Master Zacharius
Master Zacharius is a short story by the French author Jules Verne . The short story was first published in April and May 1854 under the French title Maître Zacharius ou l'horloger qui avait perdu son âme. Tradition genevoise published in the Musée des Familles magazine. In 1874 the story was first published in book form in the collection of stories An idea by Dr. Ox ( Le Docteur Ox ) published.
action
At an unspecified time, probably in the 17th or 18th century, the master watchmaker Zacharius lived on the edge of Lake Geneva in the then still small town of Geneva . His house is on a small island of the Rhone in the tributary of the lake. The foundation of the house is made up of fairly rotten piles. Zacharius is a watchmaker out of conviction and, as a mechanic, has made some small inventions that make him famous beyond the city limits. The recognition for the anchor escapement he developed fills him with pride, but also with arrogance. His watches are characterized by a high level of accuracy and precision, which is paired with artistic standards. For Zacharius this is the basis for a materially secure life.
In his secluded workshop, Zacharius only interacts with his journeyman Aubert. His daughter Gérande and the old housekeeper Scholastique still live in his house. Aubert and Gérande fall in love and plan to get married soon. The always introverted Zacharius is getting more and more strange. He also suffers from a mysterious illness that keeps him wasting away. He loses his inner drive. At the same time, there are problems with his clocks built in the past. Zacharius feels attacked in his pride. He also wants to convey his very special philosophy of working to his journeymen, who, however, have a different attitude towards his work. Zacharius wants to convey to Aubert that the metals that Zacharius worked begin to pulsate through his genius like living flesh. He tells Aubert that he has discovered the secret of life. He understands it to be the mysterious connection between soul and body. He increasingly compares himself to God, to whom he sees himself at least as equal through his work and his creations.
The conflict raised to a question of faith is increasingly eating away at Zacharius. When the first customers come to his workshop and bring back his watches, all of which are now defective, he sees himself misunderstood by the world and is increasingly suffering from it physically. A strange man appears who looks like a humanized clock. This male visits the master Zacharius, but chases the children in the city on the way there. Gérande is deeply concerned when the male expresses the view that Gérande Aubert will never marry.
Gérande realizes that her father has lost his right faith. She decides that in addition to her daily prayers, her father should be purified by a visit to St. Peter's Cathedral . The last missing watches are returned to the master by the customers. All customers ask for their money back because the watches are unusable. Master Zacharius has to part with his modest wealth. Poverty comes into the house. Gérande can persuade her father to go to church. Zacharius, however, is not a humble churchgoer. He stands in the church full of arrogance, the words from the pulpit do not get through to him. Something strikes him deep inside: the church tower clock , which was still running precisely until then, stops in the middle of the service. Zacharius collapses unconscious. At home he realizes that his time is up. Weakened, he promises Aubert his daughter's hand. He fights against death. Following a suspicion, he flips through his order books and finds out that all but one of his watches have been returned. He imagines that his own existence is tied to this clock and wants to find it again.
To the surprise of the young people, he disappears. These follow him based on the information in the order book. The missing clock is obviously in the Andermatt Castle . He is almost mad with happiness when he finds the still intact watch and tries to get it into his possession, as it is the symbol of his life for him. The mysterious male appears. It turns out that it lives in the castle and is the owner of the watch. The male promises Master Zacharius the watch when he gives him his daughter to wife. The two fiancés are horrified. The watch we are looking for is designed in such a way that it displays pious sayings at regular intervals using ingenious mechanics. But now it shows blasphemous sayings instead, such as: "Man can become like God". Finally the clock bursts. The male Pittonaccio sinks into the ground with blasphemy on his lips and Master Zacharius dies.
literature
- Jules Verne: Master Zacharius or the watchmaker who lost his soul (according to a Geneva tradition) . Translated from the French and provided with an afterword by Ulrich Klappstein. jmb, Hannover 2013, ISBN 978-3-944342-24-5 .
- Heinrich Pleticha (ed.): Jules Verne manual . Deutscher Bücherbund / Bertelsmann, Stuttgart and Munich 1992.
- Volker Dehs and Ralf Junkerjürgen: Jules Verne . Voices and interpretations of his work. Fantastic Library Wetzlar, Wetzlar 2005.
- Volker Dehs : Jules Verne . Jules Verne. A critical biography. Artemis & Winkler, Düsseldorf 2005. ISBN 3-538-07208-6
Web links
- Master Zacharius on zeno.org
- Master Zacharius in Andreas Fehrmann's Jules Verne Collection
- Master Zacharius as an audio book on LibriVox