A wet, gray fog drifted along Nikitskaya Street this evening. Perhaps because of this people felt especially gloomy. Even the most carefree splashed along the slippery sidewalk, harboring melancholy thoughts, resigned to sopping feet. The illuminated windows of the semi-basement apartments did not arouse curiosity and it occurred to no one to stop and peer into one of them…

And looking in, you would first see a portrait, enormous and dusty. A portrait of a tall, stooped man, pensively leaning against a marble balustrade in some elegant entrance hall. Behind him, it seemed, stretched a beautiful path through an old park. All this would remind you of similar backdrops found in our photographers’ studios, but let’s not dwell on such trivialities. The stooping man, quite distinguished, has one hand tucked inside the front of his modest black frock coat. His eyes are looking straight at you, seeming dead, almost glassy. His face is severe, somber, and his arched nose stands out sharply between wide, protruding cheekbones. His chin is framed by a small thin beard, which matches an equally thin and neatly trimmed mustache.

And looking more closely, you would see the original himself. The same figure, stooped over a table covered with a yellowish oilcloth. The same small beard, stubbornly trembling above a glass of unfinished vodka. The same cheekbones, only now even more sharpened by the added weight of years.

And if you could overhear what seemed to be his very animated conversation with a man whose appearance vividly recalled the clever primates of the stock exchange, you would catch the end of a strange but meaningful conversation.

“Ah, Professor, how many years you’ve wasted…”

“But I couldn’t, you see, I simply couldn’t… I was too uncertain about these people…”

“What do people matter when you have pure profit at your fingertips… Believe me, now that I’ve crossed your path, things won’t end so simply… You don’t yet know all my talents, Professor. Thanks to me, you’ll make more headlines than Reza Khan in Persia or that Abd el-Krim fellow in Morocco… The world, the entire world is before you, practically in your very hands, yet you sit here in silence…”

“I truly don’t know what to say… You see, my whole life, an entire lifetime I’ve worked, never offering it to anyone, afraid they wouldn’t understand, wouldn’t value it… And who needs my work, my endeavors?…”

“Who needs it? First and foremost, you and I, Professor! How much do you make at the university? A hundred fifty? I guarantee you five, ten, twenty times more. You’re a strange one, Professor, really, not seeing your own advantage. If what you’re saying is true, you could become a Napoleon, a conqueror… And yet you… ah, what a shame!…”

“I agree with you, but what could I do on my own?… I’m old and sick and everything else…”

“That’s all nonsense. We’ll start the business tomorrow and I promise you that within 24 hours you’ll be famous…”

Along Arbat, through the side streets, down Petrovka, Myasnitskaya, and Povarskaya, along Kuznetsky, people with leather briefcases and those without, people in overcoats, in galoshes, in shoes with pointed and blunt toes, people carrying bags and small suitcases, people in peaked caps and fedoras, people wearing gloves and those with cold hands tucked into pockets, people hurrying in the morning to their offices, to stores, to kiosks and the pawnshop—all read the poster with mild surprise, with a touch of irony, but ultimately with the typical indifference of those preoccupied with their daily affairs.

On that same day, on the back page of all Moscow newspapers, was printed:

and a bit lower, in bold and insistent type, it announced:

From reviews in the world press:

“Times”.

…The automaton of Professor Yastrebov’s design represents perfection in technology and a model of chess artistry…

“Le Matin.”

…Never before in the world has there been anything like it. Professor Yastrebov’s automaton plays better than first-class masters. There has not been a single case where the automaton lost to anyone…

“Berlin Tagblatt”

…The chess automaton of Prof. Yastrebov’s system has caused surprise and admiration not only in chess, but also in scientific circles…

“The New York Herald.”

…Never before have we witnessed such a phenomenon. Even the finest chess masters falter before the enigmatic play of this automaton… Professor Yastrebov has genuinely created a masterpiece that marries technological innovation with the art of chess…

The next day, readers of all dispositions—the intrigued and the indifferent, the amazed and the skeptical, the enthusiastic and the scornful—could find a sensational interview with Professor Yastrebov in the latest issue of “Red Sport,” the central newspaper serving as the official All-Union authority on sporting matters:

“Our correspondent held an extensive interview with Professor M. I. Yastrebov concerning his automaton, which has already generated considerable buzz among Moscow’s chess circles.

Whereupon the professor disclosed the following:

“I will not divulge any technical specifications or details regarding the construction of my chess automaton until the results of its performance in action have been properly assessed. I can assure you only that what we have here is genuinely a mechanism, not a person concealed within the automaton’s casing. I control the automaton merely as an operator or chauffeur, if you prefer that term. Personally, I am a poor chess player—or more accurately, I scarcely play at all. I certainly wouldn’t venture to compete against Moscow’s finest players, nor even against reasonably skilled amateurs. My chess knowledge extends only to a rudimentary understanding of the moves and positions of pieces on the board.”

“How, you might ask, could I construct a chess-playing automaton without being a skilled player myself? This seemingly paradoxical circumstance is, in fact, not paradoxical at all. For a competent mathematician familiar with the theory of moves and the essential nature of chess combinations, the required mathematical calculations present no extraordinary difficulty.”

“Regarding these calculations, as I have already stated, I do not intend to disclose any details until such time as I deem appropriate. In any case, anyone interested in the operation of my automaton may come and witness it firsthand this Sunday at the conservatory.”

“How does the automaton work? I had no intention of giving it any human form, nor even an appearance remotely resembling a human figure. I enclosed the automaton’s mechanism in an iron casing approximately shaped like a parallelopiped. The device is equipped with a clock and a rectangular screen behind glass, upon which—following certain technical operations—letters and numbers appear, indicating the intended move.”

“How did I create the automaton? Through many years of painstaking work. Last year, while on an official assignment in Germany, I met engineer-mechanic Theodor Weiblitz of Nuremberg, who agreed to realize my concept. It was there that the first model of this automaton was constructed—the very one you will see in operation.

“Why have I not presented the concept of a chess automaton until now? Partly because I was unable to implement it, and partly because, without a working model, I could not verify the correctness of my mathematical and technical hypotheses.”

In conclusion, Professor Yastrebov remarked that with the Second International Tournament soon to be held in Moscow, his automaton should arouse considerable interest, since, in his estimation, even world-class chess players would be unable to win a single game against his machine.

In Moscow’s chess circles, this issue of ‘Red Sport’ hardly caused a sensation. Two years earlier, during the international tournament in Moscow in 1925, the city’s masters had their first encounter with foreign champions. For the first time, Berlinsky faced Capablanca and Zubarev played against Lasker. And now, in 1927, their second meeting awaited them. Such excitement, joy, and tension in the preparatory battles! Who could spare a thought for some automaton? Why bother with contraptions made by idle professors who haven’t the faintest idea what chess truly is!

No, this called for irony, nothing but irony. The poster with its ‘reviews from the world press’—typical charlatanism of ‘gala concert’ promoters. Legless officers from Napoleon’s army, struggling to cram their truncated bodies into an automaton’s mechanical casing, had long since vanished into oblivion. Hideous monstrosities of wood and iron defeating lords from the Strand and Bishops of Canterbury exist only in the cinema. Mechanical nonsense against the Napoleons and Kants of the chessboard! Some contraption pitted against world champions, grandmasters, and maestros! What absurdity! It could only provoke laughter.

But beyond the smiles, there was curiosity. A mild, somewhat bemused curiosity from acknowledged champions summoned to battle against an unknown contender…

…While in London, Paris, Warsaw, Vienna, New York, Sofia, and Brussels, there wasn’t even curiosity. On this day, twenty-six of the world’s most renowned chess masters had not yet heard a whisper about the automaton.

The Small Hall of the Conservatory seemed embarrassed by the strange silence within its age-faded walls. Never before had it witnessed anything like this. The ghosts of Beethoven, Mozart, Handel, and Bach, frozen in astonishment amidst swirls of tobacco smoke—smoking was unexpectedly permitted—felt ill at ease. For the first time, they sensed they were strangers here.

And indeed, who cares about Bach? Bach is decoration. Conservatory is a pseudonym for a place where one might suddenly witness strange, almost extraordinary phenomena.

What does decoration matter when a creature of wood and metal unexpectedly conquers the knights of international tournaments? Who needs such decoration when Alekhine’s patented defense proves powerless to avert death? The magnificent armor of opening theory crumbles beneath the silent onslaught of the automaton. Who could possibly think of Beethoven and Mozart at a time like this?

Strange, incomprehensible thoughts hang suspended in the air. They are enigmatic and offensive to the invisible inhabitants of this ancient castle of melodies and sounds. They are mysterious and grotesquely absurd, as absurd and grotesque as that gray metallic contraption on the stage atop its massive pedestal.

A gray metallic idol that has usurped the place of the Bechstein grand piano. Not a single melody. Not one note, not even the simplest scale. Absolutely no sound at all. Silence. On a small, white, glass-encased rectangular screen appear strange combinations of letters and numbers. Some sort of abracadabra:

Nd2-f3 or Bb3-d5

What is this? Beethoven and Bach never played chess. Perhaps these are secret signs of a Masonic lodge or the liturgy of some new religious cult?…

The air is thick with smoke. Cigarette butts. Scraps of paper. Fragments of exclamations. Sweaty brows.

Cigarette after cigarette. Check to the king. Knight f3 to d4. Think. Pawn forward. Just so. Hastily, half a glass of tea.

A tall, predatory-looking old man lovingly caresses the gray covering of the metallic idol. The idol—a parallelepiped. An expressionless, ridiculous, and stupid parallelepiped. Move after move, the numbers and letters ceaselessly change on its glassy-white rectangular forehead.

What is he doing, this old man? Could the machine be a hoax? Perhaps he is simply a brilliant player who, for a joke, for a sensational stunt, has disguised himself as an automaton…

But no matter. What a strange move he makes! Rook to g2. What could this odd combination be leading to? Think. Damn it all, the idol plays like Capablanca!

What spirit lurks within the metallic belly of this gray idol? Could it be the ghost of Chigorin or Morphy playing under the guise of Professor Yastrebov’s automated system? Or perhaps some legless officer, a brilliant thief of his Napoleonic colleague’s idea, an officer who left his severed limbs beneath the cliffs of Perekop or on the green fields of Ukraine? Who? Who?…………

In the foyer—commotion. Handkerchiefs slide and crumple against sweaty cheeks and bald spots. Damp, disheveled hair partings. Gesticulation. Machine-gun bursts of words. And astonishment, endless astonishment.

“…Damn it all, I never thought Grigoryev would lose to this machine…”

“…Just imagine, when he moved his knight to h5, I thought the automaton wouldn’t find a decisive response…”

“…And yet, friends, I am absolutely certain that it’s a living person playing…”

“…But it’s quite an original contraption all the same, wouldn’t it be something to see Capablanca play against it…”

“…Fraud…”

“…What fraud are you talking about, when Zubarev resigned on the 27th move…”

“…Comrades, come quickly, an extraordinarily sharp position…”

Before the apparatus stands a young maestro with the burden of twenty years of wisdom upon his strong shoulders. He plays according to the meticulously studied Lasker-Rubinstein game from the International Tournament in Moscow two years earlier.

The young maestro is certain of victory. He is immovable as a rock. His memorized game is his Nibelung sword. His face is that of a general, combining Caesar’s calm assurance with Napoleon’s nervous intensity.

Move after move. The white rectangle spews forth terrifying figures. Knight f3 to e5. Napoleon falls from his horse. Alas! He loses his queen.

Several days later, in Izvestia, under the headline ‘Triumph of the Automaton,’ the following was published:

“The matches between Moscow’s finest players and Professor Yastrebov’s automaton in the Small Hall of the Conservatory over three days yielded completely unexpected results.

In short, all of Moscow’s leading chess players lost to the automaton, not to mention numerous amateurs. It is difficult to describe the panic that ensued. According to Moscow’s most veteran players, they cannot recall anything comparable in their entire careers.

Levenfish and Rabinovich, who had traveled from Leningrad, also lost to the automaton. Particularly notable was Rabinovich’s defeat. Having performed brilliantly in recent tournaments in Moscow (1925), New York, and San Sebastian (1926), Rabinovich played with remarkable elegance and virtuosity. Employing the Caro-Kann Defense, he maintained an excellent position until the 17th move. But then the automaton’s move (Bf4 x c7) restricted his pawn front and trapped his knight. Unable to bring his rook into play for another three moves, Rabinovich opted for the queen exchange recommended by theory, which, due to his opponent’s masterful maneuvering, resulted in the loss of a pawn. By the 28th move, he was forced to resign.

According to the Moscow champions who witnessed the games, the automaton selected its moves flawlessly and brilliantly. The endgame it played, in their estimation, was worthy of Lasker himself.

Among the public and in chess circles, the prevailing opinion is that—despite Professor Yastrebov’s own assertions—a living person must be playing here, as only a human brain, and a genius one at that, could create combinations with such profound insight and talent.”

Excerpt from an article by Dr. S. Tartakower, telegraphed by him to the chess magazine ‘64’.

“Chess automatons have never before appeared in serious competitive play. In medieval times, there existed, it is true, concepts for creating mechanical humans (homunculi), which in turn gave rise to the idea of a chess-playing automaton.”

Medieval thinkers and mechanicians always envisioned such an automaton in the form of a human figure playing chess independently, without the participation of a human mind. They quite seriously entertained the possibility of a mechanical basis for chess play, founded on certain numerical laws. One needed only to discover these laws. One needed only to find their formula.

Many brilliant minds labored in search of this formula. Attempts to create chess automatons date back to the 15th century. Manuscripts of the Jesuit order contain references to such an automaton created by Abbot Antonio Ferrari of Bologna. He even succeeded in constructing a mechanism, the secret of which perished along with its creator in a fire that consumed the monastery buildings.

The same can be said of the attempts by Rudolf Teolicius and the mechanic Kurt of Nuremberg. In Simon Goulart’s work from the late 18th century, entitled ‘Tresor d’histoires admirables’ (‘Treasury of Remarkable Stories’), there are, admittedly somewhat obscure but nonetheless adequate references to experiments in this direction by the Frenchman Arnaud de Villeneuve, the Lübeck mechanicians Karl Fogg and Dr. Sibelius, and the Englishman Richard Geldingen. All these experiments, according to Goulart, yielded no concrete results and merely generated a certain ‘fermentation of minds’ around their names and ideas.

We have the most information about Kurt’s automaton. According to eyewitnesses, his automaton took the form of a human figure with exquisitely crafted face and hands. However, this automaton also yielded no practical results, as Kurt, in a fit of madness, destroyed his mechanical doll.

At the court of Philip II in Madrid, during the First International Chess Congress, the Dominican monk Brocard attempted to demonstrate an automaton of his own construction. Brocard even challenged the then-famous Ruy Lopez and other strong chess players of the era, such as Leonardo de Cutri and Paolo Boi. However, Philip II inexplicably forbade this demonstration, and Brocard found himself in an Inquisition prison. In any case, no further information about this automaton has survived.

The remains of a similar automaton (its creator remaining unknown) are preserved to this day in the museum at the palace of the Duke of Lichtenstadt. They amount to little more than a heap of old rusty iron, ready to collapse at the slightest touch. Yet behind glass you will see a crude semblance of a human figure, seated in a large armchair before a chessboard mounted on a small table. Whether this automaton ever actually played chess has remained unknown.

History provides us, alongside attempts to create genuine mechanisms, with examples of sometimes quite ingenious charlatanism. Beyond the legless Napoleonic officer concealed inside a hollow doll during play, we encounter similar ‘automatons’ at fairs throughout Germany and England. According to contemporaries, many of these ‘automatons’ played brilliantly and defeated even the strongest players of the era. In most cases, however, these were simply commercially profitable schemes designed to ensnare credulous amateurs.

According to newspaper reports, Professor Yastrebov’s automaton neither takes human form nor attempts to imitate human movement. Based on its dimensions (if memory serves, it was reported to measure approximately one meter in both length and height), we are dealing with a rather substantial mechanism. It is difficult for me to comment on the automaton itself, since, firstly, I have not seen it, and secondly, the inventor maintains its construction as a closely guarded secret.

Are we dealing here with a mechanism or with a living person? I find it personally difficult to judge. One might surmise, given that the automaton always plays exclusively with white, that we have here a certain mathematical premise underlying some concept, but I dare not venture any definitive statement about this.

It is quite possible, however, that this is mere charlatanism. In any case, it matters little—if not an automaton, then a living master player, with whom it would be a pleasure to compete.

In light of your upcoming International Tournament, I believe that all the chess masters arriving in Moscow will find this encounter of considerable interest.”

The Izvestia report and Tartakower’s article were reprinted by most of the major European and American newspapers.

Those twenty-six of the world’s most renowned chess masters had finally heard about the automaton. In Vienna, Paris, New York, Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, and Brussels, ironic smiles played at the corners of their lips. Yet somewhere in the mysterious depths of their eyes, curiosity stirred. The same mild, somewhat bemused curiosity of acknowledged champions facing an unknown but formidable challenger.

…Maestro Capablanca was traveling to Russia. At the Sebezh international station, in the buffet, over a glass of coffee with cognac, he was handed the latest New York newspapers. The weary, jaded eyes of the world’s favorite skimmed the lines, and that same ironic smile crept across his crimson Havana lips. An automaton against the world champion? Absurd!

The newspaper fell indifferently to the floor, and the automaton’s fate was sealed.

The entire world remembers this event. Chess players from across the globe, talented and talentless, theoreticians and novices, people who had never touched a chess piece, people of all genders, ages, and nationalities, surviving aristocrats—from members of the House of Lords to unemployed representatives of somewhere-reigning families, leaders of revolutionary and reactionary parties, deputies and bakers, engineers and clerks, notaries and maître d’s—all on one fine day opened their newspapers: and their eyes, from their naturally oval shape, suddenly became round as hazelnuts.

This astonishing event occurred in Moscow, which remembered Capablanca’s admittedly modest, yet still respectable showing two years prior during the international tournament of November 1925. That tournament had not brought the Havana maestro many laurel wreaths or rapturous ovations. His colleagues claimed he was simply ‘having a run of bad luck.’ Yet at subsequent tournaments in New York, San Sebastian, and Vienna, Capablanca regained his almost-faltering reputation.

Admittedly, in 1926 at San Sebastian, Capablanca lost to Dr. Lasker. This game, in which all seven of Capablanca’s pawns became isolated, and Lasker’s brilliant knight sacrifice (Nc3 x d5) allowed him to win the queen on move 17, permanently entered the annals of chess alongside the masterful games of Anderssen, Morphy, and Chigorin.

Nevertheless, the world champion restored his former glory, winning a series of games remarkable for their beauty and virtuosity against Alekhine, Bogoljubov, Marshall, and Réti. Moreover, the ‘old lion’—Lasker, who was, as they say, ‘off his game’ at the most recent tournament, could pose no serious threat to the swarthy Cuban.

Thus, everything was progressing exceptionally well, and then…

An entirely unexpected development occurred. Capablanca, who had taken two luxurious rooms at the Savoy Hotel, was somewhat taken aback while receiving Moscow reporters that they didn’t pose the usual stock questions about Russian chess players, about his tediously overreported rivalry with Dr. Lasker, or about his position on hypermodernism. Instead, they spoke with one voice only of the automaton.

‘Automaton?’ Capablanca repeated—and the exhausted interpreter, breathless under the bombardment of cross-questioning that followed all the rules of American journalism, reminded the maestro of the latest New York newspapers he had read at Sebezh and related everything Moscow knew about the remarkable automaton.

The Small Hall of the Conservatory must have greatly regretted that its walls were not made of rubber and that, with a certain elasticity, it could not expand to become a Large Hall.

The ghosts of Beethoven and Bach, who had by now learned to play chess and had become well-versed in the abracadabra of Queen’s and King’s openings—even they were awestruck by the silent grandeur of what was unfolding.

For what was unfolding here now was worthy of being inscribed upon the tablets of history, onto the pages of brilliant novels, or within the capricious staves of a magnificent symphony.

Even the forgotten Bechstein grand piano, even the walls aged by music, even the docile chairs shifted in their excitement—these wordless extras in the grandiose spectacle—they too froze anxiously in tense anticipation of the extraordinary finale to this extraordinary struggle.

Chess players—masters and amateurs, young and old, those speaking all European languages and those speaking only Russian—all of them, like a flock of penguins before sleep, like figures molded by a mad sculptor, appeared frozen with tension, while only their hearts passionately trembled and beat with their entire being upon the black and white squares of the hall’s solitary board.

The maestro, whose sonorous name is traversed four times by hyphens; the maestro, whose name had become a byword at every crossing of the City, Unter den Linden, and Broadway; the maestro in his elegant jacket of gray covert cloth resembled an archangel of the approaching apocalypse.

Across his cigar-brown lips slithered a thin, malicious smile. Yes, yes, imagine it—having lost a pawn on move 17 and unable to develop his bishop, he was nevertheless smiling.

Professor Yastrebov, with his sparse trimmed mustache, thoughtfully let his eyes—weary from his sixty years of life—wander over the smoky contours of the Staunton chess pieces. He seemed not to be thinking about them at all. After each of Maestro Capablanca’s moves, his thin fingers glided over the hidden levers of the automaton, and on the white forehead of the metallic monster appeared an unerring combination of letters and numbers.

Occasionally his razor-sharp lips would cast into the dark, sweaty mass of the crowd a smile as light and enigmatic as the theory of relativity. It would glide through the hall’s tense silence and ironically whisper to the uncomprehending people: ‘Fools. Do you imagine it is I who will deliver checkmate to your king and hero on the 27th move? Naive enthusiasts, who have forgotten the theory of ascending numbers and the elementary laws of differential calculus.’

The Havana Maestro remained silent. Only his nervous fingers and the serpentine bluish veins, slightly bulging at his graying temples, betrayed his suffering beneath the mask of feigned apathy.

This was a battle compared to which Abd el-Krim’s struggle against France in Morocco and the Canton-Peking conflict in China seemed like children playing with toy soldiers.

The human mind, in this battle against the iron and steel of this newfound Moloch, was dying publicly, convulsively protesting across the 64 squares of the checkered board.

Dempsey-Carpentier, Napoleon and Blücher, the Kuomintang and Peking armies, Carthage and the Roman legions, the Bible with its Judeans and Philistines, David and Goliath—all mere trifles, nonsense, soap bubbles compared to what was unfolding somewhere inside, concealed by the lapels of his elegant jacket and the futile irony on his pale, compressed lips.

And the people—crushed, sweaty, tense—convulsively awaited the end.

There were few women present. Chess is a man’s game. Chess is the bane of wives and mistresses. Chess—the thief of half the attention and duties assigned by fate and law to every man.

And the men here formed a crowd. A strange, extraordinary crowd. Hungry, yet silent. Passionate, yet restrained. They thought of and remembered nothing. Their eyes appeared glassy, and in their pupils wavered only the reflection of the board, where the most original mind in the world was being sacrificed to an idol of wood and iron.

Who could possibly describe this scene? What poet would dare resurrect in his timid, pallid verses this spectacle, directed by myriads of wordless passion, tension, dread, and suffering? And these myriads were juggled, cast upon the checkered canvases of chess diagrams, upon the smoky contours of palm wood pieces, upon astonished, gaping mouths, upon eyes ready to leap from their sockets and hurl themselves directly onto the black and white squares of the board, upon frozen, exhausted faces, upon mute, blanched smiles, cast upon the nervously scratching pencils of reporters, upon the dully bewildered faces of buffet attendants, and upon the hands of clocks racing with the speed of a Rolls-Royce.

The maestro, his lips compressed into a taut line, is thinking. Yes, the clocks gallop like madmen. Time, which at tournaments had crawled like caravans in the desert, now races like a thoroughbred at the derby. And who drives it so? Who?

Could it truly be that mere combinations of mathematically precise calculations, that mere turns of hidden levers within the mysterious mechanism could advance against him with such lightning-swift attack? With such technically admirable force—and without a commander!

No, there must be a commander. A commander without revolver or regulation cap, a knight without sword or armor, yet formidable and powerful, an almost brilliant player.

He, Capablanca, had never encountered this player at tournaments. This lightning-swift judgment and rare combinational talent were entirely unknown to him. His continuation against the Caro-Kann Defense was flawless and elegant. And yet it was completely novel to him, the celebrated theoretician and virtuoso practitioner. It surpassed even Réti’s famous continuation in his game against Lasker at the recent Vienna tournament.

How absurdly his heart trembles! It beats even faster than the racing clock hands, already threatening merciless time pressure.

Temples throb with bluish veins. Quickly, a cup of coffee. Another cup. What a fearsome battle!

Sacrifice the c4 pawn. Knight to b4. Queen to the right corner. Yes. But why to h4? Strange. What a spectacular move! This iron-masked sphinx plays like a god. In three moves, he—the maestro of both hemispheres—will lose a piece.

Agony. The world champion’s thoughts spin madly, like the wheels of his brand-new Rolls-Royce on Broadway’s asphalt. This is the finale. This is Waterloo. Napoleon’s final gambit. The death of glory. The setting of his brilliant star.

Thus the sun burns away. Slowly but inevitably it vanishes behind the horizon. Thus do heroes fall. Thus fell Napoleon, crushed by Wellington. Thus fell Leonidas, trapped with his warriors in the fateful pass of Thermopylae.

Describe the spectators? This whirlwind of bewilderment, passion, and rapture? This aftermath of three hours of silence and mute tension? This tempest of hoarse cries, fragments of conversation, words flying madly?

No, let the cold-blooded reporters write their historic lines:

“Capablanca’s match against the increasingly astonishing automaton attracted extraordinary attention. The hall was unable to accommodate all those wishing to witness the remarkable spectacle. The audience included numerous foreign newspaper correspondents who had arrived for the opening of the international tournament, members of the diplomatic corps, and nearly all Russian chess masters currently in Moscow.

Capablanca played black, as Professor Yastrebov’s sole condition for any opponent is that he always plays white. Employing the Caro-Kann Defense, the world champion held an exceptionally solid position through move 12. On move 13, due to the cunning maneuvering of the white pieces, he was forced to sacrifice a pawn to save his pawn front from immediate destruction, which would have inevitably followed.

But the pawn sacrifice did not save Black from ruin. By move 21, their position was hopelessly constricted. The white knight’s maneuver Nd2:c4 led to the loss of another pawn, resulting in a most unwelcome exchange of queens. Within two moves, the maestro inevitably lost a piece. The remainder was merely a matter of technique, and Capablanca continued his defense purely out of pride, but his game was already decided.

This defeat of the world champion compels one to conclude that the automaton represents an utterly extraordinary phenomenon. And this compels us to formally request explanations from Professor Yastrebov regarding his apparatus. We must definitively establish whether we are truly dealing with a sophisticated and complex mechanism, or merely with a supremely talented player who has, for whatever reason, chosen to mystify the public under the guise of a chess automaton.

One must concede, in any case, that this automaton presents an enormous threat to the reputation of all foreign masters arriving for the tournament. And although Capablanca’s defeat does not yet give us reason to believe that the same fate awaits Bogoljubov, Torre, or Lasker, nonetheless the encounter between these chess luminaries and Professor Yastrebov’s automaton will be of extraordinary interest.”

The language of reporters is a direct line to the imagination. The language of radio is dynamite, blasting it to its very foundations. The broadcasting antennas of Moscow’s radio station hurled into the world words that served as sufficient spark to ignite the powder keg of millions of minds. The spark—released by an utterly indifferent radio technician and consisting of only two words:

CAPABLANCA DEFEATED,

found its mark.

These words streaked across the globe with meteoric speed. Intercepted by radio stations in Berlin, Paris, New York, London, Chicago, and Spitsbergen, they were relayed onward. They soared triumphantly over nations and cities, over the green-yellow patchwork of fields, over the taiga forests and Canadian woodlands, over the jungles of Hindustan and the pampas of Argentina, over the snow-covered slopes of the Himalayas and the towering peaks of the Alps, over the glaciers of Greenland and the sands of Egypt, over skyscrapers and bridges, temples and pyramids—soared everywhere, outpacing the timidly crawling airplanes and countless flights of birds that seemed like plodding tortoises by comparison.

They crashed upon cities in a mighty avalanche of shouts, exclamations, leaping headlines in newspapers and magazines, telephone calls and letters. They were frantically tapped out by thousands of Morse and Hughes operators, hummed along telegraph wires, raced through cables on the ocean floor, blazed in luminous advertisements, erupted in the frenzied cries of newsboys—everywhere, in every place, they halted, stunned, struck unerringly.

CAPABLANCA DEFEATED!!!

These words scattered through conversations in clubs and hotels, in international salons and theater foyers, at resorts and dance halls, everywhere and anywhere, from university lecture halls to the common bakery. They were uttered hastily, between handshakes, before the next table d’hote, during intermissions at premieres and screenings, amidst love scenes and business meetings.

Everyone who followed international tournaments, everyone who knew how to arrange Staunton pieces on the black and white squares of a chessboard, everyone who had even caught whispers of names like Lasker and Réti, Torre and Rubinstein, Spielmann and Bogoljubov—indeed, everyone who simply read the daily papers—could not comprehend, would not comprehend, refused to comprehend. The king of chess kings, the Napoleon of international tournaments, defeated somewhere in some Moscow by some preposterous automaton. Was this not outrageous, was this not bizarre?

Meanwhile in Moscow, amidst the excitedly dispersing crowd, an equally excited cameraman from Kultkino bustled about. He had already immortalized Professor Yastrebov’s goatee on film and captured close-ups and wide shots of the colorful mixture of military tunics, silk dresses, and jackets, yet he searched in vain for someone whose absence from the footage would rob the newsreel of its most sensational element.

And at last he found him. The hasty frames whirred into motion. The celluloid world sprang to life, enriched by an elegant hero with the profile of a Hollywood gentleman and the bearing of Childe Harold, whimsically transplanted into our decidedly un-Byronic age. His slender fingers nervously kneaded a scented handkerchief, while the fixed smile on his dark lips quivered, occasionally transforming into a grimace.

In Berlin, London, Vienna, Paris, Prague, and Brussels, along the Rue de la Paix, Wall Street, Broadway, Friedrichstrasse, the Strand, and Prater, the chess masters arrived at train stations in Rolls-Royces, Fords, Mercedes, Fiats, Renaults, and Packards. Twenty-six first-class champions and knights hastily gulped their coffee in station buffets, and the springs of international Pullman cars, cradling them on soft divans in lounges and sleeping compartments, rushed them with meteoric speed toward a single point on the globe. That point was Sebezh—the border gateway to the country where doom, prepared by the automaton, awaited them.

On an [Atlantic] giant, a thousand-ton behemoth of the New York-Hamburg line, beneath a lazily unfurled canvas awning, Marshall—calm as a rock—leafed through a freshly printed issue of the ship’s newspaper. Across his lips, drawn taut and thin as thread, played a slight, incredulous smile. The old Yankee did not believe in the automaton. Something must have happened to Capablanca. The elegant maestro had evidently been off his game.

The automaton? Nonsense. It has been proven thousands of times that the art of chess combinations cannot be reduced to any mathematical laws. The automaton is merely a blind. The player is likely a chess master—good, strong, perhaps brilliant, but still human. And being human, any outcome is possible. There are no absolute victories. Capablanca is not infallible ……………………….

In the plush compartment of an international carriage, with quiet, melancholy eyes magnified by thick spectacles in horn-rimmed frames—for Torre was an American, and what American does not wear round horn-rimmed glasses?—he gazed thoughtfully at the fine-print exclamations of Moscow correspondents in New York newspapers.

He did not trouble himself with questions about the automaton. What was Capablanca? Four resounding names joined by hyphens. And beyond that? Beyond that—an aging mind and deteriorating technique. What significance had Capablanca when Torre had scored half a point more than the celebrated world champion in the latest tournament? In the upcoming battle in Moscow, Mexico would surely finish ahead of Cuba. Mexico had youth on its side, the burning fire of competition, and a tremendous will to victory. This will was recognized even by impresarios, even by shrewd stock market players ready to hastily exchange their lucrative Goliko Oil shares for stakes in Torre’s future glory.

Champions? Rubbish. He would yet topple these champions as easily as this empty ashtray. The automaton held no terror. Even if defeated—he would endure it with more grace and fortitude than the celebrated maestro di-Graupera. ………

At Volokolamsk station, a reporter from ‘Evening Moscow,’ with all the impetuosity of a businesslike American, managed to gain access to the sleeping car graced by the presence of the great Dr. Emanuel Lasker himself.

The same carriage. The same compartment. But now Germany, not Mexico. Not spirited youth, but the burden of sixty years of life.

A captivating smile. Half-closed, merry eyes twinkling with flashes of something that involuntarily makes one want to remove one’s hat. A snowy crown of silver hair that automatically softens your step and causes your voice to modulate timidly in especially reverent tones.

His lips, slowly puffing on a cigar between words, occasionally tossed to the reporter—perspiring with delight—words as weighty as stones:

“It is difficult for me, unfamiliar as I am with the younger generation of Russian chess players, to suggest to you that the automaton is merely a pretext, merely a cheap sensation. Perhaps this prevailing opinion has no foundation whatsoever.

Mathematics has not, however, encroached upon the art of chess. For all its comprehensiveness, it could not master chess, which yields to no mathematical premises or justifications. Mathematicians seeking definite numerical laws in chess have always collided with the insurmountable obstacle of countless, incalculable combinational positions. To solve this problem, to somehow formalize it, to constrain it within specific mathematical parameters—this seems to me personally to be absolutely impossible.

Yet at the same time, many things are possible. It may well be that this problem has, after all, been solved. Who can guarantee that there has not finally emerged a brilliant mind that has resolved the impossible?

But then, to what end? Why, in verifying harmony through algebra, must we kill this harmony finally and irrevocably? Why deprive humanity of an art so exceptional in its heroic character? Why?

“I would welcome with all my heart a brilliant player, but would gladly destroy a super-brilliant machine, for it brings death to chess.”