An Elegant Solution(43)

“What is it you want, Daniel? I won’t interrupt anything else for you today.”

“Why would I ever want you to? But look here, there is something I want of you. You’ve been with Cousin and all his questions, and I know you talked with Old Huldrych. Do you think he would really have had a part with Knipper? What was it that Gottlieb asked him?”

“For that, you’ll have to ask Master Gottlieb yourself. You know that.”

“I won’t, and you know that. But you can tell me what his questions were. If there was anything he didn’t want known, he wouldn’t have let you know it yourself. So there’s no reason that you shouldn’t tell me.”

“And no reason that I should, and so I won’t.” Then I thought perhaps I saw a pattern to Daniel’s eagerness. “But I don’t think Master Huldrych is guilty of anything, and I doubt Gottlieb thinks that, either. So he won’t be thrown from his Chair into the river, if you’re hoping that.”

“Not in the river, at least.”

“Daniel,” I said, “You already have a Chair in Padua.”

“No. I’ve given it up.”

“You’ve resigned it?” I hadn’t known. “But you said you might go back to it.”

“I haven’t even told Nicolaus yet. I’m done with Italy.”

“But why?”

“I wrote a paper,” he said, and grabbed my shoulders in sudden passion. “It is genius. You’d say it is. Anyone would! And the Dean tore it in pieces. The very sheets.”

“Why, Daniel?” I was incredulous. “How could he?”

“He said I had strayed from Mathematics. My Chair was in that subject and I was to remain within it.”

“What was the subject of the paper?”

“Hydraulics. The motion of fluids.”

“What did you write?” For a moment, Italy receded. I was very interested in Hydraulics.

“The forces, the flows and rates, the pressures. All of it. It’s what I’ve been doing in Italy. Oh, it was beautiful!”

“But that’s all Mathematics.”

“But the fool claims that Mathematics is a Logical Philosophy, and Hydraulics is a Natural Philosophy, and not to be bewildered into each other.”

I was even more amazed. “Daniel. You had equations . . . pages of them . . . and he tore them?” It was beyond belief; I was nearly crying at the thought. “But you have copies?”

“It’s easy enough to write them again.” He shrugged off his grief, and also mine. “I’ve already done most of it. But for that I wouldn’t stay. I resigned on the spot. And it was a relief.”

“And you haven’t told anyone?”

“None. You’re the first. I don’t want the Brute to hear it.”

“Well, I won’t tell him. And Daniel, there are other Universities.”

“Leipzig? Konigsburg? I know you wouldn’t say Groningen, not to me. But none of them are Basel.”

“Then outside of German states. Paris. It’s more than equal to Basel.”

“In Theology. In Latin. Not in Mathematics. Not now.”

“There must be somewhere else that’s worthy of you.”

He thought for a moment. “There’s Russia. You said it yourself! That I might ride to Russia.”

“I was joking.”

“But don’t you know, Leonhard? The Tsar is beginning a University.”

“I didn’t know.”

“It’s a grand endeavor. A new academy in Saint Petersburg, and the patron is Peter the Tsar himself.”

“That would be excellent!” I said strongly. “Daniel! You’d be part of the beginning.”

“I would be.” But then he shrugged off the thought. “But Russia . . . it’s barbarian. I might be in America, for being so far.”

“But Saint Petersburg! All that’s said about it! It’s a marvel.”

“If they wrote me,” he said, “I might think more. But I won’t beg.”

“Would they write?”

“The Chair of Physics in Padua, Romini, received a letter. And I’ve heard of others.”

“You’re well known, Daniel,” I said. “And young. They would invite you.”

“And when I win the Paris prize, then even more! But Russia.” He shook his head. “No, I want Basel.”

“But there are no Chairs open.”

He almost answered me. The words were so close out of his mouth I should have heard something of them. But he caught them back. “Not yet,” he said.

“Or anytime soon.”

“If we need to act, we will.”

I could only stare at him. “You’ve been talking with Magistrate Caiaphas.”