An Elegant Solution

by Paul Robertson

  The room was cool and mossy damp, yet even here there was fire. An oil lantern was mounted on a shelf and it danced and flickered in the whirling air that was no more still than the water that troubled it. In the center of the small open floor were three chairs, and Gustavus gestured to one, and I sat. He sat facing me. I’d advanced from commoner, to Master, and now to equal. “Yes, Master Leonhard,” he said, as respectful as always but now, not as a servant, “what do you want to say?”

  “I’ve been nominated for the Chair of Physics.”

  “I have heard so.”

  Then we waited. I listened to the constrained waters. Finally I heard what he may have heard before, or had been waiting for, the sound of quick steps in the corridor outside. The door opened and the light dimmed before black capes and robes.

  “What is he saying?” we were asked, and I answered.

  “I’ve come to pay,” I said. “For use of Master Jacob’s papers.”

  He was pleased. “What payment have you brought?”

  “What payment are you asking for them?”

  Magistrate Caiaphas answered, “That you tell me what they mean.”

  “The Mathematics? To explain it?” That was not what I’d expected.

  And it wasn’t what he’d meant. “Not that! Tell me their meaning!”

  Then I did understand. “They don’t have great value. Everything in them is known and published. They’re twenty years old.”

  “Then why were they sent to me?” He was angry.

  “Why did you bring them to me?” I asked. “Why not to a great Mathematician?”

  “I was told you were to be great.”

  It had been a test. But it was beyond him to comprehend if I’d passed. And he would never have understood the one page I’d kept for myself.

  “I’ve been nominated for the Physics Chair,” I said.

  “I know you have.” He nodded, less angry. So he was satisfied enough with me.

  “I want the Physics Chair, Magistrate Caiaphas.”

  “Yes,” Gustavus said, a deep rumble to Caiaphas’s crackle and tearing. “It is what I told you.”

  “I already knew it,” the Magistrate said. “Why have you come to me? What are you asking me?”

  “Why have I come?” I said. “Because Master Johann came to you, and Master Gottlieb, and Master Desiderius, and now Master Daniel. All of them came. I have, too.”

  “Why would you say they came?”

  “They believed you had it in your power to give them their Chairs.”

  “And you also believe that?”

  “I also do.”

  “Then you must also believe that Master Daniel has already been given the Chair of Physics.”

  “I am more able than he is,” I said. “And he’s ruing the gift. He’d give it up if he could. He’s asked me how to renege on a bargain even when he’s given his word on it.”

  “What is that to me?” His voice was still cracked and cracking, but like parched ground that was eager for water.

  “I will offer you more than he does.”

  “And what has he offered me?”

  “He doesn’t know,” I said. “Only to repay you whatever you say.”

  “And you would take a blind bargain?”

  “I wouldn’t be blind. I know what you want. And I know I can offer more than he can.”

  Magistrate Caiaphas stood, and I was in his shadow. “What can you offer?”

  I looked up into his knifelike face. “All the renown and all the fame of the greatest Mathematician who will ever live.”

  “That is what you believe of yourself?” he asked.

  “I could be,” I said. “I need the chance of this Chair to make my start.”

  He was still standing over me and he seemed to grow as a covering. “And what use is that to me? You’re offering me your fame?”

  “I am.”

  “Then who do you take me for? What would your fame be for me?”

  “It’s what you want.”

  “Why would I want it?”

  “To give Basel to France.”

  He backed away, or receded, and he was sitting again. “Basel to France?”

  “You plan for Basel to leave its independence and come into France. You want the University to lead and pull and force the city. The University has that power in Basel.”

  “Why do you believe this?”

  “That was how Strasbourg was brought into France.”

  He waited a long time before answering. He was still and I waited with him. “So, for the Physics Chair,” he said, “you would do this. Betray your city?”

  “It wouldn’t be a betrayal.”

  “And the promise already made to Master Daniel?”

  “He regrets having made the bargain.”

  “You say he does.”

  “And he doesn’t want the Chair. He only wants to offend Master Johann. He’ll give it up once he has it.”

  “You speak for him? I won’t believe you.”

  “I would still be more valuable to you than he would as the Chair.”

  “Daniel is a persuasive man in this City. But you would be greater?”

  “Yes. Before many years, I would be.”

  “And you mean me to choose between you?” He was silent again, and for a very long time. I couldn’t see his face at all. “Then this is how I will decide. I will let you decide.”

  “Me? How?”

  “Daniel has this Chair. It is his. But it will be yours if he doesn’t take it.”

  “That would be his decision,” I said, “not mine.”

  “Then he will win the Chair.”

  Then I understood. “I must keep him from taking it.”

  “If he doesn’t take it, it will be yours.”

  I thought through all that his words implied. “Did Master Johann cause the Mathematics Chair to be open? Did he cause Master Jacob to not be in it? And Gottlieb caused Master Grimm to leave the Logic Chair? And Daniel the Physics Chair, now? They caused those Chairs to be empty?”

  “If a man is worthwhile to me to have a Chair, I will give him the Chair. But the Chair must first be open.”

  “And Desiderius, also?”

  “Daniel has this Chair,” Caiaphas said. “If the Physics Chair becomes open, you will have it.” He put his palms together, as if he was praying. “Do you accept the bargain?”

  “If you give me the Chair, that I will serve your purposes. That is the bargain?”

  “Yes, that is what I offer.”

  “Then I accept,” I said. An image came to me, from a week earlier. “I saw a chase,” I said. “A white horse in pursuit of a black.”

  “What do you mean?” This confused him. “What chase? What horse?”

  “The white horse was swifter. And Daniel was too heavy a burden. I did see it.”

  “You see what doesn’t exist,” he said, perplexed by my words, but very sure of his.

  “It does,” I said. “I know what exists. Please help me find my way out of this cellar, Gustavus. I’m not sure I can.”

  “Come with me.”

  I did come with him. I only seemed to find myself farther in and more deeply lost. We passed corners and traversed passages, all so dimly lit as if the lanterns and torches were only part in these halls and a greater part in the halls of some other inn. That other inn might have been the one I knew. I didn’t know this one. All I could do was follow Gustavus.

  The walls and rafters ended and I was out in the Square. I must have been. The sky and stars were above me and I saw the front of the Inn, but I didn’t see the Barefoot Church across the paving stones. In the dark I started toward home.

  But it was so dark that I could hardly find my way through the Square. It seemed endless. Finally I stopped to gain my bearings. While I stood, in the pitch black, there was an abrupt galloping, from nowhere. I couldn’t find its source but it was coming onto me. I would have run but it was in every direction.

  In an instant I threw myse
lf to the stones and an iron hoof clove the air just over me. The horse reared and I threw myself again away from it and the shoes came down just where I’d been.

  “Stop!” I cried and I scrambled back.

  “What? Who’s that?” Daniel’s laugh rang over me. “Leonhard?”

  “It is Leonhard,” I said.

  “In the dark!” It sounded at least like Daniel. I couldn’t see him “Well, get out of the Square if you don’t want to be run over!”

  “I am. It was dark.”

  “The more reason to not wander! Home with you!”

  “Yes,” I said. “I will. I am.” Even still on both hands and feet I fled the horse and voice until I finally reached the end of the Square, and found a street.

  Then I was at my grandmother’s door and I went into a dark hall, though I seemed to smell the stables and see the red torches of the inn. I found stairs to my room.

  And finally, I was in my bed, without memory of getting into it, still dressed. My candle was low on my desk and its gentle yellow glow told me I was fully home again, almost as if I’d never left.

  I stayed close by my grandmother all of Sunday, as we two together were stronger than either apart. I kept away from the inn as I always did on the holy day. We didn’t talk much, only necessary words.

  The sermon at Saint Leonhard’s had been concise and thorough, on God’s perfection: His own, and that of all He has created. Because of our imperfection, he provided a sacrifice to restore us.

  I would deliver that message of perfection to the University. All Physics and all Mathematics were His creation. Mathematics was His command to the Universe. It was an important message and it was necessary that I should give it. It was important that I have a position whereby I could speak these truths, and that the academic universe would be attentive.

  That night I wrote out my lecture. Writing was work, which wasn’t meant for the Sabbath, but it was contemplation of Deity, which was proper.

  I wrote late into the night, which I often did, though never before on a Sunday.

  There were many things to consider. I had to remember the opinions of the men who would sit under my lecture. It would be the first public statement of my own beliefs, and every word I spoke would be examined in the light of the controversies and disagreements of the day.

  To lecture to this University, I must know to frown at mention of Descartes and harrumph at even the thought of Newton, who in Basel was a usurper and cad. All the while, though, I knew that their Mathematics and Physics were pure as light and water.

  Basel’s University and Church still believed that God motivated His Creation, and rejected the notion that all the universe was just a machine operating on its own. My own thoughts were muddled. I didn’t believe that man abode in a clockwork. The Creator touched and moved every life, most certainly. But a great deal of nature did operate on a set path and by laws as rigid as Mathematics, and the laws were Mathematics. A dreidel given a spin would continue on its own without my further touch.

  So I wrote, and wrote, and walked a perfect narrow path between cliff and abyss, juggling Leibniz with my right hand and Newton and Descartes behind my back.

  And as I carefully trod that path, I ignored that the whole mountain it was on was shaking harder and harder to see if I was loose or fast on it.

  Monday morning was very dry. The fountains were slack. Waiting to fill my buckets was my only delay as I rushed through the morning. Both my grandmother and Mistress Dorothea left me to myself as I did their chores; they seemed unsure of me.

  As soon as I was able, I went out, black and white. Staehelin’s lecture would be at two o’clock in the afternoon and I had an errand I wanted to complete before that. That errand meant finding Daniel. I’d never had difficulty in doing that, but search Basel as I did that morning, I didn’t see him.

  Instead, as I finally stood on the Rhine bridge, thinking where I hadn’t yet searched, I found a different candidate.

  “Master Staehelin!” I said. “Well met. There’s an excellent lecture this afternoon I’m anxious to hear.”

  “Master Leonhard,” he answered, and bowed, as I’d done. That was surely polite of him, to address as Master a child half his age. His hair was short and gray and rough, and his face square and blunt. He looked as much a stolid farmer as a University lecturer. “The lecture will be a plain one, not excellent, not poor. It’s on buoyancy, and one I’ve given often.”

  We talked a few moments more. The River flowed beneath us, and boats on it were examples of Staehelin’s subject. I was about to bow again and resume my search when a startled cry captured both our attention.

  We turned toward the Small Basel end of the bridge. In the same instant, I heard, and saw, and most of all felt, the pounding hooves and flying weight of a black horse without a rider.

  In the next instant I saw that it was flying and pounding toward us. Its eyes were wild and its ears flat and vicious.

  I had a sudden memory of the Barefoot Square on Saturday night, all dark, and the unseen horse riding me down. But that had been invisible. This horse was fully seen.

  In the next, final instant all its force and fury were upon us.

  The blow that struck us was from our side. We were smashed against the bridge’s railing, not by iron shoes but by a human shoulder. The horse went by.

  But I sensed another motion. We were both leaned over the railing, and Staehelin was unbalanced and falling into the river. I grabbed hold of his black justaucorps coat and pulled down, and I was pulled by him up, until another hand grabbed my own coat.

  And then there were three of us in a heap on the bridge.

  We were all a jumble, then. I didn’t at first realize the oddity that one of us three was Desiderius. But then I did, and that it had been he who had thrown himself at us to knock us out of the horse’s way.

  “Master Desiderius!” I gasped.

  “And you, Leonhard,” he said, as out of breath.

  “And Master Staehelin, too,” I said. That Master was not yet speaking, but seemed near to it.

  “Whom we nearly lost into the river,” Desiderius said. “Oh, Leonhard, that was close! The horse would have ridden you down!”

  “Both of us,” Staehelin said.

  “And that would have been two Physics candidates with one crack!” Desiderius said. “Are you both well?”

  “I am,” I said, and Staehelin nodded. But the mention of two candidates made me look to the rest of the bridge, for what had become of the horse, and who else might be close: for I had recognized the black horse.

  And there, hurrying toward us, and his face a perfect fright of shock, was Daniel.

  “Most intense apologies!” he cried. “Oh, Leonhard, Staehelin! What a crime I’ve done to you both! Fiercest apologies!”

  Then it was all confusion. All the more we talked and described and explained, less was heard and understood. Staehelin gave up on it quick and went running to brush himself off for his Lecture. But finally Daniel and Desiderius and I had all exhausted our excitement.

  “And Master Desiderius,” I said. “How was it that you were here on the bridge to rescue us?”

  “By chance,” he said. When he saw the look in my eye, he added, reluctantly, “And just to see that no accidents might overtake anyone of the Election.”

  He took his leave then, to also make himself presentable for the coming lecture. I needed to, as well, but I had another task first.

  So I had found Daniel, which I’d meant to do. I walked with him as he led his horse toward the Boot and Thorn. “I don’t know what took him,” Daniel said, and many variations of that, but the panic and worry were faded. “I was in from my ride and Coal was serene as could be. Then just at the bridge, off he went! I can’t say what he saw. But he seems all right now.”

  “I’m right enough,” I said. “I think Staehelin was the most dusty of us.”

  “A dunking in the river would have cleaned him off.”

  “Daniel! He’
ll be pressed to make his lecture now.”

  “He’ll make it. Or not, but it’ll be the same either way.” We’d reached the Inn, and Willi saw us and took Daniel’s horse. That left us at the front door, a few steps from the Common Room, which was as good a place as any to finish my errand.

  “I’ll come in with you,” I said.

  “You know me all too well,” he answered, and led the way.

  Charon’s milky eyes were on me, and the steins on the wall seemed to be expecting us. The rolling of dice and murmuring voices made the room just as it always was, just common. We sat, and Daniel was as serene as his horse. The calamity on the bridge was already far forgotten.

  “Look, Daniel,” I said as we were settled. “I need to give you something.”

  “Then I’ll take it.”

  “I was given it,” I said. “Rupert, the new coach driver came to me. Have you seen him?”

  “I think I have. Jolly and round, isn’t he?”

  “That’s him. But he’d met me and he hasn’t gotten to know many others in Basel. That was why he brought this to me, which he’d found in the post box of the coach. So it might have been there for weeks or months.”

  As I was saying this, Daniel’s serenity was replaced by alert attention, then by narrow eyes and furrowed brow. “What?” he said. “A letter? Is it a letter? Leonhard! From Paris?”

  It’s not often I have a higher roll of my dice then he of his. I was tempted some to tease him with it, but that was poor behavior for anyone, and most for a gentleman. So I took the letter right from my pocket and handed it to him. “Not from Paris. From Russia.”