An Elegant Solution(78)

“It’s taking you weeks to do.”

“Well, it’s not done quick, it isn’t.”

“I guess you’re doing it well, then, instead.”

He liked that. “Take any stone from an arch and the whole of it fails. And I need to take them all out.”

“How do you?”

“Match a brace to each stone, pull it out and put the brace in, then fix the stonework behind it, put new mortar in, and push the stone back in. And I’m carving in it. They want the lettering on the stones.”

“What’s the lettering to say?”

“What’s it to say? I don’t know. I only know the letters for each stone. I haven’t read them all out.”

“Tell me the letters.”

“E, G, O,” he said. “N, U, M, Q, U, A, M—”

“C, A, D, O,” I finished for him.

“You already knew!”

“No, I guessed. Ego numquam cado. It means, I never fall.”

“It won’t. Not when I’m done with it. And tell your Master Johann I’ll have his stone done, too.”

“I will.”

“Come tomorrow to my yard. I’ll have his drawing.”

“I will come. Lithicus? Did you know Master Huldrych?”

“I knew him.”

“Did you know him well?”

“I only knew him quick, and now dead.”

“You’re carving his epitaph. Did you ever even speak with him?”

“Why is it,” he asked, angry again, “that you keep asking about that spiral? I’ll not speak more of it!”

“I wasn’t either. What did Huldrych have to do with the spiral?”

“I’ll not speak of it, I said. I’ll not speak of infernal spirals, I’ll not speak of spirals on stone, I’ll not speak of spirals on paper, I’ll not speak of lot stones.” And his hammer landed on his chisel and all Basel shook.

I watched him for a few moments. It was impressive to see a master at his craft, but even more to hear Basel ring. But then he sent me off. “I’ll have the drawing tomorrow night. Come for it then. Now leave me alone.”

I did leave him, but not alone. The Square was filling as it would in the morning, Rupert the new driver was climbing onto the coach, and Gustavus still watched. I turned back to watch. I saw Lithicus raise his hammer and with all his might bring it to his chisel. The air split, the Square shook, the inn trembled, and the church sang.



My studies with my father long ago were not allowed to remain abstract. My Botany he taught in the garden, my Latin in the Bible, my History in the ruins, and my Theology in life. For Geometry, as I studied triangles and rectangles and the theories of congruence, my father put me to practical work learning carpentry. If an angle was not defined properly as a right angle, the cabinet door would not close; and just as there were many different quadrilaterals which could have sides of the same length, there were many shapes other than square that a box would form if it wasn’t properly braced.

I’d had more practice under Mistress Dorothea, who was not interested in geometric theorems but was very interested in the sturdiness and level of cupboards and tables. So that Friday morning I was forcing a table to be parallel to the floor beneath. Both lengths and angles needed correcting. “It’s this leg,” I said. “It was cut crooked, and pulling it straight has made it too long. But I don’t want to push it back crooked again.”

“Do what’s proper,” she said. Proper meant that it must not be done easily, or quickly, or unconventionally. Instead, proper meant that it must be done carefully, and laboriously, and frugally. To add complication, Daniel was watching me, and he found my task amusing.

“Cut it until it’s long enough, hey?”

“Subtraction by a positive always results in a lesser value,” I said.

“But can you prove it Mathematically?”

“I can prove it with a table leg, but I won’t.”

“Is that Cartesian?” he laughed. “A proof by senses?”

“It’s proof either way,” I said. “But Daniel, if you accuse me of Cartesian thoughts, tell me this: Was Master Johann really accused of being a Cartesian?”

He laughed louder. “You want to see? Here, come on, I’ll show you.” He jumped to his feet. “Come on!”

I went with him to the stairs, and up, three flights, to a hall I hadn’t seen since I’d been there with him before years ago, and to a door, and through to his bedroom.

There were memories for me there. As a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old it had been a refuge when he took me there to escape. There were no chores, no frowns, no confusion in that room, just Daniel’s attention and friendship. It still held that feeling, as a pie rack holds its smells. The room was the proper size for a Basel gentleman’s younger son, with more space than it needed for a bed and desk and dresser, but only just. He’d always had a good shelf of books, though not as mine, and I saw that now they were less on strict Mathematics and more on the new topics of Physics, mostly Hydraulics and gases. There weren’t many books on those subjects, and he had more than I knew had been written.