The Invention of Hugo Cabret

The next morning, Hugo opens and runs Georges’s toy booth, though he is frustrated by the limited use of his right hand. Isabelle arrives and sits with Hugo behind the counter. He asks her to read aloud from her book of Greek myths, so she reads him the story of Prometheus. Hugo feels a connection to Prometheus because they both steal for good reasons. Hugo shows Isabelle the blue mechanical mouse, and they talk about how machines are built for a purpose. He is sad to see a broken machine because it can’t fulfill its purpose; he wonders if people break down in the same way. Isabelle and Hugo ponder their own purposes and wonder if they can fix Georges. In the evening, the children close the toy booth, and Hugo takes Isabelle into the glass clocks at the top of the station. They stand together and watch the silent city. Hugo tells her that he views the world as a machine, which means that both of them must have a reason for existing, as machines do not contain any superfluous parts.

Over the course of a week, Hugo and Isabelle raise enough money to buy Georges’s medicine to help with his fever. Hugo watches the station’s clocks break down, and the Station Inspector leaves a written request for an in-person meeting with Uncle Claude.

Hugo goes to Isabelle’s apartment for the meeting between Georges, Etienne, and Monsieur Tabard. Isabelle explains to Jeanne how they discovered who Georges is and introduces Monsieur Tabard and Etienne to her. Monsieur Tabard tells the group about how he met Georges when he was little, and the experience profoundly affected Monsieur Tabard. He wants to repay Georges, but Jeanne doesn’t think bringing up the past is a good idea. Monsieur Tabard then shows them one of Georges’s movies, which he brought from the Film Academy archive. He also brought a projector, and Isabelle and Hugo beg Jeanne to watch it. The group watches the film, and Hugo recognizes the fabric with the moons and the stars: It was a costume from A Trip to the Moon.

When the movie ends, everyone sees Georges standing in his bedroom doorway. Isabelle introduces her godfather to Etienne and Monsieur Tabard. She then tells Georges about Hugo’s automaton, the key, and the machine’s drawing, which Hugo hands to him. Georges takes the projector into his room and locks the door.

Everyone waits outside Georges’s door, hearing loud crashes and furniture being dragged across the floor. Hugo tells Isabelle to pick the lock. She opens the door to reveal Georges sitting at a desk in the middle of the room with his drawings scattered across the floor. He tells them his parents were shoemakers, but he hated shoes. He sold his share in the family shoe factory and bought a theatre, where he performed magic tricks with Jeanne as his assistant. He then built the automaton and fell in love with filmmaking. This led him to build his own movie camera from the leftover automaton parts. After World War I, however, he couldn’t compete with the other filmmakers and lost everything. His dearest friends—Isabelle’s parents—died in a car accident shortly after, leaving him to raise Isabelle. This loss hurt Georges so much that he made Jeanne promise never to mention his movies again. He sold his films “to a company that melted them down and turned them into shoe heels” (406) and bought the toy booth with the funds, but he treasured the automaton and donated it to a museum. All he had left was the extra key to the automaton, which he made for Jeanne as a gift. Georges asks Hugo where the mechanical man is now and asks him to bring it to him.