An Elegant Solution(55)

And for a few moments, they may have been in Mistress Dorothea’s kitchen.



At the dogmatic three thirty I put my knuckles to Master Johann’s door, and it was opened by Mistress Dorothea. That sequence at least was as absolutely unchangeable as anything in Mathematics. There was no chance to it.

There was a change in me, though. I was not fearful, or not as much. But there was one obstacle between myself and my proper place, and I couldn’t overcome it. It was my hat.

I had no other hat! Gottlieb still had my humble student hat with the simple roll of the brim on either side, and I hadn’t had the opportunity or purse to buy a new one. I had only this tricorne. Would it be monstrous of me to wear it into my Master’s presence? But I couldn’t have come without a hat, either. It had to be doffed in respect and set on the table. And there it would be! As I approached the dull door, I was in a sweat and un-confident. But not fearful. How could I fear anything when I was wearing a gentleman’s hat?

What pure dilemma! And all my musings in Mathematics and Physics, Theology and Greek gave me no guidance at all for solving the problem. As the Mistress knocked on the final door, only Logic could help me. There were two choices, Hat or Not Hat, and Not Hat was impossible. So Hat had to be, so Hat was. The knock was answered, I opened the door, and not just a student but a gentleman went in.

I had a worry, as I came into the room and studied his face and mood, that our other meeting in that place on Thursday morning would not be forgotten. But I didn’t see anything. Master Johann was seated at his table, as always, with his candle, his paper, pen and ink. His stare, as always, was just past my shoulder as if he still was in his previous thought. His wide face seemed at its least alert, which I’d learned meant just the opposite. I felt it would be a taut and grueling afternoon. He saw my hat. Surely it would only be a goad to him, to challenge me even more fiercely.

“Good afternoon,” he said, and I answered the same. “Sit down,” he said, and I did. This was the formula. I took my seat, and set my hat on the table. It was a little more between us than to the side where I would usually position it.

“Have you done your exercises?” He always asked this, and even the turmoil of the last week didn’t change what would be asked, or that I’d done the work. I handed him my papers and he looked at them critically. If there was ever an error, he would see it immediately and tell me with no attempt at gentleness. I would want no attempt; it was my fear of his rebuke that drove me to perfection. At least, that was one motive: I was driven by the rebukes I gave myself just as strongly.

“Yes, that is correct,” he said after his study. “What have you been reading this week?” It was as if he knew. To tell him Uncle Jacob had been in my hands just an hour previous would have been effrontery.

“Boccaccio. Master Desiderius lent it to me.”

“When?”

“Tuesday morning.” Before the coach arrived, and before the Town Council meeting.

“It’s satire. What did you learn from it?” He sometimes asked such questions, for him to learn about me.

“About death, sir. Black Death’s not a subject for satire this week.”

“It is not.” That was the first acknowledgment he’d given of the events of the week. “At another time you might find that the book is much about life.” He paused, and searched me. “You grieve for Master Huldrych, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir. Very much.”

“I do also,” he said, and that was the completion of our beginning. But I knew him this well, that those three words were complete truth, and his grief was as deep as mine; but he was a deeper man than me. “We will begin a new discussion today.”

Those were words that were even more wondrous than the offer of a book by Master Desiderius, or the prospect of a long, empty road begging to be run. To my great discredit, the thought of Master Huldrych stood back out of the light. But perhaps that was Master Johann’s intent, to help me with my grief.

So I set my pen at the ready. How I loved to write! White paper was a heaven for me, and the beginning of a new Mathematic subject was like angels singing. I wasn’t irreligious at all thinking this. God would be worshipped sublimely in sublime things.

“Consider a polynomial of the fifth degree.”

“Yes, sir. A specific one?”

“That it was created from five known roots.”

And we were off. He would ask questions and I would answer if I could. He would push until I could not. “In what way does it inflect? What is a description of its differential polynomial? How does Leibniz find the maximum values?” And here, already reeling and breathless, I had to also remember to use only Leibniz’s words and none of Newton’s.