An Elegant Solution(21)

“Only if you’ll read it, Leonhard.” This was his usual answer, and it was humorous. He knew I wouldn’t be able to walk home without my nose between the pages. “What book do you want?”

“Any.”

“Come and we’ll choose one.”

Few words stirred a deeper joy in me.



Minutes later, many minutes, I stood at his door, my feet toward the street, my heart still among the shelves of his library, my fingers firm on Boccaccio, and my eyes on the Master’s face.

“And next, after that one,” he was saying, “I have a Faustbook for you. It’s a new telling, and when you read it I’ll lend you Paracelsus with it. And there’s also a new Homer. It’s an Englishman named Pope. Do you read English?”

“No,” I said, and I must have sounded less than enthusiastic.

“It would be a good text to learn it. There’s more than just Greek and Latin, Leonhard.”

“Yes, sir. There’s French that I hardly know, and Italian even less.” I held up the book in my hand. “And I think my brain is more than full already!”

“Then make some room. You could empty some of your numbers and Mathematics.”

“Oh, no, sir!”

“No, no, I wouldn’t, that, either. You have a gift for them, Leonhard, and I think there’s a purpose in that.”

“I hope there is,” I said. “Anyway, I think they’re stuck.”

“I’ve plenty wedged too tight myself. And there’s more to put in! With every lecture I give I find more I need to learn.”

“You’ve many more years of lecturing still.”

“I’ve already had five here and five in Strasbourg.”

Surely I’d known before he’d come from Strasbourg. “Why did you come here?”

“I was elected to the Chair.”

“How were you, though?” I asked. “Had you been asked? Did they know you’d come if it was offered?”

“Master Vanitas wrote me to say his committee would nominate me if I was willing. They prefer to have candidates from other universities as well as from Basel. I agreed that I was. And then, of the three candidates, it was my name drawn.”

“Had you known Master Vanitas, then?”

“By reputation and by correspondence. And I’d known Master Jankovsky.”

“Oh! Master Huldrych mentioned him. He said it was unfortunate what had happened to him.”

Master Desiderius looked away, as if something unpleasant had been thrust before him. “But that was five years ago. And I was in Strasbourg.”

That seemed a better subject. “What is the University in Strasbourg like?”

“It was once significant.”

“Basel is significant.”

“Very much. Strasbourg was worth leaving. When the city surrendered its independence and became part of France, many things declined.” He glanced about the room. “Such as books and printing. There are more books here in Basel! I remember asking the coachman to tell me about the city.”

“The coachman? Knipper?”

“Yes, it was. He brought me the letter from Master Vanitas, and I rode back with him on his return to give my nomination lecture.”

“Did Master Johann ever have the Chair of Greek?”

“Johann?” This surprised him. “But he has Mathematics! Why would he have Greek?”

“I was told he was considered for it, long ago. But then Mathematics came open.”

“He has never had the Greek Chair. His name is not on the list.” He seemed very surprised at the possibility, and even alarmed. So I asked about the Faustbook then, and perhaps I drove the memory of Master Johann from the Master’s thoughts.



It seemed worth finding Daniel to tell him a few things I’d learned, and as it was Tuesday afternoon, Willi would be back from Freiburg and Strasbourg, and that would also be worth attending. So I opened my eyes for Daniel and wandered toward the north, facing Saint John Gate. And when Daniel was in Basel he was hard to hide.

I went walking the Rhine Leap, the street which ran from the Munster Square at one end to Saint Martin’s Church and the Rhine Bridge at the other. The University Building itself faced the river beside the bridge, in front of Saint Martin’s. Centered between these pillars, Cousin Gottlieb lived in a house of the same quality as Master Johann’s and only somewhat less quantity. Daniel was there to be found, occupied with glaring at it. I tugged his sleeve.

“What?” Daniel said. “Who? Oh, is it you, Leonhard?”

“It is,” I laughed. “Are you calling on Gottlieb?”

He said blackly, “I’ll call on him, and see how he likes it.”