“I don’t know what he thinks,” I said.
“Nor anyone does. And there’s progress. It’s this.” From his leather apron he’d found a folded page of paper, and unfolded it was a sketch of scroll bordered with the folds of a robe and headed with insignia of the University. “That’s what I’ll do, meeting the Master’s approval.” The sketch was drawn with skill and art by a charcoal stick. The words were centered, and all the lines balanced. Master Johann’s text had seemed short, but laid out in lines and capitals it filled the scroll. “And the slab is this one.” He pointed his hammer to a rough flat oblong of clean gray with one bright vein branched across it, like a lightning on an empty twilight sky.
“I think it’s fitting,” I said. “I’ll show him the paper.”
“But no other symbols or dabbles. That’s all.”
“I’ll tell him.”
“No, don’t tell him! He’ll have me wrung. You—” and he aimed his hammer at me, “—you keep him from asking.”
“I will,” I said.
“And thirty florins.”
“I’ll tell him that’s the price.”
“Aye, thirty pieces of silver. Tell him that.”
Gustavus had taken note that I had become a regular patron of his Common Room, where I’d been now more times in three weeks than in three months before. Also, my status had changed with him: Now I was always a Master.
The talk in the room was of the Physics Election. There was speculation of when it would begin, whether in two weeks or two months or two years. It was an eager conversation. In black and white there were students and a few lecturers, for whom the Election might have a real effect, and a merchant and guildsman or two, but the larger number were in brown. Craftsmen, laborers, peddlers and farmers, all were far removed from the inner parts of the University and would never set foot in a lecture or understand a word of Latin. But in Basel, the University was owned by all, in that it was a part of the city, and all of the city was one. And there were many questions about how the Election was conducted, and many answers.
There were three stages to an Election. The first was the selection of the three committees of six members each; the second was the announcement of each committee’s candidate; and last, after each candidate was allowed an opportunity to give a guest lecture, one of the three names was drawn at random. Of course it was the second, and even more the third, of these which caused the greatest excitement; but it was the first, which was accomplished through a Convening of the University, that had the greatest pageantry.
The lengths of time between the three were also variable, as it might take weeks or months for the committees, meeting in secret, to choose their nominees, and then, if any of these men were distant, it might be months more before each of them would have arrived and lectured, and it was traditional that at least one candidate not be from Basel. If the drawing was later still, the men were unlikely to have remained in Basel for it.
A small, iron casket was kept by the Provost for the drawing. It had a lock to which he kept the only key. Within the casket were ten small carved stones, all about an inch square and a half inch deep, so that any two could be put together as a one inch cube. The stones were smooth and plain on all their sides but for a specific exception, that seven, each on a square side, had a symbol carved into them, so that there were seven different symbols. The other three stones were all plain.
As the names were announced, each new candidate, or his committee, would choose a symbol stone. This stone would become that candidate’s lot. A clerk would take the stone, make note of which symbol would now stand for that candidate, and then seal the lot.
The sealing was done by dripping wax onto the symbol itself, filling it and more, then fixing one of the three plain stones to that side. Once the wax had dried, the lot would be a simple cube with no outward sign, the symbol hidden inside. When all three candidates had been named, the three sealed lots would be kept in the casket. The unused stones would be set out. The casket was locked and set on the lectern, where it would reside until the final choice.
It was an odd ritual, part tradition, part compromise, like Basel itself laid out on older patterns of purposes no longer remembered.
The three candidates were then invited to give their lectures. A very poor lecture might disqualify a candidate; otherwise, the lectures were an opportunity for the University to hear these eminent scholars. Some men from distant cities and universities would decline the offer, as a one-third chance of a Chair wasn’t worth the journey. Occasionally the University would accept a written lecture, to be read by a member of the nominating committee, but more often would take the refusal of the lecture as pertaining to the entire candidature, and nominate a replacement who was more appreciative of the honor.