Meanwhile, the jailer informed my friends and me that my room was ready. "Let us go and see it," said Cussan. He walked ahead and we followed him. The room was very well appointed. "I won't be needing anything," I said, "except books." Colignac promised to send me some as soon as I gave him a list of what I needed. Once we had looked around we realized, by judging the height of the tower and the depth of the moat around it, that saving me was an enterprise beyond human capacity. Thereupon my friends looked at each other and at me and burst into tears. But as if our sorrow had softened the anger of Heaven, my soul was overcome with a sudden joy. Joy brought me hope, hope brought secret plans by which my reason was so taken that, with a sudden outburst which even seemed ridiculous to me I urged them, "Go away and wait for me in Colignac. I'll be there in three days. And send me all of the mathematical instruments with which I ordinarily work. In one of my boxes you'll also find a number of variously carved crystals. Don't forget to send them to me. In any event, I will write down in one of my notebooks the things I'll need."
They took the list I gave them without understanding my intention, and after this, I sent them away. As soon as they were gone I set about ruminating on the things that I glimpsed in my mind and I was still ruminating the following day when the things I had listed were brought me. One of Colignac's valets informed me that his master had not been seen since the preceding day and that no one knew what had become of him. This didn't trouble me, since it immediately occurred to me that he had perhaps gone to Court to seek for my release. Thus, without a worry, I set to work. For eight days I hammered, planed, glued and finally constructed the machine which I will now describe to you.
It was a great light box which closed perfectly. It was six or so feet high and some three feet square. This box had a hole in the bottom and over the top, which was also open, I placed a hollow vessel of crystal. The vessel was in the shape of a globe but quite ample. Its opening fit perfectly over the hole I had fashioned on the top of the box.
The little chamber was constructed on purpose out of many angles and in the form of an icosahedron, so that, with each facet being both convex and concave, it had the effect of a concave mirror.
Neither the jailer nor his guards ever came up to my rooms without finding me at work on this machine. They were not concerned, however, because there were many mechanical devices in my room, all of which I told them I had invented. Among other things there was a wind clock, an artificial eye with which to see at night, a sphere in which the stars follow the same movement they have in the heavens. All of this persuaded them that the machine on which I was working was a similar curiosity; and, of course the money with which Colignac was greasing their palms helped them move easily through difficult situations.
It was nine o'clock one morning, my jailer had already gone back down and the sky was clouded over when I took the machine out to the top of my tower, to the most exposed part of my balcony. Except for the two openings at either end the rest of it closed up so perfectly that not a single grain of air could enter it, and I had even put in a small board on which I could sit.
With everything set up I closed myself inside and waited for an hour or so, until it pleased Fortune to take charge of my destiny. When the Sun, having shed its clouds, began to shine on my machine, the transparent icosahedron which gathered the Sun's treasured rays through its many surfaces scattered them throughout the tiny cell where I was to sit. And as this splendor began to be weakened by those rays which could not reach me without being fractured many times, the power of this tempered light turned my little reliquary into a tiny purple heaven enameled in gold.
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