An Elegant Solution(113)

“He would only nominate a candidate he thought highly of.”

“And Daniel’s also a candidate. It’s he who should win.”

“It’s in God’s hands.”

“I hope so much that it is.”

We talked awhile more. She said nothing condemning or accusatory; I felt those myself and wasn’t sure why. But as I was there in her kitchen and she served the soup and bread, the smoke of the Common Room dwindled. I finally began to feel a good joy and a decent pleasure. I’d been nominated for a prestigious Chair by a committee of intelligent and accomplished men. Knowing that I didn’t deserve the honor let me more freely accept their knowledge that I did.

“Are you able enough for this Chair?” she asked.

“It would be prideful to say yes.”

“Would it be pride or truth?”

This was the difficult question. “I would learn, and work very hard, and I would become able.”

“Do you want this Chair?”

This was the more difficult question. “It would be a wondrous life, I think. To devote my time and effort to writing, and reading, and thinking, and teaching.”

“That would be a noble life.”

“And devoted to God, too,” I said. “All devotion is to God. I think it would be a way to serve.” She’d always had a keen sense of my heart, more than I did. She must have known whether I was truthful in my humility. I didn’t know.

“And all three candidates were from Basel?”

“It was Daniel who was the foreign candidate. They decided he was coming from Padua.”

“Which symbol did you choose?” she asked.

“The symbols were the seven days of creation. A candle for light, a raindrop for the separation of waters, a tree for living plants, a sun for the lights of heaven, a fish for creatures of the sea and air, a lamb for the beasts of the field, and a throne for God at rest. At the first of creation God created the laws to govern the rest. So I chose the light.”

“That was a wise choice,” she said.

“I’ll need greater wisdom than that,” I said. “I’ll go to my room now and think. I need to think.”



Was anything still in the storm? When waves were taller than mountains and ships in them were leaves and splinters? My thoughts were raindrops in a gale. And on my desk was the package Gustavus had given me. It was a rocky island that might be a haven or might shipwreck me.

I opened the wrapping and it was just as I’d known, Master Jacob’s papers. I’d never seen the handwriting but I knew the words, even from the first sentence. There were a dozen sheaves, each tied with ribbon, each a hundred or so sheets. I untied one and sifted through it. Near the top was a careful sketch of a Logarithmic spiral.

I studied it awhile. I felt drawn to it, as if this was the first step I was to take into those many pages. Then I saw a description beneath it, in the same Latin that filled all the sheets.

“The Logarithmic Spiral may be used as a symbol, either of fortitude and constancy in adversity, or of the human body, which after all its changes, even after death, will be restored to its exact and perfect self.”

When I’d accepted that as the premise of all the writing, I began to read.

It would have been impossible to read every word in one afternoon and evening. It wasn’t necessary. Many pages I immediately knew from the Ars Conjectandi. Others I knew from Master Johann’s lectures, though the comparison of what in my room I was reading and what in lectures I’d heard seemed to draw an edge between what the two brothers each knew himself and what each had learned from the other.

There were other pages that I recognized from a score of books, most by men I knew had corresponded with Jacob. There were his solutions to the brachistochrone and tautochrone, and even his attempt of the Reciprocal Squares. As I read, more and faster, there were only a few pages I’d never seen before.

Then also, there were the letters he’d received. The pages were without envelopes, all smoothed flat like the other papers. On many, only the signature showed who’d written them. These I would have studied carefully, but I saw that many were questions and comments on his own work. Few of his correspondents had had greater understanding than Jacob himself.

Finally I heard Saint Leonhard’s bell strike six and I realized I was hungry for supper. I stretched and went down to the kitchen but the room was empty, the table clear, and the fire nearly spent. Then I saw there was no light in the window, and then I saw the sky was gray, but in the east.

So, it was time not for evening meal but for morning chores. And when I reached the Barefoot Square to draw water, the fountain was low and slow filling. The dry days had taken a hard toll on the Birsig.