An Elegant Solution(132)

“I did. He was after the thief. I wouldn’t want an enemy as terrible as that after me.”

“Then that’s the one the storytellers were saying about,” the Night man said. “They said a monster. But what monster is in Basel? There are none.”

“Simeon saw him, too, and he doesn’t imagine.”

“And an axe? Who could it have been?”

“Not anyone of Basel. Nor the thief, and he’s dead and drowned.”

“Too bad for him.”

Too bad for him! I left them talking and walked out on the bridge. At the Yoke Chapel I stopped. Too bad for him. He was dead and drowned. But not that only. He was also raised, the same though changed, Resurgo Eadem Mutata. So on and into the city I went.



In the rapid dusk, my shadow was only made by the light of thin cracks in the shutters of shuttered windows. I climbed the hill from the bridge, not on the main street, but in lanes and alleys. I didn’t expect to be noticed, or that anyone knew I was someone to notice; I just wanted to be in those narrower places. I passed the University and behind Saint Martin’s Church, and then by ways where I could hold my arms and touch the houses and fences on either side. I touched the fence behind Master Johann’s house, and the gate that I’d opened many, many times. I didn’t open it. I went on.

Through the wide streets, all still empty; and then the Barefoot Church was high above me. It was all dark, and I couldn’t remember when I’d ever seen it with no candles, no lamps, no lanterns, in any of its windows.

I waited.

Someone must have been in the church. Through one high window I saw a lantern descending, though I didn’t know of any high stairs against the front. A small candle was lit in that window. Then the lantern came to another window, nearer the ground, and set another candle. Then I saw candles, one by one, come to all the windows, with pinpoint flames, but the flames grew. The walls themselves began to glow, as I’ve often seen them.

I went in the door and the whole lofty room was bright with dozens or hundreds of candles. The air was warm and scented. No one was in the whole room but me. I sat to wait.

And then I went back to the door. The Square outside was dim from the evening but men and women strolled in it, and walked through it, entering and leaving the Inn and the houses. A few of the day’s booths were just finally being removed. A student I knew nodded to me as he passed. The clocks began chiming, eight o’clock as the coach from Freiburg rattled in from the bridge. I’d returned the hour given to me. I was finally wholly back from the river.



Standing in the door, I felt a tug on my sleeve and turned to see Little Johann, eyes intent on me. “Come here, Leonhard,” and he pulled me back into the church. His brow was set and determined. I wouldn’t have dared contradict him.

The candles were gone but for the few that were always there.

We took a seat in a corner. “Listen close to me,” he said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I’ll tell you Daniel’s lecture.”

“His lecture?”

“I’ll tell you the whole thing, and if anyone asks where you were, you can tell them what Daniel said.”

“But—”

But not. He was like a horse tensed to run, and he started at a spurred gallop. All that I could do was listen. And as I did, my own runaway thoughts came to a canter, and a walk, and a halt. And how could I think on anything else? Little Johann’s account fascinated me too greatly, for Daniel had lectured on the problem of Hydraulics.

As I listened I began to realize that Daniel must be the greatest authority in Europe on the subject. I hadn’t realized what thought and genius he’d brought to this study of water and its strange ways. The greatest part of the lecture, both in importance and in portion, was his reduction of flows and pressures to simple Mathematics. It was as elegant as it was convincing.

As I listened, my own experience of the day merged with what I heard. I knew the force of water, its buoyancy that had held my head in the air and its flow that had carried me a mile and more. Daniel showed how gravity had become the river’s strong current, and how it could push me like a hand against my back, yet could also flow around a tree anchored in its bank. Somehow I’d felt an invisible grip that had carried me straight and true to my specific moment of appointment. Here was another invisible hand.

And as I was watching and feeling these invisible forces, I was hearing Daniel’s words in Little Johann’s voice. He wasn’t merely repeating from memory. At times he used words and descriptions that weren’t usual in Daniel’s speech, but that Little Johann used commonly. It was plain that the boy in front of me understood completely the Mathematics and Physics his older brother had lectured on. I didn’t know whether it was Daniel or Master Johann who’d been tutoring him, but he was speaking as their equal.