" and very complicated. But this one is simpler." He worked a lever to make the grinning dog's jaw open and its eyes blink comically. "This is an imitation I made myself of an ancient Egyptian toy."
He peered over the toy at a sobbing child in the first row. "I didn't do a very good job, I guess."
"What happened to the Francine doll?" asked one of the mothers.
"Ah." The toymaker limped down the length of the table and put his mask away. Meanwhile Elsie opened another box and extracted, in rapid succession, a blue- and white-striped top, a little metal cowboy on a pony, a red and black bird on a music box, and a top-hatted Pierrot clown with the oversized round face of a full moon. One by one Saulnay began to wind them up.
"I can answer that question," he said. "Poor Francine doll—the sailors were terrified and ran to tell the captain. When the captain saw her, he too was shocked—he thought this was the work of the Devil and must be the reason for the terrible, terrible storm."
Elsie released the cowboy and his pony began to buck. The bird opened and closed its beak and chirped. And the clown began to swing his arms and march in a straight line toward the edge of the table. The children screamed and pointed.
The toymaker ignored the clown.
"It is true, by the way," he said, "that automates can't turn
around or change direction. They can only walk forwards or backwards. To change direction and not fall down would require a gyroscope inside, something like this spinning top. But gyroscopes are very large—they use them to steer ships. Nobody has ever made a gyroscope small enough to steer a doll."
He finally looked over at the moon-faced clown as it rocked like a metronome back and forth, closer and closer to the side of the table. Over the shouts of the children he said, "You asked what happened to the Francine doll, Madame? It was a case of Science versus Superstition, you know, and Superstition is always stronger. The sailors took Francine and threw her overboard and drowned her."
He straightened, grinned, brushed the sides of his jacket again, and at the last possible moment his hand swooped out and caught the clown's leg. The children erupted in an earsplitting geyser of cheers.
"Too damn loud for me," said the man on my left, starting for the door.
But I stayed exactly where I was, fists clenched, brow drenched in sweat, mesmerized.
Twelve
I F SOMEONE BELIEVES THAT A DOLL LOOKS "sad" or "angry," that is what the Viennese Doctor Sigmund Freud calls "The Uncanny"—the terrifying feeling we have when we can't be certain that what we are seeing is alive or dead. The Uncanny can be triggered, Freud says, by waxwork figures like those at Madame Tussaud's—and also by ingeniously constructed dolls and automates. A child's innocent desire for her doll to come to life is one thing. But a walking or gesturing automaton may suddenly provoke, in children and adults alike, a deep and unreasoning fear.
Or obsession.
The "Théâtre des Automates" was hardly more than an auditorium tucked into one wing of the Conservatory museum, so I had to wait for Elsie outside in the corridor, in a milling crowd of mothers and costumed children, next to the big brass industrial weaving loom I had passed going in. This time, reading the placard at its base, I was not entirely surprised to see that the loom had been fabricated in the "Workshop of Jacques
de Vaucanson" in 1762. I was just leaning forward and squinting into its Lilliputian gears and pistons when the door swung open and Henri Saulnay emerged.
The war had ended eight years ago. But to the French—and the Germans too, for that matter—it was still as fresh and bitter as ever, the bloodiest chapter yet in their centuries-long mutual insanity. Whether it was his intimidating bulk or his German accent, nobody made a move toward him.
He peered over the toy at a sobbing child in the first row. "I didn't do a very good job, I guess."
"What happened to the Francine doll?" asked one of the mothers.
"Ah." The toymaker limped down the length of the table and put his mask away. Meanwhile Elsie opened another box and extracted, in rapid succession, a blue- and white-striped top, a little metal cowboy on a pony, a red and black bird on a music box, and a top-hatted Pierrot clown with the oversized round face of a full moon. One by one Saulnay began to wind them up.
"I can answer that question," he said. "Poor Francine doll—the sailors were terrified and ran to tell the captain. When the captain saw her, he too was shocked—he thought this was the work of the Devil and must be the reason for the terrible, terrible storm."
Elsie released the cowboy and his pony began to buck. The bird opened and closed its beak and chirped. And the clown began to swing his arms and march in a straight line toward the edge of the table. The children screamed and pointed.
The toymaker ignored the clown.
"It is true, by the way," he said, "that automates can't turn
around or change direction. They can only walk forwards or backwards. To change direction and not fall down would require a gyroscope inside, something like this spinning top. But gyroscopes are very large—they use them to steer ships. Nobody has ever made a gyroscope small enough to steer a doll."
He finally looked over at the moon-faced clown as it rocked like a metronome back and forth, closer and closer to the side of the table. Over the shouts of the children he said, "You asked what happened to the Francine doll, Madame? It was a case of Science versus Superstition, you know, and Superstition is always stronger. The sailors took Francine and threw her overboard and drowned her."
He straightened, grinned, brushed the sides of his jacket again, and at the last possible moment his hand swooped out and caught the clown's leg. The children erupted in an earsplitting geyser of cheers.
"Too damn loud for me," said the man on my left, starting for the door.
But I stayed exactly where I was, fists clenched, brow drenched in sweat, mesmerized.
Twelve
I F SOMEONE BELIEVES THAT A DOLL LOOKS "sad" or "angry," that is what the Viennese Doctor Sigmund Freud calls "The Uncanny"—the terrifying feeling we have when we can't be certain that what we are seeing is alive or dead. The Uncanny can be triggered, Freud says, by waxwork figures like those at Madame Tussaud's—and also by ingeniously constructed dolls and automates. A child's innocent desire for her doll to come to life is one thing. But a walking or gesturing automaton may suddenly provoke, in children and adults alike, a deep and unreasoning fear.
Or obsession.
The "Théâtre des Automates" was hardly more than an auditorium tucked into one wing of the Conservatory museum, so I had to wait for Elsie outside in the corridor, in a milling crowd of mothers and costumed children, next to the big brass industrial weaving loom I had passed going in. This time, reading the placard at its base, I was not entirely surprised to see that the loom had been fabricated in the "Workshop of Jacques
de Vaucanson" in 1762. I was just leaning forward and squinting into its Lilliputian gears and pistons when the door swung open and Henri Saulnay emerged.
The war had ended eight years ago. But to the French—and the Germans too, for that matter—it was still as fresh and bitter as ever, the bloodiest chapter yet in their centuries-long mutual insanity. Whether it was his intimidating bulk or his German accent, nobody made a move toward him.
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