Swords & Steam Short Stories

by S. T. Joshi

  Master Zacharius, having doubtless forgotten the promise made to his daughter, had returned to his shop. After being convinced of his powerlessness to give life to his watches, he resolved to try if he could not make some new ones. He abandoned all those useless works, and devoted himself to the completion of the crystal watch, which he intended to be his masterpiece; but in vain did he use his most perfect tools, and employ rubies and diamonds for resisting friction. The watch fell from his hands the first time that he attempted to wind it up!

  The old man concealed this circumstance from every one, even from his daughter; but from that time his health rapidly declined. There were only the last oscillations of a pendulum, which goes slower when nothing restores its original force. It seemed as if the laws of gravity, acting directly upon him, were dragging him irresistibly down to the grave.

  The Sunday so ardently anticipated by Gerande at last arrived. The weather was fine, and the temperature inspiriting. The people of Geneva were passing quietly through the streets, gaily chatting about the return of spring. Gerande, tenderly taking the old man’s arm, directed her steps towards the cathedral, while Scholastique followed behind with the prayer-books. People looked curiously at them as they passed. The old watchmaker permitted himself to be led like a child, or rather like a blind man. The faithful of Saint Pierre were almost frightened when they saw him cross the threshold, and shrank back at his approach.

  The chants of high mass were already resounding through the church. Gerande went to her accustomed bench, and kneeled with profound and simple reverence. Master Zacharius remained standing upright beside her.

  The ceremonies continued with the majestic solemnity of that faithful age, but the old man had no faith. He did not implore the pity of Heaven with cries of anguish of the ‘Kyrie;’ he did not, with the ‘Gloria in Excelsis,’ sing the splendours of the heavenly heights; the reading of the Testament did not draw him from his materialistic reverie, and he forgot to join in the homage of the ‘Credo.’ This proud old man remained motionless, as insensible and silent as a stone statue; and even at the solemn moment when the bell announced the miracle of transubstantiation, he did not bow his head, but gazed directly at the sacred host which the priest raised above the heads of the faithful. Gerande looked at her father, and a flood of tears moistened her missal. At this moment the clock of Saint Pierre struck half-past eleven. Master Zacharius turned quickly towards this ancient clock which still spoke. It seemed to him as if its face was gazing steadily at him; the figures of the hours shone as if they had been engraved in lines of fire, and the hands shot forth electric sparks from their sharp points.

  The mass ended. It was customary for the ‘Angelus’ to be said at noon, and the priests, before leaving the altar, waited for the clock to strike the hour of twelve. In a few moments this prayer would ascend to the feet of the Virgin.

  But suddenly a harsh noise was heard. Master Zacharius uttered a piercing cry.

  The large hand of the clock, having reached twelve, had abruptly stopped, and the clock did not strike the hour.

  Gerande hastened to her father’s aid. He had fallen down motionless, and they carried him outside the church.

  “It is the death-blow!” murmured Gerande, sobbing.

  When he had been borne home, Master Zacharius lay upon his bed utterly crushed. Life seemed only to still exist on the surface of his body, like the last whiffs of smoke about a lamp just extinguished. When he came to his senses, Aubert and Gerande were leaning over him. In these last moments the future took in his eyes the shape of the present. He saw his daughter alone, without a protector.

  “My son,” said he to Aubert, “I give my daughter to thee.”

  So saying, he stretched out his hands towards his two children, who were thus united at his deathbed.

  But soon Master Zacharius lifted himself up in a paroxysm of rage. The words of the little old man recurred to his mind.

  “I do not wish to die!” he cried; “I cannot die! I, Master Zacharius, ought not to die! My books – my accounts! –”

  With these words he sprang from his bed towards a book in which the names of his customers and the articles which had been sold to them were inscribed. He seized it and rapidly turned over its leaves, and his emaciated finger fixed itself on one of the pages.

  “There!” he cried, “there! This old iron clock, sold to Pittonaccio! It is the only one that has not been returned to me! It still exists – it goes – it lives! Ah, I wish for it – I must find it! I will take such care of it that death will no longer seek me!”

  And he fainted away.

  Aubert and Gerande knelt by the old man’s bedside and prayed together.

  Chapter V

  The Hour of Death

  Several days passed, and Master Zacharius, though almost dead, 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 for ever lost.

  The old man got together his last remaining 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.

  Gerande wept bitterly, but her father did not reappear.

  Aubert searched everywhere through the town, and soon came to the sad conviction that the old man had left it.

  “Let us find my father!” cried Gerande, when the young apprentice told her this sad news.

  “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 because they were 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 Andernatt.”

  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 mercy of God, Gerande! The château of Andernatt 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. They accomplished five leagues during the night, stopping neither at Bessinge nor at Ermance, where rises the famous château of the Mayors. They with difficulty forded the torrent of the Dranse, and everywhere they went they inquired for Master Zacharius, and were soon convinced that they were on his track.

  The next morning, at daybreak, having passed Thonon, they reached Evian, whence the Swiss territory may be seen extended over twelve leagues. But the two betrothed did not even perceive the enchanting prospect. They went straight forward, urged on by a supernatural force. Aubert, leaning on a knotty stick, offered his arm alternately to Gerande and to Scholastique, and he made the greatest efforts to sustain his companions. All three talked of their sorrow, of their hopes, and thus passed along the beautiful road by the water-side, and across the narrow plateau which unites the borders of the lake with the heights of the Chalais. They soon reached Bouveret, where the Rhone enters the Lake of Geneva.

  On leaving this town they diverged from the lake, and th
eir weariness increased amid these mountain districts. Vionnaz, Chesset, Collombay, half lost villages, were soon left behind. Meanwhile their knees shook, their feet were lacerated by the sharp points which covered the ground like a brushwood of granite – but no trace of Master Zacharius!

  He must be found, however, and the two young people did not seek repose either in the isolated hamlets or at the château of Monthay, which, with its dependencies, formed the appanage of Margaret of Savoy. At last, late in the day, and half dead with fatigue, they reached the hermitage of Notre-Dame-du-Sex, which is situated at the base of the Dents-du-Midi, six hundred feet above the Rhone.

  The hermit received the three 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 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 destroyed an angel created for good. It is the stumbling-block against which the destinies of man strike. You cannot reason with 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 some one knocked at the door of the hermitage.

  “Open, in the devil’s name!”

  The door yielded under the blows, and a dishevelled, 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!”

  The old man tore away from his daughter’s embrace and hurried towards the door, on the threshold of which the snow was falling in large flakes.

  “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 for ever 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 Andernatt, and I wish to see it again!”

  The hermit crossed himself; Scholastique became almost inanimate. Aubert held Gerande in his arms.

  “The château of Andernatt is inhabited by one who is lost,” 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 around them, and mingled its white flakes with the froth of the swollen torrents.

  As they passed the chapel erected in memory of the massacre of the Theban legion, they hurriedly crossed themselves. Master Zacharius was not to be seen.

  At last the village of Evionnaz appeared in the midst of this sterile region. The hardest heart would have been moved to see this hamlet, lost among these horrible solitudes. The old man sped on, and plunged into the deepest gorge of the Dents-du-Midi, which pierce the sky with their sharp peaks.

  Soon a ruin, old and gloomy as the rocks at its base, rose before him.

  “It is there – there!” he cried, hastening his pace still more frantically.

  The château of Andernatt 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 were gloomy to look on. Several dark halls appeared amid the debris, 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. Who had dwelt there none knew. No doubt some margrave, half lord, half brigand, had sojourned in it; to the margrave had succeeded bandits or counterfeit coiners, who had been hanged 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; no one forbade him to cross it. He passed along the kind of inclined plane which conducted to one of the long corridors, whose arches 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, whilst the bats described oblique circles around his head.

  An immense hall, better preserved than the rest, was soon reached. High sculptured panels, on which serpents, ghouls, and other strange figures seemed to disport themselves confusedly, covered its walls. Several long and narrow windows, like loopholes, 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 unequalled masterpiece represented an ancient Roman church, with buttresses of wrought iron, with its heavy bell-tower, where there was a complete chime for the anthem of the day, the ‘Angelus,’ the mass, vespers, compline, and the benediction. Above the church door, which opened at the hour of the services, was placed a ‘rose,’ in the centre of which two hands moved, and the archivault 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 once 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 to infallibly 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?”

  “Signor 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.

&
nbsp; “Stop, Aubert!” cried Master Zacharius.

  “Goodnight,” 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 live in old wood, and the noise of which marks the hours of ‘death watch.’

  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 wild 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 rewind it. He can break it, and plunge me into chaos. Ah, my daughter, you no longer love me!”