Summary

Part 2, Chapter 8 – Everyone waits outside Georges’s door while Jeanne knocks and asks what he is doing. Suddenly, they all hear a loud crash. More sounds follow and everyone panics. Etienne and Rene try to force the door, but it will not open, so Isabelle picks the lock. Instead of destroyed furniture, they find George’s drawings scattered all over the room, the panel on the armoire pried off. Georges sits at the desk in the center of the room as if he was the automaton himself.

He explains his parents wanted him to work in their shoe factory, but he hated the shoe factory, apart from the mechanical parts. So when he was old enough, he sold his share of the factory, bought a theater, and became a magician, using a special workroom to design things for the act, including...