# Works of Jules Verne/The Watch's Soul/Chapter 3

CHAPTER III
A STRANGE VISIT
Poor Gerande would have lost her life with that of her father, had it not been for the thought of Aubert, who still attached her to the world. The old watchmaker was, little by little, passing away. His faculties evidently grew more feeble, as he concentrated them on a single thought. By a sad association of ideas, he referred everything to his monomania, and human existence seemed to have departed from him. Moreover, certain malicious rivals revived the hostile rumors which had spread concerning his labors.
The news of the strange derangements which his watches betrayed had a prodigious effect upon the master clockmakers of Geneva. What signified this sudden inertia of their wheels, and why these strange relations which they seemed to have with the old man's life? These were the kind of mysteries which people never contemplate without a secret terror. In the various classes of the town, from the apprentices to the great lords who used his watches, there was no one who could not himself judge of the singularity of the fact. The citizens wished, but in vain, to penetrate to Master Zacharius. He fell very ill; and this enabled his daughter to withdraw him from incessant visits, which thereupon degenerated into reproaches and recriminations.
Medicines and physicians were powerless in presence of this organic wasting away, the cause of which could not be discovered. It sometimes seemed as if the old man's heart had ceased to beat; then the pulsations were resumed with an alarming irregularity.
A custom existed, in those days, of submitting the works of the masters to the judgment of the people. The heads of the various corporations sought to distinguish themselves by the novelty or the perfection of their productions, and it was among these that the condition of Master Zacharius excited the most lively, because most interested, commiseration. His rivals pitied him the more willingly, the less he was to be feared. They never forgot the old man's success, when he exhibited his magnificent clocks with moving figures, his striking watches, which provoked the general admiration, and commanded such high prices in the cities of France, Switzerland, and Germany. Meanwhile, thanks to the constant and tender care of ​Gerande and Aubert, his strength seemed to return a little, and in the tranquillity in which his convalescence left him, he succeeded in detaching himself from the thoughts which had absorbed him. As soon as he could walk, his daughter lured him away from the house, which was still besieged with dissatisfied intruders. Aubert remained in the shop, vainly adjusting and readjusting the rebel watches; and the poor boy, completely mystified, sometimes covered his face in his hands, fearful that he, like his master, might go mad.
So it came about that the old watchmaker at last perceived that he was not alone in the world. As he looked upon his young and lovely daughter, himself old and broken, he reflected that after his death she would be left alone, without support. Many of the young mechanics of Geneva had already sought to win Gerande's love; but none of them had succeeded in gaining access to the impenetrable retreat of the watchmaker's household. It was natural, then, that during this lucid interval the old man's choice should fall on Aubert Thun. Once struck with this thought, he remarked to himself that this young couple had been brought up with the same ideas and the same beliefs, and the oscillations of their hearts seemed to him, as he said one day to Scholastique, "isochronal."
The old servant, literally delighted with the word, though she did not understand it, swore by her holy patron saint that the whole town should hear it within a quarter of an hour. Master Zacharius found it difficult to calm her, but made her promise to keep on this subject a silence which she never was known to observe.
So, though Gerande and Aubert were ignorant of it, all Geneva was soon talking of their speedy union. But it happened also that, while the worthy folk were gossiping, a strange chuckle was often heard, and a voice saying, "Gerande will not wed Aubert."
If the gossipers turned round, they found themselves facing a little old man who was quite a stranger to them.
How old was this singular being? No one could have told. People conjectured that he must have existed for several centuries, and that was all. His big flat head rested upon shoulders the width of which was equal to the height of his body; this was not above three feet. This personage would have figured well on a pendulum fulcrum, for ​the dial would have naturally been placed on his face, and the balance-wheel would have oscillated at its ease in his chest. His nose might readily be taken for the style of a sun-dial, for it was small and sharp; his teeth, far apart, resembled the gearing of a wheel, and ground themselves between his lips; his voice had the metallic sound of a bell, and you could hear his heart beat like the tick-tick of a clock. This little man, whose arms moved like the needles on a dial, walked with jerks, without ever turning round. If anyone followed him, it was found that he walked a league an hour, and that his course was nearly circular.
This strange being had not long been seen wandering, or rather circulating, around the town; but it had already been observed that, every day, at the moment when the sun passed the meridian, he stopped before the Cathedral of Saint Pierre, and resumed his course after the twelve strokes of midday had sounded. Excepting at this precise moment, he seemed to become a part of all the conversations in which the old watchmaker was talked of, and people asked each other, in terror, what relation could exist between him and Master Zacharius. It was remarked, too, that he never lost sight of the old man and his daughter while they were taking their promenades.
One day Gerande perceived this monster looking at her with a hideous smile. She clung to her father with a frightened motion.
"What is the matter, my Gerande?" asked Master Zacharius.
"I do not know," replied the young girl.
"But thou art changed, my child. Art thou going to fall ill in thy turn? Ah, well," he added, with a sad smile, "then I must take care of thee, and I will do it tenderly."
"O father, it will be nothing. I am cold, and I imagine that it is–––"
"What, Gerande?"
"The presence of that man, who always follows us," she replied in a low tone.
Master Zacharius turned towards the little old man. "Faith, he goes well," said he, with a satisfied air, "for it is just four o'clock. Fear nothing, my child; it is not a man, it is a clock!"
Gerande looked at her father in terror. How could ​Master Zacharius read the hour on this strange creature's visage?
"By the by," continued the old watchmaker, paying no further attention to the matter, "I have not seen Aubert for several days."
"He has not left us, however, father," said Gerande, whose thoughts turned into a gentler channel.
"What is he doing, then?"
"He is working."
"Ah!" cried the old man. "He is at work repairing my watches, is he not? But he will never succeed; for it is not repairs they need, but a resurrection!"
Gerande remained silent.
"I must know," added the old man, "if they have brought back any more of those damned watches, upon which the Devil has imposed an epidemic!"
After these words Master Zacharius fell into absolute taciturnity, till he knocked at the door of his house, and for the first time since his convalescence descended to his shop, while Gerande sadly repaired to her chamber.
At this moment when Master Zacharius crossed the threshold of his shop, one of the many clocks suspended on the wall struck five o'clock. Usually the bells of these clocks—admirably regulated as they were—struck simultaneously, and this rejoiced the old man's heart; but on this day the bells struck one after another, so that for a quarter of an hour the ear was deafened by the successive noise. Master Zacharius suffered terribly; he could not remain still, but went from one clock to the other, and beat the measure for them, as an orchestra leader who has no longer control over his musicians.
When the last had ceased striking, the door of the shop opened, and Master Zacharius shuddered from head to foot to see before him the little old man, who looked fixedly at him and said, "Master, may I not speak with you a few moments?"
"Who are you? " asked the watchmaker, abruptly.
"A colleague. I am charged with regulating the sun."
"Ah, you regulate the sun!" replied Master Zacharius, eagerly, without wincing. "I can scarcely compliment you upon it. Your sun goes badly, to make ourselves agree with it, we have to keep advancing and retarding our clocks!"
​"And, by the Devil's cloven foot," cried this weird personage, "you are right, my master! My sun does not always indicate midday at the same moment as your clocks; but some day it will be known that this is because of the inequality of the movement of the earth's transfer, and a mean midday will be invented which will regulate this irregularity!"
"Shall I live till then?" asked the old man, with glistening eyes.
"Without doubt," replied the little old man, laughing. "Can you believe that you will ever die?"
"Alas! I am very ill."
"Ah, let us talk of that. By Beelzebub! that will lead to just what I wish to speak to you about."
Saying this, the strange being leaped upon the old leather chair, and carried his legs one under the other, after the fashion of the bones which the painters of funeral hangings cross beneath skulls. Then he resumed, in an ironical tone, "See, Master Zacharius, what is going on in this good town of Geneva? They say that your health is failing, that your watches have need of a doctor!"
"Ah, you believe that there is an intimate relation between their existence and mine?" cried Master Zacharius.
"Why, I imagine that these watches have faults, even vices. If these wantons do not preserve a regular conduct, it is right that they should bear the consequences of their irregularity. It seems to me that they have need of reforming a little!"
"What do you call faults?" asked Master Zacharius, reddening at the sarcastic tone in which these words were uttered. "Have they not a right to be proud of their origin?"
"Not too proud, not too proud," replied the little old man. "They bear a celebrated name, and an illustrious signature is graven on their cases, it is true, and theirs is the exclusive privilege of being introduced among the noblest families; but for some time they have become deranged, and you can do nothing about it, Master Zacharius; and the stupidest apprentice in Geneva could prove it to you!"
"To me, to me!" cried Master Zacharius, with a flush of outraged pride.
​"To you, Master Zacharius—you, who cannot restore life to your watches!"
"But it is because I have a fever, and so have they also!" replied the old man, as a cold sweat broke out upon him.
"Very well, they will die with you, since you are prevented from imparting a little elasticity to their springs."
"Die! No, for you yourself have said it! I cannot die,—I, the first watchmaker in the world; I, who, by means of these pieces and diverse wheels, have been able to regulate the movement with absolute precision! Have I not subjected time to exact laws, and can I not dispose of it like a despot? Before a sublime genius had disposed regularly these wandering hours, in what vast waste was human destiny plunged? At what certain moment could the acts of life be connected with each other? But you, man or devil, whatever you may be, have never considered the magnificence of my art, which calls every science to its aid! No, no! I, Master Zacharius, cannot die, for, as I have regulated time, time would end with me! It would return to the infinite, whence my genius has rescued it, and it would lose itself irreparably in the gulf of chaos! No, I can no more die than the Creator of this universe, submitted to its laws! I have become his equal, and I have partaken of his power! If God has created eternity, Master Zacharius has created time!"
The old watchmaker now resembled the fallen angel, defiant in the presence of the Creator. The little old man seemed to breathe into him this impious transport.
"Well said, master," he replied. "Beelzebub had less right than you to compare himself with God! Your glory must not perish! So your servant desires to give you the method of controlling these rebellious watches."
"What is it? what is it?" cried Master Zacharius.
"You shall know on the day after that on which you have given me your daughter's hand."
"My Gerande?"
"Herself!"
"My daughter's heart is not free," replied Master Zacharius, who seemed neither astonished nor angry.
"Bah! She is not the least beautiful of watches; but she will end by stopping also–––"
"My daughter,—my Gerande! No!"
​"Well, return to your watches, Master Zacharius. Adjust and readjust them. Get ready the marriage of your daughter and your apprentice. Temper your springs with your best steel. Bless Aubert and the pretty Gerande. But remember, your watches will never go, and Gerande will not wed Aubert!"
Thereupon the little old man disappeared so quickly that Master Zacharius could not hear six o'clock strike in his breast.
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