The Big Book of Classic Fantasy

by The Big Book of Classic Fantasy (retail) (epub)

  Mother Rigby was seated by her kitchen hearth in the twilight of this eventful day, and had just shaken the ashes out of a new pipe, when she heard a hurried tramp along the road. Yet it did not seem so much the tramp of human footsteps as the clatter of sticks or the rattling of dry bones.

  “Ha!” thought the old witch, “what step is that? Whose skeleton is out of its grave now, I wonder?”

  A figure burst headlong into the cottage door. It was Feathertop! His pipe was still alight; the star still flamed upon his breast; the embroidery still glowed upon his garments; nor had he lost, in any degree or manner that could be estimated, the aspect that assimilated him with our mortal brotherhood. But yet, in some indescribable way (as is the case with all that has deluded us when once found out), the poor reality was felt beneath the cunning artifice.

  “What has gone wrong?” demanded the witch. “Did yonder sniffling hypocrite thrust my darling from his door? The villain! I’ll set twenty fiends to torment him till he offer thee his daughter on his bended knees!”

  “No, mother,” said Feathertop despondingly; “it was not that.”

  “Did the girl scorn my precious one?” asked Mother Rigby, her fierce eyes glowing like two coals of Tophet. “I’ll cover her face with pimples! Her nose shall be as red as the coal in thy pipe! Her front teeth shall drop out! In a week hence she shall not be worth thy having!”

  “Let her alone, mother,” answered poor Feathertop; “the girl was half won; and methinks a kiss from her sweet lips might have made me altogether human. But,” he added, after a brief pause and then a howl of self-contempt, “I’ve seen myself, mother! I’ve seen myself for the wretched, ragged, empty thing I am! I’ll exist no longer!”

  Snatching the pipe from his mouth, he flung it with all his might against the chimney, and at the same instant sank upon the floor, a medley of straw and tattered garments, with some sticks protruding from the heap, and a shrivelled pumpkin in the midst. The eyeholes were now lustreless; but the rudely-carved gap, that just before had been a mouth still seemed to twist itself into a despairing grin, and was so far human.

  “Poor fellow!” quoth Mother Rigby, with a rueful glance at the relics of her ill-fated contrivance. “My poor, dear, pretty Feathertop! There are thousands upon thousands of coxcombs and charlatans in the world, made up of just such a jumble of wornout, forgotten, and good-for-nothing trash as he was! Yet they live in fair repute, and never see themselves for what they are. And why should my poor puppet be the only one to know himself and perish for it?”

  While thus muttering, the witch had filled a fresh pipe of tobacco, and held the stem between her fingers, as doubtful whether to thrust it into her own mouth or Feathertop’s.

  “Poor Feathertop!” she continued. “I could easily give him another chance and send him forth again tomorrow. But no; his feelings are too tender, his sensibilities too deep. He seems to have too much heart to bustle for his own advantage in such an empty and heartless world. Well! well! I’ll make a scarecrow of him after all. ’Tis an innocent and useful vocation, and will suit my darling well; and, if each of his human brethren had as fit a one, ’t would be the better for mankind; and as for this pipe of tobacco, I need it more than he.”

  So saying Mother Rigby put the stem between her lips. “Dickon!” cried she, in her high, sharp tone, “another coal for my pipe!”

  Jules Gabriel Verne (1828–1905) was a French novelist, a playwright, and the master of the adventure tale. His fantastical worlds were considered plausible and detailed because Verne used scientific facts to support his narrative, even though H. G. Wells considered Verne a hopeless romantic. Verne’s most popular works are Journey to the Center of the Earth (1863), From the Earth to the Moon (1865), and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870), and were all published during his positivist period. After 1886, the tone in Verne’s work began to change. Focusing more on the inherent dangers that came with hubris, his novels took a more pessimistic tone. Unlike the other tales Verne was publishing at the time, “Master Zacharius” (1854) is not an adventure tale. Originally published as “Master Zacharius, or the clockmaker who lost his soul,” it is a tragedy about a proud old man, his daughter, and his creations.

  Master Zacharius

  Jules Verne

  Translated by George Makepeace Towle

  CHAPTER I

  A WINTER NIGHT

  THE CITY OF GENEVA lies at the west end of the lake of the same name. The Rhone, which passes through the town at the outlet of the lake, divides it into two sections, and is itself divided in the center of the city by an island placed in mid-stream. A topographical feature like this is often found in the great depôts of commerce and industry. No doubt the first inhabitants were influenced by the easy means of transport which the swift currents of the rivers offered them—those “roads which walk along of their own accord,” as Pascal puts it. In the case of the Rhone, it would be the road that ran along.

  Before new and regular buildings were constructed on this island, which was enclosed like a Dutch galley in the middle of the river, the curious mass of houses, piled one on the other, presented a delightfully confused coup-d’oeil. The small area of the island had compelled some of the buildings to be perched, as it were, on the piles, which were entangled in the rough currents of the river. The huge beams, blackened by time, and worn by the water, seemed like the claws of an enormous crab, and presented a fantastic appearance. The little yellow streams, which were like cobwebs stretched amid this ancient foundation, quivered in the darkness, as if they had been the leaves of some old oak forest, while the river engulfed in this forest of piles, foamed and roared most mournfully.

  One of the houses of the island was striking for its curiously aged appearance. It was the dwelling of the old clockmaker, Master Zacharius, whose household consisted of his daughter Gerande, Aubert Thun, his apprentice, and his old servant Scholastique.

  There was no man in Geneva to compare in interest with this Zacharius. His age was past finding out. Not the oldest inhabitant of the town could tell for how long his thin, pointed head had shaken above his shoulders, nor the day when, for the first time, he had walked through the streets, with his long white locks floating in the wind. The man did not live; he vibrated like the pendulum of his clocks. His spare and cadaverous figure was always clothed in dark colors. Like the pictures of Leonardo di Vinci, he was sketched in black.

  Gerande had the pleasantest room in the whole house, whence, through a narrow window, she had the inspiriting view of the snowy peaks of Jura; but the bedroom and workshop of the old man were a kind of cavern close on to the water, the floor of which rested on the piles.

  From time immemorial Master Zacharius had never come out except at meal times, and when he went to regulate the different clocks of the town. He passed the rest of his time at his bench, which was covered with numerous clockwork instruments, most of which he had invented himself. For he was a clever man; his works were valued in all France and Germany. The best workers in Geneva readily recognized his superiority, and showed that he was an honor to the town, by saying, “To him belongs the glory of having invented the escapement.” In fact, the birth of true clockwork dates from the invention which the talents of Zacharius had discovered not many years before.

  After he had worked hard for a long time, Zacharius would slowly put his tools away, cover up the delicate pieces that he had been adjusting with glasses, and stop the active wheel of his lathe; then he would raise a trapdoor constructed in the floor of his workshop, and, stooping down, used to inhale for hours together the thick vapors of the Rhone, as it dashed along under his eyes.

  One winter’s night the old servant Scholastique served the supper, which, according to old custom, she and the young mechanic shared with their master. Master Zacharius did not eat, though the food carefully prepared for him was offered him in a handsome blue-and-white dish. He sc
arcely answered the sweet words of Gerande, who evidently noticed her father’s silence, and even the clatter of Scholastique herself no more struck his ear than the roar of the river, to which he paid no attention.

  After the silent meal, the old clockmaker left the table without embracing his daughter, or saying his usual “Good night” to all. He left by the narrow door leading to his den, and the staircase groaned under his heavy footsteps as he went down.

  Gerande, Aubert, and Scholastique sat for some minutes without speaking. On this evening the weather was dull; the clouds dragged heavily on the Alps, and threatened rain; the severe climate of Switzerland made one feel sad, while the south wind swept round the house, and whistled ominously.

  “My dear young lady,” said Scholastique, at last, “do you know that our master has been out of sorts for several days? Holy Virgin! I know he has had no appetite, because his words stick in his inside, and it would take a very clever devil to drag even one out of him.”

  “My father has some secret cause of trouble, that I cannot even guess,” replied Gerande, as a sad anxiety spread over her face.

  “Mademoiselle, don’t let such sadness fill your heart. You know the strange habits of Master Zacharius. Who can read his secret thoughts in his face? No doubt some fatigue has overcome him, but tomorrow he will have forgotten it, and be very sorry to have given his daughter pain.”

  It was Aubert who spoke thus, looking into 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 the earnest devotion natural to a noble nature.

  Gerande was eighteen years of age. Her oval 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. One would love her as the sweetest realization of a poet’s dream. Her apparel was of modest colors, and the white linen which was folded about her shoulders had the tint and perfume peculiar to the linen of the church. She led a mystical existence in Geneva, which had not as yet been delivered over to the dryness of Calvinism.

  While, night and morning, she read her Latin prayers in her iron-clasped missal, Gerande had 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 into this old clockmaker’s house, and he passed all his time near the young girl, when he left her father’s workshop, after his work was over.

  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 snuffboxes which they made at Geneva; once wound up, you must break them before you will prevent their playing all their 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’s 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 to rest?”

  “Gerande,” answered Aubert softly, “some mental trouble annoys your father, that is all.”

  “Do you know what it is, Aubert?”

  “Perhaps, Gerande.”

  “Tell us, then,” cried Scholastique eagerly, economically 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 will not go.”

  “The devil’s in it!” cried Scholastique.

  “Why say you so?” asked Gerande. “It seems very natural to me. Nothing lasts forever in this world. The infinite cannot be fashioned by the hands of men.”

  “It is nonetheless 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 let my tools fall from my hands in despair.”

  “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 sundial!”

  “You will not talk thus, Scholastique,” said Aubert, “when you learn that the sundial was invented by Cain.’’

  “Good heavens! 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! They will be useless prayers,” muttered 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 tiles 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 some confidence in their hearts, because they had laid their sorrow on the bosom of God.

  Aubert repaired to his own room; Gerande sat pensively by the window, while the last lights were disappearing from the city streets; and Scholastique, having poured a little water on the flickering embers, and shut the two enormous bolts on the door, threw herself upon her bed, where she was soon dreaming that she was dying of fright.

  Meanwhile 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 existence, so dear to her, having become purely mechanical, no longer moved on its worn-out pivots without effort.

  Suddenly the penthouse shutter, shaken by the squall, struck against the window of the room. Gerande shuddered and started up without understanding the cause of the noise which thus disturbed her reverie. When she became a little calmer she opened the sash. The clouds had burst, and a torrent-like rain pattered on the surrounding roofs. 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 tumultuous waters, were submerging the frail house, the planks of which creaked 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 thief who was breaking into a dwelling.

  Gerande thought she would go mad with terror. What was her father doing? She opened the door, and it escaped from her hands, and slammed loudly with the force 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 resounded with the roaring of the river. His bristling hair gave him a sinister aspect. He was talking and gesticulating, without seeing or hearing anything. Gerande stood still on the threshold.

  “It is death!” said Master Zacharius, in a hollow 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 cases 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, but instead of relaxing itself, according to the laws of its elasticity, it remained coiled on itself like a sleeping viper. It seemed knotted, like 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 trapdoor into the boiling Rhone.