A BIT OF THE BACK STORY

Some time ago, four automatons kept house together in London. The mechanical girl played the harpsichord; the mechanical boy wrote in perfect copperplate; the mechanical bird hopped up and down and whistled. The mechanical wizard held a wand and a book and, if you put a coin in his hand, he would close his eyes and nod back his head and point his wand at a list of answers. He felt fortune telling was beneath him, but there was rent to pay.
A discontented magician, even one who runs by clockwork, is a chancy thing. There was little magic in London in those days, but somehow he had a share of the little there was. He had a queer relation with the automaton maker Henri Maillardet and always insisted that he had assisted in his own creation. For several years after Maillardet’s death, the magician moped and the fortunes he gave became more and more gloomy. Lovers were told they would forget one another; expectant heirs that their rich and ailing uncles would find unsuspected reservoirs of strength.

Having heard the same songs everyday for many years he one day idly pointed his wand at the girl and grated “Can you not play something else?” She could; no one had ever asked her.  The mechanical boy apprenticed himself to the magician and the two of them – after many failed attempts, one of whom almost became Prime Minister and two of whom had to be hunted down by the men from Bow Street, finally conjured up the ghost of old Maillardet. At night, very late, the boy the magician and the ghost would slip outside and, standing well away from the lamplight, smoke narrow cigars. No matter how windy the night, the smoke would gather around their heads and then slowly drift towards the ground.

SO FAR THE STORY

The wizard, tired at last of life, went looking for his heart
Thinking to be mortal once more. He crossed the desert
Long deemed uncrossable, climbed the glass mountain,
Tricked the faithsworn demon into leaving his post,
Coming at last to the ruins of the tower where --
An unimaginable number of years before --
He had been raised and beneath which was a cavern
Whose darkest corner hid his heart which adamantly

Refused to return to the hollow in his chest.

"Ever were you stubborn," said the wizard,
"Ever did you stand against me, keeping me awake
With your witless, steady beating. I have prospered
Well and more than well without you. Still, you are my heart
And I am weary and seek to die." "Selfish as ever!"
Said his heart. "Ages have passed since we were one.
 I have no wish to rejoin you, nor do I think
That it is even possible. This is not how the story goes.
Some youngest son, some clever girl, was meant to find me,
Against all odds and slay you by stilling me
With one shrewd thrust of an enchanted blade
Or the sound of three syllables not meant for human tongue.
Why, then, did no hero ever come nor heroine?"
"New stories replaced the old; desert sands concealed the way across;
Few got past the demons. The destined slayer
Was, I believe, slain by me in his cradle. At the time
I thought it a prudent bit of work. I regret it now."

HOGARTH'S CAT and NIETZSCHE AT THE PIANO

Hogarth saw at Southwark Fair

The skeleton of a cat.

Sad, yet not too strange

But consider: the skeleton

Stood upright, wore a hat,

Had a sword at its side

(You can see it still

In Hogarth’s engraving).

In that busy scene the cat

Stands near a collapsing balustrade

Which seems like to crush

Those beneath it. Perhaps

Those who died had just time

To reflect that the world

Was odder than they’d suspected

 

I will go onto a bar someday -- Gavagan's perhaps -- and announce some out-of-the-way fact I've found. "Nietzsche," I'll announce, "played the piano. More; he was highly skilled at improvisation."

"Splendid!" the wizard will say. "I'll conjure up his spirit and ask him to play."

"You forget," the psychiatrist will put in, "that Nietzsche died mad; before we ask him to play I'll have to restore him to sanity."

Another voice -- that of the Countess, I think -- will speak. "Then I'll seduce him and drive him mad again." She'll shrug, charmingly, and sound almost apologetic. "It's what I do."

The Artist will suggest a gigantic mural be commissioned called "The Spirit of Nietzsche Summoned from Beyond the Grave to Play the Piano for some Drunks in a Bar." Not wanting to disturb my friends, and the men's room being out of order, I'll quietly step into the alley out back. A shadowy figure will be checking that his fly is buttoned. "Nietzsche?" I'll say. "No; sorry. Just Franz Kafka. I came by because I heard Nietzsche might be playing ... I have an idea for a musical I want to pitch him."