An Elegant Solution

by Paul Robertson

  “You said you had regrets.”

  “For my hat,” I said, just jesting.

  “Your hat?” He squeezed the dough and it bulged out between his fingers.

  “Cousin Gottlieb took it and I regret I don’t have it back. It was from my father.”

  At Gottlieb’s name he pressed the dough all the harder. And I realized I did regret that I’d lost the hat.

  I walked from Mistress Dorothea’s kitchen slowly, not toward home. There were odd creatures in the streets: wolves and vultures and half-beast minotaurs. But they left the people alone, for the moment, slinking in shadows and growling low. I walked out on the bridge to look at the Rhine. It was calm. But somewhere underneath something stirred and touched the surface and a ripple appeared, a perfect circle. It spread out, just the one circle on the smooth water, its radius growing, and finally fading.

  That circle was like so many other circles. Usually I would be reminded of how sound travelled that way through the air, but that morning my thoughts were on other circles. Plague spread like a circle. Fear did. I saw a man crossing the bridge, pulling a bag-laden cart, and with a wife and children walking behind him. It was a sight that had instant meaning. He was fleeing the city. But so far, he was the only one I’d seen. He reached the far end of the bridge in Small Basel and turned toward the Blaise Gate.

  So Basel had lost Huldrych besides Knipper, and now it was losing others. It was all loss, and I felt it.

  The bell of the Munster clock rang ten, all melancholy and pleading, as if calling out. I found myself counting as it ended, not at first even remembering why. Then I knew. Just at thirty seconds, I heard a far off clock in Riehen, from my father’s church, that bell ringing nine. It was an answer, louder than I’d ever heard in the middle of the city.

  “There’ve been no other reports of plague,” I told my grandmother at lunch. She knew that, of course. She never gossiped or rumored, and wouldn’t abide anyone else telling tales. Yet she always knew important news.

  “You said Master Huldrych spoke of Black Death?” she asked.

  “When we came to his door, Gottlieb and I. He asked if there was another Black Death. And Gottlieb was angered by it. Grandmother? Would you know? When did Gottlieb first wear a tricorne hat?”

  “He had it when he came from Holland.”

  “When he came back with Master Johann?”

  “The first I saw him when he came back, he was wearing his tricorne.”

  “He was younger then than I am now!” That was hard to imagine. “Or at least as young.”

  “He was a serious youth.”

  “I’m not very serious,” I said.

  “You must try to be.”

  “Yes, Grandmother. Have there been any other deaths in Basel of plague?”

  “If there have, it’s not been announced. What happens inside a family’s house isn’t always known.”

  “But to not tell is against laws.”

  “Some are below the law, and some are above.”

  “Huldrych saw Gottlieb, and a tricorne worn for the first time, and he thought of plague. It persuades me that Jacob died of plague. Gottlieb didn’t want that memory revived.”

  “Those of us who are old don’t always remember well,” she said. “The University will meet soon. They’ll choose a new Chair to replace Master Huldrych.”

  “That takes months,” I said. “It took three months to choose Desiderius for Greek.”

  “What will become of Master Huldrych’s lectures?”

  “Master Staehelin is the Lecturer for Physics. He’ll take the lectures until the Chair is filled.”

  Plague was bad for all business in a city. Doors were closed and locked and the streets were even emptier. That afternoon the Boot and Thorn was empty. I only saw it walking past; I didn’t go in. I was returning Boccaccio to Master Desiderius.

  He wouldn’t have minded my keeping it longer, but my return of one book often led him to press another into my hands. And he might have heard, in some language only he knew, of any other news of the events of the week.

  One of his children answered his door, a boy about six years old. His name was Theseus and I hoped his father’s hope in him would be achieved. “Eínai o patéras sou edó?” I said. I also hoped I had my Greek grammar correct. If I didn’t, he would correct it.

  “Tha ton párei,” he answered, and I waited. And soon, his patéras arrived.

  “Leonhard,” he said, as he saw me. “What? Done with it already? Of course you are. And a strange book to read, wasn’t it?”

  I handed him the Boccaccio. “Very strange, sir. I’ve not read any other book like it.”

  “The book itself, yes, but I meant the reading of it now. I pray we won’t see anything he describes with our own eyes.”

  “There’ve been no other reports of plague,” I said.

  “I think there will be none.” This was the second time that day I’d been assured of that.

  “Master,” I said. “You said you came to Basel from Strasbourg?”

  “Yes. Five years ago.”

  “Then did you know of Magistrate Caiaphas?”

  “To have lived in Strasbourg is to know of Magistrate Caiaphas.”

  “Did he know of you?”

  “Yes. He knew me. He knew of me.”

  “Master Gottlieb knew him, and asked him why he came to Basel.”

  “It is best to not know that. Leonhard, your questions are difficult.”

  “I was greatly saddened by Master Huldrych’s death,” I said.

  “And what does that have to do with Magistrate Caiaphas?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “The Inquiry is over, and also the time for questions. We’ll move to other things.”

  Of course, I asked, “What is the result of the Inquiry?”

  “The result is no result. The city was indulging Magistrate Caiaphas with the Inquiry, and Magistrate Caiaphas is no longer here.” Master Desiderius smiled at that, as likely most of Basel did. “And what, hasn’t Gottlieb said anything to his own clerk?”

  “I’m dismissed as clerk, and anyway he’s dismissed as Inquisitor. But he said there was a result to be told, and he never told it.”

  “He’ll tell the Council, and Magistrate Faulkner.”

  “And he said there was a danger to Basel,” I said.

  “He did, didn’t he?” Master Desiderius said. “But we don’t know what. Could it have been about the plague? No one knew that Huldrych was ill. Perhaps Gottlieb had a fear that someone might be? Did anyone say anything about plague?”

  I chose my words carefully. “Gottlieb never said anything about plague. Not to me.”

  “I was hoping, Leonhard, that you might have known more.”

  “I wish I did, Master.”

  “Anyway,” he said, “thank you for the return of the book. And I have another for you. It’s even in German.” It was odd that we didn’t spend time choosing one together; it usually took us a long time. Instead he handed me a book that seemed very new, and slender.

  “Oh, yes,” I said. “I remember you said you had this for me.”

  The first page showed that it was new, printed that very year, in Frankfurt by a printer named Meynenden. But the title was something of a discomfort to me, as I knew it well. This book was a new telling of an old tale, a Faustbook.

  Faustbooks had been common in Europe for centuries. The story was usually short: The book in my hand had only some forty pages. The history of this story was long, from the ages of alchemy. It was, of course, about the life of Dr. Faust of Heidelberg. He was learned, terribly learned, but wanting always more knowledge, more and more. He wanted knowledge of anything, but mostly of mysteries and secrets and powers. He was greeted by Mephistopheles, a fallen angel, who offered him a bargain: all knowledge, and life as long as he wanted; but when he tired of living, he must give up his soul. There were different endings but the sum of them was he did tire finally, that his knowledge was too great to endure,
and he would rather surrender to damnation than keep living.

  If there was no true Dr. Faust, there have been others who might have inspired the tale.

  There was a man named Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus of Hohenheim, who took the scholarly name Paracelsus, to mean he was the equal of the great chemist Celsus of ancient times. I thought it might have been Paracelsus who was the true Faustus. He held the Chair of Medicine in Basel at the same time that Holbein was painting the Council room. He was an alchemist, when that profession was only suspect, and not sinister. So, Basel was part of the soil that the story had grown from. Its roots may still have been in the soil.

  I was interested to read this new version, though I’d never enjoyed the tale. “Thank you,” I said.

  “It’s only imagination,” he answered. “Such things don’t really happen. But it’s cautionary, too. A good caution to have.” I think he was emphasizing that. “Think it through well, Leonhard. It isn’t Mathematics but there’s still hard truth in it to keep in your mind. It might even be that the questions you have of the Inquiry are answered in it.”

  “How could that be?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “And I have a copy of Paracelsus for you, also. But not today; that is enough.”

  Dr. Faust was a scholar, and that was important to the story. If a man didn’t have fame and wealth from birth, the University could be his path to those.

  It was easy enough to find Basel’s wealthy men. Their houses were displays, in the subdued Basel manner. The family names of the magistrates and the council were very regular from year to year and century to century. These families had their wealth from trade and guilds, and some from land. None of this was irregular, or unique to Basel. For every Faulkner or Burckhardt in Basel, there was a Zimmerman in Zurich, a Hofburg in Frankfurt, and a Weil in Bremen. It was the University that gave Basel another class of great men.

  This special parallel city was made of students as commoners; student graduates who studied toward higher degrees as the skilled tradesmen; lecturers and associate professors as wealthy younger sons; administrators and Deans and Provost as greater patricians; and at the highest level, above officials, equal with magistrates and bishops, were the Professors, the holders of Chairs. These were meant to be great men and masters in their fields. Among them were Physics, Law, Medicine, Theology, Logic, Greek, Latin, Anatomy, Rhetoric, and others. In Basel the greatest was Mathematics.

  And as the University was a parallel city, Europe’s universities were a parallel continent, and they were its kingdoms and duchies. Heidelberg was a power, Paris was a kingdom, Bologna held its independence. In the realms of Mathematics, though, Basel was Hapsburgs and Bourbons and Romanovs all in one. In the parallel continent it was unparalleled, because Master Johann was its center.

  The story of Faust could only be in a place where a man could become great through knowledge, a place such as Basel. In all the Faustbooks, the story always took place in a University.

  I walked Walls that Friday evening. That was common in Basel, though more often to watch the sun’s mid-morning rise, not its setting. I walked the whole Wall of Large Basel. It was near three miles long and I didn’t run any of it. I started at Saint Alban’s Gate in the late afternoon. The first stretch was the two long sides of the angle that the Ash Gate pivots. That was almost a mile. There were guard towers every few hundred yards and ramps up from the streets at every gate and barbican.

  The barbicans were wide and flat, just as high as the Wall itself, protruding from it in sharp triangles to give defenders a vantage over attackers at the Wall’s base. Basel had never been taken, and rarely attacked. That could be proof that there was no need for the Wall, or proof that there was every need for it. It was an odd logic, and I wondered what Gottlieb would say about it.

  As I reached the far corner past the Ash Gate and turned toward the Stone Gate, the sun was full in front of me just ready to touch the horizon. The path on the Wall was wide, twelve feet across, but all I met was the Day Watch and I greeted each man I passed. I knew many of them. I stopped to talk a few times. Then they were standing down as the Night Watch took their places. What the Watch could do against plague, I didn’t know, or they either, but the Watch had been doubled.

  Just past the Stone Gate was the stream of the Birsig Flow, pouring into the moat and into its canal to the city. I walked across the arch where it entered. There was a strong portcullis there, and barbican just after, because that would always be a weak place in a Wall.

  Beyond the Walls were fields. Some were farms and some were only meadows. There were no cattle or sheep in them that night, but once a black horse came out into the open from some trees, and Daniel was its rider. He lit suddenly toward the gate, whipping his black, as if racing, yet with no other horse I could see. Then I did see a white horse, without a rider, nearly beside him. Then they were hidden behind the Wall. I turned and went on with my walk.

  I saw Saint Leonhard’s church spire and clock, and the Barefoot Church further in. As I passed them, the sun was just half-set and the sky an inferno. When I came to the Columned Gate the sun was gone. The moat below still was glowing red, like a candle wick’s last spark. This was the city’s largest gate, on the road from Alsace.

  Then was the final long walk to Saint John’s Gate, back to the river, and it was such a long and ever darker way that I only had the stars above and the points of light from the windows, and they both seemed as far away.

  The Wall was complete and unbreached. I knew it for sure now.

  As I stood at the gate, I saw another watcher was also on the Walls, confirming them.

  “Good evening, sir,” I said. Magistrate Faulkner recognized me in the dark.

  “It’s Leonhard? Yes, good evening.”

  “These Walls seem so strong.”

  “They are. Despite their age.”

  “They’re kept well repaired.”

  I didn’t know if he would answer. He was silent for more than a minute and I wondered if I should leave him. But then he said, “Leonhard, if you see Magistrate Caiaphas return to Basel, come tell me.”

  “Yes, sir. I will.” And I nodded and left him.

  The return home on Saint John’s Street led by Death Dance Street where I had to stop at Master Huldrych’s house, and at the Dance that now he was partner in.

  God gives all laws, as are found in books; no man may change them: hate lies, love truth. It was dark but of course I knew the Lawyer’s words, and also Death’s reply: I accept no trick or flattery, give no postponement or appeal, I overrule man’s laws and courts, both Prince and Church must yield. No prince would ever have proclaimed a law that Death must obey him. The laws of God, of nature, of Mathematics, of death: man-made laws were weak compared to those. I looked across the street to Master Huldrych’s house.

  I wondered what would happen to his laboratory. It would be disturbed. Someone would sweep out that room and all the dust, carefully settled, would be dispersed. Dust to dust.

  I came in my front door and Grandmother was waiting. She had a stern look.

  “Leonhard,” she said. “You have a visitor.”

  “Me?”

  “It’s Master Daniel.”

  Daniel had found me in many places in Basel: in churches, on streets, in taverns, in his own house. But in the week he’d been home, he had never sought me in my own house. “Yes, Grandmother,” I said.

  Every house of any size in Basel had a sitting parlor, always with windows onto the street. My grandmother’s sitting parlor was swept every day. The floor was bare. There were three straight wood chairs and two small tables against the walls. One held a candlestand and the other a Bible. This was where we would sit on Sunday afternoons when I read to her.

  Beside such, they were rarely used rooms, but Basel was a city that wasted very little and the rooms had a purpose. They were the strong wall that kept the visitor who’d breeched the door from truly being in the house, and that was important.
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br />   Now Daniel was in a chair the farthest from the Bible, and his bright silk coat was a disconcerting shock of color in a somber place, though the room managed to dim it. “Look, Leonhard!” he said, springing from his seat. “I’ve come to see you!”

  “I see that,” I answered. Grandmother hadn’t come with me. She was back to the kitchen. Daniel put his arm over my shoulder. “Is there another interruption you want me to be?” I asked.

  It was Daniel without Nicolaus, Daniel not cocksure, Daniel in doubt. Daniel as drained of himself as his mother had been of herself that morning.

  “Leonhard,” he said, and then nothing, and I waited. “You’ll say what you think, won’t you? You always do.”

  “Not always,” I said.

  “But you think, whether you say what you think.”

  “I do.”

  “Then I want you to say what you think.”

  “Tell me what to think about.”

  “I will.” But he didn’t, and I waited again. “I’ve given my word on a matter, and I might want it back.”

  “What matter?”

  There were many pauses in the conversation. “I won’t say.”

  “You gave your word in good faith? And the other person, as well?”

  “That could be yes or no. I thought I did, and that the other had, as well, but now that I’ve thought more I’m not sure.”

  “Well, Daniel,” I said. “I can’t say what I think if I don’t know what to think. If a man gives his word, that’s a binding to him. It’s false witness to go back on it.”

  “I knew you’d say that, but this has a difference, and if you knew it you’d agree with me.”

  I had to laugh. “Then you know what I’d think, and I don’t.”

  But Daniel was so forlorn. “Tell me, then, Leonhard, when would you go back on your word? When have you?”

  “I don’t think I have. I don’t remember. Daniel, I’m no one whose word anyone would want!”

  “Then when would you?”

  “Give my word?”

  “No, take it back. Break the bargain. When would you?”