Publisher's Synopsis
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: MASTER ZACHARY, A WINTEK NIGHT. city of Geneva lies on the western shore of the - lake to which it gives or owes its name. The Rhone, which crosses it on issuing from the lake, divides it into two distinct parts, and is itself divided in the centre of the city, by an island midway between its two shores. This topographic position is often reproduced in great centres of commerce and industry. Doubtless the first settlers were tempted by the easy transport offered by the rapid branches of the river, '' those roads which walk alone, as Pascal called them. In the Rhone, the roads run. At a date when no new and commodious dwellings stood upon that island, anchored midflood, like a Dutch galleon, the wonderful pile of houses, climbing one above the other, afforded the eye a view full of charming confusion. The small extent of the island forced some of these constructions to perch on piles, driven helter-skelter into the rough bed of the Rhone. These huge joists, black with age, worn by the waves, looked like immense crab's claws, and produced an odd effect. A few yellowish threads, real spiders'-webs, stretched across this ancient substructure, waved to and fro in the shadow, like the leaves of old oaks; and the stream flowing through the forest of piles, foamed and frothed with melancholy groans. One of these island dwellings struck you at once by its look of rare old age. It was the home of the old clockmaker, Master Zachary, his daughter Gerande, Aubert Thiin, his apprentice, and his old servant-maid, Scholastique. What a strange man Zachary was! His age was unknown. The oldest inhabitant of Geneva could not say how long his withered head had shaken on his shoulders, nor when he was first seen walking through the city streets, his long white hair floating on the w...
