The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 4Poe, Edgar Allan
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The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 4
Poe, Edgar Allan
American fiction -- 19th century; Fantasy fiction; Horror tales, American; Short stories
behind it and within it. The whole box being thus apparently
disclosed to the scrutiny of the company, Maelzel, still leaving
the doors and drawer open, rolls the Automaton entirely round,
and exposes the back of the Turk by lifting up the drapery. A
door about ten inches square is thrown open in the loins of the
figure, and a smaller one also in the left thigh. The interior of
the figure, as seen through these apertures, appears to be
crowded with machinery. In general, every spectator is now
thoroughly satisfied of having beheld and completely scrutinized,
at one and the same time, every individual portion of the
Automaton, and the idea of any person being concealed in the
interior, during so complete an exhibition of that interior, if
ever entertained, is immediately dismissed as preposterous in the
extreme.
M. Maelzel, having rolled the machine back into its original
position, now informs the company that the Automaton will play a
game of chess with any one disposed to encounter him. This
challenge being accepted, a small table is prepared for the
antagonist, and placed close by the rope, but on the spectators’
side of it, and so situated as not to prevent the company from
obtaining a full view of the Automaton. From a drawer in this
table is taken a set of chess-men, and Maelzel arranges them
generally, but not always, with his own hands, on the chess
board, which consists merely of the usual number of squares
painted upon the table. The antagonist having taken his seat, the
exhibiter approaches the drawer of the box, and takes therefrom
the cushion, which, after removing the pipe from the hand of the
Automaton, he places under its left arm as a support. Then taking
also from the drawer the Automaton’s set of chess-men, he
arranges them upon the chessboard before the figure. He now
proceeds to close the doors and to lock them—leaving the bunch of
keys in door No. 1. He also closes the drawer, and, finally,
winds up the machine, by applying a key to an aperture in the
left end (the spectators’ left) of the box. The game now
commences—the Automaton taking the first move. The duration of
the contest is usually limited to half an hour, but if it be not
finished at the expiration of this period, and the antagonist
still contend that he can beat the Automaton, M. Maelzel has
seldom any objection to continue it. Not to weary the company, is
the ostensible, and no doubt the real object of the limitation.
It Wits of course be understood that when a move is made at his
own table, by the antagonist, the corresponding move is made at
the box of the Automaton, by Maelzel himself, who then acts as
the representative of the antagonist. On the other hand, when the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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