has made and sold for some years have suddenly stopped. Very many of them have been brought back to him. He has carefully taken them to pieces; the springs were in good condition, and the wheels well set. He has put them together yet more carefully; but, despite his skill, they have refused to go."
"The devil's in it!" cried Scholastique.
"Why say you so?" asked Gerande. "It seems very natural to me. All things are limited in the world. The infinite cannot be fashioned by the hands of men."
"It is none the less true," returned Aubert, "that there is in this something very mysterious and extraordinary. I have myself been helping Master Zacharius to search for the cause of this derangement of his watches; but I have not been able to find it, and more than once I have despairingly let my tools fall from my hands."
"But why undertake so vain a task?" resumed Scholastique. "Is it natural that a little copper instrument should go of itself, and mark the hours? We ought to have kept to the sun-dial!"
"You will not talk thus, Scholastique," said Aubert, "when you learn that the sun-dial was invented by Cain."
"O Lord! what are you telling me?"
"Do you think," asked Gerande, simply, "that we might pray to God to give life to my father's watches? "
"Without doubt," replied Aubert.
"Good! These will be useless prayers," grumbled the old servant, "but Heaven will pardon them for their good intent."
The taper was relighted. Scholastique, Gerande, and Aubert knelt down together upon the flags of the room. The young girl prayed for her mother's soul, for a blessing for the night, for travelers and prisoners, for the good and the wicked, and more earnestly than all for the unknown misfortunes of her father. Then the three devout souls rose with somewhat of confidence in their hearts, for they had laid their sorrow in God's bosom.
Aubert repaired to his own room; Gerande sat pensively by the window, whilst the last lights were disappearing from the city streets. The terrors of this winter's night had increased. Sometimes, with the whirlpools of the river, the wind engulfed itself among the piles, and the whole house shivered and shook; but the young girl, absorbed in her sadness, thought only of her father. After hearing what Aubert told her, the malady of Master Zacharius took fantastic proportions in her mind; and it seemed to her as if his dear existence, become purely mechanical, moved now with pain and effort on its exhausted pivots.
Suddenly the shutters, impelled by the squall, struck against the windows of the room. The young girl leaned out of the window to draw to the shutter shaken by the wind, but she feared to do so. It seemed to her that the rain and the river, confounding their tumultous waters, were submerging the frail house, the planks of which were creaking in every direction. She would have flown from her chamber, but she saw below the flickering of a light which appeared to come from Master Zacharius's retreat, and in one of those momentary calms, during which the elements keep a sudden silence, her ear caught plaintive sounds. She tried to shut her window, but could not. The wind violently repelled her, like a villain who was introducing himself into a dwelling.
Gerande thought she would go mad from terror. What was her father doing? She opened the door, and it escaped from her hands, and shook loudly under the attack of the tempest. Gerande then found herself in the dark supper-room, succeeded in gaining, on tiptoe, the staircase which led to her father's shop, and, pale and fainting, glided down.
The old watchmaker was upright in the middle of the room, which was filled with the groans of the river. His bristling hair gave him a sinister aspect. He was talking and gesticulating, without seeing or hearing anything. Gerande arrested her steps on the threshold.
"It is death!" said Master Zacharius, in a thick voice; "it is death! Why should I live longer, now that I have dispersed my existence over the earth? For I, Master Zacharius, am really the creator of all the watches that I have fashioned! It is a part of my very soul that I have shut up in each of these boxes of iron, silver, or gold! Every time that one of these accursed watches stops, I feel my heart cease beating, for I have regulated them with its pulsations!"
As he spoke in this strange way, the old man cast his eyes on his bench. There lay all the pieces of a watch that he had carefully taken apart. He took up a sort of hollow cylinder, called a barrel, in which the spring is enclosed, and removed the steel spiral, which, instead of relaxing itself, according to the laws of its elasticity, remained coiled on itself, like a sleeping viper. It seemed knotted, like those impotent old men whose blood has long been congealed. Master Zacharius vainly essayed to uncoil it with his thin fingers, the outlines of which were exaggerated on the wall; but he tried in vain, and soon, with a terrible cry of anguish and rage, he threw it through the peephole into the boiling Rhone.
Gerande, her feet riveted to the floor, stood breathless and motionless. She wished to approach her father, but could not. Giddy hallucinations took possession of her. Suddenly she heard, in the shade, a voice murmur in her ears, "Gerande, dear Gerande! grief still keeps you awake! Go in again, I beg of you; the night is cold."
"Aubert!" whispered the young girl. "You!"
"Ought I not to be disturbed by what disturbs you?"
These soft words sent the blood back into the young girl's heart. She leaned on Aubert's arm, and said to him, "My father is very ill, Aubert! You alone can cure him, for this disorder of the mind would not yield to his daughter's consolings. His mind is attacked by a very natural delusion, and in working with him, repairing the watches, you will bring him back to reason. Aubert," she continued, "it is not true, is it, that his life confounds itself with that of his watches?"
Aubert did not reply.
"Then it must be a calling reproved of God—that of my father?"
"I know not," returned the apprentice, warming the cold hands of the girl with his own. "But go back to your room, my poor Gerande, and with sleep recover hope!"
Gerande slowly returned to her chamber, and remained there till daylight; sleep did not weigh down her eyelids. Meanwhile, Master Zacharius, always mute and motionless, gazed at the river as it rolled turbulently at his feet.