An Elegant Solution(99)

The companionable stream became narrower and more talkative as I stayed with it. I just listened, as it had many interesting things to say. There were men in the fields and women in gardens. The air was a very tolerable and drowsy warm. Near the end, the water was pure garrulity, and childish, and I didn’t pay close attention. I counted cattle in meadows, then steeples. On one hill I could see seven.

At the very end the water was just rivulets that hadn’t even learned to speak. The whole of the stream’s life had passed by me, from old and hard working in the city to this infancy. For my own life, I could not walk back and forth the length of it. I could only be in one moment and move in one slow tread, in one direction and pace. What if I could skip forward and back beside and see all my life, and know what was to come?

There were horses plowing, led by farmers on their hard journey back and forth through the fields. There were horsedrawn carts on the road. And once, a white horse free in a field watched me a moment and then with an easy gallop was gone behind a hill. I watched a moment. Then I ran. Not after it, but on my own path by the river. If the horse could run, I could, too!

So all the way back, I ran, and what a run! Up and down, but more down, faster than the water, faster than the breeze, breathing the breeze, being the breeze. Once I was started I couldn’t stop.

I didn’t tire the whole length of the stream. But finally, when I knew Basel’s Walls would soon confront me, I paused. I came to the top of a crest, which the water cut through. Behind me, I could see the stream’s valley and the high hills containing it, and the road, empty of living things; before me was Basel full within its Walls. All the sky was blue and blue, empty of any bit of cloud. I rambled down, in view of my home city but reluctant to finish my journey. I paused again.

A sudden thunder of hooves was all that warned me. I jumped aside and a black mount flew over the crest, Daniel on its back. He saw me and waved but wouldn’t and couldn’t slow his flight. And he hadn’t passed me even when the white charger I’d seen far back in the fields was after him.

Like lightning they went. I’d seen one race before from the Walls. Now they were faster. Half across the open field the white was even with the black, still pulling ahead. As the Wall approached, it pulled back. Daniel’s horse, the winner by default, slowed. Daniel finally took charge of his reins, laughing loud. I was there. I’d run behind them. I was no match with two legs for four, but once they’d slowed I caught them fast. And already the white horse was gone, back out the road and over the hill.

“What’s that?” Daniel cried to me. “I’d say you frightened my Coal, but he doesn’t frighten.”

“He’s a good racer,” I said. “They both were.”

“Both?”

“The white horse. I’ve seen you race him before.”

“What white horse?”

So I laughed. “If you couldn’t see him, your Coal could.”



Inside the Walls, among Basel, I went to return Master Desiderius’s book.

“Was there any lesson in it?” he asked me.

“The well-known one,” I said. “But it’s no danger to learn it again.”

“Learning is hard, and un-learning is often too easy.”

“Master Desiderius, how is it to be on a nominating committee?”

It was a strange, weak smile he gave me. “You mean, how does it feel to be the offerer? To be Mephistopheles?”

“Oh no! It wasn’t what I meant—”

“It’s not an enviable place.”

“I didn’t mean that. But,” I said, “there are Fausts I’ve read that have an unwilling Mephistopheles. He’s not eager to make the bargain. He warns against it.”

“Then should I warn a candidate against taking the Chair, or even be reluctant to nominate?”

“What do you gain from the candidate winning the Chair? Not his soul.”

“Though for winning the Chair, he may lose it.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Oh, Leonhard, I have a fear of the Election. It unburies things.”

“Master Desiderius. Do you have regrets over your own Election?”

“I didn’t know this city five years ago. I do now.”

“I don’t understand you,” I said.

“I might have chosen differently. Thank you for returning this; I will read it again myself. Have you noticed the weather, Leonhard?”

“It’s rained.”

“Yes, but I think that was the last. It will be very dry. I feel it.”



“What have you written this week?” Grandmother asked as we sat at supper.