The Mammoth Book of New Jules Verne Stories

by Mike Ashley

  Jehan considered the possibility of telling the dwarf about his grandmother’s sorrows and delusions, and how she had begged his father to make the journey in order to destroy the last remnants of the clock and lift the family curse with prayer, but he did not want to do that. “I came to examine the fusée,” he said, eventually, although he was not entirely certain that it was true. “One of the few things on which my grandparents agreed, save for the fact that they loved one another very dearly, was that it was a new type, better than any previously used in a spring-driven clock. Aubert thought that he could reproduce it, but he never contrived to do it, and came to believe in the end that he had misremembered some small but essential detail. Alas, he was in Paris by then.”

  “You came to study the fusée?” the dwarf repeated, in a tone that had a strange satisfaction in it as well as a certain scepticism. “But you say that you’re not a watchmaker, Master Thun – merely a printer.”

  “There’s nothing mere about printing,” Jehan retorted. “Had printers not put the word of God directly into the hands of every man who can read there would have been no Lutheran armies, no Calvinist legions. Printing is changing the way that men think, believe and act – but I’m a printer without a press, and there are hundreds of clock-makers in every city in Europe eager to discover a better escapement for watches. Is that escapement the one my great-grandfather built to regulate the missing spring?”

  “No – but your grandparents were mistaken about the originality of the first escapement. There was only one thing new about the fusée I discarded, and that was its material. It was brass, not iron; it did not rust, but if it worked any better as a regulator than any other it was by virtue of the quality of its workmanship, not the detail of its design. The one I have made is better adapted to its own mechanism; it could not regulate a watchspring any more than a pendulum could drive the hand of a watch. On the other hand, what you say is perfectly true: there are a hundred clockmakers in every city in Europe who would be eager to know what might be done with my mechanism, and you shall share in the profits that will accrue from the dissemination of the secret if you will help me finish my work. Once we have completed the clock, you will be better equipped than you could have hoped to spread new knowledge throughout the continent – and beyond, if you care to. The world is, as you doubtless know, a sphere, and there is always further to go in every direction than the cities we already know. There’s a new world now, beyond the Atlantic Ocean, and a vast number of undiscovered islands in the far Pacific.”

  It did not seem remarkable to Jehan that the dwarf’s comment about the world being a sphere was echoing a statement he had made the day before, in another place. “Very well, then,” he said. “I shall fetch my grandfather’s tools. If you will explain what needs to be done, I shall do my very best to carry out your instructions.”

  Jehan Thun was as good as his word, and so was the dwarf. Working to instruction, Jehan’s nimble hands pieced together the last parts of the mechanism, although it was no mere matter of assembly. There was a good deal of drilling to be done, a great many threads to be worked, and an abundance of accurate filing, as well as a certain amount of casting. Fortunately, the dwarf possessed a crucible and a vice, and a good stock of charcoal with which to charge his furnace. The dwarf’s own fingers were thick and gnarled, and he could never have done the delicate work that Jehan did, but he was a clever man with plans and his strong arms could certainly work a bellows hard.

  Once Jehan had set to work the hours seemed to melt away. Because there was no natural light in the room where the clock was kept, Jehan did the greater part of his work in a different one much higher in the château’s hidden structure, but he soon became used to shuttling back and forth between the two. He worked long into the evening, conserving that fraction of his labour that did not need good light, but the dwarf was conscientious about interrupting him, not only to make meals but also to explain the new mechanism he had built for the clock.

  “It’s a secret that no one else has discovered,” the little man bragged, “although it’s obvious enough. How long have there been slingshots and other devices in which solid objects swing freely at the ends of cords? At least since David slew Goliath. Children play with such devices – and yet no one has observed, as I have, the isochronism of the freely-swinging weight – or if anyone has, he could not go on to the naturally consequent thought, which is that a pendulum might do as well as a system of weights or a mere spring to regulate the motions of a clock. Just as the descent of weights requires refinement by escapements, so does the swing of a pendulum, so I devised one appropriate to it.

  “I have tried out my pendulum in humbler boxes with elementary faces, but never in a clock with two hands, let alone a masterpiece like the Zacharius Machine. I could have got it working, after a fashion, but a masterpiece is a masterpiece, and it sets its own standard of perfection. I might have gone to Geneva in search of a skilled clock-maker, but how could I dare, given my appearance? Even before Calvin came, Master Zacharius was remembered by many as a sorcerer, and those who hold such opinions are always among the first converts to any new fad – including Calvin’s philosophy. Of all the cities in the world, why did Andernatt have to be placed so close to Geneva? No one actually casts stones at me in Évionnaz, or any other village within hiking range, but the way they look at me informs me that it would not do to linger too long in any such a place, let alone make any attempt to settle there. I was a wanderer before I came here, although I did not want to be. I am a recluse now, although that would not have been my choice before I realized how fearful people are of anything out of the ordinary. Dwarfs are not rare, you know, and they cannot all be the Devil in disguise, but men who do not travel far do not realize how many kinds of men there are.”

  “Noblemen employ dwarfs as clowns and jesters in France, Italy and the Germanic states,” Jehan observed. “They like automata too, to strike the hours on church clocks or merely to perform mechanical acrobatics for credulous eyes.”

  “I am not a clown, Master Jehan,” the dwarf said. “Nor am I a jester. I am the man who discovered the isochronicity of the pendulum, although I would wager that history will give the credit to a taller man – perhaps to you.”

  “History often makes mistakes,” Jehan assured him. “Master Zacharius never received credit for the fusée, because there was a man named Jacob the Czech who worked in Prague, and Prague is a far better source of fame than poor Geneva. I do not charge this Jacob with theft, mind, for the device is obvious enough once a man’s mind turns in that direction, just as your pendulum-clock might be. There may well be another man who has already made the discovery – in Florence, say, or Vienna – whose discovery has not yet been communicated to the other great cities of Europe. I think that luck has more to do with matters of reputation than height.”

  “Yet Pittonaccio was reckoned an imp,” the dwarf reminded him. “Had he been as handsome as you, he might have been reckoned an artificer himself, and your greatgrandfather might never have gone mad. But Pittonaccio’s long dead, for men of my kind rarely live as long as men of yours.”

  “My father might have lived a while longer,” Jehan said, sombrely, “had he not been a Protestant in Paris at an unfortunate hour. Hatred is not reserved for those of strange appearance; it thrives like a weed wherever faith puts forth new flowers.”

  The dwarf allowed Jehan to have the last word on that occasion, perhaps because he did not want to offend his guest in advance of the clock becoming workable. On that score, he did not have much longer to wait, for Jehan still felt that he was more automaton than man, and the work that he did allowed him to conserve that placid state of mind, absorbing him completely into matters of technical detail. The hours sped by, and the days too – six in all – until he arrived at the time when the last piece of the puzzle was correctly shaped, and ready to be fitted.

  When he had set it in place, Jehan Thun stepped back, and looked at what he had done.

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nbsp; It did not seem, now that he had finished, that it was his work. He was a printer, after all, not a locksmith or a clockmaker. He had played at being a locksmith and a clock-maker when he was a child, using the very same tools that had served him so well now, but it had always been play rather than work. Clockmaking had never been his vocation, even though circumstance seemed to have turned him into something more like clockwork than flesh, at least for a while.

  He watched the dwarf set the hands of the clock.

  He watched the pendulum swing back and forth, with a regularity that was quite astonishing, in spite of its utter obviousness.

  “If only the world were like that,” he murmured.

  “It shall be,” the dwarf assured him.“We have the example now, far better than any commandments from on high.”

  As he spoke, the clock’s faster moving hand reached the vertical, and the clock began to chime.

  Even though he had watched the dwarf set the clock’s hands, Jehan had not bothered to wonder whether the time that was being set was correct, or take any particular notice of what it was.

  The clock chimed seven times, and with a barely-perceptible click the blank face of the copper plate was replaced by a plaque bearing words. They were not inscribed in red but in black, the letters having been engraved with loving care by a patient short-fingered hand.

  TIME, said the legend, IS THE GREAT HEALER.

  Jehan let out his breath, having been unaware of the fact that he was holding it. His grandmother could hardly have objected to such an innocent adage. There was little enough piety about it, but there was certainly no diabolism.

  Jehan became aware then that the clock was ticking as the pendulum swung back and forth, almost as if the machine had a beating heart. He was not afraid, however, that he had surrendered his soul to the mechanism while he worked to complete it. If he had lost that, he had left it somewhere in Paris, smeared on the bloodstained cobbles.

  “It’s a masterpiece all right,” the dwarf stated, his tone indicating that he was only half-satisfied, as yet. “All that remains is to see how well it keeps time. I can compare it against my watch, for now, but in order to prove that it can do far better I’ll need to calibrate it against the movements of the zodiac stars.”

  “A pity, then, that you rebuilt the façade in a room that has no window,” Jehan observed.

  “I can measure brief intervals accurately enough,” the dwarf assured him. “The question is how well the clock will measure days and weeks. Even so, the more rapidly information can be conveyed between the clock and the observation-window, the better my estimates will be. You may help me with this too, if you wish. I hope you will – but if you would like to leave, to carry the secret of the pendulum to the cities of the world, you may go with my blessing.”

  “I’m in no hurry,” Jehan assured him, “and I’m as interested as you are to see how accurately your clock keeps time.”

  What he had said was true; Jehan Thun was momentarily glad to have the prospect of further work to do – even work that could not possibly absorb his mind as the intricate labour of delicate construction. Any hope that it might permit him to extend the quasi-mechanical phase of his own existence was quickly dashed, however. Indeed, the work of attempting to calibrate the clock against the movements of the stars was worse than having nothing to do at all, for it involved a great deal of patient waiting, which made the time weigh heavily upon his mind. Waiting called forth daydreams, memories and questions, as well as the horrors of St Bartholomew’s Eve and its hideous aftermath.

  For weeks before his arrival in Andernatt Jehan had been walking, not with any rhythmic regularity but at least with grim determination, never laying himself down to sleep until exhaustion had robbed him of any prospect of remembering his nightmares. For days after his arrival at the château he had been able to focus his attention on demanding tasks, which had likewise been devoid of any kind of rhythmic regularity, but had nevertheless supplied him more than adequately with opportunities for grim determination. Now that the clock was finished, though, he could not use the time it mapped in any such vampiric fashion. Its demands were different now, not suppressing thought but nourishing and demanding it, forcing him to fill the darkness of his own consciousness with something more than blind effort.

  At first, there was a certain fascination in scurrying back and forth between the dwarf’s observatory and the room where the clock was entombed, to check the position of the hands against the position of the stars. Perhaps – just perhaps – there might have been enough activity in that to keep dark meditation at bay, if only the sky had remained clear. But this was a mountainous region where the air was turbulent, and the sky was often full of cloud. It was not always possible for the dwarf to make the observations he needed to make, and although the dwarf was philosophical about such difficulties, they preyed on Jehan Thun’s mind, teasing and taunting him.

  There was also a certain interest, for a while, in discovering what was inscribed on the other plaques, which had been hidden from Jehan while he worked on the completion of the clock by their housing. He did not see them all within the first twelve hours of the clock’s operation, nor even the second, but it only required two days for him to see each of them at least once, and thus to reconstruct their order in his mind. One o’clock brought forth the legend CARPE DIEM. Two o’clock supplied TIME TEACHES ALL THINGS. Three o’clock suggested that TIME OVERTAKES ALL THINGS. Four o’clock claimed that THERE IS TIME ENOUGH FOR EVERYTHING. Five o’clock observed that TEMPUS FUGIT. Six o’clock warned that OUR COSTLIEST EXPENDITURE IS TIME. Eight o’clock advised that THERE IS A TIME FOR EVERY PURPOSE. Nine o’clock pointed out that FUTURE TIME IS ALL THERE IS. Ten o’clock stated that EVERYTHING CHANGES WITH TIME. Eleven o’clock was marked by TIME MUST BE SPENT. Midnight and noon alike, perhaps reflecting increasing desperation in the expansion of the homiletic theme insisted that TIME NEVER WAITS.

  All in all, Jehan Thun concluded, while there was nothing among the legends to which a good man could object, there was also nothing as adventurous or imaginative as the blasphemies that his grandmother had seen . . . or imagined that she had seen.

  He had not thought to question the dwarf as to what he had read before discarding the allegedly blasphemous ones, but now he did. “Was there really one that said: Whoever shall try to make himself the equal of God shall be damned for all eternity?” Jehan asked his host, while they were gathering apples in the orchard one day.

  “I can’t remember the exact wording,” the dwarf told him, “but I think not. The sayings were pithier than that, and more enigmatic. Do you not approve of mine? I’m a clockmaker after all – or would be, if I had not been cursed with the body and hands of a clumsy clown. A clock ought to symbolize time, do you not agree? Common time, that is, not the grand and immeasurable reach of eternity.”

  “Even common time reflects the time of the heavens,” Jehan observed. “The movements of Creation spell out the day and the year, with all their strange eccentricities.”

  “The stars are mere backcloth,” the dwarf informed him, as he moved off up the slope with his basket half-full. “The Earth’s rotation on its own axis specifies the day, and its rotation about the sun defines the year. The eccentricity of the seasons is a matter of the inclination of its axis.”

  “So says Copernicus,” Jehan agreed, “but how shall we ever be sure?”

  “We shall be sure,” the dwarf told him, “When we have better clocks, more cleverly employed. Calculation will tell us which of the two systems makes better sense of all that we see. Better mechanisms will give us more accurate calculations, and more accurate calculations will enable us to make even better mechanisms.”

  “And so ad infinitum?” Jehan suggested.

  “I doubt that perfection is quite so far away,” said the dwarf, smiling as he set his basket down by the door. “And I doubt that mere humans will ever attain to perfection, even in calculation – but there’s scope yet for further improve
ment. The milking-goat is tethered on the far side, where the grazing is better. Will you come with me to soothe her?”

  Jehan agreed readily enough, and they went around the ruins together, to the side that looked out towards Évionnaz. They saw the platoon of soldiers as soon as they turned the corner, for the approaching men were no more than a thousand paces away. The men – a dozen in all – were heading directly for the château.

  “That’s Genevan livery,” the dwarf said bleakly. “Not that a party of men carrying half-pikes would be a more reassuring sight if their colours were Savoyard or Bernese.”

  “Their presence may have nothing at all to do with the château, let alone the clock,” Jehan said, although he could not believe it. He knew, as he watched the armed men coming on, that he had spoken his name too often during his brief sojourn in the city. He had stirred up old rumours and old memories that had been too shallowly buried, even after all this time. Someone had begun asking questions, and exercising an overheated imagination. The dwarf’s presence here might not be widely known, but the little man had been to Évionnaz and other villages in the vicinity; the suspicion that he had been joined at Andernatt by Aubert Thun’s grandson had been the kind of seed that could grow into strange anxieties.

  “They’re soldiers,” the dwarf said, “not churchmen. They have lived with clocks all their lives. They cannot be so very fearful.” But he too sounded like a man who could not believe what he was saying. He had been a wanderer before settling here; he knew what fears were abroad in a world torn apart by wars of religion. He knew, probably better than any man of common stature ever could, how often people spoke of witchcraft and the devil’s work, and what fear there was in their voices when they did so. He knew that Geneva was a city under permanent siege, where all kinds of anxiety seethed and bubbled, ever ready to overflow.