by Mike Ashley
His brother had similar thoughts. “Her upper half is large enough,” Paul Verne whispered near Jules’s ear. “But beneath that cage of crinolines . . . who knows? She might be a woman of normal height, on stilts. She might have no legs at all, and be propped on a pillar.”
The giantess confronted Jules Verne, and from her vast height she seemed to read his thoughts. With gentle mockery in her smile, the immense woman now gathered the red satin folds of her skirts, and lifted them. Raising her petticoats, the giantess revealed a trim pair of feet: each was slightly larger than Jules Verne’s head, but the feet of the giantess were perfectly shaped, and daintily shod in huge slippers of black patent leather with crimson rosettes. As Verne watched, the giantess flexed one foot, her toes tapping impatiently. Then she shifted her weight to this foot, and tap-toed her other.
“You see, sir?” the laughter of the giantess rumbled from somewhere overhead. “Please mark that my shoes are not high-heeled to give me extra height. I came by my inches honestly. I am entirely . . .”
The voice of the giantess abruptly halted. Jules Verne looked up to her exalted altitude, and he saw her face shift and alter. Her features slackened, the dewlap quivered at her throat, as her blue eyes drooped and her mouth dangled open. Then she spoke again, this time with entirely a different voice:
“Monsieur Jules Verne, the young woman before you and above you is the giantess Anna Haining Swan of Nova Scotia. Only twenty-one years old, her remarkable height of seven feet eleven inches, and her proportionate weight, is the result of a thyroid tumour which . . .”
There was a click within Verne’s mind. The giantess Swan shook her head as though to clear it, then she resumed speaking in her previous voice: “. . . entirely genuine, sir, in my height and my capacity. As well I sing, speak French and Latin, and . . .”
“Mister Verne!” The man named Barnum had been attending to some business, yet now he came huffapuffing back across the salon. “Or the pair of you Vernes, rather, for I have neglected your brother.” Red-faced, Barnum mopped himself with a handkerchief, then pocketed this and took out his watch. “Nearly half-past! And the tableaux vivants begin promptly at 7.45. Would you do me the honour of viewing the show from my personal box?”
The stage of Barnum’s theatre was tiled with a parquet of alternating black and white squares. Looking down upon this from his seat in the box, Jules Verne was reminded of a vast chessboard . . . and he wondered what sort of dramas might soon unfold upon it. For now, only the downstage edge of this chessboard was visible, the remainder hidden behind a huge red velvet curtain.
The audience murmured impatiently as they took their seats for the 7.45 performance, while Verne contemplated today’s strange experiences. He had beheld things that did not actually exist – this Cardiff giant, for example – and he had been accosted by unaccountable voices. Was he going insane? Verne shook his head, preferring other explanations. The excitement of his arrival in America, the astonishing wonders . . . yes, it was possible that his legendary imagination was running away with him. The apparitions had done no harm, at least. Not so far.
Verne took out his opera-glasses and consulted the printed stagebill. The current entertainment at Barnum & Van Amburgh’s Museum was something called “Streets of New York, in five tableaux”. Verne was vaguely surprised to encounter this honest French word in a Yankee stagebill, and he wondered if tableaux meant the same thing on an American stage as on a French one. Now the gas-jets in the house lights dimmed, and the calcium carbonate lamps in the footlights brightened. The audience began an eager hush as the curtain went up.
The first tableau was “The Returned Californian”. This depicted a railway station, with the porters and newsboys bustling about. The effect of an arriving train was crudely achieved. From the train alighted a bearded man in buckskins, fresh from the California goldfields and clutching a valise filled with banknotes and gold nuggets. There was some byplay among the locals, as the Californian gave some money to a beggar-woman, attracting the attention of a ragged beggar who feigned blindness and lameness. The faker unfolded his bent leg and removed the bandage from his eyes to stare at the wealth in the Californian’s valise. He gave the signal to an urchin. Several street-Arabs arranged a diversion; the Californian’s valise was snatched, and spirited away. There was a chase, involving several constables, wearing the strange helmets that evidently were typical for New York policemen. At last, the Californian and his suitcase were reunited through the vigilance of a flower-girl, whom he rewarded.
These were not tableaux, then, as Verne knew the term from his theatrical endeavours in the Boulevard du Temple in Paris. A proper tableau vivant offered men and women posing motionless in a dramatic setting: statues of flesh, enacting an artist’s illustration. Barnum’s performers moved and gesticulated, and did everything but speak. Why not call this offering a straightforward drama, then, instead of a tableau?
The curtain descended, then rose again. The second tableau was named “Union-Square on a Winter’s Night”. This was a street scene, and the actors were bundled in coats and comforters. In the orchestra stalls beneath his seat in Barnum’s private box, Jules Verne heard a deep awestruck gasp from the audience, as a steady torrent of snowflakes cascaded on to the stage from somewhere overhead. A most impressive counterfeit of winter!
Verne applauded the effect, but as he did so his brother Paul murmured into his ear: “See, Jules! The actors: their breath does not fog into condensed vapour, as it would in wintertime.”
“And their breath would not fog upon a Parisian stage either,” Verne whispered back to his brother. “We are witnessing an excellent stage effect.”
Again the curtain fell. The third tableau was titled “Tenement House, Baxter Street”. As the curtain rose, Jules Verne expected to see the stage still covered with artificial snow from the previous scene. There was none. The tableau now depicted a one-room hovel, with a few ragged tenants. Verne found this image unconvincing, as the large and magnificent stage of Barnum’s playhouse made an incongruous backdrop for the cramped and squalid tenement scene. As the players onstage enacted their drama, Verne found his mind pursuing other matters.
What were all these bizarre encounters he had lately experienced? The first had occurred on the thirtieth of March, during the sailor’s funeral aboard the Great Eastern. Now, the weird apparitions were arriving every few minutes. Were these due to the excitement of visiting a new country, a new hemisphere? Verne frowned. Encounters with the unexplained were all very well in his fictions, but . . .
There was a stirring in the audience, and Verne’s brother Paul nudged him. The next tableau was starting. In the 437 seats of Barnum’s theatre, 437 spectators leant forward expectantly. “Streets of New York” had been advertised as five tableaux, yet it was evident that this fourth tableau was the centrepiece of the affair. Consulting his playbill, Verne saw that this next sequence was advertised – with a crescendo of punctuation – as “The Fire! The Fire!! The Fire!!!” Now the stage’s footlights suddenly went out, and all was darkness. Verne heard the creaking pulleys as the curtain began its ascent.
A sudden shaft of light – dazzling, yet flickering rapidly – burst from the gap between the footlamps and the rising curtain. As the curtain continued its climb, the florid glow became brighter. Verne gasped once more. The stage was on fire! He rose from his seat, resisting Barnum’s attempts to clutch his sleeve and restrain him.
Now he understood. There was a fire onstage, yes . . . but it was a coup de theatre, a remarkable simulation. Now a wave of applause broke forth, and Verne joined into it, as he beheld stage effects far more remarkable than anything he might have contrived in his own melodramas at the theatre in the Rue du Crime, in the east end of Paris.
On the stage before him was a New York brownstone dwelling. The upper storey was engorged in thick dark smoke: Verne was aware of smudge-pots, yet he admired the ability of the stage manager who had kindled these. The smoke billowed most convincingly fro
m the building’s windows. Visible through the walls were huge sheets of crackling flame, orange and bronze-coloured. The illusion was so perfect that Verne felt the temperature rise. Now he shuddered. Was this all a stage effect, or was he experiencing one more of those peculiar visitations?
A woman appeared on the house’s balustrade, clutching a squalling infant and shouting piteously for help. The fire was spreading rapidly, engulfing the brownstone. Verne bit his lips nervously, trying to decipher how these effects were achieved. The movement of the flames was very lifelike. Perhaps a sheet of butter-muslin – illuminated from the rear by means of lanterns tinted with orange-hued glass, and set to dancing by a steady current of pumped air – might counterfeit this effect without the dangers of actual fire. Verne nodded, silently vowing to duplicate this effect when he returned to his Parisian theatre.
From the wings of the stage now, a clanging of brass. Verne was seated in a side box at stage left, and in consequence he could not see anything entering from that side of the wings. The audience on the other side loosed a fresh torrent of applause, and Verne craned forward to see . . . then he gaped in astonishment.
A steam-powered fire-engine rolled on to the stage. Astride its brass fittings were ten firemen in glittering helmets. The chieftain leapt from his seat at the helm, brandishing his brass fire-trumpet as he bellowed orders to his men. The men dismounted, unfastening the cagings and ladders. On the building’s upper storey, the spreading flames had nearly reached the woman and her child. Now, in a dazzling display of hydrotechnics, a burst of water gushed forth from the hoses and struck the flames, repelling them. The hiss of steam from the fire-engine’s boiler was genuine;Verne could not tell if the hiss of steam from the burning building was equally real. The counterfeit flames seemed exceedingly real, yet Verne was certain he knew how this effect had been achieved. The gush of water from the firemen’s hoses, the billows of steam as this water met the flames and smoke . . . Verne felt certain that these too must be false, yet he was utterly unable to determine how such effects were achieved. The chequerwork parquet of the stage of Barnum’s theatre showed no sign of water. Then how did . . .
Something clicked in his brain, and suddenly Jules Verne staggered back from the heat. The entire theatre was burning, and this was no illusion! He found himself standing in the street, watching in horror as the giantess Anna Swan was lowered by means of a block-and-tackle from the third floor of the five-storey museum while the flames . . .
“A glimpse of the past, Monsieur Verne. That is Barnum’s American Museum you behold, at Broadway and Ann Street: considerably south of your present location, and hindwards in time.” The flames grew oppressively hot as the voice whispered to Verne. “The American Museum was entirely consumed by fire on 13 July 1865, with great loss of life . . . although, as you see, the giantess was rescued. The building which you presently inhabit – Barnum’s latest showplace – will be consumed by fire less than one year from today, on March third of . . .”
Another click. Verne found himself standing upright in his seat in Barnum’s private box, gripping the gilded wooden rail overhanging the stage. In the makeshift tenement onstage, the woman and her infant were now being snatched from the flames, carried down the ladders by the valiant firemen and ushered to safety. Now, with a roar and an inrush of air, the burning structure collapsed, so realistically that people in the front rows of the theatre screamed and recoiled.
Verne was suddenly dizzy. These stage effects were too realistic. Desperate for air, he staggered towards . . . what word? . . . the egress. There was applause; he bowed instinctively.
“Stay, brother Jules.” Beside him, Paul clutched a playbill. “See? The fifth tableaux still remains. It will be instructive to observe how quickly Barnum’s stagehands can clear this wreckage from the stage, to begin the final act.”
Verne glanced at the card his brother thrust towards him. The fifth and last tableau was titled “The Home of the Rich”. At another time, this might have intrigued him. Now, he waved his brother aside and staggered towards the door.
“You all right, Verne?” muttered Barnum, gesturing towards a pageboy. Verne nodded, pantomiming that he only wished to clear his head. He flung the door open, stepping out of the private box and into a corridor leading back to the museum.
On the second floor of Barnum & Van Amburgh’s Museum, the aisles between the glass display cases held fewer visitors now, for most of the museum’s patrons had gone into Barnum’s theatre to watch the tableaux. As Jules Verne staggered past the Feejee Mermaid and a portrait of the Earl of Southampton, he paused to rest beside a weird conveyance: exactly like a royal coach, but scarcely a metre high. A brass plate on its door explained that this vehicle was Tom Thumb’s Carriage, and two Shetland ponies in convincing effigy were hitched to its traces.
“Hel-lo, hsssir,” spoke a voice that seemed inhuman.
Verne looked up, and beheld a face that was human in shape yet not alive. “Hel-lo, hsssir,” it repeated in English.
The hauntings again! Verne retreated, intending to turn and walk swiftly away when he caught another look at this interlocutor.
A man of metal stood before him on a pedestal. The counterfeit man was authentically human in his size and proportions. His limbs were gracefully jointed, although a long iron strut attached to his right leg indicated that he had difficulty standing upright.
The automaton was dressed as a footman of the French court, in breeches and livery and peruke. There were lace ruffles at his throat, half-concealing some mechanism that Verne could barely perceive. The footman’s hands and face were carved wood, painted to simulate human flesh, but the colour had faded . . . and on some of the fingers it had chipped off altogether. He was perhaps five foot seven – two inches shorter than Jules Verne – yet by virtue of the pedestal he towered over Verne easily.
The footman stood in profile. Now, suddenly, his head turned and faced directly towards Verne. His eyes blinked, with mechanical precision. His jaw creaked open.
“Hel-lo, hsssir,” the automatic man repeated. His right arm lifted stiffly, its hand gesticulating. “Hhhow are you?” His eyelids blinked, revealing pale blue eyes of Essen glass.
Hearing laughter, Verne approached. At the base of the footman’s pedestal stood a device resembling a harpsichord, with three banks of keys and levers: the former with ivory fittings, the latter in stained wood. A man – reassuringly human, in a hideous yellow waistcoat – was manipulating these, while two girls and a plump older woman laughed and fanned themselves.
On a brass plate near the keyboard, Jules Verne noticed a familiar name engraved: JEAN EUGÈNE ROBERT-HOUDIN. The great magician! Verne had met him, and attended his performances in Montmartre. The inscription on this plate disclosed that the mechanical footman was Robert-Houdin’s patented Speaking Automaton. A bellows apparatus sent compressed air through the body of the Automaton, enabling him to speak as if equipped with human lungs. By pressing the manifolds of the keyboard, an operator could induce the Automaton to replicate human speech.
The waistcoated man and his companions had departed. Now the jaw of the Automaton dangled slackly and silent. Eager to reassure himself that the machine’s voice was a man-made contrivance, and not some unaccountable haunting, Verne approached the keyboard. He ran his finger across several keys, in the manner of a glissando.
“Mnerghajib!” cried the Automaton.
Verne chose a key at random, and depressed this.
The Automaton emitted a loud consonant of uncertain parentage.
There was a stool before the keyboard. Seating himself, Verne now observed that each of the console’s keys and levers was incised with a letter or phonetic symbol. Vowels were on the lowermost bank of keys, nearest to hand, and the letter “E” centremost. Robert-Houdin had contrived his keyboard so that most accessible keys produced the letters uttered most frequently in French. Splaying his fingers, Jules Verne located the keys that would approximate the letters of his name. He touche
d the keys, interposing the sequence “JULES VERNE”.
“Djoo-lesss Fffvvurr-nuhh,” wheezed the Automaton. Verne tried the keys again, a bit more gracefully. “Fu-lesss Vver-nuh.”The head of the Automaton moved stiffly: chin flexing, jaw clicking. The mechanical face turned aside, the eyelids closed.
Verne nodded, impressed. The machine had spoken his name . . . but in accordance with proper spelling, not pronunciation. Which keys should he press to make the Automaton pronounce his name correctly? He surveyed the keyboard.
“Jules Verne,” said someone, close at hand.
The Automaton turned its head to confront Jules Verne. The thing’s eyelids opened, and Verne shuddered as two living eyes regarded him, set deeply in a face that seemed suddenly more human than it had been a moment past.
“I am honoured to meet you at last, Monsieur Verne,” said a voice within the Automaton, yet Verne felt an unaccountable certainty that this voice originated somewhere distant from this place. “Pardon the imperfections of my French. Where I come from – perhaps I should say when I come from – your language is not widely spoken.”
“Who . . . no, what are you?” quavered Jules Verne. He was alone in this dark corridor with the apparition before him. In the Museum’s adjacent salon, Verne glimpsed a shadowed group of human figures, but they stood motionless, utterly frozen. Perhaps they were waxworks.
“I am as human as yourself,” said the voice within the Automaton. “But it would cost a vast expenditure of energy for me to travel from my own abode to where you are now. You see, my address is in the future.”
Verne recoiled. “Liar! Rogue! This is one of Barnum’s humbugs. Somewhere nearby, an actor is ventriloquizing . . .” As he spoke, Verne looked round for concealed speaking-tubes.
“No, Mister Verne. It has long been my wish to contact you, and to assure you that your novels will still be read many years futurewards of your own lifetime. In a future which, to a large extent, you yourself have shaped, Mr Verne.” The Automaton put wooden hand to metal waist, and bowed stiffly as it spoke these words.
