We know that Kempelen’s gravestone bore a quote from Horace, “I do not die completely,” but its design is a guess, because it no longer exists. You can still visit his grave, but you’ll have to look for him under your boot-soles — he was buried in the Währing cemetary, but in 1925, it was converted into Schubert Park. (Beethoven and Schubert were both originally interred in the Währinger Friedhof, but were moved to the Zentralfriedhof, their original tombs preserved.) So if you’re ever in Vienna, take a walk through Schubert Park, and say hello to him for me.
Did Maelzel know the automaton was a trick? My guess is that he did, but I’ve no conclusive proof one way or the other. By 1806, he had built several of his own very impressive automata — including a statue of a boy that actually played the trumpet, its fingers, lips, and breath all driven by the same studded drum — so he surely knew the limits of technology at the time. Additionally, von Kempelen always made it a point to let the audience know that the chess-player was a trick, referring to it as a “trifle” and a “bagatelle”. I have to think that poor Wolf felt rather bewildered when people kept taking it so seriously.
Von Kempelen took the secret with him to his grave; we don’t even know the names of the directors he hired for either of the automaton’s tours. It may seem odd that Karl wouldn’t know the particulars of the trick, but from his perspective, the automaton must have been an awful nuisance. It dragged him all over Europe, and for he and Theresia, it would’ve been one boring apartment after another, never seeing the performances, never getting a chance to participate in the fun. It’s not hard to imagine Karl never wanting anything to do with it.
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For those of you new to Clockwork Game, this marks the last of the original run of pages. Starting next Thursday, the story will update one page per week.