2
THE BOOT AND THORN
In my first year in Basel, I was given a book. I was only thirteen, still apprehensive of my new life, an uprooted sapling fighting to grow new roots in hard soil. Master Johann was a rocky cliff that I grasped, and my roothold in his house was wholly tenuous. I was ignored or mocked in my classes. Then, what a pleasure it was to be befriended! For Daniel, who was a twenty-year-old man of note, took note of me; first with cordial greetings, next with amicable conversations, and then with the full shine of his winsome character. Finally, on a morning three months after my arrival in Basel, he’d sought me out as I was sweeping his mother’s kitchen and tossed a leather volume into my hands.
“You say you like books?” he said. “This one’s new, just from the printer. See if the ink’s dry yet!”
I didn’t know it then, but I’d been given a challenge and not just a book; it was only later that I learned that particular gleam in Daniel’s eye. On that morning I only saw the pages of Latin and symbols and equations, and my heart leaped.
“Thank you!” The ink was plenty dry and I was caught like a fish. A page describing the Mathematics of Likelihood was open before me, and I read the lines and paragraphs without hope of being able to close it. The words were astonishing.
“Hold, hold!” Daniel had laughed. “That’s terrible stuff, there. You’ll need help to understand it.”
“I’ll take any help,” I said, and meant it, but it seemed plain to me. The Latin was lucid and straight, though wordy, and in just that one page I knew the thesis. “Who wrote it?”
“It was Cousin Gottlieb who made the manuscript and bundled it off to the printer. But he’s only the scribe. The author’s someone else. Have you heard of Uncle Jacob?”
I pulled away from the text and found the title page. The title was Ars Conjectandi, the Art of Conjecturing. The author was Professor of Basel, member of the Societies of Paris and Berlin, and of my Master Johann’s family but not my Master. It was Jacob. And below the title was the explanation, Opus Posthumum, published after his death.
“I don’t know Jacob.”
“Gottlieb took his notes and made a book of them, and that was ten times the labor of a stonecutter carving Cupid from a boulder.”
“But who was he? Tell me about Jacob!”
“Father’s brother, father’s teacher, father’s Master. But don’t tell me you can read it!”
“I can,” I’d said eagerly. “Oh, thank you, Master Daniel! Is it mine?”
“It’s yours,” he said. “And if you can read it so well, then I’ll have you explain it to me!”
Even making his joke, he was still treating me as an equal. I was in awe of him then! This was a young man who’d spent a year in Heidelberg and had returned to Basel to finish his doctorate in medicine, and was the son of my revered Master Johann. And I hoped to use his good favor to gain an extra step in my climb of Master Johann’s steep ladder.
That next Saturday, five years ago, I approached my Master’s house with confidence and Uncle Jacob’s book both tucked under my arm. I was taken upstairs and through the door. I still felt very much on trial, having to be perfect in my preparation and understanding each week just to earn my next week’s session. So I sat in my chair and set my papers on the table, and then with pride and desperate hope, I placed my offering, the Ars Conjectandi, on the table for him to notice. My young heart skipped as I waited for my Master’s hard face and the severe gaze to soften.
He took one glance. He recognized the title. Then he transfixed me with the most hostile stare I’d ever experienced. I hadn’t known that such animosity existed, and I was its target! He held me on his sword point for an eternity. Then he proceeded with my lesson, never mentioning the book.
As soon as I could, I slipped the volume into my lap, out of his sight. He ignored the motion. I endured the two hours in agony. I walked home through streets of fire. I ate no dinner but only ran to my room and sobbed my heart out, and vowed never to pester Master Johann with my miserable existence again.
I didn’t keep that vow. I did return, and repaired over months the damage done in that one moment. I believed Daniel should have warned me, but he may not have thought to, or that I would be bold to show off my possession. And since then, I have wondered what became of that boulder of notes from which Gottlieb carved his Conjectandi Cupid. I never have asked Master Johann, of course. Besides stirring his anger at their mention, I was never sure he knew himself where they were.
Years later, when he was in Italy, Daniel sent me a copy of his own book, Exercitationes, Mathematical Exercises. His note with it said, “More leather for your excellent shelf, Leonhard, and more bait to anger the Bear, if you didn’t learn your lesson before.” But I had learned my lesson, and Master Johann never saw that in my hand; and I’d had my first introduction to Uncle Jacob; and most important of all, both the meticulous Conjectandi and the elegant Exercitationes were gems.