A Reverse of Fortune—Cookery and Clockwork—The Artist’s Home—Invention of an Automaton—Voluntary Exile—A modest Villa—The Inconveniences of a Speciality—Two August Visitors—The Throat of a mechanical Nightingale—The Tiou and the Rrrrrrrrouit—Seven Thousand Francs earned by making Filings.
IN the meanwhile I worked indefatigably at my automata, hoping that when these were completed, I should be able to establish myself permanently. But, in spite of my activity, I advanced very slowly towards the realization of my long-deferred hopes.
Only an inventor can know the value of a day’s work on the gloomy road to success in combining automata. Numberless trials and deceptions of every nature foil at any moment the best-conceived plans, and seem to realize the pleasant story about reaching the end of a journey by making two steps forward and three backward.
I performed this wearisome progress during six months, and, at the end of that time, though I had several specimens far advanced, it was still impossible for me to fix the period when they would be quite finished. In order not to defer my appearance before the public, I therefore resolved to begin with my conjuring tricks and such automata as were ready. I had arranged with an architect, who was to help me in finding a suitable site for a theatre, but I had scarce taken my first steps, when an unforeseen catastrophe ruined both my father-in-law and myself.
This reverse of fortune threw me into a state of abject despondency, for I saw, to my terror, the realization of my plans indefinitely postponed. I could no longer think of inventing machines, but must work, day by day, to support my large family. I had four children, all very young, and this was a heavy burden on a man who had never yet thought of his own interests.
The vulgar truth, “Time dissipates the severest griefs,” is not the less true from being so often repeated; and it was the case with me. I was at first as wretched as man could well be; then my despair gradually died away, and made room for sorrow and resignation. At last, as it is not my nature to keep up a melancholy character long, I ended by accepting the situation. Then the future, which had appeared so gloomy, assumed a different face, and, by a gradual process of reasoning, I began to indulge in reflections whose consoling philosophy restored my courage.
“Why should I despair?” I said to myself. “At my age, time itself is a fortune, and I have a considerable reserve fund of that. Besides, who knows whether Providence, by sending me this trial, has not wished to delay an undertaking that was not yet quite assured of success?”
In fact, what had I to offer the public that would overcome the indifference a new performer always inspires?—improved conjuring tricks! Those, I thought, would not prevent me failing, for I was unaware at that period that, in order to please the public, an idea must be, if not novel, at least completely transformed, so that it cannot be recognized. Only in that way can an artiste escape a remark that always fills him with dread—“I have seen that before.” My automata and mechanical curiosities would not have betrayed the hopes I built upon them, but I had too few, and the specimens I had in hand still required years of study and labor.
These wise reflections restored my courage, and, resigned to my new situation, I resolved to effect an utter reform in my budget. I had nothing more to look for than what I earned with my own hands, so I hired a modest lodging, at three hundred francs a year, in the Rue du Temple. It consisted of a room, a cabinet and a stove in a cupboard, to which my proprietor gave the name of kitchen. I converted the largest room into our common sleeping apartment, the cabinet served as my workshop, while the stove kitchen was used to prepare our modest meals.
My wife, though in delicate health, undertook the household department. Fortunately, this was not very laborious, as our meals were most modest; and as our rooms were limited in number, there was not much moving about required. The proximity of our mutual laboratories had also this double advantage, that, whenever my housekeeper was absent, I could watch the pot-au-feu or stir a ragoût without leaving my levers, wheels and cogs.