An Elegant Solution(13)

Then, through the afternoon, I read to Grandmother; that Sunday from Job. Who could wrestle with Leviathan? And who has beheld Behemoth, with limbs like bars of iron? The Lord warned Job of them both, and not only Job. I have thought that Leviathan and Behemoth walk Basel’s streets. They came sometime long ago, even when the streets were slight paths between straw and wood huts, and the streets only hardened since then.

The Sabbath was the day of rest. We both went to bed early. We had done no work on this one day of the week. That was hard for me, but it was proper.



The circle of the week returned me to Monday, to beneath Master Johann’s roof and Mistress Dorothea’s tongue. “Leonhard!” She was, as always, in her perpetual constant motion. As I entered the kitchen door she was seated but never still. A chicken waited on her table. “A dog’s put a hole in the fence and it needs mending.” The girl who helps her in the kitchen was somewhere else that morning. I didn’t know where, and I would certainly not ask. If I did, I’d be told where, and why, and why not the next day, and because of who, and on. But without the girl, I alone remained for the Mistress’s bombardment. “My sister-in-law’s fever is back. And don’t put the wood in the settle. She worked too hard before she could become well. She has too many feathers.” This was about the chicken she was plucking.

I stood for a moment with my load of wood. “A fever?”

“It wants washing first, get a brush. She’s always digging and chewing.” This was about the wood settle, and then the dog. “My brother says to let them run.” This was likely about the fever, but might also have been about the dog, or even the chicken. “I’ll have him warn the Council.” What Mistress Dorothea would have her brother warn the Town Council of, unmanaged dogs or contagious fevers, I didn’t yet know, but surely not chickens. The threat, though, like everything else concerning her, was not idle. Magistrate Faulkner’s warnings to the City Council of Basel carried great weight.

The wood I was carrying was also a great weight. I set it on the floor beside the fireplace and started on the settle, brushing the bark and splinters into the fire and then scrubbing harder. “Are there other fevers in the city?”

“I know of some,” she answered, and I knew that I would soon also know. I finished the settle and filled it with wood, and heard the list of my Mistress’s acquaintances who had any complaint against their health. It was short enough but very detailed.

“Your own family’s been blessed with good health,” I said, remembering the story. “Your father lived long, didn’t he?”

“Seventy-two years, and hale but the last four.”

“And you returned to Basel from Holland to care for him.”

“I never wished for Holland,” she answered. “Flat as the sea, and nearly the sea. That was a hard move, with a baby and the armies.”

“You moved with armies?” I asked, taking bellows to the fire. It, and she, really needed little stoking.

“Move with armies? What would that be? We moved from them.”

And I moved from the armies, also. “And it took you long?”

“Two months. We were stopped in Strasbourg for half that, waiting for the road to be clear.”

“Clear of the armies,” I said. That would be what she was speaking of. Louis of France’s armies were fighting in that area at that time, as they had been in most areas at most times. And the baby would have been Nicolaus.

“Ten years in Groningen,” she said, “and then Master Johann accused of being a heretic Cartesian! It was scurrilously we were treated. But the Master didn’t want to leave his Chair. He was never Cartesian.” I knew Master Johann was the most orthodox of Reformed men, if not the most heartfelt. But I didn’t believe Cartesian ideas should be dismissed; that philosophy, and Monsieur Descartes himself, had been a study of mine.

“He was Chair of Mathematics there,” I said.

“A petty Chair next to Basel,” she said, “but still nothing to throw off like ashes, and the Master’s honorable above all and wouldn’t let gossip drive him from his work. Then the Dean here sent for him to come for a Chair. It was my father who wrote to us of the invitation, and also old Master Nicolaus.” This would have been Grandfather Nicolaus, Master Johann’s father. Both families were wealthy and both magisterial and none of the Deans of the four colleges of the University would have ignored their requests.

“Any University in Europe would have pleaded for Master Johann.”

“They did, they did. When we left Groningen, the Provost of Utrecht pursued us a hundred miles to lure the Master there! But Basel was grandest and kin was dearest and so he did come, even if it was for the Greek Language Chair. And so I could be here for Father’s declining years. It was the Lord’s mercy to us all, and I was at his bedside with him and his two precious grandchildren. They were his joy and his light, those two, and he was theirs.” We’d come back to the first question of her father’s health.