An Elegant Solution(126)

“I did.”

“He said the coach driver had found it?”

“The coach driver said that.”

Little Johann doubted. “What did you do? How did you get it? Did you take it from Poppa’s desk?”

“No. Rupert truly brought it to me and told me he’d found it.”

“You must have done it somehow, Leonhard.”

“I didn’t.” I hoped that was also true.

“And Mama’s not pleased that he has it.”

“Because he might leave?”

“I think so. I don’t know.”

“What about your father? Is he pleased?”

“Yes. I can tell. He even told Daniel, That was well done. Except it didn’t seem he was talking about Daniel being invited to Russia.”

“It was that I’d given him the letter,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing.”

“What about the other letter, from Paris?”

“He’ll have that soon, too.”

“He’ll be a Chair tomorrow. Or you will.”

“Or Staehelin,” I said.

“No. Poppa’s decided.”

“It’s by chance. No one can decide or know.”

“It was to be Daniel. It’s the way they’d look at each other. Daniel smirking, and Poppa angry. But it’s changed. Daniel can’t tell, but I can. He was always angry that it would be Daniel.”

“How could your father force the Provost’s hand to pick a stone?”

“I think Poppa is stronger than chance.”

“I think, this time, chance will be stronger.”

“But Leonhard,” he said. “We don’t want it to be, if he’s chosen you.”

“But it can’t be by his choice.” I looked at him closely. “It has to be that God moves the Provost’s hand.”



I had never seen my grandmother as unsettled as that morning. It might have been the disorder in Basel’s air; it might have been the anxiety she felt for me as I prepared for my lecture. My blacks and whites were clean and pressed and my wig smelled of new powder. I didn’t touch my shoes and their buckles: I slid in my toes and heels, and my smudging fingers never came near the polished exterior.

In the kitchen she inspected me as always, but not at all as always. If I’d been in a burlap bag I don’t think she would have noticed. She was unsettled.

“What will you say in your lecture?” she asked.

“Just what I’ve practiced. Physics is only understood by Mathematics. The first is nearly a branch of the second.”

“Will they understand you? Will they disagree?”

“They will consider it respectfully,” I said. “I’ll be upright and serious, though they’ll think I’m too young to be a Chair. And it won’t matter because the choice is in the chance when the name’s picked tomorrow. All I need for this lecture is to not be challenged and disqualified.”

“Then God be with you, Leonhard.”

“He is, Grandmother. With you, also.”

“He is.” Then she was at peace.



I’d been in the Lecture Hall so many times, but it seemed I never had; or that I had but only in imagination; or this was the imagination. All the professors and officials, the students, the gentlemen of the city, all were entering and being seated as if . . . as if a real lecture were being given.

The division between whether this room and time were imaginary, or real, ran deepest through my own thoughts. For all my doubts and feeling of pretense, I also knew that the time and purpose of the lecture were very real. In my hands were notes that described great truths. I would profess them with all assurance that my words were worth being heard.

I was standing in the front, in a corner, waiting. I stepped to the lectern. The iron casket was there, and below, on a shelf, the wooden tray of unused stones.

Every seat was taken. I tried to comprehend the faces. There were many I knew. Daniel, Nicolaus, Gottlieb, Little Johann, Great Johann of course. Desiderius, Vanitas, all the men I’d sat under in five years. The Provost, the Deans, the Mayor had all come, and Magistrate Faulkner. A hundred of my fellow students. There were so many I couldn’t name them to myself as fast as I saw them.

I heard clocks strike the hour. I set my papers on the lectern.

Even a man was there that I was sure I knew, but whose face seemed shrouded. When I looked closer, I didn’t see him.

Instead, I began.

“Gentleman, my subject today is the importance of Mathematics in the study of natural philosophy, that philosophy to which we have given the name of Physics. It is my belief that the Creation in which we abide has been established by its Creator, established with a regulation by Mathematical principles, and these principles unfold with delightful intricacy and profound elegance.”