Works of Jules Verne/The Watch's Soul/Chapter 5
CHAPTER V
THE HOUR OF DEATH
Several days passed, and Master Zacharius, though almost dying, rose from his bed and returned to active life, under a supernatural excitement. He lived by pride. But Gerande did not deceive herself; her father's body and soul were forever lost.
The old man got together his last resources, without thought of those who were dependent upon him. He betrayed an incredible energy, walking, ferreting about, and mumbling strange, incomprehensible words. One morning Gerande went down to his shop. Master Zacharius was not there. She waited for him all day. Master Zacharius did not return.
"Where can he be?" Aubert asked himself. An inspiration suddenly came to his mind. He remembered the last words which Master Zacharius had spoken. The old man only lived now in the old iron clock that had not been returned! Master Zacharius must have gone in search of it. Aubert spoke of this to Gerande.
"Let us look at my father's book," she replied.
They descended to the shop. The book was open on the bench. All the watches or clocks made by the old man, and which had been returned to him out of order, were stricken out, excepting one." Sold to M. Pittonaccio, an iron clock, with bell and moving figures; sent to his château at Andermatt."
It was this "moral" clock of which Scholastique had spoken with so much enthusiasm.
"My father is there!" cried Gerande.
"Let us hasten thither," replied Aubert. "We may still save him!"
"Not for this life," murmured Gerande, " but at least for the other."
"By the grace of God, Gerande! The château of Andermatt stands in the gorge of the 'Dents-du-Midi,' twenty hours from Geneva. Let us go!"
That very evening Aubert and Gerande, followed by the old servant, set out on foot by the road which skirts Lake Leman. At last, late the next day, they reached the hermitage of Notre-Dame, which is situated at the base of the Dents-du-Midi, six hundred feet above the Rhone. They were nearly dead with fatigue. The hermit received the wanderers as night was falling. They could not have gone another step, and here they must needs rest.
The hermit could give them no news of Master Zacharius. They could scarcely hope to find him still living amid these sad solitudes. The night was dark, the wind howled amid the mountains, and the avalanches roared and thundered down from the summits of the broken crags.
Aubert and Gerande, crouching before the hermit's hearth, told him their melancholy tale. Their mantles, covered with snow, were drying in a corner; and without, the hermit's dog barked lugubriously, and mingled his voice with that of the tempest.
"Pride," said the hermit to his guests, "has lost an angel created for good. It is the obstacle against which the destinies of man strike. You cannot oppose reasoning to pride, the principal of all the vices, since, by its very nature, the proud man refuses to listen to it. It only remains, then, to pray for your father!"
All four knelt down, when the barking of the dog redoubled, and someone knocked at the door of the hermitage. "Open, in the name of the devil!"
The door yielded under the blows, and a disheveled, haggard, ill-clothed man appeared.
"My father!" cried Gerande. It was Master Zacharius.
"Where am I?" said he. "In eternity! Time is ended,—the hours no longer strike,—the hands have stopped!"
"Father!" returned Gerande, with so piteous an emotion that the old man seemed to return to the world of the living.
"Thou here, Gerande?" he cried; "and thou, Aubert? Ah, my dear betrothed ones, you are going to be married in our old church!"
"Father," said Gerande, seizing him by the arm, "come home to Geneva,—come with us!"
"Do not abandon your children!" cried Aubert.
"Why return?" replied the old man, sadly, "to those places which my life has already quitted, and where a part of myself is forever buried?"
"Your soul is not dead!" said the hermit, solemnly.
"My soul? O no,—its wheels are good ! I perceive it beating regularly—"
"Your soul is immaterial,—your soul is immortal!" replied the hermit, sternly.
"Yes,—like my glory! But it is shut up in the château of Andermatt, and I wish to see it again!"
The hermit crossed himself; Scholastique became almost inanimate. Aubert held Gerande in his arms.
"The château of Andermatt is inhabited by one who is damned," said the hermit, "one who does not salute the cross of my hermitage."
"My father, go not thither!"
"I want my soul! My soul is mine—"
"Hold him! Hold my father!" cried Gerande.
But the old man had leaped across the threshold, and plunged into the night, crying, "Mine, mine, my soul!"
Gerande, Aubert, and Scholastique hastened after him. They went by difficult paths, across which Master Zacharius sped like a tempest, urged by an irresistible force. The snow raged round them, and mingled its white flakes with the froth of the tumbling torrents.
The château of Andermatt was a ruin even then. A thick, crumbling tower rose above it, and seemed to menace with its downfall the old gables which reared themselves below. The vast piles of jagged stones frowned gloomily to the right. Several dark halls appeared amid the débris, with caved-in ceilings, now become the abode of vipers.
A low and narrow postern, opening upon a ditch choked with rubbish, gave access to the château. No doubt some margrave, half lord, half brigand, had inherited it; to the margrave had succeeded bandits or counterfeiters, who had been hung on the scene of their crime. The legend went that on winter nights, Satan came to lead his diabolical dances on the slope of the deep gorges in which the shadow of these ruins was engulfed.
But Master Zacharius was not dismayed by their sinister aspect. He reached the postern. No one forbade him to pass. A spacious and gloomy court presented itself to his eyes. He passed along the kind of inclined plane which conducted to one of the long corridors, the arches of which seemed to banish daylight from beneath their heavy springings. His advance was unresisted. Gerande, Aubert, and Scholastique closely followed him.
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, while the bats described oblique circles around his head.
An immense hall, better preserved than the rest, was soon reached. High sculptured panels, on which larves, ghouls, and other strange figures seemed to agitate themselves confusedly, covered its walls. Several long and narrow windows 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 unequaled masterpiece represented an ancient Roman church, with its heavy bell-tower, where there was a complete chime for the anthem of the day, the "Angelus," the mass, and vespers. Above the church door, which opened at the hour of the ceremonies, was placed a "rose," in the center of which two hands moved, and the archivolt 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 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 infallibly to 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 recognized 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?"
"Signer 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 range among old wood, and the noise of which marks the hours of "the clock of death."
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 surrounding 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 adjust 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 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 there. But Zacharius paid no attention to this, and re- sumed: "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, and talked so desperately to the holy recluse, that the latter consented to return with him to the château of Andermatt.
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 was pleased with these thoughts of pride, while 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 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 movement beat with accelerated strokes. Master Zacharius no longer spoke. He had fallen to the floor, he 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, proceeding from the striking-apparatus.
Master Zacharius sprang up. " Midnight! " he cried.
The hermit stretched out his hand towards the old watchmaker, and midnight did not sound.
Master Zacharius uttered a terrible cry, when these words appeared:
"WHOEVER SHALL ATTEMPT TO MAKE HIMSELF THE EQUAL OF GOD SHALL BE FOREVER 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 over. 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 imposed it on themselves to redeem by prayer the soul of the castaway of science.
THE END