An Elegant Solution

by Paul Robertson

  The black and white gathered in the University Assembly Hall was blinding in my eyes, that while the two colors were stark and more dominating than ever, they seemed more to blur and blend and make gray. I’d never seen them do that before. When I let my attention sit on this gray cloud, my own thoughts were the same gray, and indistinct.

  But as had been earlier, one point was focused sharp, the casket. I saw it easily.

  The three candidates were given special seating at the front of the hall. I sat in the middle, with Daniel on my right, and Staehelin on my left. In the row to our sides, and in the row behind us, were the committees who had chosen us. At the front wall the deans and provost sat facing us. I set my attention on Daniel.

  He was like the Birsig. His intentions and plans were sometimes babbling and clear, sometimes deep and obscure. I couldn’t fathom anything from his face, which was, for the first time I ever thought so, very much like his father’s. And beside him was his father, and his face showed more care and even fear than also I’d ever seen. It seemed very little like Master Johann.

  Many others were in the room: of course Nicolaus, and Gottlieb, and Little Johann. Magistrate Faulkner was at the end of the front row. Next to him, but not easily seen, was a magistrate of a different city.

  The Provost spoke and I listened, but heard very little. Daniel beside me was a taut coil.

  The key was suspended on its chain which still circled the Provost’s neck. The whole weight of the room seemed to be in it. The Provost finished his words and there was light applause, and I had no memory of what he’d said, any single word even. I clapped. I was only watching the key; its moment had finally come. I thought of the life a Chair would have: it could be everything noble.

  The Provost took the key in his hand, and leaned forward, and put it into the lock. I could feel with my fingers’ memory the twist and pull. He removed the key.

  Then the Dean of Arts, standing beside him, placed a kerchief of black silk over the Provost’s eyes and tied it behind his head. The Provost spoke to the Dean, and both laughed, and many in the room smiled. I felt them. I was now only watching the black iron casket.

  The Dean opened the casket, and held it out to us to see the three stones inside. Then he offered it to the Provost, and guided that man’s right hand to the open top. The Provost felt inside.

  This was the moment that Master Jacob had written about, whose result the Ars Conjectandi said could only be described as three equal chances. But the results weren’t equal. With one result I would be Chair, and with two others I would not. The Chance of the Election was meant to put the result in God’s hand. This was the moment that His hand would move the Provost’s hand.

  It was over before I could comprehend it. The Provost had a stone, one of three. Now there was no chance. There was just one result, and it was only left to make the choice known.

  With the stone tight in his right hand, the Provost waited as the blindfold was removed. Then, seeing, he grasped the stone also with his left hand and with a twist broke the seal. He looked at it, frowned, puzzled, showed it to the Dean, who pursed his lips, perplexed, then turned to us with a gentle smile. “It is the tree. Master Staehelin. You are now our Chair of Physics.”

  I had an impression at that moment that a man was behind me, who I would have recognized, and who loved me, but as I turned, he was gone.

  There were many other impressions I had. The sound was first, of clapping and a hard burst of many people talking. Then motion. People standing and moving, some a stream forward and some back toward the doors. The room seemed to deflate of a sudden. Then, close by, Master Johann’s face, his stare fixed on the stone broken open, and thoughtful.

  Then I perceived Staehelin beside me, and Daniel beside him, and both were astounded.

  Staehelin was simply immobile. His mouth was gaping open, his eyes the same. But Daniel was the full comprehension of astonishment, disappointment, and fury. He stood and moved toward his father, but then away, and into the black and white throng.

  I shook Staehelin’s hand, most to shake him from his catatonia. I nodded to the Provost and the other men at the front, and they nodded sympathetically back to me. Then Master Johann turned to me and studied me.

  But I couldn’t bring myself to speak. I nodded to him as I had to the others, and I turned, and returned to the plain crowd.

  The Election was done. Finally I could grieve alone.

  I left the University for the dry streets. Basel’s wide, busiest roads were paved with black, gray, and white stones, but all the rest, the alleys and byways, were brown soil, and it was all hard and dry. Every motion, every footstep, raised dust. The city was full of dust. I walked slowly and found that I came to Master Huldrych’s house and the Death Dance. I met another wanderer there.

  “Master Desiderius,” I said.

  “Leonhard.” He was anxious, or bewildered.

  “So, Staehelin wins the Chair.”

  He shook his head. “It is a mystery to me. Of the three, how was it that he was chosen?”

  “Just by the chance of the stones,” I said.

  “No. Of all the answers, I know that is not the answer.”

  “But I know it is, surely.”

  “Then you know more than me.”

  I shrugged. “But what will it mean?” I said. “I don’t know that.”

  “And I don’t. It will not be well, though. I’m very sure Staehelin was not meant to win the Chair, and there will be consequences.”

  “For whom?”

  “For Master Johann.”

  “What would threaten Master Johann? All Basel is with him.”

  “If a tree is rooted deep in a field, then to uproot the tree, the whole field must be torn out. Oh, Leonhard, I fear for your Master, I fear for the University, and for Basel. And I fear for myself and for you. Basel has been its own and separate, but the world outside its Walls isn’t dormant. And cities have been brought to ruin from within.”

  We were only feet from the Death Dance. “It’s been four weeks since Master Huldrych died of plague,” I said.

  “That’s only dormant, too, Leonhard.”

  “Staehelin won by chance, as the Election was meant to be.”

  “I believe you, that he did.”

  “But chance . . . I don’t know what that is. I’ve read Master Jacob’s book, and I know what the Mathematics of chance is. But I know there are laws that are even greater than Mathematics.”

  “I’ve never known how it was done, but other elections have been ruled by someone stronger than chance.”

  “This Election was, also.”

  “I mean,” he said, “by man’s hand.”

  “I know. And this Election was in God’s hand.”

  “He took it?”

  “I put it there.”

  “That’s a bold statement, Leonhard. And it might be arrogant. How could you give this Election to God?”

  “Because it had been given to me. That was why I could give it to Him.”

  He frowned, and slowly understood. “It was yours?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you gave it up.”

  “Yes.”

  He was troubled by that. “I was given an Election five years ago, and I kept it for myself.”

  “I think you were meant to have it.”

  “That’s kind. I’ll think on it.” He smiled a moment. “But Magistrate Caiaphas considers all the elections to be his own, not to be given without his permission.”

  “There are laws that are greater than him,” I said.

  I crossed the city to the southwest, to the Barefoot Square, but through it without stopping or looking, through the old Wall and then by the Birsig Flow where it flowed in its canal between houses and under bridges, to the Stone Gate. I climbed the steps there up the Wall and took a place looking out, over the Birsig and the fields, the trees and hills in the distance. Very far I could see mountains still cutting the sky. The sky was enormous, limitless and imme
asurable, featureless but for the sun. Then I waited.

  The sun was to my right, but looking out I still had to shield my eyes with the brim of my hand. Nothing freckled that sky, as nothing had in the week since the candidates had been announced. I waited. Minutes passed, and more. An hour passed and the sun far past its height; three o’clock outside and four o’clock inside the Wall I waited more.

  Watching the sky, I began to see horses crossing it, passing the sun and pulling it. I saw ships sailing in the high winds. I saw strongholds high in the blueness, which were castles and towers with pennants. I saw armies marching. They had cavalry in ranks, and phalanxes of soldiers. And as I held my arm out at length, and my fist clenched, I saw one small cloud.

  I ran, as fast as I could then, down into the city toward the Barefoot Square and the Boot and Thorn.

  18

  The Value Pi, Squared, and Divided by Six

  I reached the Square. The sky above was still empty but I felt a wisp of breeze.

  The Common Room of the Boot and Thorn was thronged thick and boisterous. I stood in its entrance. The tree trunk pillars and branching beams were a forest, but red not green. The only faces I could see were the hundreds of steins on the walls glaring in firelight. All the men were too shrouded in smoke and dim to be seen. There was a wind blowing in the forest, of contention, argument, dispute, and anger.

  Only part of the wind was from the men at the tables quarrelling over the Election. Daniel had partisans in every layer of the city, and his second rejection in two years had stirred a frenzy of resentment in the Boot and Thorn. Charon brushed against my ankles to warn me against entry, but I entered.

  I pushed through to the hearth. The brightest light was there and to the side of the fireplace was the darkest shadow. Daniel was at the edge between them, and at the center of fury. His brothers and cousin were with him.

  I listened to him rail, yet I could tell he was on the tail of it. The hours I’d been on the Wall had worn him down. He’d blasted the foolishness of Election by chance, and reviled the committee that had put up such a poor candidate as Staehelin. His listeners had thinned; bitterness was unpleasant on the ears as it was on the tongue. He’d tiraded against the University in whole as unworthy of him anyway, and that drove more of his supporters away. And he’d delved even darker in his accusations of corruption and foul play. And now, after that, he was alone. But not completely: Nicolaus, and Gottlieb, and Little Johann remained. In the end, it was their ties to him that didn’t break.

  “Oh, finally, it’s you,” he said to me. “And how do you grieve? How do you plot revenge?”

  “I don’t do that,” I said.

  “We’ll do it together. You’re as cheated as I am! Oh, oh, oh, there’s payment due now. What’s the exaction, Leonhard?”

  “We’re not cheated.”

  “You’re cheated that you’ve lost to Staehelin, and I’m cheated that I lost to you. No, double cheated, that I lost to both.”

  “Then Daniel,” I said, “I’ll say it. Yes. I cut you out of the Chair.”

  “But who changed the stones?” Nicolaus said before Daniel could answer.

  “I changed them,” I said. “It’s no great trick.”

  “It was,” Gottlieb said. “I never knew how it was done. But how’d Staehelin’s stone get picked?”

  “By chance. True chance.”

  “Then you put the first stones back?”

  “That was my object,” I said.

  “That’s lunatic!” Daniel said, his canvas filled again. “You swayed Caiaphas, and once you did, then you changed the stones yourself anyway? Then why even breathe with Caiaphas? For the pleasure of betraying me?”

  “There’s no pleasure in any of it. I did as I needed. Daniel, you’re free.”

  “Free? What freedom do I want? The Chair.”

  “You came to my house and asked how a word given could be taken back.”

  “Then that’s the word I want taken back. Is that why you’ve done this?”

  I shook my head. “The Election is done and the man meant for the Chair has it.”

  “Then blast the Chair, and the University, and all Basel. And blast you most of them.”

  And that hurt me most of them, and I knew it had to be.

  “What will become of Basel?” Nicolaus asked Gottlieb.

  “You’d know, Cousin,” Daniel answered, but only as an attack on him. “Didn’t you warn us all at the Inquiry? Tell us.”

  “Do you know?” I asked Daniel. “Or you?” I asked Nicolaus.

  “I thought he meant the plague,” Little Johann answered, the first he’d said.

  “There might be plague, now,” Gottlieb said. “Now that Leonhard has thrown every other plan askew.” Then, to Daniel, “For the Chair. What you were to do for return?”

  “You know. France. Lunatic France! What would France do with Basel? There’d be no difference here. One flag for another, and petty price for the Chair. Gottlieb’s already paid for his Chair.”

  “I’ve paid nothing!”

  “Your stone was chosen. You have your Chair. You agreed. You’d agreed to France.”

  Gottlieb answered with as much anger, “I agreed to nothing! I made no bargain.”

  “You did, though,” Nicolaus said. “Twenty years ago, in Strasbourg.”

  “I asked. But I was refused. I never asked again, and I shouldn’t have then.”

  “You weren’t refused, only delayed.”

  “I made no bargain,” Gottlieb said.

  “He said you did,” Daniel answered.

  “He lied.”

  “You’re so sure? Why did you ask him, then? You pressed him at the Inquiry. Old Knipper was no matter to you. Your Inquiry was to Caiaphas, and whether he’d given you your Chair. Because he did.”

  “I made no bargain.”

  “Caiaphas wants you to think there was,” I said. “But there wasn’t. There isn’t. None of it is any matter now, anyway. All of it is over.”

  “Oh, no, Leonhard,” Nicolaus said. “You’ve torn your bargain, but that’s nothing to the others.”

  “But it is,” I said.

  Little Johann spoke again. “That was the danger? France?”

  I answered. “The city was to fall to France. And the University was to lead. But that’s ended now, though not done.”

  “It will fall to the plague, now,” Nicolaus said.

  “That, not either,” I said.

  “What do you know, Leonhard?” he asked.

  “I know there are laws that govern this creation.”

  “Oh, lunacy!” Daniel said. “You’re Caligula? Nero? Evil and lunatic both.”

  “You were lunatic to want the Chair,” Nicolaus said to him, “and lunatic to treat with Caiaphas.” He said it with greater heat than I’d ever heard him use, and he stood over his brother in real anger. “You should thank Leonhard and beg forgiveness that you’re free of it all.”

  Daniel’s answer was a deep breath and long silence. Finally he said, “I’m done for this place. I’ll go home.”

  “What place?” Nicolaus said. “And what’s home?”

  “Basel,” Daniel answered. “And Russia.”

  We all left the Inn and never had seen Gustavus. The Square was dark. It was later afternoon and should have been still light. Above, though, the sky that had been empty so long was piled with clouds. Beneath those mountains the Barefoot Church was luminous white.

  It was a short, silent, and sharp-edged walk to Master Johann’s house.

  I bowed in with them through the front door, and we were awaited. Mistress Dorothea was in the front hall. She stood silent as we five came into the severe dim and stopped. Then she only said, “He’s waiting.” And she nodded to the closed door of the parlor.

  I bowed and stepped back, to leave, but she halted me. “Leonhard. You also.”

  That was all that was said. Nicolaus opened the door, and his mother a force behind us, we entered.

  Master J
ohann was seated, of course, and we all sat. I would not have, but his look told me I was to. Mistress Dorothea stood sentry at the door. Then we waited.

  Master Johann only frowned. He was seated with his legs somewhat apart, as he always sat, and with his hands resting on his breeches. He wore his daily black and white and the same wig he wore on Saturdays. In that room, where the small part of outside light that ever penetrated was a fraction of very little outside light at all, he was bright in comparison to all of us. And when we’d seen that he was the center, and that we were all in his thrall to wait as long as he chose, he did speak.

  “I wish to congratulate you, Daniel,” he said.

  “Me?” Daniel replied. “On what? Receiving the Physics Chair? Do you know, sir, that I did not? But you would have known. Long before I would.”

  “Perhaps, instead,” Gottlieb said, “the congratulation is for something you deserved.”

  Daniel would have answered, or anyone might have, but the pause to compose a reply was long enough that the silence settled again and then couldn’t be broken. Master Johann waited until the words had faded, and their echoes had, and then longer until any impression that was not of himself had faded.

  “You have won the prize of the Paris Competition.”

  No one could answer, for as he spoke, he lifted his hand to his waistcoat and transfixed their attention, and from his inner pocket he withdrew the Paris letter. He stood and crossed the room halfway toward Daniel and stopped.

  It was not too large a room, but the letter was beyond Daniels’ reach. He stood and crossed his half, the bridges of Great Basel and Small Basel meeting in the Rhine’s center, and took the letter from his father. And as he did, Master Johann said, “Well done.”

  “Thank you.”

  These statements both were formal, partly hostile, partly wary. But I saw that Daniel was thrown back by surprise and elation, and as his father had known he would be. And as he was off balance and off guard, Master Johann said, “It will serve you well in Saint Petersburg.”