During this time, Arbes was persecuted and spent 15 months in the Czech Lipa prison, for leading opposition to the ruling Austro-Hungarian Empire.

In France, he was an associate of other "Bohemian Parisiens" such as Paul Alexis, Luděk Marold, Guy de Maupassant, Viktor Oliva, and Karel Vítězslav Mašek, as well as the French writer Émile François Zola.

[2] His work incorporates the themes of moral justice, free thinking and rationalism,[2] and also featured autobiographical elements.

In this story, two ideas coincide: the brain of the genius and trickster, apparently dies at the Battle of Königgrätz in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866.

Subsequently, he uses Newton's knowledge of the laws of nature to overcome them, using a strange device to travel faster than the speed of light, and also to photograph the past.