The Automaton

The Automaton ~ David Wheldon ~ 6/11/2011
The Automaton
David Wheldon
A manuscript found amongst the effects of a British Soldier
who fell in the Third Battle of the Aisne, May, 1918
Bridgwater, Somerset, 1905
My parents work in a theatre, the Comedy, in King Square; it was originally a
four storey Georgian town house, handsome enough at the front but dilapidated at the
rear; it has a complex roofscape, which, however repaired, lets in the rain. The stage
and auditorium were added about fifty years later. The stage door opens onto a narrow
cobbled mews. My father is the caretaker and my mother runs the general victualling:
the premises have a licence and coffee is served in the mornings. We are
accommodated in a couple of top-floor rooms in part remuneration. It is hard work for
my parents; in winter the various fires have to be made up and the central coke furnace
in the cellar has to be stoked. I help my father with this, in the evening, after school.
There’s no sense of any security of tenure, though: the place doesn’t make money and
the owner’s family are always on the brink of selling it. They don’t say too much
publicly as they think of themselves as a local family of some importance, and, by
extension, patrons of the arts. Besides, who would be moved to buy a mouldering
provincial theatre? So; no security of any kind. The secretary once showed a
prospective buyer round the place. I was in the background, listening to their
conversation — I can find my way round that rabbit-warren of narrow, damp passages
and rooms like no-one else: I swear I could beat anyone at that — and at the end of
the viewing the secretary rubbed his hands and pulled the tails of his morning-coat, as
was his habit. “Well, Mr Bamford, what do you think of the Comedy?” Mr Bamford
had replied — his eyes had an amused look — “I think she’s well-named.” The
owner’s family name is Peasey; their money was made from shipping and timber
importation, and they have a mansion in Cossington. I visited it once: the impresario
had an urgent message that needed to be given to Mr Peasey. I enjoyed that visit. It
was a pleasant spring day. I alighted from the little one-carriage train at the single
platform of the country station and walked through the village to the mansion. I found
the service entrance. The country air was profoundly still after the train had departed.
A young maid answered the door and allowed me to stand in the servants’ hall while
she fetched the housekeeper. ‘Please wait for Mrs Lisle,’ she had said.
Mrs Lisle appeared, a tall, formal woman, holding out her hand for the message.
I don’t remember much about her — I only saw her once — but I recall her hand
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The Automaton ~ David Wheldon ~ 6/11/2011
waiting to receive the message. A black sleeve of mercerized cotton, a long, white
starched-cotton cuff, and her hand itself, pinkly white and very clean, with a slender
palm and long fingers with short but even nails. Why this should stay in my memory I
do not know. It was not, well, it was not the hand of a servant.
There was the ghost of a smile on her lips. ‘So. You are the boy from the
Comedy, eh?’
‘Yes, Mrs Lisle,’ I said, looking up at her thin, intelligent face. She possessed a
compelling gaze, I recall.
She was attentive to the way I pronounced her name. Apparently it satisfied her.
Well, if you are nothing very much in life, then, well, again, there’s not much you can
do about it. My father’s a very intelligent man, but he had no education. Mrs Lisle was
not unpleasant, but you — were you me — somehow knew that she regarded you as
her inferior in the chain of natural order.
‘I’ll take the message to the master. You wait here. I daresay there’ll be an
answer.’ She turned to the hallmaid. ‘Betsy. Give the boy something for his lunch.
Cold mutton. Pickled red cabbage. Bread. A pot of cider. An apple. That do?’ she
asked, turning back to me.
‘You are very generous, Mrs Lisle,’ I said.
She gave me a faded smile and held up the message. ‘I shall return.’
And so, waited on by Betsy, I sat at the scrubbed elm table and ate.
Mrs Lisle returned, drew out the chair opposite me, gathered her long skirts and
sat down, her posture surprisingly supple and informal; she placed her elbows on the
table. ‘Sufficient?’
‘Very welcome, Mrs Lisle. I was just expecting to present the message and to be
told to leave.’
‘Quite so. The master is writing a reply as we speak. Betsy, leave us, please.’
Betsy quietly left, closing the door behind her.
‘What is your name?’
‘William Bradney.’
‘You are schooled?’
‘I go to Dr Freemain’s Grammar, Mrs Lisle,’ I said.
‘I thought so. Scholarship on need and merit?’
‘Yes, Mrs Lisle. I’m fortunate.’
‘Well, yes, but you are clever, too. Your parents are well spoken of, William. I
say this for one reason. I’ll get to the point. Should your father lose his situation
because of, oh, the difficulties at the Comedy, he may be able to find employment here.
Tell him that. The master is very pleased with him. Perceptive and stoic.’ She put her
head on one side. ‘The virtues. Do you yourself have the temperament of a servant?
Were your education to be curtailed through lack of money?’ She laughed, frankly. ‘I
didn’t have that temperament as a girl. But as a young woman I taught myself. You
have to teach yourself to adapt in order to survive. And you are well spoken. I noted
—’ her eyes narrowed ‘— your hesitant deference when you first spoke to me: that I
did not mind. The system sort of works, and, if it sort of works, and puts bread on
your table and coals in your hearth, what more can you ask of it? Certainly not beauty
or elegance. But it’ll all change after the coming crisis.’
A bell, one in a row of several, sounded above our heads.
‘Library,’ said Mrs Lisle, standing, but not looking at the bell indicator board. ‘I
recognise the timbre. How even the intelligent are, well, conditioned. The reply. Wait.
I’ll fetch it.’
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The Automaton ~ David Wheldon ~ 6/11/2011
She returned within a minute. ‘Here,’ she said. The envelope was sealed with a
preposterous seal of red wax. Mrs Lisle gave me a somewhat sardonic half-smile.
‘Always retain your sense of humour: in a cast of irony.’ She held up the reply, turning
the letter in her long fingers, her action filled with faint contempt, even disdain. ‘By the
weight of wax you’d think it might be a court document, wouldn’t you? A statutory
instrument? Something to do with the Entente Cordiale, perhaps, about to put the
Kaiser’s nose out of joint: furtive Johnny Bull sidling off with his French trollop
Marianne, maybe?’ She placed the note in my hand with a significant stare. ‘How I
appreciate the allusive.’ She sighed. ‘I miss intelligent conversation, you know. It’s
rare: more so than you would think.’
She let me out of the tradesmen’s door herself, saying ‘take care!’ and watched
me as I walked down the rear drive. When I reached the gateposts, I turned on impulse
and raised my arm in valediction. She — still watching me — immediately responded.
Though I never met her again she made a considerable impression on me. I can see the
pose of her slim-palmed, long-fingered hand to this day. The hand of an educated lady.
I returned to the station.
It was a pleasant afternoon. I stood on the single platform awaiting the return
train; I had expected myself to be alone, but I was not; a young woman joined me. She
was older than me; her face was very attractive but her walk was awkward. She had a
decided limp. She approached me.
‘You are awaiting the 2:10 also?’
‘I am,’ I said.
She smiled at me from under the shade of her plain straw hat. ‘I’ve not seen you
here before; what brings you to this remoteness?’
‘I was taking a message to Mr Peasey,’ I said.
‘Ah! You’ll be the young man from the Comedy, then.’ She held out her hand in
a very friendly fashion. ‘Elizabeth Peasey,’ she said. We shook hands. ‘We’ll keep each
other company on the train,’ she said; we could hear it puffing laboriously as it took
the steady gradient from the peat moor below.
‘The Comedy,’ she said. ‘Do you mind living there?’
‘Well, you are where you are put, but everyone’s always worried about what the
future holds,’ I said.
‘I’m not surprised,’ said Elizabeth. ‘There’s not much that one can do. It’s losing
money, you know. But —’ She sighed. ‘And renovations would cost far too much.
Still, we are young, you and I: we have our lives before us.’ Her face took on a
melancholy expression. I noticed that her cheeks were rather flushed and a little
feverish; her eyes were brilliant and expressive.
And so we made the short journey together, in the same compartment (Miss
Peasey having given up her right to first-class travel). As she lifted her long skirt
slightly in preparing to sit, I saw that she had iron leg-splints. She never once referred
to her illness, but, as we alighted at the terminus, she took my arm as though she were
tired. A phaeton from her father’s dockside premises awaited her. I watched her leave
with some sadness, and walked to the Comedy.
Everything in the entertainment line was grist to the Comedy’s mill. Plays,
recitals, opera, variety, pierrot troupes, winter pantomimes: anything short of circus.
Occasionally there was a thin period where bookings were few, and then a sense of
desperation fell about the place, and the various people who were employed in it began
to worry and to fall out over minor matters. I told my father of my conversation with
Mrs Lisle; he was very pleased; or said he was. I can’t imagine his being in service,
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The Automaton ~ David Wheldon ~ 6/11/2011
though. “You have to take what you can,” he had said. “You seem to go where you
are sent.” But then I can think of worse people than Mrs Lisle from whom to take
orders.
It was during a somewhat prolonged fallow season that the Automaton arrived,
on the back doorstep, as it were. I was present in the cobbled mews at the back of the
theatre, returning from an errand one misty afternoon, when the cart, drawn by an
ancient cob, drew up — it appeared out of the river-mist looking for all the world like
a tumbrel with a shrouded figure in it, apparently seated. I later learned that the
Automaton had arrived at the dock on the morning’s tide, part of the manifest of the SS
Foxglove, a steam coaster. Had it not been for my errand I would undoubtedly have
gone to the dock to meet the Foxglove; she is a handsome vessel, and I admire the way
she is handled in a dock-entrance known for its difficulty.
The Automaton was covered in dun, dark sheeting, but I could make out the
shape of a head, and then a rather narrow pair of shoulders: also, below the lower edge
of the sheeting, dark-green satin or watered silk. The tumbrel drew up at the stagedoor.
My offer to hold the horse was accepted. I was fascinated by the shrouded
shape. What would it be like? My imagination took full rein. And then the Automaton
was laboriously lifted from the cart. A pole was slid either side of the figure, and two
labourers took the poles afore and aft. And so the Automaton was carried, Sedan-chair
style, blind as fortune beneath its sheeting, into the darkness of the Comedy.
Advertisements had been placed in the papers, and sensational bills posted
around the town.
I stood at the side of the stage (quite literally in the wings), fascinated by the
sheeted figure.
‘Well, Madame! You are almost ready to take a look at your new surroundings!’
cried the impresario, removing the sheeting with a flourish.
The Automaton was a slim waxwork woman in green seated at a desk. Her head
was covered with a close-fitting calico slip which reached down to her shoulders.
‘My boy!’ shouted the impresario; he had seen me — his sight must have been
very sharp. ‘Come here! Make haste!’
I walked slowly from the wings, crossed the stage and jumped down into the
orchestra pit. I climbed up into the auditorium.
‘What is your name, my boy?’
‘William Bradney, sir.’
‘Well, Master Bradney, to you shall fall the honour of uncovering the lady.’ He
indicated the calico slip with a hand.
I lifted the hem of the slip: the creature beneath my hands gave a long but gentle
sigh. Her head was warm and there was a sensation of life.
Holding the empty calico tube in my hands I looked at her.
‘Thank you, Master Bradney. The lady impresses you. And fascinates you with
her qualities. And why should she not?’ He put a hand on the Automaton’s shoulder.
He spoke softly. ‘Well, Madame. Regard your new environment! See what you have
come down to!’ His voice was too low to find an echo in the empty auditorium.
‘Oh! Your hair! You need a hand-maid to brush it!’ said the impresario in his soft
voice. ‘But please, Madame, make do with me.’ He ran a comb mockingly through her
luxurious tresses of long, black hair and held up a mirror before her sightless face.
I stood before her, watching her in awe. Of what was she capable?
And so people came to see the mysterious Automaton. Now, as a spectacle, the
Automaton could only have been expected to be truly successful in a major city. The
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The Automaton ~ David Wheldon ~ 6/11/2011
Automaton played chess, and that was what the Automaton was billed to do: but really,
at the root of it, the Automaton was a stage property in a gambling scheme. No more
than that, it seemed: at least, that was how the Automaton’s proprietor — impresario
— treated her; and this upset me, for the Automaton had a feminine appearance
without any kind of that exaggeration so beloved of puppet-makers: her face was
vigilant, perceptive and wise: had she been alive you could easily have loved her. Yes,
a gambling act: the truly remarkable achievement — the ability of a machine to play
chess — was in his eyes merely a novelty. He would refer to her, somewhat mockingly,
as ‘Madame’. Every evening she was taken (Sedan-chair style) into the centre of the
auditorium (which was primitive and untiered) sitting at her kneehole desk on which
lay a very large chessboard of red and white inlaid marble, and red and white
chessmen, again large; their height was exaggerated to allow their identification at
some distance. Now, the general public — men and youths, mostly — would pay to
engage her in a game of chess. She would sit upright in front of the board in her darkgreen
satin dress, her long-fingered right hand resting on a large sand-glass. Money
having changed hands, her opponent would sit opposite her and toss a coin for colour.
And the game would begin.
Moves were timed. The Automaton would turn over her sand-glass and make her
move. Her movements were very smooth and graceful: and, it has to be said,
authoritative. This amazed me. I had always thought that automata would have a
mechanical, jerky kind of action. Not she. She would give a long sigh, almost below
the level of hearing, and her right hand would move with a fluid deliberation, her eyes
— almost but not quite unblinking — following the action of her hand. Her fingers
would gently touch the piece and lift it, carry it, and set it down on its allotted square.
Her fluidity and grace of movement unnerved most of her opponents. And she
didn’t seem to need much time to think. No sooner had her opponent made his move
than, with a sigh, she would reach her right hand above the board, its motion that of a
conjuror or a healer.
And she appeared to be unbeatable.
Well, I was fascinated by her. I hadn’t been taught to play chess, but even so I
could gather progress from the behaviour of her opponents. Frustration, anger, even:
the inevitability of that smooth right hand reaching for the enemy king: her eyes would
open and her dark irises would regard her opponent, as though absorbed in his
emotions. Then that long-fingered right hand would silently lay the defeated king on its
side.
‘Thank you, lady,’ some opponents would say, on standing, involuntarily bowing
before her, taking their humiliation in their stride. Others would remain silent and
perturbed.
And then there was the gambling.
There were many ways in which the gambling was done. You could simply place
a wager on the final result: the checkmate. At first this was highly successful and made
the impresario a lot of money. He was an ostensibly honest man and gave the agreed
percentage of takings to my father, who stowed it in the office safe. However, the
certainty of outcome after a while naturally made people reluctant to bet on the
Automaton’s losing. So the proprietor would advertise for good players. And they
arrived, full of confidence, a circle of their friends around them, and heavy money
would be put on their success. At the inevitable conclusion the loser would receive
banter from his friends: ‘see if you can do any better,’ he would say; and soon they
were all a good deal worse off. Then they retired to the bar.
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The Automaton ~ David Wheldon ~ 6/11/2011
Mr Siddall, a pharmacist in Eastover and a keen chess player, stood next to the
local clergyman. I overheard their conversation. ‘It’s tempting to bet against her at
first. You see, her game is to all appearances very uneven: it’s full of perdus — she’s
not possessive of her pieces: she sacrifices her most valuable with disdain, though she
does look after her pawns, I notice. As all good players, she plays to win. Her
opponents generally think they are doing well and have a winning scheme. Until the
late mid-game, that is. Most of their pieces stand on the board: most of hers are taken
— but how those remaining pieces wreck her opponents’ strategies and hunt down
their enemy king! The word implacable does not begin to describe it. Her outcomes
are as inevitable as those of Destiny.’
‘It is gambling, though,’ said the clergyman.
‘There’s no chance to it, Mr Bennett. She does not play like a machine; her
strategies are too complex and too unseen. And, sometimes, after a run of games like
that, she will slay for the sake of it: particularly after dark. It is almost as if she had
moods. And emotions. Have you been here after dark, Mr Bennett? No? You should
come. When the sun dips down and the gas-lights are turned on: why, she is without
mercy. Her eyes gleam. How she assembles her killing-pen! And she understands the
calibre of her opponents. I’ll swear she does. She explores the psyche of the person
who sits opposite her. She will demolish a too-pert tyro in a couple of minutes with a
Scholar’s Mate: but how does she know that she’s dealing with a beginner? And her
range of gambits: I have never seen anything like it. She reads her opponent’s mind and
sees his game. It’s like imagining sabre-play between two persons: but only one of
them has full use of their sight: and that is she. And she hurts those she finds she does
not like. She will set mines.’ He sighed. ‘Let me put it like this. From a position of
apparent weakness she will force a zugzwang.’ Seeing that the word was unfamiliar to
Mr Bennett he added: ‘A zugzwang. How shall I explain that term? Well, you can
make no move which will do otherwise than worsen your own position. Your moves
are made under her compulsion. She has made you her accomplice in your own
downfall. You are forced to do her will. You are helpless. You are bound at her feet.
You are her minion. You are the creature of an automaton. Now that is exquisite
humiliation.’
So, over the course of a week a surprising amount of money was taken, but this
was tailing off: no-one would bet against the Automaton. And, in the end, very few
people would take her on. Hurt and defeated, the local chess-players stayed at home.
My father did not like the gambling. But we had to make money. Mr Peasey was
happy enough. And a lot of money was taken in drink, too, for gambling seems to be a
thirsty occupation. But even this source of revenue dried up, and eventually, the place
was empty. The Automaton would sit alone in her inscrutable isolation, staring at the
balcony, her right hand resting on her sand-glass.
At night the Automaton was taken, Sedan-chair style, into the Green Room. The
impresario was given a key, which he held. But he didn’t know that there was a spare
key in the office safe.
So, one night, after the Automaton had been taken to the Green Room and the
impresario had left, the theatre darkened and all the workers gone home, I took the
spare key — my father had earlier asked me to fetch something from the safe, and had
given me the safe’s key — and made my way down the aisle of the auditorium, climbed
on the stage beneath the single burner of the fish-tail gas-lamp which burned in the
proscenium all night and walked behind the wings prompt-side and along the players’
corridor, its damp closeness faintly lit with beads of gas; the little crooked corridor
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The Automaton ~ David Wheldon ~ 6/11/2011
behind the stage, dark green gloss paint, a wooden floor which creaked. I stood before
the Green Room door — I can see the etched glass panels in my mind’s eye now, the
upper ones round-arched, giving them a London appearance, though we were in the
remote provinces. I could see the shape of the Automaton indistinctly through the
etched glass. Was I wise to do this? Was it right for me to enter? What would I find?
Who or what was the Automaton? By what agency did she operate? Who was she? I
must admit the hair was rising on my scalp. But I placed the key in the lock, turned it,
and opened the door: rather, I pushed it open, remaining in the corridor, and ready to
fly.
The Green Room was a high-ceilinged, austere chamber with three tall but
narrow sash windows which looked out onto the weed-filled yard in which there were
a number of rotting carriages; in fact it seemed a graveyard for old carriages, and had
been a handsome playground for me. Now a three-quarter moon hung low in the sky, a
little yellowish, behind some distant, smoking chimney-stacks. The Automaton was
sitting at her desk, her chess-board and sand-glass in front of her. She was facing out
of the window, and she looked for all the world as if she — apparelled in her green
Spitalfields silk (which was, it has to be said, somewhat stained) — were regarding the
scene outside, her mind pursuing deep private conundrums: her face was that of a
classical philosopher pondering the finality of apparent aporia. There was a quiet
dignity about her form, the cast of her shoulders, the proportions of her arms, the very
shape of her head.
I stood in front of her in admiration.
How curious is the imagination! I sat down in front of her in the moonlight. She
gave a long, low sigh: I swear she was looking at me with her dark, pensive eyes. Then
her right arm moved. One by one she cleared all the pieces from the board.
Then she took up a pawn with her right hand. She moved it. She waited, as
though for me to copy her.
And I realized her intent. She was teaching me how to play chess; first of all
voicelessly explaining the powers and potentials of each piece. And she had known that
I had no knowledge of the game.
And then we played a gentle game, she instructing me, explaining her strategies
and gambits by fluid movements of her hands.
Then she reset the board and her right hand rested on her sand-glass. Her
sentience faded.
My tuition was over for the night.
For the next week I spent every evening with her as she taught me her game.
And she allowed me an insight into her mind. I sat opposite her one night in the
near darkness, looking into her mysterious eyes. I could see a flat, smoky, war-like
landscape with an infinity of squares, and on it were moving chess pieces. There were
distant fires and the sound of falling masonry. Then she reached out with her right
hand, the movement smooth and fluid: she was holding a small cylinder of box-wood.
She spoke: her voice was silent but her words appeared in my mind. What shall this
be: which character is imprisoned within this wood? King, Queen, Bishop, or some
other, unknown potency? Or, maybe, the Pawn which is yourself? A Pawn it shall be.
I make you thus. And then I saw her mind itself, a vast and aweful network of
flickering nerve cells, shaping its own form. Come, let me lovingly fashion you to my
own ends, she said.
On Friday night I was with her as usual, sitting opposite her: I had grown very
fond of her silent company. I could feel the sentience of her presence, her look of
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The Automaton ~ David Wheldon ~ 6/11/2011
humanity, the warmth of her gaze. I loved her. She knew it. And so we quietly played.
She was making allowances, but, of course, she quietly won, as she always did. Then
she had replaced the pieces and now sat with her hand on her sand-glass.
Suddenly she wore an air of extraordinary vigilance: her gaze was so keen I was
afraid. She suddenly raised her right hand, and, with a loud sigh, she pointed to the
curtain of a dressing-room. Her gesture was both urgent and authoritative: I would not
have argued with it. Then I heard the sound of footsteps in the corridor. Without any
thought of my own I obeyed the Automaton, turned down the gas and softly made my
way to the darkened dressing room. I looked out from the crack between the curtains.
The door was unlocked: A figure entered and turned up the gas. It was the
Automaton’s impresario.
He stood before her, his hands in the pockets of his dress trousers, which, I have
to say, were a little threadbare and formless; one of the satin stripes had become
unstitched.
‘So, Madame, we have to change things. The trouble is that you always win.
After a time there’s no money to be made from that. I’m sure you see the argument.’
He paused, and looked at her, almost as if he expected her to make a reply.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘I made you, and I can do as I wish with you. You don’t have
delusions of being animate and sentient, do you? Perhaps you do. I have wondered.
Well, there’s not much I can do about that. But I did make you a very superior chessplayer
— you play a far greater game than ever I could — but now I shall change you.
You’ll become a moderately good chess-player. Tomorrow. You must become used to
it. You will understand what it is to lose. A new experience for you, eh? It will not be a
pleasant one, I suspect. Understand. We shall have a close confederacy. You can’t win
all the time and rake in the gold. And gold is what I’m short of.’
Again he appeared to be awaiting a reply.
He sighed. ‘We are no longer in Paris, Madame. Nor Saint Petersburg. Nor
Vienna. We are not entertaining the crowned heads of Europe now. The King of
Bavaria no longer chooses to take his chances against you. Neither do the statesmen of
the New World. Nor, Madame, the Sultan of Nishapur, with his mathematical advisors
at his elbow, quietly counselling his moves. You allowed him time: you abided by the
turn of your sand-glass, but you allowed him weeks between his moves. You allowed
him everything a mind could offer, and, of course, he lost to you.’
The impresario sighed. He looked across the room. ‘Madame, what did I hope
from you?’
He looked out of the window. ‘Regard, Madame, the one-eyed town we
entertain today. Well. We have to live. It’s difficult.’
His voice became more active, as if he were speaking to the Automaton as
though she possessed sentience and understanding. ‘Remember mediaeval Rochus, the
carver and image maker. I forget the city: he’s mentioned in Foxe’s treatise. Rochus
had his own workshop. Valladolid? I don’t remember. He had carved a statue of Our
Lady. She was of great beauty, her eyes compassionate, her arms ready to receive the
imploring prayers of the weary. Her head was bent so slightly in an expression of
Agapé: caring love — unconditional compassion: an acknowledgement of the love of
the divine for the dirty. Rochus placed this statue in a niche outside his workshop to
advertise his trade. At night he would bring the image in. One day two priests entered
his workshop. They had seen the statue and they wished to purchase it for the
cathedral. But Rochus would not sell. “I made it,” he said. “It testifies to my ability as
a sculptor. It brings me trade. I shall never sell.” “But you must. So beautiful a statue
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belongs in a holy place, not a place of trade, a workshop. She should communicate
prayers, not advertise the services of an artisan. She should adorn the Lady Chapel.
She should be carried in formal procession as a witness to the faith. She should remind
the old, the weak, the sick of their heavenly intercessor.” “No; I shall not sell. It is my
masterpiece: in fact it is the only piece of work of which I’m honestly proud. All
artists, all craftsmen, discern flaws in their work which no other eye can see. These
flaws damn them in their eyes. I would sell everything I create, save this. The flawless I
would never sell. But I see no flaws in her, and I’m a severe judge. And she is the
likeness of Our Lady as I perceive her in my inner eye: she has the face of a real
woman: her likeness is that of one who has lived and who commiserates with those
who suffer because she has known suffering herself. As you yourselves believe,
consider the words of the Stabat Mater: Cuius animam gementem ~ contristatam et
dolentem ~ pertransivit gladius: through her tearful spirit, sorrowful and sad — a
sword has passed. She weeps for her son: she weeps for us.” Rochus fell silent. One of
the priests (unmoved by this oratory) said: “if that statue were in the cathedral it would
be seen by many, many more people than happen to come down this alley with its low
taverns and wine-shops of ill-repute. Were she in the cathedral’s Lady Chapel we
would tell all enquirers the name of the sculptor: we would direct them to your
workshop: you would be inundated with requests and commissions from all over
Christendom. Why, papal emissaries would seek you out, and your work would be
taken to Rome. Why: Saint Peter’s is worthy of an image such as this. You could
employ apprentices, take on labourers, move to new and better premises. You could
start a new order of artistic thinking: the Spanish School of Rochus.” Rochus looked at
him. “I shall not sell, and that is my final word.” Still they pleaded with him until his
patience was exhausted. Then he sighed. He fetched his ladder and, climbing it,
brought down his statue. He placed it on his workbench. The priests smiled. They
plainly thought that their will had at last prevailed. “How much do you ask for her now
you have decided to sell?” asked one of the priests. “Be bold. The treasury isn’t bare
by any means: My Lady Isabella’s legacy was for the beautification of the city’s
churches.” “Her price?” Rochus laid his hands on a mallet and chisel. He placed the
chisel’s edge against the image’s nose. With one smart blow he removed it. The blow’s
echo sounded throughout the workshop. “There: how’s that for boldness? The flaw is
made in the flawless.” he said. “You want her now? No? She is still the same wood.
You may have her, flawed by my own hand, for nothing.” Indeed, her graceful face
was now pitiable to see: the beautiful gaze of her eyes, the curves of her mouth, halfopen
in prayer and intercession were poignant in their state of being bereft. “You see,”
said Rochus. “You never thought anything of her nose — it was actually a little snub
— when it was in place. But now it’s gone and she is worthless. And you don’t know
her history. I might have knocked it off before, and afterwards replaced it with a nose
more aquiline. With glue. Once painted, you’d never know it had been anything
different. You never know what either priests or craftsmen get up to in their
workplaces.” When the priests had gone, Rochus glued the nose back on, and, with a
little stopping and paint, she was as good as new. Actually, that last is my invention: it
is not recorded in Foxe’s treatise. Well, Madame, that’s you finished. You’ll now play
chess, oh, reasonably well.’ He slapped her on the shoulders; a curiously realistic
sound.
He put his hands on his hips. ‘So, Madame. You exist to make money. Just the
same as that image. You may think otherwise. But my say-so goes, as far as you are
concerned. And the end of that story of Rochus? The priests returned the next day.
9

The Automaton ~ David Wheldon ~ 6/11/2011
They were not alone, though: with them was a man in black from the Holy Office, and
his two helmeted enforcers with their pikes. Rochus? He was taken away and was
never seen again. So. I’ll see you tomorrow, Madame. Better times may come. Get
some sleep. Don’t be distressed. What’s the use of a distress that no-one else ever
sees? Goodnight.’
The impresario turned off the gas and left, locking the door. I heard his retreating
footsteps in the echoing corridor.
I turned the gas on again, and sat opposite the Automaton. She lifted her right
hand and held mine with a firm intensity, even passion. I felt the warm pressure of her
long, thoughtful fingers. I looked at her face; I could see the glow of the gas-mantles in
the highlights of her eyes. Unthinkingly — unable to restrain myself — I leaned over
the desk, and put an arm about her slim shoulders to offer her all the comfort that I
could.
Her mouth opened slightly; she gave a long sigh as she often did before making a
chess move; then she began to sob — not on account of her own uncertain
predicament, but selflessly on account of mine, and, it has to be said, the general
human circumstance — which she now seemed timelessly to understand — and huge,
clear tears gathered in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.
THE END
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