Daniel agreed with me; we had exchanged letters on this subject while he was in Italy. The difficulty was in the Mathematics. What were the equations that described these waves? I believed I had a solution, but there were so many difficulties. Oh, how I loved difficulties! How I loved these invisibilities! And how difficult it was to listen to Master Huldrych lecture on his simple, visible waves of water.
The lecture ended. The students exited respectfully but I lingered, and when the others were gone, Master Huldrych noticed I’d remained. “Leonhard?” he asked, and peered carefully to see that it was. There was a mass to him, a bulginess, that was both height and girth; he was like a ruin of a castle. His wide robe contributed to his indefinition.
“Master,” I answered. “How long have you lectured at the University?”
“How long? Very long. Very, very long.”
“Has anyone been longer?”
“Oh, no. No one.” He shook his head in wonder at the very thought. “How could they?”
“Even Master Balthazar? He’s had his Chair of Law for a long time.”
“He has. He has. I remember when he came.” He smiled at me. “So I must have been here before, mustn’t I! All of the other Masters, I remember them all coming.”
“The Master of Greek?”
“Desiderius? That was only five years ago.”
“The Master before, I meant. I don’t remember who he was.”
“Master Jankovsky. He had been Chair fifteen years, but he was young when he was elected. That was very unfortunate, what happened to him. It would have been expected he’d have lived longer. I have. Or it would have been expected that I wouldn’t.”
“Twenty years ago, then,” I said.
“And Master Stuber before Jankovsky. He was old. He was very old.”
“Master Johann has been here for twenty years.”
“I remember that day very well. Johann and Jankovsky were elected the same day.”
“The same day?”
Master Huldrych nodded slowly and his thoughts seemed focused on something long ago. “When Master Jacob died.” He turned his head upward, as if he were looking toward heaven. Or perhaps just toward the ceiling. “Much has changed!” he said. “I think it’s best to not talk about that year.”
The Death Dance paintings had faded over their many years, as had Master Huldrych, though they were still clear; but one scene seemed far more live and real than the others. It was the Lawyer. Every scene had written above it Death’s pronouncement and the Living’s appeal. I knew the Lawyer’s words well: God gives all laws, as are found in books; no man may change them: hate lies, love truth. But it wasn’t the Lawyer watching me from the wall. It was Nicolaus standing in front and matching the mural’s stance.
“Old Huldrych,” he said.
“Old but durable,” I answered. “He’ll outlast us all.”
“His Chair’s worth having.”
“Once it’s empty, and it isn’t.”
“He’s mortal,” Nicolaus said again; and flanked by hundreds of feet of Death Dance, he was irrefutable.
“So was your uncle. Do you remember him?”
“No.”
“Was he alive when you came to Basel, or had he already died? You were ten years old. If you tell me, I can tell Daniel, and you won’t report any of us to Master Johann.”
Nicolaus only asked my question back. “What have you learned of my Uncle Jacob?”
“I know his Mathematics,” I said. “He was Master Johann’s teacher.” Though Nicolaus had the Chair of Law in Bern, he was more a Mathematician than many who taught Mathematics.
“How do you know?”
“I’ve read the Ars Conjectandi and I’ve had my Master’s lessons. I can see what he learned from his brother.”
“I know the lion by his paw.” Nicolaus said it oddly. It was a saying in their family, with a meaning of recognizing one thing from another. “I don’t know that he was alive when we came. We had stopped a month in Strasbourg on our way.”
“A month?”
“There were armies on the Rhine, and battles. We had to wait. And no news from Basel. But Gottlieb went on. He’d been living with us.” Then he said nothing else.
It was odd how the conversation mirrored his mother’s, how the journeys had been symmetric. I asked, “What does Daniel want, do you think?”
“He bears watching.”
“He means to cause trouble, I guess.”
“He has reason.”
I was unsure if this meant he had a reason, or if he could reason. It was Nicolaus’s manner of speech, always leaving me unsure.