An idea. Sketch it up. Work it out in steel and leather, cable and springs, whatever else you can find. Try it. Fix it, once it breaks. Try it again. After one disastrous block-and-cable affair, Freund lifted the whole apparatus over his head to destroy it before his assistants prevailed upon him to lower it safely to the ground. Day after day the problem torments him. He walks around bathed in the various oils he’s using to produce a smooth rotation in the tilting mechanism. I’m reminded of Vischer’s phrase about the perfidy of the object, which gloats upon our efforts to dominate it: that Schadenfreude, with its overtones of diabolical persistence.

We keep telling ourselves that anything that can be imagined can be done, as Méliés has already demonstrated. When in despair, all we can do is act as if we believe, and faith may come afterwards. Meanwhile, off in the corner, Freund’s fourth assistant sits, his mouth still ajar, before his assigned repair work, stuffing matchsticks into the stripped wooden threads of a tripod base.

One night I have dreams that I’m trying to master some sort of optical instrument by focusing on a flashing pinprick of light through an eyepiece. I wake to an electrical storm.

The next morning, no progress. Freund has been in the lab overnight. This is conveyed to us in low tones by his first assistant, whom we call the Kestrel because of his way of jerking his head toward the object of his attention.

There’s also been a catastrophe with the courtyard set: the walls are bowing inward from the weight of the suspension cables. What will happen when we add the weight of both the camera and Freund? Röhrig’s crew seems to have followed a set of earlier instructions with the kind of subconscious bitterness that develops in those accustomed to doing exactly what they’re told. In the military this usually results in acts of heroism costing ninety-percent casualties.

Anticipating their mistake would have called for the kind of calm foresight of which I’m presently incapable. Lately I’ve been given more to panic than foresight. While what I can only glimpse slips away even as I try to prepare to film it.

Another week lost. August! The year 1924 was supposed to bring bad luck: “Saturn complications.” This we well believe.