The Human Machine

I took a room at the Auberge du Poisson, under an alias, and slept for fifteen hours. When I awoke, I began to think about my future. It had been easy to devise plans and make decisions on the trip to Paris; from far away, cities are like toy towns, where everything is easy, close, and possible. It was only when I got to Paris that I remembered that cities are full of obstacles.

There was only one way to make Von Knepper change the message: I had to take Clarissa. With my face obscured by a cloak and hat, I went to the house to spy on its inhabitants. There were signs of decay on the walls and windows, and the house seemed to age as I watched; a few more minutes and I would witness its collapse. My eyes were tired, and vitiated everything they saw. I waited anxiously for Von Knepper to go out, called by some urgent obligation. But now that his appointments with the bishop had ended, there was no reason to leave home. Everything he required was inside those walls.

While Von Knepper needed solitude and obsession in order to think, all I needed were long walks and momentary distractions. I found something of interest in every passing conversation; every notice in the street forced me to stop. There were words all around me, and I paid attention to each one, as if the city were an enormous book that could inspire my next steps. And so, in reading the words that came at me with no rhyme or reason, I discovered a poster for a book auction.

Tramont, whose appetite for books was as voracious as the Duke de la Vallière’s, was putting some up for sale. His collection was so enormous that from time to time Tramont was forced to part with duplicates or books that were no longer of interest, simply to clear a path through his house. At the bottom of the notice was a list of the most important volumes in the lot: number three was a copy of The Human Machine by Granville. This was an extremely rare book. Fabres, Von Knepper’s mentor, always swore there was absolutely no proof that Granville’s dissertation ever existed. I can assure you it did: I saw its pages and its engravings, and I saw how a copy sank in the waters of the Seine.

I tore the announcement off the wall and left it under Von Knepper’s door. Fate would take care of the rest.

It was five days until the auction. Von Knepper set out for Tramont’s house at the exact time it was about to start—as if he had only just decided to go. He walked straight past without seeing me: all that mattered to him was in the past or the future, and anything along the way belonged to the vulgar present. I waited a few minutes, in case he changed his mind, and then approached the house.

I had brought enough money to bribe the maid; as soon as she opened the door, I asked for Clarissa.

“You should know where she is,” the woman said.

“Why me?”

“Monsieur Laghi told me you took her. We haven’t seen her in six days now.”

I couldn’t believe Clarissa was gone, and I strode to the back of the house. The maid didn’t bother to stop me: there was no one for her to protect.

“How did she disappear? Was she taken by force?”

“It was the middle of the night. If you don’t have her, then she left on her own, tired of being overprotected. Monsieur Laghi hasn’t been able to sleep since. I hear him pace the room all night long, repeating the same words: I know everything about machines and nothing about people.”

The auction was running late and had just started by the time I arrived. Books were piled in great, tottering stacks. Since the nobility had acquired a passion for antique books, it was best if they looked truly old. Everyone knew that a month before an important auction, they were locked in a trunk with Amazonian spiders, to be enveloped in layers of cobwebs. The volumes were never cleaned because the accumulated filth confirmed antiquity. Publication dates simply weren’t enough: collectors liked to feel their treasure had been snatched from oblivion seconds before it came into their hands. Thus, every time the auctioneer presented a book, a cloud of dust would rise up, causing the first few rows to erupt in coughs and sneezes.

Gathered in the Tramont house were the most notable collectors from Paris, as well as dealers from Antwerp and Brussels who were trying to blend in. A few stood alone, but most were in groups of two or three. Though from the outside they may have looked like one big family, they were in fact eyeing one another suspiciously: each belonged to a rival religion and what one considered gospel was heresy to another. Those who chose books based on their bindings would laugh at those searching for Elzevirian or Roman type; experts in typography couldn’t understand what others saw in vignettes and bronze engravings; academics in search of Latin classics despised a love of a book’s material qualities, aspiring to more ethereal volumes instead.

The auctioneer had saved The Human Machine until the end. By this time, half of the buyers had already left. A bookseller from the Pont Neuf opened with a laughable bid. Von Knepper raised his hand, and this was echoed weakly by his competitor. The game continued for no more than three or four amounts, and the book was soon Von Knepper’s for no trouble and little cost. Having been rebound, it was of no antiquarian value. It was only of interest because it was so rare.

I sat down next to Von Knepper as he held the acquisition limply in his hands. All interest had evaporated now that it was his. The hate I expected to see in his eyes when he saw me was in fact something worse: hope. This was no longer a man to be feared but an old man begging forgiveness without knowing why. The last few days had filled his voice with pleading:

“Where’s my daughter?”

“I don’t know. You know very well I had to flee.”

“If it wasn’t you, then who?”

“The abbot’s people?”

“They have me firmly in their grasp; they don’t need my daughter. In any event, she left of her own free will. She could be anywhere in the city now. She doesn’t know a thing about life; she doesn’t know how to work. How will she survive?”

The auction had ended. All of the collectors were leaving, treasures in hand. I followed Von Knepper out.

“I’ll look for your daughter.”

“And what’s your price if you find her?”

“You’re worried about price? I thought all you’d care about now was Clarissa.”

“If the cost for finding my daughter is to give her to you, that’s too high a price. I don’t make those kinds of deals. At most, if you’re patient, I can make you a copy.”

“I’ll look for her first. Then we’ll talk price.”

We had come to the Seine. Von Knepper flipped through the book by the light of the moon, stopping at the engravings, studying the binding.

“At least I directed you to a good deal,” I said by way of goodbye.

“This book? I know it by heart. It doesn’t interest me in the least.”

“Then why did you buy it?”

“To destroy it. The last thing a maker of automatons needs is for this sort of information to get out. Secrets must be kept.”

He threw the book, as far as he could, and it splashed into the river.