Frozen

For Norton Wise, under whose warm and watchful eye this story first began, even if neither of us realized it at the time

If you had never seen anything but mounds of lead, pieces of marble, stones, and pebbles, and you were presented with a beautiful windup watch and little automata that spoke, sang, played the flute, ate, and drank, such as those which dextrous artists now know how to make, what would you think of them, how would you judge them, before you examined the springs that made them move? Would you not be led to believe that they had a soul like your own…?

—Anonymous, 1744

Translated from the French by Gaby Wood