Kepler

by John Banville

  In the spring, his heart full of hope, he had set himself again to the great task of formulating the laws of world harmony. His workroom was at the back of the house, a cubbyhole off the dank flagged passage leading to the kitchen. It had been a lumber room in Barbara's late husband's time. Kepler had spent a day clearing out the junk, papers and old boxes and broken furniture, which he had dumped unceremoniously through the window into the overgrown flowerbed outside. There it still lay, a mouldering heap of compost which put forth every spring clusters of wild gentian, in memory perhaps of the former master of the house, poor Marx Müller the pilfering paymaster, whose lugubrious ghost still loitered in his lost domain.

  There were other, grander rooms he might have chosen, for it was a large house, but Kepler preferred this one. It was out of the way. Barbara still had social pretensions then, and most afternoons the place was loud with the horse-faced wives of councillors and burghers, but the only sounds that disturbed the silence of his bolted lair were the querulous clucking of hens outside and the maidservant's song in the kitchen. The calm greenish light from the garden soothed his ailing eyes. Sometimes Regina came and sat with him. His work went well.

  He was at last attracting some attention. Galileus the Italian had acknowledged his gift of a copy of the Mysterium cosmographicum. True, his letter had been disappointingly brief, and no more than civil. Tycho Brahe, however, had written to him warmly and at length about the book. Also, his correspondence with the Bavarian Chancellor Herwart von Hohenburg continued, despite the religious turmoil. All this allowed him to believe that he was becoming a person of consequence, for how many men of twenty-eight could claim such luminaries among their colleagues (he thought that not too strong a word)?

  These crumbs might impress him, but others were harder to convince. He remembered the quarrel with his father-in-law, Jobst Müller. It marked in his memory, he was not sure why, the beginning of that critical period which was to end, nine months later, with his expulsion from Graz.

  The spring had been bad that year, with rain and gales all through April. At the beginning of May there came an ugly calm. For days the sky was a dome of queer pale cloud, at night there was fog. Nothing stirred. It was as if the very air had congealed. The streets stank. Kepler feared this vampire weather, which affected the delicate balance of his constitution, making his brain ache and his veins to swell alarmingly. In Hungary, it was said, bloody stains were everywhere appearing on doors and walls and even in the fields. Here in Graz, an old woman, discovered one morning pissing behind the Jesuit church not far from the Stempfergasse, was stoned for a witch. Barbara, who was seven months gone, grew fretful. The time was ripe for an outbreak of plague. And it was, to Kepler, a kind of pestilence, when Jobst Müller came up from Gössendorf to stay three days.

  He was a cheerless man, proud of his mill and his moneys and his Mühleck estate. Like Barbara, he too had social aspirations, he claimed noble birth and signed himself zu Gössendorf. Also like Barbara, though not so spectacularly as she, he was a user-up of spouses-his second wife was ailing. He accumulated wealth with a passion lacking elsewhere in his life. His daughter he looked on as a material possession, so it seemed, filched from him by the upstart Kepler.

  But the visit at least served to cheer Barbara somewhat. She was glad to have an ally. Not that she ever, in Kepler's presence, complained openly about him. Silent suffering was her tactic. Kepler spent most of the three days of the visitation locked in his room. Regina kept him company. She too bore little love for Grandfather Müller. She was nine then, though small for her age, pale, with ash-blonde hair, that seemed always streaked with damp, pulled flat upon her narrow head. She was not pretty, she was too pinched and pale, but she had character. There was in her an air of completeness, of being, for herself, a precise sufficiency; Barbara was a little afraid of her. She sat in his workroom on a high stool, a toy forgotten in her lap, gazing at things-charts, chairs, the ragged garden, even at Kepler sometimes, when he coughed, or shuffled his feet, or let fall one of his involuntary little moans. Theirs was a strange sharing, but of what, he was not sure. He was the third father she had known in her short life, and she was waiting, he supposed, to see if he would prove more lasting than the previous two. Was that what they shared, then, a something held in store, for the future?

  During these days she had more cause than usual to attend him. He was greatly agitated. He could not work, knowing that his wife and her father, that pair, were somewhere in the house, guzzling his breakfast wine and shaking their heads over his shortcomings. So he sat clenched at his jumbled desk, moaning and muttering, and scribbling wild calculations that were not so much mathematics as a kind of code expressing, in their violent irrationality, his otherwise mute fury and frustration.

  It could not go on like that.

  "We must have a talk, Johannes." Jobst Müller let spread like a kind of sickly custard over his face one of his rare smiles. It was seldom he addressed his son-in-law by name. Kepler tried to edge away from him.

  "I-I am very busy. "

  That was the wrong thing to say. How could he be busy, with the school shut down? His astronomy was, to them, mere play, a mark of his base irresponsibility. Jobst Müller's smile grew sad. He was today without the wide-brimmed conical hat which he sported most times indoors and out, and he looked as if a part of his head were missing. He had lank grey hair and a bluish chin. He was something of a dandy, despite his years, and went in for velvet waistcoats and lace collars and blue knee-ribbons. Kepler would not look at him. They were on the gallery, above the entrance hall. Pale light of morning came in at the barred window behind them.

  "But you might spare me an hour, perhaps?"

  They went down the stairs, Jobst Müller's buckled shoes producing on the polished boards a dull descending scale of disapproval. The astronomer thought of his schooldays: now you are for it, Kepler. Barbara awaited them in the dining room. Johannes grimly noted the bright look in her eye. She knew the old boy had tackled him, they were in it together. She had been experimenting with her hair the night before (it had fallen out in great swatches after the birth of their first child), and now as they entered she whipped off the protective net, and a frizz of curls sprang up from her forehead. Johannes fancied he could hear them crackling.

  "Good morning, my dear," he said, and showed her his teeth.

  She touched her curls nervously. "Papa wants to speak to you."

  Johannes took his place opposite her at the table. "I know." These chairs, old Italian pieces, part of Barbara's dowry, were too tall for him, he had to stretch to touch his toes to the floor. Still, he liked them, and the other pieces, the room itself; he was fond of carved wood and old brick and black ceiling beams, all suchlike sound things, which, even if they were not strictly his own, helped to hold his world together.

  "Johannes has agreed to grant me an hour of his valuable time, " Jobst Müller said, filling himself a mug of small ale. Barbara bit her lip.

  "Um," said Kepler. He knew what the subject would be. Ulrike the servant girl came paddling in with their breakfast on a vast tray. The guest from Mühleck partook of a boiled egg. Johannes was not hungry. His innards were in uproar this morning. It was a delicate engine, his gut, and the weather and Jobst Müller were affecting it. "Damned bread is stale," he muttered. Ulrike, in the doorway, threw him a look.

  "Tell me, " said his father-in-law, "is there sign of the Stiftsschule, ah, reopening?"

  Johannes shrugged.

  "The Archduke," he said vaguely; "you know."

  Barbara thrust a smoking platter at him. "Take some brat-wurst, Johann," she said. "Ulrike has made your favourite cream sauce." He stared at her, and she hastily withdrew the plate. Her belly was so big now she had to lean forward from the shoulders to reach the table. For a moment he was touched by her sad ungainly state. He had thought her beautiful when she was carrying their first. He said morosely:

  "I doubt it will be opened while he still rules." He brightened
. "They say he has the pox, mind; if that puts paid to him there will be hope. "

  "Johannes!"

  Regina came in, effecting a small but palpable adjustment in the atmosphere. She shut the big oak door behind her with elaborate care, as if she were assembling part of the wall. The world was built on too large a scale for her. Johannes could sympathise.

  "Hope of what?" Jobst Müller mildly enquired, scooping a last bit of white from his egg. He was all smoothness this morning, biding his time. The ale left a faint moustache of dried foam on his lip. He was to die within two years.

  "Eh?" Kepler growled, determined to be difficult. Jobst Müller sighed.

  "You said there would be hope if the Archduke were to… pass on. Hope of what, may we ask?"

  "Hope of tolerance, and a little freedom in which folk may practise their faith as conscience bids them." Ha! that was good. Jobst Müller had gone over to the papists in the last outbreak of Ferdinand's religious fervour, while Johannes had held fast and suffered temporary exile. The old boy's smoothness developed a ripple, it ran along his clenchedjaw and tightened the bloodless lips. He said:

  "Conscience, yes, conscience is fine for some, for those who imagine themselves so high and mighty they need not bother with common matters, and leave it to others to feed and house them and their families. "

  Johannes put down his cup with a tiny crash. It was franked with the Müller crest. Regina was watching him.

  "I am still paid my salary. " His face, which had been waxen with suppressed rage, reddened. Barbara made a pleading gesture, but he ignored her. "I am held in some regard in this town, you know. The councillors-aye and the Archduke himself-acknowledge my worth, even if others do not."

  Jobst Müller shrugged. He had gathered himself into a crouch, a rat ready to fight. For all his dandified ways he gave off a faint tang of unwashed flesh.

  "Fine manner they have of showing their appreciation, then, " he said, "driving you out like a common criminal, eh?"

  Johannes tore with his teeth at a crust of bread. "I ward addowed do-" he swallowed mightily "-I was allowed to return within the month. I was the only one of our people thus singled out."

  Jobst Müller permitted himself another faint smile. "Perhaps," he said, with silky emphasis, "the others did not have the Jesuits to plead for them? Perhaps their consciences would not allow them to seek the help of that Romish guild?"

  Kepler's brow coloured again. He said nothing, but sat, throbbing, and glared at the old man. There was a lull. Barbara sniffed. "Eat your sausage, Regina," she said softly, sorrowfully, as if the child's fastidious manner of eating were the secret cause of all this present distress. Regina pushed her plate away, carefully.

  "Tell me,"Jobst Müller said, still crouched, still smiling, "what is this salary that the councillors continue to pay you for not working?" As if he did not very well know.

  "I do not see-"

  "They have reduced it, papa, " Barbara broke in eagerly. "It was two hundred florins, and now they have taken away twenty-five!" It was her way, when talking against the tide of her husband's rage, to close her eyes under fluttering lids so as not to see his twitches, that ferocious glare. Jobst Müller nodded, saying:

  "That is not riches, no. "

  "Yes, papa."

  "Still, you know, two hundred monthly…"

  Barbara's eyes flew open.

  "Monthly?" she shrieked. "But papa, that is per !"

  "What!"

  It was a fine playacting they were doing.

  "Yes, papa, yes. And if it were not for my own small income, and what you send us from Mühleck, why-"

  "Be quiet!" Johannes snarled.

  Barbara jumped. "O!" A tear squeezed out and rolled upon her plump pink cheek. Jobst Müller looked narrowly at his son-in-law.

  "I have a right, surely, to hear how matters stand?" he said. "It is my daughter, after all. "

  Johannes released through clenched teeth a high piercing sound that was half howl, half groan.

  "I will not have it!" he cried, "I will not have this in my own house."

  "Yours?" Jobst Müller oozed.

  "O papa, stop," Barbara said.

  Kepler pointed at them both a trembling finger. "You will kill me," he said, in the strained tone of one to whom a great and terrible knowledge has just come. "Yes, that's what you will do, you'll kill me, between you. It's what you want. To see my health broken. You would be happy. And then you and this your spawn, who plays at being my lady wife-" too far, you go too far "-can pack off back to Mühleck, I know."

  "Calm yourself, sir," Jobst Müller said. "No one here wishes you harm. And pray do not sneer at Mühleck, nor the revenues it provides, which may yet prove your saving when the duke next sees fit to banish you, perhaps for good!"

  Johannes gave a little jerk to the reins of his plunging rage.

  Had he heard the hint of a deal there? Was the old goat working himself up to an offer to buy back his daughter? The idea made him angrier still. He laughed wildly.

  "Listen to him, wife," he cried; "he is more jealous for his estates than he is for you! I may call you what I like, but I am not to soil the name of Mühleck by having it on my lips."

  "I will defend my daughter, young man, by deeds, not words."

  "Your daughter, your daughter let me tell you, needs no defending. She is seven-and-twenty and already she has put two husbands in their graves-and is working well on a third. " O, too far!

  "Sir!"

  They surged from their chairs, on the point of blows, and stood with baleful glares locked like antlers. Into the heaving silence Barbara dropped a fat little giggle. She clapped a hand to her mouth. Regina watched her with interest. The men subsided, breathing heavily, surprised at themselves.

  "He believes he is dying, you know, papa," Barbara said, with another gulp of manic laughter. "He says, he says he has the mark of a cross on his foot, at the place where the nails were driven into the Saviour, which comes and goes, and changes colour according to the time of day-isn't that so, Johannes?" She wrung her little hands, she could not stop. "Although I cannot see it, I suppose because I am not one of your elect, or I am not clever enough, as you… as you always…" She faded into silence. Johannes eyed her for a long moment. Jobst Müller waited. He turned to Barbara, but she looked away. He said to his son-in-law:

  "What sickness is it that you think has afflicted you?" Johannes growled something under his breath. "Forgive me, I did not hear…?"

  "Plague, I said."

  The old man started. "Plague? Is there plague in the city? Barbara?"

  "Of course there is not, papa. He imagines it."

  "But…"

  Johannes looked up with a ghastly grin. "It must start with someone, must it not?"

  Jobst Müller was relieved. "Really," he said, "this talk of… and with the child listening, really!"

  Johannes turned on him again.

  "How would I not worry, " he said, "when I took my life in my hands by marrying this angel of death that you foisted on me?"

  Barbara let out a wail and put her hands to her face. Johannes winced, and his fury drained all away, leaving him suddenly limp. He went to her. Here was real pain, after all. She would not let him touch her, and his hands fussed helplessly above her heaving shoulders, kneading an invisible projection of her grief. "I am a dog, Barbara, a rabid thing; forgive me," gnawing his knuckles. Jobst Müller watched them, this little person hovering over his big sobbing wife, and pursed his lips in distaste. Regina quietly left the room.

  "O Christ," Kepler cried, and stamped his foot.

  * * *

  He was after the eternal laws that govern the harmony of the world. Through awful thickets, in darkest night, he stalked his fabulous prey. Only the stealthiest of hunters had been vouchsafed a shot at it, and he, grossly armed with the blunderbuss of his defective mathematics, what chance had he? crowded round by capering clowns hallooing and howling and banging their bells whose names were Paterni
ty, and Responsibility, and Domestgoddamnedicity. Yet O, he had seen it once, briefly, that mythic bird, a speck, no more than a speck, soaring at an immense height. It was not to be forgotten, that glimpse.

  The 19th of July, 1595, at 27 minutes precisely past 11 in the morning: that was the moment. He was then, if his calculations were accurate, 23 years, 6 months, 3 weeks, 1 day, 20 hours and 57 minutes, give or take a few tens of seconds, old.

  Afterwards he spent much time poring over these figures, searching out hidden significances. The set of date and time, added together, gave a product 1,652. Nothing there that he could see. Combining the integers ofthat total he got 14, which was twice 7, the mystical number. Or perhaps it was simply that 1652 was to be the year of his death. He would be eighty-one. (He laughed: with his health?) He turned to the second set, his age on that momentous July day. These figures were hardly more promising. Combined, not counting the year, they made a quantity whose only significance seemed to be that it was divisible by 5, leaving him the product 22, the age at which he had left Tübingen. Well, that was not much. But if he halved 22 and subtracted 5 (that 5 again!), he got 6, and it was at six that he had been taken by his mother to the top of Gallows Hill to view the comet of 1577. And 5, what did that busy 5 signify? Why, it was the number of the intervals between the planets, the number of notes in the arpeggio of the spheres, the five-tone scale of the world's music!… if his calculations were accurate.

  He had been working for six months on what was to become the Mysterium cosmographicum, his first book. His circumstances were easier then. He was still unmarried, had not yet even heard Barbara's name, and was living at the Stiftsschule in a room that was cramped and cold, but his own. Astronomy at first had been a pastime merely, an extension of the mathematical games he had liked to play as a student at Tübingen. As time went on, and his hopes for his new life in Graz turned sour, this exalted playing more and more obsessed him. It was a thing apart, a realm of order to set against the ramshackle real world in which he was imprisoned. For Graz was a kind of prison. Here in this town, which they were pleased to call a city, the Styrian capital, ruled over by narrow-minded merchants and a papist prince, Johannes Kepler's spirit was in chains, his talents manacled, his great speculative gift strapped upon the rack of schoolmastering-right! yes! laughing and snarling, mocking himself-endungeoned, by God! He was twenty-three.