Chapter: THE BELL-TOWER.


In the south of Europe, nigh a once frescoed capital, now with dank
mould cankering its bloom, central in a plain, stands what, at distance,
seems the black mossed stump of some immeasurable pine, fallen, in
forgotten days, with Anak and the Titan.

As all along where the pine tree falls, its dissolution leaves a mossy
mound--last-flung shadow of the perished trunk; never lengthening, never
lessening; unsubject to the fleet falsities of the sun; shade immutable,
and true gauge which cometh by prostration--so westward from what seems
the stump, one steadfast spear of lichened ruin veins the plain.

From that tree-top, what birded chimes of silver throats had rung. A
stone pine; a metallic aviary in its crown: the Bell-Tower, built by the
great mechanician, the unblest foundling, Bannadonna.

Like Babel's, its base was laid in a high hour of renovated earth,
following the second deluge, when the waters of the Dark Ages had dried
up, and once more the green appeared. No wonder that, after so long and
deep submersion, the jubilant expectation of the race should, as with
Noah's sons, soar into Shinar aspiration.

In firm resolve, no man in Europe at that period went beyond Bannadonna.
Enriched through commerce with the Levant, the state in which he lived
voted to have the noblest Bell-Tower in Italy. His repute assigned him
to be architect.

Stone by stone, month by month, the tower rose. Higher, higher;
snail-like in pace, but torch or rocket in its pride.

After the masons would depart, the builder, standing alone upon its
ever-ascending summit, at close of every day, saw that he overtopped
still higher walls and trees. He would tarry till a late hour there,
wrapped in schemes of other and still loftier piles. Those who of
saints' days thronged the spot--hanging to the rude poles of
scaffolding, like sailors on yards, or bees on boughs, unmindful of lime
and dust, and falling chips of stone--their homage not the less
inspirited him to self-esteem.

At length the holiday of the Tower came. To the sound of viols, the
climax-stone slowly rose in air, and, amid the firing of ordnance, was
laid by Bannadonna's hands upon the final course. Then mounting it, he
stood erect, alone, with folded arms, gazing upon the white summits of
blue inland Alps, and whiter crests of bluer Alps off-shore--sights
invisible from the plain. Invisible, too, from thence was that eye he
turned below, when, like the cannon booms, came up to him the people's
combustions of applause.

That which stirred them so was, seeing with what serenity the builder
stood three hundred feet in air, upon an unrailed perch. This none but
he durst do. But his periodic standing upon the pile, in each stage of
its growth--such discipline had its last result.

Little remained now but the bells. These, in all respects, must
correspond with their receptacle.

The minor ones were prosperously cast. A highly enriched one followed,
of a singular make, intended for suspension in a manner before unknown.
The purpose of this bell, its rotary motion, and connection with the
clock-work, also executed at the time, will, in the sequel, receive
mention.

In the one erection, bell-tower and clock-tower were united, though,
before that period, such structures had commonly been built distinct; as
the Campanile and Torre del 'Orologio of St. Mark to this day attest.

But it was upon the great state-bell that the founder lavished his more
daring skill. In vain did some of the less elated magistrates here
caution him; saying that though truly the tower was Titanic, yet limit
should be set to the dependent weight of its swaying masses. But
undeterred, he prepared his mammoth mould, dented with mythological
devices; kindled his fires of balsamic firs; melted his tin and copper,
and, throwing in much plate, contributed by the public spirit of the
nobles, let loose the tide.

The unleashed metals bayed like hounds. The workmen shrunk. Through
their fright, fatal harm to the bell was dreaded. Fearless as Shadrach,
Bannadonna, rushing through the glow, smote the chief culprit with his
ponderous ladle. From the smitten part, a splinter was dashed into the
seething mass, and at once was melted in.

Next day a portion of the work was heedfully uncovered. All seemed
right. Upon the third morning, with equal satisfaction, it was bared
still lower. At length, like some old Theban king, the whole cooled
casting was disinterred. All was fair except in one strange spot. But as
he suffered no one to attend him in these inspections, he concealed the
blemish by some preparation which none knew better to devise.

The casting of such a mass was deemed no small triumph for the caster;
one, too, in which the state might not scorn to share. The homicide was
overlooked. By the charitable that deed was but imputed to sudden
transports of esthetic passion, not to any flagitious quality. A kick
from an Arabian charger; not sign of vice, but blood.

His felony remitted by the judge, absolution given him by the priest,
what more could even a sickly conscience have desired.

Honoring the tower and its builder with another holiday, the republic
witnessed the hoisting of the bells and clock-work amid shows and pomps
superior to the former.

Some months of more than usual solitude on Bannadonna's part ensued. It
was not unknown that he was engaged upon something for the belfry,
intended to complete it, and surpass all that had gone before. Most
people imagined that the design would involve a casting like the bells.
But those who thought they had some further insight, would shake their
heads, with hints, that not for nothing did the mechanician keep so
secret. Meantime, his seclusion failed not to invest his work with more
or less of that sort of mystery pertaining to the forbidden.

Ere long he had a heavy object hoisted to the belfry, wrapped in a dark
sack or cloak--a procedure sometimes had in the case of an elaborate
piece of sculpture, or statue, which, being intended to grace the front
of a new edifice, the architect does not desire exposed to critical
eyes, till set up, finished, in its appointed place. Such was the
impression now. But, as the object rose, a statuary present observed, or
thought he did, that it was not entirely rigid, but was, in a manner,
pliant. At last, when the hidden thing had attained its final height,
and, obscurely seen from below, seemed almost of itself to step into the
belfry, as if with little assistance from the crane, a shrewd old
blacksmith present ventured the suspicion that it was but a living man.
This surmise was thought a foolish one, while the general interest
failed not to augment.

Not without demur from Bannadonna, the chief-magistrate of the town,
with an associate--both elderly men--followed what seemed the image up
the tower. But, arrived at the belfry, they had little recompense.
Plausibly entrenching himself behind the conceded mysteries of his art,
the mechanician withheld present explanation. The magistrates glanced
toward the cloaked object, which, to their surprise, seemed now to have
changed its attitude, or else had before been more perplexingly
concealed by the violent muffling action of the wind without. It seemed
now seated upon some sort of frame, or chair, contained within the
domino. They observed that nigh the top, in a sort of square, the web of
the cloth, either from accident or design, had its warp partly
withdrawn, and the cross threads plucked out here and there, so as to
form a sort of woven grating. Whether it were the low wind or no,
stealing through the stone lattice-work, or only their own perturbed
imaginations, is uncertain, but they thought they discerned a slight
sort of fitful, spring-like motion, in the domino. Nothing, however
incidental or insignificant, escaped their uneasy eyes. Among other
things, they pried out, in a corner, an earthen cup, partly corroded and
partly encrusted, and one whispered to the other, that this cup was just
such a one as might, in mockery, be offered to the lips of some brazen
statue, or, perhaps, still worse.

But, being questioned, the mechanician said, that the cup was simply
used in his founder's business, and described the purpose; in short, a
cup to test the condition of metals in fusion. He added, that it had got
into the belfry by the merest chance.

Again, and again, they gazed at the domino, as at some suspicious
incognito at a Venetian mask. All sorts of vague apprehensions stirred
them. They even dreaded lest, when they should descend, the
mechanician, though without a flesh and blood companion, for all that,
would not be left alone.

Affecting some merriment at their disquietude, he begged to relieve
them, by extending a coarse sheet of workman's canvas between them and
the object.

Meantime he sought to interest them in his other work; nor, now that the
domino was out of sight, did they long remain insensible to the artistic
wonders lying round them; wonders hitherto beheld but in their
unfinished state; because, since hoisting the bells, none but the caster
had entered within the belfry. It was one trait of his, that, even in
details, he would not let another do what he could, without too great
loss of time, accomplish for himself. So, for several preceding weeks,
whatever hours were unemployed in his secret design, had been devoted to
elaborating the figures on the bells.

The clock-bell, in particular, now drew attention. Under a patient
chisel, the latent beauty of its enrichments, before obscured by the
cloudings incident to casting, that beauty in its shyest grace, was now
revealed. Round and round the bell, twelve figures of gay girls,
garlanded, hand-in-hand, danced in a choral ring--the embodied hours.

"Bannadonna," said the chief, "this bell excels all else. No added touch
could here improve. Hark!" hearing a sound, "was that the wind?"

"The wind, Excellenza," was the light response. "But the figures, they
are not yet without their faults. They need some touches yet. When those
are given, and the--block yonder," pointing towards the canvas screen,
"when Haman there, as I merrily call him,--him? _it_, I mean--when Haman
is fixed on this, his lofty tree, then, gentlemen, will I be most happy
to receive you here again."

The equivocal reference to the object caused some return of
restlessness. However, on their part, the visitors forbore further
allusion to it, unwilling, perhaps, to let the foundling see how easily
it lay within his plebeian art to stir the placid dignity of nobles.

"Well, Bannadonna," said the chief, "how long ere you are ready to set
the clock going, so that the hour shall be sounded? Our interest in
you, not less than in the work itself, makes us anxious to be assured of
your success. The people, too,--why, they are shouting now. Say the
exact hour when you will be ready."

"To-morrow, Excellenza, if you listen for it,--or should you not, all
the same--strange music will be heard. The stroke of one shall be the
first from yonder bell," pointing to the bell adorned with girls and
garlands, "that stroke shall fall there, where the hand of Una clasps
Dua's. The stroke of one shall sever that loved clasp. To-morrow, then,
at one o'clock, as struck here, precisely here," advancing and placing
his finger upon the clasp, "the poor mechanic will be most happy once
more to give you liege audience, in this his littered shop. Farewell
till then, illustrious magnificoes, and hark ye for your vassal's
stroke."

His still, Vulcanic face hiding its burning brightness like a forge, he
moved with ostentatious deference towards the scuttle, as if so far to
escort their exit. But the junior magistrate, a kind-hearted man,
troubled at what seemed to him a certain sardonical disdain, lurking
beneath the foundling's humble mien, and in Christian sympathy more
distressed at it on his account than on his own, dimly surmising what
might be the final fate of such a cynic solitaire, nor perhaps
uninfluenced by the general strangeness of surrounding things, this good
magistrate had glanced sadly, sideways from the speaker, and thereupon
his foreboding eye had started at the expression of the unchanging face
of the Hour Una.

"How is this, Bannadonna?" he lowly asked, "Una looks unlike her
sisters."

"In Christ's name, Bannadonna," impulsively broke in the chief, his
attention, for the first attracted to the figure, by his associate's
remark, "Una's face looks just like that of Deborah, the prophetess, as
painted by the Florentine, Del Fonca."

"Surely, Bannadonna," lowly resumed the milder magistrate, "you meant
the twelve should wear the same jocundly abandoned air. But see, the
smile of Una seems but a fatal one. 'Tis different."

While his mild associate was speaking, the chief glanced, inquiringly,
from him to the caster, as if anxious to mark how the discrepancy would
be accounted for. As the chief stood, his advanced foot was on the
scuttle's curb.

Bannadonna spoke:

"Excellenza, now that, following your keener eye, I glance upon the face
of Una, I do, indeed perceive some little variance. But look all round
the bell, and you will find no two faces entirely correspond. Because
there is a law in art--but the cold wind is rising more; these lattices
are but a poor defense. Suffer me, magnificoes, to conduct you, at
least, partly on your way. Those in whose well-being there is a public
stake, should be heedfully attended."

"Touching the look of Una, you were saying, Bannadonna, that there was a
certain law in art," observed the chief, as the three now descended the
stone shaft, "pray, tell me, then--."

"Pardon; another time, Excellenza;--the tower is damp."

"Nay, I must rest, and hear it now. Here,--here is a wide landing, and
through this leeward slit, no wind, but ample light. Tell us of your
law; and at large."

"Since, Excellenza, you insist, know that there is a law in art, which
bars the possibility of duplicates. Some years ago, you may remember, I
graved a small seal for your republic, bearing, for its chief device,
the head of your own ancestor, its illustrious founder. It becoming
necessary, for the customs' use, to have innumerable impressions for
bales and boxes, I graved an entire plate, containing one hundred of the
seals. Now, though, indeed, my object was to have those hundred heads
identical, and though, I dare say, people think them; so, yet, upon
closely scanning an uncut impression from the plate, no two of those
five-score faces, side by side, will be found alike. Gravity is the air
of all; but, diversified in all. In some, benevolent; in some,
ambiguous; in two or three, to a close scrutiny, all but incipiently
malign, the variation of less than a hair's breadth in the linear
shadings round the mouth sufficing to all this. Now, Excellenza,
transmute that general gravity into joyousness, and subject it to twelve
of those variations I have described, and tell me, will you not have my
hours here, and Una one of them? But I like--."

Hark! is that--a footfall above?

"Mortar, Excellenza; sometimes it drops to the belfry-floor from the
arch where the stonework was left undressed. I must have it seen to. As
I was about to say: for one, I like this law forbidding duplicates. It
evokes fine personalities. Yes, Excellenza, that strange, and--to
you--uncertain smile, and those fore-looking eyes of Una, suit
Bannadonna very well."

"Hark!--sure we left no soul above?"

"No soul, Excellenza; rest assured, no _soul_--Again the mortar."

"It fell not while we were there."

"Ah, in your presence, it better knew its place, Excellenza," blandly
bowed Bannadonna.

"But, Una," said the milder magistrate, "she seemed intently gazing on
you; one would have almost sworn that she picked you out from among us
three."

"If she did, possibly, it might have been her finer apprehension,
Excellenza."

"How, Bannadonna? I do not understand you."

"No consequence, no consequence, Excellenza--but the shifted wind is
blowing through the slit. Suffer me to escort you on; and then, pardon,
but the toiler must to his tools."

"It may be foolish, Signor," said the milder magistrate, as, from the
third landing, the two now went down unescorted, "but, somehow, our
great mechanician moves me strangely. Why, just now, when he so
superciliously replied, his walk seemed Sisera's, God's vain foe, in Del
Fonca's painting. And that young, sculptured Deborah, too. Ay, and
that--."

"Tush, tush, Signor!" returned the chief. "A passing whim.
Deborah?--Where's Jael, pray?"

"Ah," said the other, as they now stepped upon the sod, "Ah, Signor, I
see you leave your fears behind you with the chill and gloom; but mine,
even in this sunny air, remain, Hark!"

It was a sound from just within the tower door, whence they had emerged.
Turning, they saw it closed.

"He has slipped down and barred us out," smiled the chief; "but it is
his custom."

Proclamation was now made, that the next day, at one hour after
meridian, the clock would strike, and--thanks to the mechanician's
powerful art--with unusual accompaniments. But what those should be,
none as yet could say. The announcement was received with cheers.

By the looser sort, who encamped about the tower all night, lights were
seen gleaming through the topmost blind-work, only disappearing with the
morning sun. Strange sounds, too, were heard, or were thought to be, by
those whom anxious watching might not have left mentally
undisturbed--sounds, not only of some ringing implement, but also--so
they said--half-suppressed screams and plainings, such as might have
issued from some ghostly engine, overplied.

Slowly the day drew on; part of the concourse chasing the weary time
with songs and games, till, at last, the great blurred sun rolled, like
a football, against the plain.

At noon, the nobility and principal citizens came from the town in
cavalcade, a guard of soldiers, also, with music, the more to honor the
occasion.

Only one hour more. Impatience grew. Watches were held in hands of
feverish men, who stood, now scrutinizing their small dial-plates, and
then, with neck thrown back, gazing toward the belfry, as if the eye
might foretell that which could only be made sensible to the ear; for,
as yet, there was no dial to the tower-clock.

The hour hands of a thousand watches now verged within a hair's breadth
of the figure 1. A silence, as of the expectation of some Shiloh,
pervaded the swarming plain. Suddenly a dull, mangled sound--naught
ringing in it; scarcely audible, indeed, to the outer circles of the
people--that dull sound dropped heavily from the belfry. At the same
moment, each man stared at his neighbor blankly. All watches were
upheld. All hour-hands were at--had passed--the figure 1. No bell-stroke
from the tower. The multitude became tumultuous.

Waiting a few moments, the chief magistrate, commanding silence, hailed
the belfry, to know what thing unforeseen had happened there.

No response.

He hailed again and yet again.

All continued hushed.

By his order, the soldiers burst in the tower-door; when, stationing
guards to defend it from the now surging mob, the chief, accompanied by
his former associate, climbed the winding stairs. Half-way up, they
stopped to listen. No sound. Mounting faster, they reached the belfry;
but, at the threshold, started at the spectacle disclosed. A spaniel,
which, unbeknown to them, had followed them thus far, stood shivering as
before some unknown monster in a brake: or, rather, as if it snuffed
footsteps leading to some other world.

Bannadonna lay, prostrate and bleeding, at the base of the bell which
was adorned with girls and garlands. He lay at the feet of the hour Una;
his head coinciding, in a vertical line, with her left hand, clasped by
the hour Dua. With downcast face impending over him, like Jael over
nailed Sisera in the tent, was the domino; now no more becloaked.

It had limbs, and seemed clad in a scaly mail, lustrous as a
dragon-beetle's. It was manacled, and its clubbed arms were uplifted,
as if, with its manacles, once more to smite its already smitten
victim. One advanced foot of it was inserted beneath the dead body, as
if in the act of spurning it.

Uncertainty falls on what now followed.

It were but natural to suppose that the magistrates would, at first,
shrink from immediate personal contact with what they saw. At the least,
for a time, they would stand in involuntary doubt; it may be, in more or
less of horrified alarm. Certain it is, that an arquebuss was called for
from below. And some add, that its report, followed by a fierce whiz, as
of the sudden snapping of a main-spring, with a steely din, as if a
stack of sword-blades should be dashed upon a pavement, these blended
sounds came ringing to the plain, attracting every eye far upward to the
belfry, whence, through the lattice-work, thin wreaths of smoke were
curling.

Some averred that it was the spaniel, gone mad by fear, which was shot.
This, others denied. True it was, the spaniel never more was seen; and,
probably, for some unknown reason, it shared the burial now to be
related of the domino. For, whatever the preceding circumstances may
have been, the first instinctive panic over, or else all ground of
reasonable fear removed, the two magistrates, by themselves, quickly
rehooded the figure in the dropped cloak wherein it had been hoisted.
The same night, it was secretly lowered to the ground, smuggled to the
beach, pulled far out to sea, and sunk. Nor to any after urgency, even
in free convivial hours, would the twain ever disclose the full secrets
of the belfry.

From the mystery unavoidably investing it, the popular solution of the
foundling's fate involved more or less of supernatural agency. But some
few less unscientific minds pretended to find little difficulty in
otherwise accounting for it. In the chain of circumstantial inferences
drawn, there may, or may not, have been some absent or defective links.
But, as the explanation in question is the only one which tradition has
explicitly preserved, in dearth of better, it will here be given. But,
in the first place, it is requisite to present the supposition
entertained as to the entire motive and mode, with their origin, of the
secret design of Bannadonna; the minds above-mentioned assuming to
penetrate as well into his soul as into the event. The disclosure will
indirectly involve reference to peculiar matters, none of, the clearest,
beyond the immediate subject.

At that period, no large bell was made to sound otherwise than as at
present, by agitation of a tongue within, by means of ropes, or
percussion from without, either from cumbrous machinery, or stalwart
watchmen, armed with heavy hammers, stationed in the belfry, or in
sentry-boxes on the open roof, according as the bell was sheltered or
exposed.

It was from observing these exposed bells, with their watchmen, that the
foundling, as was opined, derived the first suggestion of his scheme.
Perched on a great mast or spire, the human figure, viewed from below,
undergoes such a reduction in its apparent size, as to obliterate its
intelligent features. It evinces no personality. Instead of bespeaking
volition, its gestures rather resemble the automatic ones of the arms of
a telegraph.

Musing, therefore, upon the purely Punchinello aspect of the human
figure thus beheld, it had indirectly occurred to Bannadonna to devise
some metallic agent, which should strike the hour with its mechanic
hand, with even greater precision than the vital one. And, moreover, as
the vital watchman on the roof, sallying from his retreat at the given
periods, walked to the bell with uplifted mace, to smite it, Bannadonna
had resolved that his invention should likewise possess the power of
locomotion, and, along with that, the appearance, at least, of
intelligence and will.

If the conjectures of those who claimed acquaintance with the intent of
Bannadonna be thus far correct, no unenterprising spirit could have been
his. But they stopped not here; intimating that though, indeed, his
design had, in the first place, been prompted by the sight of the
watchman, and confined to the devising of a subtle substitute for him:
yet, as is not seldom the case with projectors, by insensible
gradations, proceeding from comparatively pigmy aims to Titanic ones,
the original scheme had, in its anticipated eventualities, at last,
attained to an unheard of degree of daring.

He still bent his efforts upon the locomotive figure for the belfry, but
only as a partial type of an ulterior creature, a sort of elephantine
Helot, adapted to further, in a degree scarcely to be imagined, the
universal conveniences and glories of humanity; supplying nothing less
than a supplement to the Six Days' Work; stocking the earth with a new
serf, more useful than the ox, swifter than the dolphin, stronger than
the lion, more cunning than the ape, for industry an ant, more fiery
than serpents, and yet, in patience, another ass. All excellences of all
God-made creatures, which served man, were here to receive advancement,
and then to be combined in one. Talus was to have been the
all-accomplished Helot's name. Talus, iron slave to Bannadonna, and,
through him, to man.

Here, it might well be thought that, were these last conjectures as to
the foundling's secrets not erroneous, then must he have been hopelessly
infected with the craziest chimeras of his age; far outgoing Albert
Magus and Cornelius Agrippa. But the contrary was averred. However
marvelous his design, however apparently transcending not alone the
bounds of human invention, but those of divine creation, yet the
proposed means to be employed were alleged to have been confined within
the sober forms of sober reason. It was affirmed that, to a degree of
more than skeptic scorn, Bannadonna had been without sympathy for any of
the vain-glorious irrationalities of his time. For example, he had not
concluded, with the visionaries among the metaphysicians, that between
the finer mechanic forces and the ruder animal vitality some germ of
correspondence might prove discoverable. As little did his scheme
partake of the enthusiasm of some natural philosophers, who hoped, by
physiological and chemical inductions, to arrive at a knowledge of the
source of life, and so qualify themselves to manufacture and improve
upon it. Much less had he aught in common with the tribe of alchemists,
who sought, by a species of incantations, to evoke some surprising
vitality from the laboratory. Neither had he imagined, with certain
sanguine theosophists, that, by faithful adoration of the Highest,
unheard-of powers would be vouchsafed to man. A practical materialist,
what Bannadonna had aimed at was to have been reached, not by logic, not
by crucible, not by conjuration, not by altars; but by plain vice-bench
and hammer. In short, to solve nature, to steal into her, to intrigue
beyond her, to procure some one else to bind her to his hand;--these,
one and all, had not been his objects; but, asking no favors from any
element or any being, of himself, to rival her, outstrip her, and rule
her. He stooped to conquer. With him, common sense was theurgy;
machinery, miracle; Prometheus, the heroic name for machinist; man, the
true God.

Nevertheless, in his initial step, so far as the experimental automaton
for the belfry was concerned, he allowed fancy some little play; or,
perhaps, what seemed his fancifulness was but his utilitarian ambition
collaterally extended. In figure, the creature for the belfry should not
be likened after the human pattern, nor any animal one, nor after the
ideals, however wild, of ancient fable, but equally in aspect as in
organism be an original production; the more terrible to behold, the
better.

Such, then, were the suppositions as to the present scheme, and the
reserved intent. How, at the very threshold, so unlooked for a
catastrophe overturned all, or rather, what was the conjecture here, is
now to be set forth.

It was thought that on the day preceding the fatality, his visitors
having left him, Bannadonna had unpacked the belfry image, adjusted it,
and placed it in the retreat provided--a sort of sentry-box in one
corner of the belfry; in short, throughout the night, and for some part
of the ensuing morning, he had been engaged in arranging everything
connected with the domino; the issuing from the sentry-box each sixty
minutes; sliding along a grooved way, like a railway; advancing to the
clock-bell, with uplifted manacles; striking it at one of the twelve
junctions of the four-and-twenty hands; then wheeling, circling the
bell, and retiring to its post, there to bide for another sixty minutes,
when the same process was to be repeated; the bell, by a cunning
mechanism, meantime turning on its vertical axis, so as to present, to
the descending mace, the clasped hands of the next two figures, when it
would strike two, three, and so on, to the end. The musical metal in
this time-bell being so managed in the fusion, by some art, perishing
with its originator, that each of the clasps of the four-and-twenty
hands should give forth its own peculiar resonance when parted.

But on the magic metal, the magic and metallic stranger never struck but
that one stroke, drove but that one nail, served but that one clasp, by
which Bannadonna clung to his ambitious life. For, after winding up the
creature in the sentry-box, so that, for the present, skipping the
intervening hours, it should not emerge till the hour of one, but should
then infallibly emerge, and, after deftly oiling the grooves whereon it
was to slide, it was surmised that the mechanician must then have
hurried to the bell, to give his final touches to its sculpture. True
artist, he here became absorbed; and absorption still further
intensified, it may be, by his striving to abate that strange look of
Una; which, though, before others, he had treated with such unconcern,
might not, in secret, have been without its thorn.

And so, for the interval, he was oblivious of his creature; which, not
oblivious of him, and true to its creation, and true to its heedful
winding up, left its post precisely at the given moment; along its
well-oiled route, slid noiselessly towards its mark; and, aiming at the
hand of Una, to ring one clangorous note, dully smote the intervening
brain of Bannadonna, turned backwards to it; the manacled arms then
instantly up-springing to their hovering poise. The falling body clogged
the thing's return; so there it stood, still impending over Bannadonna,
as if whispering some post-mortem terror. The chisel lay dropped from
the hand, but beside the hand; the oil-flask spilled across the iron
track.

In his unhappy end, not unmindful of the rare genius of the mechanician,
the republic decreed him a stately funeral. It was resolved that the
great bell--the one whose casting had been jeopardized through the
timidity of the ill-starred workman--should be rung upon the entrance of
the bier into the cathedral. The most robust man of the country round
was assigned the office of bell-ringer.

But as the pall-bearers entered the cathedral porch, naught but a
broken and disastrous sound, like that of some lone Alpine land-slide,
fell from the tower upon their ears. And then, all was hushed.

Glancing backwards, they saw the groined belfry crashed sideways in. It
afterwards appeared that the powerful peasant, who had the bell-rope in
charge, wishing to test at once the full glory of the bell, had swayed
down upon the rope with one concentrate jerk. The mass of quaking metal,
too ponderous for its frame, and strangely feeble somewhere at its top,
loosed from its fastening, tore sideways down, and tumbling in one sheer
fall, three hundred feet to the soft sward below, buried itself inverted
and half out of sight.

Upon its disinterment, the main fracture was found to have started from
a small spot in the ear; which, being scraped, revealed a defect,
deceptively minute in the casting; which defect must subsequently have
been pasted over with some unknown compound.

The remolten metal soon reassumed its place in the tower's repaired
superstructure. For one year the metallic choir of birds sang musically
in its belfry-bough-work of sculptured blinds and traceries. But on the
first anniversary of the tower's completion--at early dawn, before the
concourse had surrounded it--an earthquake came; one loud crash was
heard. The stone-pine, with all its bower of songsters, lay overthrown
upon the plain.

So the blind slave obeyed its blinder lord; but, in obedience, slew him.
So the creator was killed by the creature. So the bell was too heavy for
the tower. So the bell's main weakness was where man's blood had flawed
it. And so pride went before the fall.

 This is a gothic thriller type story with a twist ending. It's about Bannadonna, a somewhat sinister architect, and the bell-tower he built. The most difficult part of building the tower was the crafting of the giant bell. During the melting and forging process, the workmen were scared. Bannadonna was worried their fear would cause them to shirk and damage the bell, so he hits the chief on the head with a giant ladle, killing him. A bit of the ladle falls into the smelting As a result, the bell has a blemish; but Bannadonna covers it over. Bad move, Bannadonna. Also maybe you shouldn't have murdered a guy. Geez. But the townspeople just shrug off the homicide as a sign of artistic temperament. Anyway, Bannadonna is secluded in his workshop working on some other thing. This is the secret bit setting up the surprise ending, if you couldn't tell. The covered over thing is eventually moved to the belfry. The chief-magistrate and one of his buddies go up to the belfry to try to figure out what the secret is. But Bannadonna won't tell them. They think it's sort of human like. Anyway, he shows them a complicated clock/bell thing, which is to ring the hours the next day. Each hour has a female statue by it. The magistrates are freaked out because the statues don't all look alike, and one looks like the prophetess Debra from a famous painting by Del Fonca All of this is supposed to be somewhat ominous, though it's rather confused. Why would it be weird for statues to not look exactly alike? This sort of has a B-horror movie feel, where the music and the overacting lets you know that things are supposed to be scary even when the plot doesn't make a lot of sense. Anyway, Bannadonna explains at length that you can't necessarily make all statues look alike in an era before industrial standardization. They head downstairs, and the magistrate and his buddy think they hear someone moving upstairs in the belfry. Bannadonna assures them it's just the Frankenstein monster and the Terminator doing a rumba. No, he doesn't say that. He says nothing's there. More ominous music. And Bannadonna locks them out. The next day people gather to hear the bell ring...but it doesn't. So they go upstairs and find some sort of statue/robot thing standing over his bleeding body. It seems that Bannadonna built a kind of human-looking mechanism to strike the hour, but he got caught in it, and so it bashed him to death as it tried to strike the hour. It takes Melville forever to say this, and it's all couched in maybes and superstitious burbling and ominous music, but that's the gist of it. So it's basically the Frankenstein story, but the monster never actually comes to life, which makes it all seem kind of pointless. At Bannadonna's funeral, the bell is rung, but ends up crashing down because of a weakness at its top They make a new bell, which works for a while, but then on the one-year anniversary of the tower, an earthquake knocks it over. Strange event, Shmoopers. Strange, mysterious events. Don't mess with nature, scientists or bell ringers. Vincent Price now wishes you good night.

