An Elegant Solution(53)

“They’re kept well repaired.”

I didn’t know if he would answer. He was silent for more than a minute and I wondered if I should leave him. But then he said, “Leonhard, if you see Magistrate Caiaphas return to Basel, come tell me.”

“Yes, sir. I will.” And I nodded and left him.



The return home on Saint John’s Street led by Death Dance Street where I had to stop at Master Huldrych’s house, and at the Dance that now he was partner in.

God gives all laws, as are found in books; no man may change them: hate lies, love truth. It was dark but of course I knew the Lawyer’s words, and also Death’s reply: I accept no trick or flattery, give no postponement or appeal, I overrule man’s laws and courts, both Prince and Church must yield. No prince would ever have proclaimed a law that Death must obey him. The laws of God, of nature, of Mathematics, of death: man-made laws were weak compared to those. I looked across the street to Master Huldrych’s house.

I wondered what would happen to his laboratory. It would be disturbed. Someone would sweep out that room and all the dust, carefully settled, would be dispersed. Dust to dust.



I came in my front door and Grandmother was waiting. She had a stern look.

“Leonhard,” she said. “You have a visitor.”

“Me?”

“It’s Master Daniel.”

Daniel had found me in many places in Basel: in churches, on streets, in taverns, in his own house. But in the week he’d been home, he had never sought me in my own house. “Yes, Grandmother,” I said.

Every house of any size in Basel had a sitting parlor, always with windows onto the street. My grandmother’s sitting parlor was swept every day. The floor was bare. There were three straight wood chairs and two small tables against the walls. One held a candlestand and the other a Bible. This was where we would sit on Sunday afternoons when I read to her.

Beside such, they were rarely used rooms, but Basel was a city that wasted very little and the rooms had a purpose. They were the strong wall that kept the visitor who’d breeched the door from truly being in the house, and that was important.



Now Daniel was in a chair the farthest from the Bible, and his bright silk coat was a disconcerting shock of color in a somber place, though the room managed to dim it. “Look, Leonhard!” he said, springing from his seat. “I’ve come to see you!”

“I see that,” I answered. Grandmother hadn’t come with me. She was back to the kitchen. Daniel put his arm over my shoulder. “Is there another interruption you want me to be?” I asked.

It was Daniel without Nicolaus, Daniel not cocksure, Daniel in doubt. Daniel as drained of himself as his mother had been of herself that morning.

“Leonhard,” he said, and then nothing, and I waited. “You’ll say what you think, won’t you? You always do.”

“Not always,” I said.

“But you think, whether you say what you think.”

“I do.”

“Then I want you to say what you think.”

“Tell me what to think about.”

“I will.” But he didn’t, and I waited again. “I’ve given my word on a matter, and I might want it back.”

“What matter?”

There were many pauses in the conversation. “I won’t say.”

“You gave your word in good faith? And the other person, as well?”

“That could be yes or no. I thought I did, and that the other had, as well, but now that I’ve thought more I’m not sure.”

“Well, Daniel,” I said. “I can’t say what I think if I don’t know what to think. If a man gives his word, that’s a binding to him. It’s false witness to go back on it.”

“I knew you’d say that, but this has a difference, and if you knew it you’d agree with me.”

I had to laugh. “Then you know what I’d think, and I don’t.”

But Daniel was so forlorn. “Tell me, then, Leonhard, when would you go back on your word? When have you?”

“I don’t think I have. I don’t remember. Daniel, I’m no one whose word anyone would want!”

“Then when would you?”

“Give my word?”

“No, take it back. Break the bargain. When would you?”

“Well . . . if I’d been deceived. I think I could then.”

“That’s what might be. You’d say I’d been deceived, I think. I’m sure you would.”

“Tell the man, then. Tell him how you think he’s misled you, and you want the bargain off. Is there one of you who acts first?”

“He already has. Part of it. But a big part. Maybe he has. I don’t know whether he has.”