“But your Uncle Jacob had that Chair.”
“And he died.” The log ignited. That fireplace was a firewomb; a flame would spring from anything thrown in it.
“But before, or after, or when?” I asked.
“You tell me!” Daniel answered. “That’s the task I’ve given you!”
“I never liked the task, and I like it less as I see it more.”
“What have you seen of it?”
“There’s seeing other than by sight.”
“More of that?” he said. “Still seeing what’s unseen, are you, Leonhard? Then see what I want to know, and you’ll be done with it. Brutus came here for the Chair of Mathematics and nothing less.”
“And is that why you’ve come back?” I asked.
“I’ve come back to learn the truth about Uncle Jacob. Now, who has Greek today? Desiderius still?”
“He does.”
“And who was it before? I don’t remember.”
“I don’t know. Desiderius had just taken the Chair when I came five years ago,” I said.
“Ask him who was before, and how that man took the Chair. Or more, what was it that happened twenty years ago? Greek must have been empty at the time.”
“You could ask him,” I said.
“I’m watched every minute.”
Gustavus was watching. “Your horse is ready, Master.” I’d seen him approach and wait while we spoke, but Daniel hadn’t and he was startled.
“Have Willi bring it out front to the Square,” he answered, and then to me, “He was promised Greek. And the drawing, that wasn’t a hindrance. He’d have the one chance in three, but he knew he’d be chosen in that. Yet Greek. No, he knew Mathematics would come open.” He slapped my back, very pleased. “You’ve made a good start, Leonhard. How long was Jacob alive after we came, or was he at all? How’d he die? Get that for me, Leonhard. Get that! I’m pleased. This is coming even better than I’d thought!”
But Gustavus wasn’t pleased and hadn’t moved. “It will be Fritz. Willi is away with the coach.”
“Yes, yes,” Daniel said. “I remember. Fritz, then. Whoever you have. Mare or stallion?”
“Stallion, Master. Spirited as you’ve preferred.”
“Come on and let’s see him, Leonhard. Want a ride? Come with me. They’ll have another in the stable. Did you say you wanted to see Paris? Or Russia? Those are an odd pair for you to have asked of. Have you heard something?”
“I only listen to my Master’s lectures, and I have one this afternoon, so I can’t ride with you.”
“What do you have left to hear? You should be giving lectures. Who is it you’re hearing?”
“Master Huldrych.”
“Aged Huldrych! Still here? How is he?”
“More so,” I said, and we were in the Barefoot Square with the ironshod horse, black as anything and eyeing Daniel thoughtfully. Daniel gave him the same look back.
“So Huldrych’s still alive,” Daniel said, and then to his black horse, “and the ride’s to begin. And Leonhard won’t come to moderate us. We’ll be wild and free.” The horse was satisfied.
3
THE DEATH DANCE
I returned to my room to become a student. On my dresser, beside my wig, I kept two artifacts and one marvel. Two wooden bowls, man-made, were the artifacts, but the marvel was purely God’s creation. It was a conch shell that my father had given me. I didn’t know from what far seashore it came. Sometime I would stare at it and become lost imagining how it came to be, and I would run my finger along the ridge of its top; this was the most marvelous part of it, because it formed a spiral more perfect than any which could be drawn by hand. How could it have been made? I believed that it proved that Mathematics was deep in all Creation. I even wondered, between Mathematics and the physical world, which was deeper. But Master Huldrych disagreed.
Master Huldrych held Basel’s Chair of Physics. Twenty years ago he held it, when it was the Chair of Natural Philosophy, and forty years ago he held it. Perhaps sixty years ago; no records had been kept.
He was a genial and cautious man in his narrow house on the Death Dance Street. The street floor was a single room where his lectures were held. The room above was a laboratory where various scales, quadrants, sextants and octants, lenses, and less recognizable objects were engaged in a lengthy experiment which concerned the accumulation of dust. On the highest floor, the Master himself lived in an advanced state of bachelorhood. I had been in this room on a few occasions, as the class occasionally had to select one of its members to arouse the Master from his deliberations when the lecture was to start. The basement of the house opened to the river bank. It flooded at any opportunity and was thus kept clean and empty.