At this juncture my husband and I were obliged to break off our conversation with Mr. Ramanujan, which had now lasted almost two hours. Before bidding us goodbye, however, he produced a pair of notebooks bound in cardboard and presented them to Mr. Neville. These notebooks, he explained, contained the fruit of his mathematical labors. Would my husband care to borrow them and look through them?
Mr. Neville's eyes widened in wonder. No, he said, handing the notebooks back, he could not in good conscience take into his custody something so precious—yet Mr. Ramanujan insisted, and we returned to the hotel each bearing one of the precious volumes. What would have happened, I wonder now, had our gharry been struck by a rickshaw, or a sudden wind come up and knocked the notebooks out of our hands? Later, my husband told me that he considered the loan the most astounding compliment ever paid to him.
That night Mr. Neville did not come to bed. Instead he stayed up until dawn, reading through the notebooks by candlelight. When I awoke the next morning, he told me that he considered them the most significant unpublished documents that it had ever been his privilege to peruse. Far from an onerous task, he now regarded it as his duty to persuade Mr. Ramanujan to come to Cambridge.
We met him again the next afternoon. This time he came to our hotel. While the very English atmosphere of the dining room at first seemed to make him uneasy, once again, as soon as he was settled with us and drinking tea, he relaxed visibly.
Mr. Neville now broached the dangerous question: would Mr. Ramanujan reconsider his earlier decision not to come to England? While we understood his fear of breaking a rule of his religion, we also believed that if he remained in India, he would be doing both himself and the world at large a great disservice.
At this, Mr. Ramanujan gazed solemnly at his cup. I feared that Mr. Neville had overstepped his bounds; said too much. Indeed, I was on the verge of apologizing, when Mr. Ramanujan looked up and asked, “Has Mr. Hardy not received my most recent letter?”
My husband replied that he was not certain. He had not heard from Mr. Hardy since our arrival.
Mr. Ramanujan then said that he was worried that Mr. Hardy might lose interest in him once he read this letter, because it was written in his own English; his previous letters, as he put it, “did not contain his language” but were “written by a superior officer.” He had then copied them out in his own handwriting. Mr. Neville now asked if this “superior officer” was the same one in whose company he had gone to the interview with Mr. Davies of the Advisory Committee for Student Affairs. Mr. Ramanujan admitted that it was. And then the whole story came out.
The situation both is and is not as your brother surmised. Mr. Littlewood was correct in guessing that, when Mr. Davies asked Mr. Ramanujan, point blank, if he wished to go to Cambridge, the question left him rather flummoxed. He never had the chance, however, to say yes or no, for before he could speak, his superior, Mr. Iyer, answered for him. The answer was an unhesitating no.
He himself is rather confused about the matter. From an intellectual standpoint, he admits, he is quite avid to come to Cambridge. At the same time, he has grave doubts about the venture. Would he, he wonders, be obliged to take an exam such as the tripos? (He has a great fear, it seems, of exams.) My husband told him that he thought not but that he would check with Mr. Hardy.
A more pressing concern is his family. His mother, it seems, objects in the strongest terms possible to her son traveling to England. On the one hand, her qualms are religious; as an orthodox Brahmin, she shares with Mr. Iyer the belief that if Mr. Ramanujan crosses the seas, he will be dooming himself to a kind of spiritual damnation. More practically, however—and in this, Miss Hardy, I cannot help but sympathize with the anxieties of a long-suffering mother—she fears for his well-being in England, worries as to how he will cope with the English winter, has visions of him being forced to consume meat, and so on. Perhaps she also fears his being pursued by English women. (I am speculating here, based on Mr. Ramanujan's reluctance to look me in the eye when he speaks of his mother.)
Then there is the matter of Janaki, his young bride. She has, he told us, expressed to him a desire to accompany him to England; and though he well understands the impracticality, if not impossibility, of bringing her with him, he does not want to disappoint the child. Going to England without her, moreover, would mean leaving her alone with his mother, and given that, in traditional Indian families, the mother-in-law rules over the daughter-in-law with an iron fist, Mr. Ramanujan is naturally worried as to what friction might erupt between the women in his absence, especially as it seems that little Janaki is something of a spitfire!
His last qualm—and that it came last seems to me, Miss Hardy, significant—is religious. Yes, he fears, as his mother does, the consequences, both social and spiritual, of his breaking the rules of his caste and crossing the seas. And yet his anxiety on this point goes well beyond mere religious scruples.
What follows will no doubt sound strange to you and your brother. I will admit that, at first, it sounded strange to Mr. Neville and me, and not only because it reveals the great gulf that separates India from England; also because it indicates the depth of Mr. Ramanujan's religious piety. Nonetheless I ask you to read the next paragraphs with an open mind.
To put the matter quite simply, Mr. Ramanujan attributes his mathematical discoveries not to his own imagination, but to a deity. Since his birth, he believes, he, along with the other members of his family, has lived under the protection of a Goddess, Namagiri, whose spirit occupies the temple at Namakkal, near his place of birth. According to Mr. Ramanujan, it is through the agency of Namagiri that he makes his mathematical discoveries. He does not “come upon” them in the sense that you and I understand the term, nor do they “come upon” him. Instead they are transmitted to him, usually when he is asleep. As Mr. Ramanujan described this process, my husband laughed, and said that he, too, had on occasion “dreamed” mathematics. But Mr. Ramanujan was insistent in distinguishing ordinary dreams from what he called the “visions” supplied to him by Nami-giri. The Goddess, as he put it, “writes the numbers on his tongue.” His fear is that, if he comes to England, Namagiri might withdraw her divine patronage; and while he understands how much Cambridge has to offer him in the way of recognition, encouragement, and education, he wonders very naturally what use these gains would be to him if, in exchange, he were to lose his access to the very source of his discoveries.
How did we react to such a revelation? My husband, I admit, at first raised his eyebrows, whether in skepticism or simple astonishment I could not tell. As for me, I felt a twinge of disappointment that owes, no doubt, to my own anti-religious disposition. It seemed to me mad that a man of such obvious brilliance should refuse to take credit for his own discoveries. Indeed, after the meeting drew to a close (with the matter of Mr. Ramanujan's coming to Cambridge, I might add, left in abeyance), I could not help but mention to my husband that for me, at least, it was difficult to reconcile this attribution of genius to an outside source with Mr. Ramanujan's obvious pride in his own accomplishments, not to mention his urgent desire to be recognized and even vindicated in the eyes of the Indian authorities. For if what he claimed was true, then it was Namagiri to whom any publications that might arise from Mr. Ramanujan's work ought to be credited, Namagiri whose talents ought to be assessed, Namagiri who should be brought to Cambridge, even if only to Girton or Newnham!
My husband cautioned me not to assume too much. As he reminded me (and he is right in this), we are still strangers here, as yet unfamiliar with the terms of Mr. Ramanujan's religion. It may be that Mr. Ramanujan is, quite simply, anxious to ensure that we should understand the depth of his faith. Still, I cannot help but suspect that his fear of displeasing his mother is tied up intimately with his fear of displeasing the Goddess. I wish I could tell you which, of the two, is the more prominent or, dare I say, the more real fear.
This is where things stand as I write. Tomorrow Mr. Neville will meet, once more, alone,
with Mr. Ramanujan. We had hoped to see him sooner, but two days ago we received a message that he had been obliged to make an impromptu journey to his home in the company of his mother. I gather that he is scheduled to return to Madras early next week.
I am sorry not to be able to forward more conclusive news. Please rest assured—and please tell your brother to rest assured—that as soon as we have obtained a definitive answer from Mr. Ramanujan, we will communicate it by cable.
Mr. Neville sends his warmest salutations, and asks me to convey to Mr. Hardy his gratitude at having been assigned the role of “emissary.” Likewise we both send our best wishes to your mother and hope that she is feeling better. As for me, I remain, dear Miss Hardy,
Your true friend,
Alice Neville
20 January 1914
Hotel Connemara, Madras
Dear Hardy,
I write in haste, as I must leave shortly for the Senate House. My wife, I know, has been in communication with your sister. She is quite the writer, and so I leave it to her to give the details. The important thing is that I have now read through the notebooks and the content therein is quite extraordinary. Those of his theories that are not original reflect some of the most fruitful and, dare I say, subversive ideas already developed on the continent. On the other hand, he makes a lot of errors. If he agrees to come, I'll try to explain to Dewsbury, the registrar here, that, due to his lack of education and so on, he hasn't yet developed the faculty for detecting danger or avoiding fallacies but that, with exposure to proper methods in Cambridge, his will surely become one of the greatest names in the history of mathematics, a source of pride for the university and for Madras, etc., etc. Then maybe we can get them to provide some scholarship money.
A point that might be of interest to you: when I asked him what books had been important to him in forming his ideas, he mentioned, of all things, Carr's Synopsis of Pure Mathematics. Are you familiar with that dreary old tome? If that's the only thing he's read, no wonder he doesn't understand how to do a proof!
Finally, a question: one of his (many) worries about coming to Cambridge is that he might be forced to take exams. I told him I'd ask you for assurance that he wouldn't, even though I'm sure that with a little coaching he'd ride roughshod over the tripos. Imagine if, in the old days, he'd been senior wrangler!
Regards to your sister, of whom my wife has become inordinately fond.
Ever yours,
E. H. Neville
8
THE BLOODY TRIPOS AGAIN,” Hardy says, throwing down Neville's letter.
Gertrude looks up at him from her knitting. “Somehow I suspected that would be the first thing you'd land on,” she says. “Well, does he have to take it?”
“Of course he doesn't have to take it. It's just a shame that he's wasting his time even worrying about it.”
“Then all you need to do is write to Neville and ask him to tell Ramanujan he doesn't have to take it.”
“But it shouldn't have even come up in the first place. Neville should have told him, point blank, that he didn't have to take it.”
“He might not have known. Or he might not have wanted to give the wrong answer.”
“Then he should have cabled me. It's all intentional, I think. You know he was second wrangler the last year of the old system. He's probably needling me.”
Gertrude resumes her knitting. It's a cold Saturday afternoon in late January. At present they're sitting across a table from each other in the kitchen of the rather shabby flat on St. George's Square, in Pimlico, that they let together. Hardy stays here when he's got business with the London Mathematical Society, and sometimes loans the place out to friends. Gertrude uses the flat to escape, now and then, the demands of their mother, who is lapsing into senility. Once in a while they meet up for a weekend in London, as they're doing now, only the bad weather has discouraged them from going out to a play or the British Museum. Instead they've spent the day gazing out the window at the sleet falling from the sky, and reading newspapers and letters, including the two from Eric and Alice Neville. Which, if truth be told, is something they enjoy far more than the British Museum.
“You don't like Neville much, do you?” Gertrude asks after a moment.
“I don't not like him,” Hardy says. “I just don't think he's very … distinguished.”
She puts the end of one of her needles in her mouth. “He and Alice certainly seem to have hit it off with the Indian,” she says,
“Yes, well, let's just hope they don't hit it off with him so well they end up telling him he should stay home to avoid a spiritual crisis.”
“Oh, that reminds me, what do you think of the Namagiri business?”
“He's saying what he has to say. To please his mother. To please the priests.”
“Are there priests in Hinduism?”
“Or some equivalent thereof.”
“Alice's description of him certainly was striking. ‘Robust,’ she says. I don't know that I've ever seen a fat Indian.”
“What he looks like is of no consequence to me.”
“Of course not.”
“Anyway, you certainly seem to have hit it off with Alice Neville. What's that all about?”
“She's got what my students might call a crush on me.”
“Is it lust?”
“Harold, really! Sex doesn't come into it. She's simply … enamored of my cleverness.”
“And how's this Israel, or whatever it is?”
“Israfel. Not bad. Good descriptions of India”—again, the knitting needle in the mouth—“marred by something a bit too smart. For instance, this habit of always comparing everything to Chopin.”
“Chopin, eh?”
“Yes, this temple's like Chopin, the Taj Mahal's like Chopin. Rather odd, considering it's India.”
“Well, as Mrs. Neville takes such pains to point out,” Hardy says, “I wouldn't know anything about Chopin, being a musical ignoramus. Oh, what nasty weather!” He walks the short distance to the sitting room, which is sparsely furnished and very cold. Outside the misted window, the trees on St. George's Square are stark in the winter light. Motor cars and carriages pass by, and men shield women with their umbrellas as they rush for the doors of houses.
After a few minutes he goes back to the kitchen, where he finds that Gertrude hasn't moved. A half-empty cup of tea sits on the table next to the pile of newspapers. Coiled in her chair with her knitting, she snores a little. She looks feline and content.
He sits down across from her. At home, at his parents' house, they more or less lived in the kitchen. All told, they are creatures of kitchens, he and his sister, which is probably why they chose this flat, which has a tiny sitting room and even tinier bedrooms but a kitchen you can actually fit a table into. And so to London they come, one or two weekends a month; to London they come so they can … sit in a kitchen. Hardy's life in Cambridge is busy, full of friends and pupils and meals and meetings. For him, these weekends are a respite. For Gertrude, he suspects, they are also a respite, but not from activity; from boredom. It's not that she despises St. Catherine's. From their parents, she has inherited the pedagogical impulse. Still, he knows that she chafes at having to make a life out of showing young girls how to draw and sculpt from clay. Such labors can hardly satisfy a woman of her intellect—or so Hardy sometimes reflects, with a certain detachment, during his morning strolls through the Trinity grounds.
What else might she do? Early on she showed a talent for mathematics, which she never bothered to cultivate. She writes verse, trivial in character. Once he discovered half a novel she had written in a drawer at his parents' house. He read the first few pages, which he thought quite good, but then, when he told her he'd happened upon it and offered what he thought to be some useful criticisms, she blushed, tore the manuscript from his hands, and disappeared into her bedroom. The novel has never been mentioned (or seen) since.
Before he saw her flirt with Littlewood, he wondered if she was a Sapphi
st. How else to explain her failure to marry? True, exiled as she is in a rural enclave of females, she has little opportunity to meet men. At the same time, she could teach elsewhere. Nor is Bramley entirely lacking in men. There are male teachers at St. Catherine's, and a host of them at Cranleigh, of which St. Catherine's is the female twin. And one or two of those men might even be normal.
In any case, she seems far less taken with Alice than Alice is with her. Earlier, she read aloud to him Alice's letters from Madras in their entirety, interspersing her recitation with occasional snorts of derision to mark those moments when, in her view, the prose was especially idiotic or pretentious. Poor Alice! How horrified she'd be to learn that this letter, obviously composed with such painstaking care, has become a source of condescending laughter for Hardy and this sister of his whom she professes to admire so thoroughly! Fortunately she will never know. And anyway, isn't it tit for tat, given the very condescending tone that Alice takes when describing him} Especially that remark about going to concerts! Would she balk if her beloved Ramanujan proved oblivious to music? Of course not! Because being oblivious to music, in Ramanujan's case, would simply be further evidence of maniacal genius …
“Stop!” Gaye says, suddenly stepping forward from a broom closet. “Enough of this. You're obviously jealous. Ramanujan's your discovery, and so you can't bear it that the Nevilles are encroaching on your territory.”
“That's ridiculous.”
“It's not ridiculous. They've got an advantage over you now, because they've met him and even forged an intimacy with him, whereas all you have is a handful of letters. To which I say, if you were so determined to keep him to yourself, why didn't you go to Madras?”
The Indian Clerk Page 14