An Elegant Solution

by Paul Robertson

  “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 bee
n 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 Da
niel 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?”