SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: MASTER ZACHARIUS

 "Master Zacharius" by Jules Verne

In old (very old) Geneva lived the famed clockmaker Master Zacharius, the most esteemed and most ancient citizen of the city.  Zacharius had advanced the art and science of clockmaking to new heights and his work was prized throughout the continent.  His house was set on posts on an island over the Rhone and the river rushed under parts of his home -- specifically, under his bedchamber and workshop on the lower floor of the house.  When his day's work was done, he would often lift a trapdoor on the floor and spend a long time gazing at the roaring river and inhaling its scent.

With Zacharius lived his daughter Gerante, his apprentice Aubert Thun, and his elderly housemaid Scholastique.  While all three were deeply religious, Zacharius had an almost mystical approach to his work, finding his immortality in the quality of his watches and clocks -- which would surely live on after his death.  But now Zacharius has been greatly bothered by something.  Unusually quiet and remote, he has stopped eating and has been spending more time in his workshop.  It turns out that all of his watches are being returned for repair -- they have all stopped working and Zacharius has been unable to repair them or to find a reason why these finely-tuned instruments have stopped.  Springs from the inner works, when released from pressure, do not uncoil.  Replacing the springs does not make the flywheels or the pendulums work.  It is as if the clock watchmaker has been cursed, perhaps because of his near mystical approach to his craft and his belief that his work was the true melding of soul and body.  Life, to Zacharius, is "only an ingenious mechanism." and in his vainglory declares the God had invented eternity but that Zacharius had invented time.

The monomania of Zacharius is slowly draining his life and the trio who loved him most seem able to do nothing about it.  Gerante spends time taking her father out, away from his workshop, while Aubert tries vainly to repair the watches that more and more are being returned.  Aubert himself fears that he will soon go as mad as his master.  Also, rumors were spreading through the city that Aubert and Gerante were to be wed -- something neither of them knew about these rumors although Aubert was very fond of Gerante and she, in her turn, cared for him.  One person who said the marriage would not happened was a newly arrived stranger, an ugly, short, wide man whose voice was metallic and whose teeth resembled the cogs of a wheel.  This strange person appeared obsessed with Zacharius and followed him everywhere.  When spying him, Zacharius said he was not a man, bur a clock.

Be he man or clock or devil, the stranger approached Zacharius with an offer to help, but only if gerante weds him.  Zacharius rebuffs the offer and the man repeats that Gerante and Aubert will never wed.

Zacharius threw himself into trying to repair the watched to  no avail.  Customers were getting very upset, some calling him a fraud, and Zacharius them offered to buy back the watches in order to maintain his reputation for scrupulous honestly.  Soon, Zacharius had expended all his wealth and his health continued to fail him.  Some time before, the watchmaker had stopped going to church and Gerante hope that a return to religiosity might help save her father.  The church service Gerante brought her father to did not sway him; he felt no sense of religious awe.  The church clock reached the noon hour and refused to strike, throwing Zacharius into a fit of despair.  

Now dying, the old man gives his blessing to the marriage of Gerante and Aubert.  Then suddenly, a thought strike him.  He rises from what had been assumed to be his deathbed and goes to his records.  There was one clock -- just one -- that he had made that had not been returned to him, a clock he had sold years ago.  If it had not been returned, then it must still be working, was his reasoning.  He leaves at once to find this clock which was located some twenty hours from Geneva.  Realizing where he had gone, Gerante, Aubert, and Scholastique follow in hopes of returning him home.

The clock is at the chateau of Signor Pittonaccio, a man who had forsaken the church for some unnamed evils.  Pittonaccio is also the ugly stranger who had been following Zacharius in Geneva.  He tells the clockmaker that he will not rewind that last working clock unless he pledges Gerante to him, for if the clock stops, so will Zacharius.  The clock itself, originally inscribed with pious sayings, now has irreligious writings on it instead.  Just as the hour struck for Zacharius to sign the marriage contract, he realized that his soul was forfeit.  He lunges to the clock. The clock's spring bursts from the clock.  Pittonaccio seizes it and "uttering a horrible blasphemy, ingulfed himself in the earth."  Zacharius falls backward, dead.  Thus the two lovers were able to wed and spend the rests of their long days praying for the soul of the clockmaker.

Science v. religion.  The sin of pride.  A fairly straightforward moral argument, tinged with decent writing and a hint of the demonic.  "Master Zacharius" is a Faustian tragedy, easily readable.  The story was first printed in the April-May 1854 edition of Musee de families; and was included in Verne's collection Doctor Ox (1874), translated by George Makepeace Towle.  A different translation of the collection also appeared that year, this time the story was translated by Abby L. Alger with the title "Master Zachery." It is available online at a number of different source; let Google find it for you.  In 1961, the story was adapted almost beyond recognition for a one-hour episode of  Shirley Temple Theater, with Temple in the role of Gerante and Sam Jaffe as Zacharius.  That same year, an uncredited adaption which remained (just a bit) closer to the original story was aired on Alfred Hitchcock Presents.  An opera, Maitre Zacharius, by Jean-Marie Curti premiered in 2008.

The author of this tale, Jules Verne (1828-1905), needs no introduction.  His imaginative works of science fiction, romance, and adventure have stood the test of time and will continue to do so far into the future.