12
The Physics Election

On Monday, Daniel had said the University would convene on Wednesday. On Tuesday, everyone in Basel had heard. But the true Announcement was yet to come, and once Basel knew that the University would Convene, Basel knew that it would be Announced.

After the recent fearful days of the plague, the news was like fresh water. The announcing and convening of the University was a ritual as old as the University, and in austere Basel, where any feather of pageantry was suspect, only the academic and ancient in alliance justified a display. And as long as it was justified, the citizens would gladly spectate a spectacle.

It had been two years since the last convention, for the Election to Logic, and the elevation of Gottlieb and the departure of Daniel. I knew the ritual fairly well from watching it then. It was all pompous pomp on the outside, Basel’s gaudiest rite, as ritual as a coronation; as ponderous as a planet’s orbit, and as full of robes and regalia as a cathedral choir and dressmaker’s shop together. To Italians or French, it would seem just as black and white as everything else in a Protestant city. Yet color was measured by contrast, and in Basel, bright colors were kept in their proper place.

But there was what was seen, and there was what had substance. It was the invisible part of the convention that had the most meaning: the quiet conversations before the loud gathering, the two heads leaned close across a table in a dim room, the sparse written note then thrown in the fire. Daniel claimed that when finally the University sat to deliberate, its deliberations had already been done.

Master Johann was now the senior Chair of the college and had a critical role in the first meeting. What would happen in the conclave, and what had been agreed beforehand between the most influential members, would never be known outside.

The carriage returned that evening from Strasbourg and Freiburg. I was in the Barefoot Square at the time, just coming out from the Barefoot Church. All day the rumors and gossip had been pouring out the Inn and every other door about the coming Convention and Election. When the coach arrived, it seemed a part of the disturbance. It was surrounded by hounds, and wolves, and hunting dogs, and then I saw Jehu in the seat next to Abel. That King of Israel looked up to the windows of the Inn, and there, Jezebel looked down at him. He shook his fist at her and she jeered back at him, and all the dogs bayed and howled back at the face in the window.

When I came home that night, my grandmother met me with a note that had been sent from the Dean of the College of Arts. It instructed me to report to his own home the next morning at nine o’clock. I knew what this meant. “It’s part of summoning the Faculty,” I said.

“You’ll call on Master Johann?” Grandmother asked.

“I think it will be Master Desiderius. He told me I’d be asked to do something for him.”

Wednesday morning I was up early and quickly done with chores. I dressed in my immaculate black and white, and my grandmother sent me out the door to the Dean’s house. The Convening of the University was to begin.

The first spark always would come from the Provost. Four students in their brightest black would issue from his front door. They would be mature and responsible young gentlemen but still sprightly, to prance to the homes of the four Colleges’ deans. There, they would rap smartly on the doors. A great part of the ritual was this knocking. Neighbors would step out of their homes to watch it. Through the morning, as the summons would unfold, great men would be answering their own doors to receive the news: the University is Convening.

Then the sparks would spread into flame. The deans would acknowledge the call and send out their own. They must step back from their door, apparently to summon their own messengers, but in truth to not be knocked over. From their doors would burst a flock of students sent to summon their professors, and as the most respectable students were already serving the Provost, and there were more professors and lecturers than mature students anyway, this herd of flapping, flying black robes would be worth seeing and worth being out of their way.

I was to be one of them. Master Johann as Senior Chair of his College would have to be summoned by the same messenger sent from the Provost to the Dean. I was meant for Desiderius.

I ran! The young men chosen were favorites of their teachers, and high spirited though they were, they were counted on to play no pranks on a serious occasion. We raced through the streets, crossing paths between deans’ and professors’ houses. In all, there were some fifty. Most went for the lecturers and officials of the University, but fifteen or so who could make a good bow and had the nicest wigs were sent to the Chairs.

These several would carry tokens of authority. The Dean of Theology sent hourglasses to the Chairs of his college, that life was measured and would end. The Dean of Law sent quills, that words were the structure of authority. The Dean of Medicine sent pestles, that man was mixture of soul and body. And the Dean of Arts, who had the largest college, sent candles, because knowledge was light. The tokens signified an important notion. The Deans were between master and servant of the Chairs. They were a higher position, but not a higher rank. They were often former professors of whom it was thought best that they no longer profess, the moon moved aside to make way for the sun. They had an important role and were usually men of substance, but not always of eminence. So the tokens were a command and a plea to the Chairs, who were Great Men not to be called as if they were Less.

But of course they would come. Their doors were knocked upon and they opened them and stared out into the street. There were many houses in Basel on many streets, but not so many of either that provided such high residence: the Chairs furnished only certain areas. They received the token and the summons and they stepped out their doors into the light. As if it was their daily habit, they were in their finest robes. Often more than one would be in sight at a time.

The people were watching. Basel was proud of its University and viewed the great men with satisfaction. They appeared in the streets, rounding the corners, enrobed in black and scarlet, black and emerald, black and azure, black and sienna, black and maroon, black and canary. The striping was in corvettes, diagonals, diamonds, and arcs. Their vast wigs curved, curled, and coiled like rioting ivy and wide mountain waterfalls. Atop the wigs were triangular, square, rectangular, trapezoidal, and pentagonal velvet caps, and each color and shape imbued by tradition with centuries of meaning.

As streams to the Rhine, the Professors would flow into the University. They would come from all directions, though none across the bridge, for no professor lived in Small Basel. They would come on foot, slowing as they approached the portal, gathering like an army and then entering their Fortress, the University Building itself.

As part of the flood, I arrived at the House of Desiderius and knocked on the door. All the children of the street were out to watch, and even a few of the wives had their curtains drawn aside. The door opened and the Master himself, brow furled at my completely unexpected appearance, leaned out into the street.

“What, Leonhard?” he said. “How is it you’re here?”

“I’m sent by the Dean,” I said. “I’m to bring you to the University.”

“To the University? Why, what is it? I’m being summoned?”

“The University is convening, Master. And I’ve a token for you of the seriousness of the matter.” And I held up the candle.

Master Desiderius took it carefully and examined it thoroughly. “Then I’ll come,” he said. And of course it was no signal at all that I was expected, that he happened to have on his University robe and cap!

So we set off. Master Desiderius was not too senior a Chair to keep his own lively pace through the Basel streets. And when we turned one way or the other in our path that wasn’t the straightest route, I thought it was that he even wanted to be seen by some acquaintances. While Master Johann would surely be stepping his slow, stately beat, only hurrying at all because it would be tiresome to be a spectacle for the common people, Master Desiderius knew that he was on display and made well of it. His robe flowed behind him like an exultation of larks.

His appearance in the Barefoot Square was especially meant to be jubilant. We came to the Coal Gate and saw the Square beyond, over full as people had planned their marketing to coincide with the Convening. We even paused a moment in the shadow of the gate in anticipation of our entrance. And as we stood in that dark spot I had a sudden sense of something, motion or sound, but really of rending. I took hold of Master Desiderius’s arm, and in the instant felt him also gripping mine, and then I lunged, pulling and being pulled. Above me, and then as I fell headlong forward, behind me, there was weight, and force, and a terrible plunging, and collapse. All the stones of the arch came crashing into the space they’d stood over, with roaring and tumbling clamor, piling in an instant into a mountain of rock, a blockade, and a destruction. I was on my face on the paving of the Square, and Desiderius beside me, and we turned to see the tons of gate where we’d stood three seconds before, while still more stones were falling, and finally the last did.

And a great cloud of dust rose from the pile.

In a few seconds more we were being helped to our feet. Master Desiderius was unscathed; I think I’d tripped and he’d been pulled more gently down by his hold on me. But I was battered and scraped and felt unsteady from unexpected pains as I stood. Small, bright red lines appeared from the brown dirt on my hands. And I was covered with dust. I stared at the great wind of dust that wrapped the pile of stones.

“Are you well?” Desiderius asked me, very anxious, and I nodded. And other people around me were asking, also, and holding me as I swayed.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m only bruised.” I looked at myself and saw torn sleeves and breeches. I could feel that my face was as bad as the rest. Beside the black and brown dust of the Wall, there was fine gray dust, among it but separate.

“You’ll need help,” Desiderius said.

“No. But you’ll need a new guide.” I grabbed the shoulder of a child I knew from Saint Leonhard’s, one I’d tutored and who I thought might achieve the University himself someday. “Friedrich, here, you take Master Desiderius, and get him to the University! I need you to!” And I pushed them off, encouraging them both as they looked back in reluctance at leaving me. “Go, go! The University’s convening! They need the Master!” And finally they did turn, and go on, and the crowd parted for them. Then I turned, back to the stones and the dust.

Already a few men were stooping down to see the pile, and I thrust myself in with them. “Pull,” I said. “Move the stones!” And with my bleeding hands I tore at the stones, and my urgency flooded the other men, and they pulled, too. The dust was still high and we stirred it and added to it. And it wasn’t long, or many stones, before there was a cry of dismay, and a carved block was lifted from a hand, white with dust but dark veined, and still in death gripping a hammer.

I fell back. Others untombed the stonemason.

And even as I reeled and sat, and the dust swirled, and the stones were pushed away from their heap, and shingle and rubble were thrown out from the un-pilers, one handful of the debris landed close to me, and one piece of the ruin fell nearly in my hand. It was soft and wadded and black beneath thick dust. I was stunned by it. Then I thrust it into my pocket.

I didn’t wait there longer. I stepped back, brushed off my dust, and smoothed my rumpling. The door of the University would be closing soon as the black starlings flocked to their nesting. There was no use following them. Instead I went into the church.

The Barefoot Church was made all of stone. It was old and plain stone, not patterned, not chiseled. I put my hand on it, close to the door. It was cool. And it seemed weightless as if the essence of it was flown away; or, as if the stone had flown from its weight.

All my little cleverness, my Mathematics and papers, my deep thoughts as deep as a scratch, in all of them there was no warmth or comfort.

I pulled out the wad from my pocket, black and coated in dust. I could do nothing for Lithicus, so I put all my care and gentleness into smoothing out that creased, smashed thing, and slowly shaped it from its shapelessness into what it had once been. I pushed out the center to a bowl and curled the wide brim on each side, and the material seemed to remember its old form and was desperate glad to return to it. As desperate, I wanted to set it on my head and be just a child again, running from class to class and learning subjects which were only visible; it was my dear old hat.

But that was past.

So I forced the hat back into my pocket and turned my eyes toward the door of the church, and to the Square and world beyond. The hat on my head was tricorne.

It might have showed, as I entered the Common Room, though my stride was more stagger. But I thought it showed that I was tall and stern and weighted. Few of the many gathered noticed me, but the tankards did. They stared at me warily, suspiciously, and challenged me. It was daunting. Then Gustavus saw them all looking at me from their shelves and turned to notice me himself. He knew I was changed.

And Daniel was there and didn’t notice. And Nicolaus was there, and did.

“What do you require?” Gustavus asked me.

“What you can’t supply,” I answered. He nodded and stepped away to another customer. But he kept a watch on me. I kept a watch on the rest of the room. The discussion was fast and free, the large part on Lithicus, but still some on the University and its Convention. Daniel was of that part.

“All peacocks, all of them,” Daniel answered. “It’s all parade. It’s gaudy.”

“They should wear your Italian silk instead,” Nicolaus said.

“I’ll have a scarlet robe made, not black.”

“And what of you?” Nicolaus asked me. I never knew what he meant.

“I’m shaken,” I said.

“Oh, the gate?” Daniel said. “And the mason? Nearly you, too, they said!”

“And Desiderius?” Nicolaus said. I nodded.

“Nearly him.”

“And why any of you?” Daniel said. “The stonecutter’s no slipshod, I’d have thought.” He hardly seemed to care that the man was dead. “But maybe he was blinded by the peacocks and lost his hold.”

“He had the keystone out of the arch,” Nicolaus said.

“He’s no slipshod,” I said. I didn’t want to listen more to them. I moved to a different table and just watched. But even there I could still hear.

“Then it’s an odd instant for the gate to fall, with Desiderius in it,” Daniel said. “That’s worth thinking on.” He turned round to find me. “You should have been watching him better, Leonhard!”

“He was watching me. He pulled me out in bare time.”

“And they said the mason was crushed by the stones,” Daniel said.

“And you sent Desiderius on his way without him knowing that?” Nicolaus asked me. I nodded.

“Wasn’t that better for him?” Daniel said. “They’ll deliberate better without the tragedy weighing on them. But it’s still worth thinking on. What would be gained if Desiderius had been out of the deliberations?”

“And out of his Chair?” Nicolaus said.

“I don’t want Greek,” Daniel answered. “What would it do to Physics, though? I’d say nothing. It’s all decided and all the bargains are made. Nothing but death can change it.”

“Then you’ve nothing to fear, have you?” Nicolaus said.

“And it’s only the committees being decided,” someone else said. “They’ll still each have to name their candidates.”

“They’ll be each told who to name,” Daniel answered.

“They won’t be told,” someone said. “They’re most all proud men.”

“Those who won’t be told,” Daniel said, “will be outwitted.”

“Would Master Desiderius?” I asked, from my own table, finally able to speak again.

“That’s why you think he had a wall dropped on him? To keep him out of the committees? If that’s why, then it wasn’t Brutus who did it. Desiderius will do as he’s told most of anyone.”

“And you will, too, when you’re Chair?” Nicolaus asked.

That was enough to close Daniel’s mouth. He dropped his chin onto his hands in a pout. Nicolaus watched him a few minutes then came to join me.

“I think he’s right, that the deliberation’s already set,” he said to me. “And you’re shaken by a third death.”

“Yes, I am.”

“And you’ve been close by all three, very close. Knipper, and Huldrych, and Lithicus.”

“Nicolaus!” I said. “What do you mean by saying that?”

“You’re not such as a child as you’ve seemed, and maybe you’ve never been.”

Some time went by, about an hour. The talk was still mixed between the University and the stonemason. I would have left but I was too grieved to stand.

I was sitting by the door. Nicolaus was nearby watching me, and Daniel was in the thick, talking spurts, and I couldn’t hear for the din. I saw that Daniel was having no pleasure in all the rumors that he was hearing and repeating. He was agitated and soon turned to the wall and shrugged away questions. Then we all were waiting.

Until there was a tug on my sleeve, and then a soft torrent of words. And when Little Johann was finished, he said, “Don’t tell anyone that I told you.”

And then he was gone.

I’d had nearly a score of names thrust into my ear. I’d only barely kept up with them. It meant the University door must have been opened and the announcements made, for they were all the assignments to the committees, though no one else in the room seemed to have heard them. The minutes passed and I began to wonder that no messengers were plunging in from the streets outside. And I also began thinking through the assignments and what they might mean.

But finally Pheippides arrived: a student, Stottfeld, I’d tutored in Latin some year in the past. He came breathless into the Common Room and instantly was bread to the ducks.

“They’re out, just now,” he proclaimed, though instead of collapse he only gasped.

“And who are they? What are the committees?” was asked.

“It hasn’t been said yet. They’ll give an announcement tonight.”

“Oh!” Daniel said. “That’s murder! Tell us now!”

So I waited for the waiting to resume, and then I came close to him, and leaned closer, and whispered into his ear what had been whispered into mine.

“The first committee’s led by Master Johann himself,” I said, and I told him the others that made up his six, all fine Chairs and Lecturers.

“Melchior? Bost? They’re his own fish. They’ll be leaping to do what he says. Hoppenfeld? Cassini? Van der Veld? A little stiffness there in those three, but they won’t stand up to him, not in the same room. Oh, there’s no doubt of that committee.”

“The second committee’s led by Master Desiderius,” I said, and the list of those five, the Dean of Law, the Chair of Law, Chair of Anatomy, the Chair of Botany, and Vanitas of Theology.

“Paleologus? Tertullus? That’s Desiderius held in check. He’ll dance the jig played for him, and Paleologus will make sure he does. They’re as like to Brutus as if they’re himself. So there’s the first committee that’s all his, and Desiderius has the second committee and he’s the perfect finger on the Brute’s paw.”

“Paws don’t have fingers,” I said.

“Leonhard, he’s Brutus’s Cassius. That I know. And Vanitas to be sure of him.”

“Anyway, the third committee is Gottlieb’s.”

“Oh, that’s the pudding, that one. Oh! That dear cousin! Only two years a Chair himself, and he’s to decide who’ll take the next.”

“And he has Suvius of Latin, three lecturers, and the Bursar.”

“Gottlieb’s no one, but there’s less than no one to gainsay him.” Daniel boiled in his seat. “The Brute’s done it, in every way. He has it all in his hand. It’s all under his thumb. It’s under his foot. He’s picked every name, the very ones he wants.”

“Who else is there?” I asked. “They’re the Deans and Chairs and Lecturers. It’s near half the University, and I’ll even say the most distinguished half.”

“And that’s the rub. They’re best of the University and he has them all in his pocket. And if he has them, who doesn’t he have?”

“I think the University convened, and chose proper committees, and they’ll do what they’re meant to do. They’ll nominate a man from Basel, a man from another University, and one other. You can rave, Daniel, but you’re only seeing shadows.”

“Seeing things that aren’t there?” We were both startled by Nicolaus, always beside us. “So how do you know what the committees are, Leonhard? They’re not announced yet.”

“Well, I was told.”

“Then maybe you’re seeing the same invisible things that Daniel is. And if they’re shadows, then they’re shadows of real things.”

“Who will they nominate, then?” I asked. “That’s more important.”

“And will it be the best men?” Daniel answered. “The greatest? The most esteemed, or skilled, or brilliant? No, no, and no. It’ll be only those who’ll dance to his pipe. It’s the whole University that Brutus wants.”

“He doesn’t want the whole University, anyway,” Nicolaus said.

“All right, if that’s true,” Daniel said. “It’s one part that he cares for. To thwart me.”

“Or two parts,” Nicolaus said. “There’s both of us.”

But then, Gustavus, always nearby, it seemed, seemed to be nearer even. Like a hound catching a scent, Daniel lifted his head and his eyes opened wider. “Who will they nominate?” he asked, it seemed, but not as a question. “How’d Brutus get his own Chair?” Gustavus didn’t answer, of course, but he waited in the case that he would be asked a service he could perform. “If Brutus is sure to get his man, then the need is to be his man. That’s all.”

“When the committees were posted,” I told Grandmother, “they were all the names Little Johann had said they’d be.”

“How did he have the names before anyone else?” my grandmother asked. “He was telling you while the door to the University had hardly been opened.”

“Before it was opened,” I said. “I think he saw them on his father’s desk.” We’d talked of the committees, and Daniel, and the Convening, and all that had been said at the Inn, and most we’d talked of Lithicus. “But it’s well known that the Chairs discuss their business before they convene. They’d have already made their decisions of who would be on the committees. And . . .” I looked down at myself, still dusty, “I’ve torn my breeches.”

“I’ll have them mended. How nearly did the stones fall on you, Leonhard?”

“Not near at all,” I said. I hadn’t told her I’d been close. She must have heard that from another.

When I finally sat at my desk, with only my candle awake with me, I took the crushed and torn black lump from my pocket again. I un-wadded it again and smoothed it again. It was surely my hat. I knew it full well. What I’d worn for all my years in Basel, that had been taken from me in the Inquiry, and that had now been finally torn by falling stones.

Then I shook off the mortal dust that coated it. I turned to my dresser, to the wooden head and wig, and moved off the tricorne that had taken residence there. With respect I put my old student hat in its old student place. It was as battered and torn as I was, and it was mine. Ten times as much punishment would not have marred it enough that I would have disowned it, or failed to recognize it. It still bore the marks of having been crushed between two stones. I felt much the same as it did. It was as if we’d been assaulted together.

On that place that had always been its home, it still had some stiffness, and some of its shape, though it would never again be what it had been. I would never throw it out, or any gift from my father. Yet I would never wear it again. For five years it had adorned my two heads, the wooden on my dresser and the live on my shoulders. I wouldn’t be a minor student anymore, and a gentleman would never wear brown. It was all over; though, for a few more days, even as a gentleman, the brown would be useful.

Habits and routine were refuge in turbulent times.

I did my chores and fetched water the next morning without needing to think about anything more than the tasks at hand. But I’d been slow and I was a little late that morning, with the dawn already advanced as far as gray and pink. The water flowed in the fountain in the Barefoot Square as always, and the church’s glow was more like daylight. The Boot and Thorn was still deep in night, though not at rest. A giant stood at its door watching and towering until the giant became Gustavus, only watching. Of course, no coach was there: it was Thursday, not Wednesday or Friday. And in the opposite door, an angel also watched, with Bare Feet, though only I saw him.

Willi came out of the stable tunnel leading the black stallion, so I knew who Gustavus was watching for. And soon he came. In some cities, a gentleman may leave the early morning to the servants, yet neither Basel nor Daniel conformed to that rule. But before he mounted he stepped into the dark doorway with Gustavus.

I could have taken my buckets and left but I waited. The angel also had a horse, white and cool as the other was black and hot. I didn’t know who would come for it, but I had a mind to wait and see.

Daniel and Gustavus had left the Square entirely into the inn. They were together as the minutes passed, and it was time for me to return with my grandmother’s water. Then finally just Daniel came out the door and took his horse. He was jaunty and as assured as he’d ever been. He took a deep, satisfied breath and swung himself into his saddle and made a quick and easy gait across the Sqaure. The collapsed gate had been cleared enough to let him by.

I looked to the Barefoot Church. The angel was still there, but the horse was not. Then I saw it passing the ruined gate after Daniel, following.

Mistress Dorothea’s speech that morning was a wall, endless with no opening, which I’d learned meant that her mind was not on her words. She was the only of the family that I saw. Her only mention of the day before’s affairs was as I was leaving, and she said to me, “And Leonhard. Do you remember what I’ve asked you?”

There were always many things that she had. But I answered, “I haven’t seen the remorse that you asked of. Not yet.”

When I was finished there, I went to see Lieber the bookbinder. His games and quarrels at the Boot and Thorn with Lithicus had been as much a part of the Common Room as the hearth.

I watched him at his book press. He’d allowed me before to pull its lever and press the inked type into the paper. I’d rather have set the type. It must have been like writing: it would be much slower, yet the letters were beautifully shaped and the whole set page was such perfection: considered, ordered, arranged, squared, and final. But lives were lived by the quill and inkbottle, instead of carefully chosen from drawer cases and laid straight.

“Young Master Leonhard,” he said when he came to me. “You’re not torn.”

“No, though I nearly was yesterday. Just scratched.”

“And Lithicus is rent. Who’ll carve a stone for him, I wonder?”

“Someone new will,” I said. “And there are no books to remember him by.”

“Not him. It’s not many who’ve written books. But I’ll remember him.”

“Lieber, do you remember when Master Gottlieb brought you the Ars Conjectandi to be printed?”

“Well enough,” he said. “That one I’ll always remember.”

“What did he give you? Was it his finished manuscript? Did you see anything of Master Jacob’s papers he wrote from?”

“Only Master Gottlieb’s own written papers,” Lieber said. “Very neat he is, though he angles his lines to the bottom of the page. But the drawings were from old Master Jacob.”

“Who carved them into the printing plates?”

“I did that.”

“I didn’t know you were an etcher.”

“I apprenticed under Meynenden in Frankfurt, and he was a hard Master. He had me learn every skill of making a book.”

“They’re excellent figures. Did Lithicus ever see them? He’d have appreciated good etching.”

He lowered his forehead and looked at me through narrowed eyes. “And why are you asking, young Master Leonhard? Yes, I showed him the figures. I wanted him to see what could be done with the printing press.”

“Surely you would,” I said.

“And he didn’t like what he saw. He would have torn the pages out if I’d let him.”

I nodded. “It was the spiral, wasn’t it?”

“Aye, it was the spiral.”

“He carved a spiral for Master Jacob’s epitaph stone. But it wasn’t the kind he’d been meant to carve. I think Master Johann wasn’t pleased with it.”

“Lithicus wasn’t much pleased, either. And he wanted to know where I’d got the drawing that I made that etching from. He said he’d been looking years for that figure.”

“You had them from Master Gottlieb,” I said.

“Oh, I told him that, but I told him if he wanted to see it himself, he’d just need to visit Master Huldrych.”

“Master Huldrych!” I said. “Why him?”

“Master Gottlieb didn’t keep all those papers of Master Jacob’s. Master Huldrych kept them.”

“Why did he?”

“I don’t know the affairs of University men. That’s not my place!”

“But how did you know that he had them?”

“Master Huldrych came and stood just where you’re standing, to tell me to take care of the papers that Master Gottlieb had given me. He said he had them in his charge and he wanted them held safe. And I told him they would be.”

I was a gentleman now, and of substance, and from speaking with Lieber, I took it upon myself to call on Cousin Gottlieb. I chose ten thirty in the morning as a respectable time to knock on his door. I was in complete black and white. All traces of anxiety and grief were cleared from my face. He answered the door himself. He saw me and understood that I was presenting myself as respectable, and accepted me as such, although it was a thin claim; he’d been the one to place the tricorne on my head. But we’d spoken as equals over Mathematics, and that alone was sufficient.

“Good morning,” I said.

“Yes, good morning,” he answered. “What might I do for you?” It was abrupt, to let me know that my claim was accepted, but thin enough to not to be relied upon heavily.

“It’s a very small thing, and I’m sorry to bother you.”

“Well, go ahead.” That meant he was also sorry that I was bothering him.

“I asked last week about the hat that I had? I remember of course you said it was lost.”

There might have been a difference in his annoyed glance. “What of it? Yes, it was lost. I have an appointment, Leonhard, and no time. What do you want of me?”

I hoped it was not another disrespectful student! “I still have a desire to find my hat.”

“Then find it. Elsewhere. It isn’t here.”

“But might you be able to tell me what became of it from here?”

“It must have been thrown out. I don’t allow rags to be left about in my house.”

“I really must insist,” I said, “to find what became of it.”

“And why is that?” He was saying plainly that he wouldn’t answer.

I paused a moment to prepare myself. “On the night that Daniel and Nicolaus returned from Italy, I saw Master Jacob’s trunk in the kitchen at their house. I think my hat will assist me in learning how that trunk came from Master Huldrych’s house to Master Jacob’s.”

He raised an eyebrow and pursed his lips. “And I suppose Knipper the coachman was in the kitchen with it?”

“He was. I spoke with him.”

“I don’t see that your hat will be any assistance.”

I might have piqued his interest, but he still seemed in a hurry.

“I considered telling you before the Inquiry—”

“It’s plain why you didn’t.” And Gottlieb’s tone made it plain that it was plain. “You’re tantamount to accusing one of us in the house of murder.”

“I was afraid I might be misunderstood to be, so I said nothing.”

“It might well not have been a misunderstanding. But I’m not any Inquisitor now, so I won’t ask you any more of it. And it’s still nothing to do with the hat.”

“And I realize,” I said, proceeding, “that it had been you who had the trunk taken to Master Huldrych’s in the first place when you arrived in Basel twenty years ago.”

“Who else would have? Jacob asked me to keep it away from Johann. This still isn’t worth bothering me over a hat.”

“And you had Knipper carry it there for you. Then he would have recognized it later when he saw it. He was very anxious at it being in Master Johann’s house. I’d never seen him so distraught.”

“I’m sure he was so. He should have been. When I first sent him with it to Huldrych’s, I instructed him very strongly to never tell Uncle Johann he knew anything of it.”

“And later, some few years ago,” I said, “Lithicus the mason carried it to Master Johann’s.”

“The mason? Who was killed just yesterday? Why do you say it was him?”

“He was told where Master Jacob’s papers were. It was just by chance. And he knew Master Johann wanted to find them.”

“The papers were still in the trunk?”

“Yes.”

“All of them?”

“I don’t know how many there ever were.”

“How many did you see?”

“I didn’t see them myself. I only saw the trunk.”

“Who did see them?” he said, and he was still as impatient, but only that I wasn’t answering quick enough.

“I have a witness . . . but I won’t say who it is.”

“There aren’t many who it could be. What else does this witness claim?”

“Only that there were papers in the trunk, and they were Jacob’s.”

“Tell me who this witness is. Would he know also who killed Knipper.”

“I pledged that I wouldn’t tell.” But after a moment, I said, “I still wonder what has become of my hat.”

“Why do you want it? What does it have to do with any of this?”

“I do think it would be of help to me.”

“Then tell me,” he bargained, “who is your witness? What papers did he see? And I will consider the hat.”

“Little Johann. But I told him that I’d not tell anyone that he’d looked in the trunk, or even seen it.”

He frowned at that. “And that was who came here to take your hat, and I made the same pledge to him.”

We stared at each other for a moment, considering.

“What was the danger you spoke of at the Inquiry?” I asked. “You said there was a danger to Basel.”

He wasn’t angry at my question, and that seemed to show he was accepting me. “If it comes, Leonhard, you’ll know. If it doesn’t, then you needn’t know.”

“Is it the plague?”

“I think it is not. It will be from outside, not within. Though plague might be part of it.”

“I have a few other questions,” I said, “though I doubt you would answer them.”

Gottlieb had put his hand back on the doorknob to close it, but he paused, with almost the same look for me that he’d had for Daniel at the inn during their questioning and jousting.

“What are they?”

“I wonder what Magistrate Caiaphas has to do with this danger. I wonder why he demanded the Inquiry, but then tried to prevent it. And I wonder what you meant to ask Caiaphas. I believe that you pressed the Inquiry because you had questions of him that you wanted answered, which had nothing to do with Knipper.”

“You are correct, Leonhard,” Gottlieb said. “I won’t answer those. And you are impertinent. I hope you find your hat.” The dismissal was polite. He pushed the door to close it.

“Thank you,” I said. And just before the door was shut, “Actually I did find it. I have it.”

My Friday began dark and full of storms. I didn’t need to go out for water; a great deal of water was coming directly to us. Our barrel beneath the eaves was flowing over. I knew it was without looking. As I lay in bed, dark before the sun, I listened to the rain and I could hear the pattering of the drops on the surface. It brought me to thinking also about Grandmother’s warning that a pot will overflow and I wondered how full any pots were, and what sounds would change when they were full. I also thought how a tricorne had more purpose than to make a gentleman, because its practical use was to shed rain.

The hat would be first manufactured round and very wide brimmed. Then the three curl folds would be done to make it an equilateral triangle, the two sides angled toward the front to make the high prow, and the back as a wide, low stern. When the storm would rage and the sea flood over it, the water would empty from the stern’s port and starboard corners. Thus, the gentleman’s back was spared the spouts, which spewed to the sides.

The hat of a student would begin with the same wide round shape, but would be rolled on just its two parallel sides, and the flood would then pour directly down his robe. This would certainly be an impetus to the young scholar to finish his studies and be graduated, so that his back would stay dry.

But it was a noteworthy point to consider that the two hats began the same. This might also have been a reminder to both the student and the professor that in the shaping, a man would be made one thing or another. We were only earthen vessels, and all made of the same dust.

As I prepared to leave my room for the morning, I took both hats in my hands: my secondhand tricorne and my torn and rumpled student widebrim. They were both as clean and brushed as I could make them. The one was from my father, precious to me but never again to be worn. The other was from Gottlieb, from the University, from the wide world, from Basel, and I would wear it until a new one came.

I would take neither though, for that day. I was in brown and neither the child nor the man.

When the sun had taken hold of the sky and cleared it, I went to the Barefoot Square, not to collect water from the fountain, but to watch it. I’d filled my buckets there so often; again, I wondered on the water’s source. I wondered again on the ancient-ness of Basel’s fountains. The Romans had had fountains in the city.

Beyond, the Birsig Flow’s deep path beneath the city was unknown; it came to the Rhine somewhere between the Munster and the Bridge. I walked to the Outer Wall. The Stone Gate was a high, narrow tower over the road from the Birsig’s valley, and the Birsig entered its tunnel in a culvert beside the gate. I walked out the gate and followed the stream.

Outside the city, before its cloacal length, it was a good, pure stream, ten or more miles long and as wide as three houses where it came to the Walls. I’d walked its length, before and it always reminded me of walking with my father beside the Rhine. I set out to walk it again.

It passed its first mile well ordered, with quiet banks by farms and pastures on the left and a nice hill on the right. After two miles and the villages of Therwil and Oberwil, it turned right through a wide valley with low peaks on either side. The hamlets came every mile: Benken, Leymen, Rodersdorf, Biederthal, Wolschwiller, each smaller and less changed from its far past. There was a road directly from church to church, but I followed the path beside the stream, under trees with new unfurled leaves and by wildflowers needing to be seen.

The companionable stream became narrower and more talkative as I stayed with it. I just listened, as it had many interesting things to say. There were men in the fields and women in gardens. The air was a very tolerable and drowsy warm. Near the end, the water was pure garrulity, and childish, and I didn’t pay close attention. I counted cattle in meadows, then steeples. On one hill I could see seven.

At the very end the water was just rivulets that hadn’t even learned to speak. The whole of the stream’s life had passed by me, from old and hard working in the city to this infancy. For my own life, I could not walk back and forth the length of it. I could only be in one moment and move in one slow tread, in one direction and pace. What if I could skip forward and back beside and see all my life, and know what was to come?

There were horses plowing, led by farmers on their hard journey back and forth through the fields. There were horsedrawn carts on the road. And once, a white horse free in a field watched me a moment and then with an easy gallop was gone behind a hill. I watched a moment. Then I ran. Not after it, but on my own path by the river. If the horse could run, I could, too!

So all the way back, I ran, and what a run! Up and down, but more down, faster than the water, faster than the breeze, breathing the breeze, being the breeze. Once I was started I couldn’t stop.

I didn’t tire the whole length of the stream. But finally, when I knew Basel’s Walls would soon confront me, I paused. I came to the top of a crest, which the water cut through. Behind me, I could see the stream’s valley and the high hills containing it, and the road, empty of living things; before me was Basel full within its Walls. All the sky was blue and blue, empty of any bit of cloud. I rambled down, in view of my home city but reluctant to finish my journey. I paused again.

A sudden thunder of hooves was all that warned me. I jumped aside and a black mount flew over the crest, Daniel on its back. He saw me and waved but wouldn’t and couldn’t slow his flight. And he hadn’t passed me even when the white charger I’d seen far back in the fields was after him.

Like lightning they went. I’d seen one race before from the Walls. Now they were faster. Half across the open field the white was even with the black, still pulling ahead. As the Wall approached, it pulled back. Daniel’s horse, the winner by default, slowed. Daniel finally took charge of his reins, laughing loud. I was there. I’d run behind them. I was no match with two legs for four, but once they’d slowed I caught them fast. And already the white horse was gone, back out the road and over the hill.

“What’s that?” Daniel cried to me. “I’d say you frightened my Coal, but he doesn’t frighten.”

“He’s a good racer,” I said. “They both were.”

“Both?”

“The white horse. I’ve seen you race him before.”

“What white horse?”

So I laughed. “If you couldn’t see him, your Coal could.”

Inside the Walls, among Basel, I went to return Master Desiderius’s book.

“Was there any lesson in it?” he asked me.

“The well-known one,” I said. “But it’s no danger to learn it again.”

“Learning is hard, and un-learning is often too easy.”

“Master Desiderius, how is it to be on a nominating committee?”

It was a strange, weak smile he gave me. “You mean, how does it feel to be the offerer? To be Mephistopheles?”

“Oh no! It wasn’t what I meant—”

“It’s not an enviable place.”

“I didn’t mean that. But,” I said, “there are Fausts I’ve read that have an unwilling Mephistopheles. He’s not eager to make the bargain. He warns against it.”

“Then should I warn a candidate against taking the Chair, or even be reluctant to nominate?”

“What do you gain from the candidate winning the Chair? Not his soul.”

“Though for winning the Chair, he may lose it.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Oh, Leonhard, I have a fear of the Election. It unburies things.”

“Master Desiderius. Do you have regrets over your own Election?”

“I didn’t know this city five years ago. I do now.”

“I don’t understand you,” I said.

“I might have chosen differently. Thank you for returning this; I will read it again myself. Have you noticed the weather, Leonhard?”

“It’s rained.”

“Yes, but I think that was the last. It will be very dry. I feel it.”

“What have you written this week?” Grandmother asked as we sat at supper.

“Several pages. I’ve thought more about waves and that they can go on without stopping. It was Master Johann’s puzzle of the Reciprocal Squares that led me to these ideas.”

“What does he think now of your solution?” She knew this wouldn’t be a simple answer.

“I believe it troubles him. He’s very intrigued by it. But doubtful, too, of course.”

“Are you still sure your solution is correct?”

“I’m sure.”

“If it is true, can it be proved false?”

“No. Mathematics doesn’t allow such a thing. All the principles of Mathematics are true once they’re proven, and Mathematicians accept proofs if they’re according to the principles. That’s part of the elegance of Mathematics. It is only made of proofs, and nothing else. There are a very few simple truths that are accepted as themselves, and all the rest is proved from them. I think there’s no end to it.”

“And will Master Johann be persuaded, then?”

“He will, I think.”

“Then Mathematics is very different from most other things,” she said, “if it can overcome a stubborn man’s beliefs. What troubles him with this proof?”

“It might be that it’s unlikely that a young, poor, un-noteworthy student would solve it correctly.”

“But if it is true, it couldn’t matter who first proved it.”

“It couldn’t. It may be that he is just jealous. But he’s too great a man to be resentful.” I tried to be sincere, but she knew he was very capable of resentment. “And Daniel accepts it. And Nicolaus and Gottlieb have doubts but still accept that it might be true. But also . . .” I was afraid to say it. It was such a boast on my part.

“What?”

“I don’t think any of them truly understand it. Even Master Johann. When I explain it, they just touch it but they don’t grasp it. So I wonder if I’m so poor at even explaining.”

“How did you first conceive this proof, Leonhard? How did you invent a proof that exceeds great men’s understanding?”

“I don’t know. It was just there. It was given.”

“There might be a purpose,” she said.

And last, before sleep, I chose to read Leibniz in the morning. I would be put into the right mind for my lesson with Master Johann, and I would have opportunity to think on the question of how Mathematicians become great.