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"Yes like my glory! But it is shut up in the château of Andernatt, and I wish to see it again!" The hermit crossed himself; Scholastique became almost inanimate. Aubert held Gerande in his arms. "The château of Andernatt is inhabited by one who is lost," said the hermit, "one who does not salute the cross of my hermitage." "My father, go not thither!" "I want my soul! My soul is mine " "Hold him!
The château of Andernatt was a ruin even then. A thick, crumbling tower rose above it, and seemed to menace with its downfall the old gables which reared themselves below. The vast piles of jagged stones were gloomy to look on. Several dark halls appeared amid the debris, with caved-in ceilings, now become the abode of vipers.
"Let us hasten thither," replied Aubert. "We may still save him!" "Not for this life," murmured Gerande, "but at least for the other." "By the mercy of God, Gerande! The château of Andernatt stands in the gorge of the 'Dents-du-Midi' twenty hours from Geneva. Let us go!" That very evening Aubert and Gerande, followed by the old servant, set out on foot by the road which skirts Lake Leman.
The spring bounded before him, first on one side, then on the other, and he could not reach it. At last Pittonaccio seized it, and, uttering a horrible blasphemy, ingulfed himself in the earth. Master Zacharius fell backwards. He was dead. The old watchmaker was buried in the midst of the peaks of Andernatt.
All the watches or clocks made by the old man, and which had been returned to him because they were out of order, were stricken out excepting one: "Sold to M. Pittonaccio, an iron clock, with bell and moving figures; sent to his château at Andernatt." It was this "moral" clock of which Scholastique had spoken with so much enthusiasm. "My father is there!" cried Gerande.
He returned to the hermitage of Notre-Dame-du-Sex, and talked so despairingly to the holy recluse, that the latter consented to return with him to the château of Andernatt. If, during these hours of anguish, Gerande had not wept, it was because her tears were exhausted. Master Zacharius had not left the hall. He ran every moment to listen to the regular beating of the old clock.
"But has he not invented machines which go all by themselves, and which actually do the work of a real man?" "Could a child of the devil," exclaimed dame Scholastique wrathfully, "have executed the fine iron clock of the château of Andernatt, which the town of Geneva was not rich enough to buy?
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