John Banville - Kepler

"Yes," said Kepler, "yes, I do agree; but casting horoscopes, all that, an unpleasant and begrimed work, your majesty." He paused. What was this? Who had said anything of horoscopes? But Rudolph, according to the Dane, had nodded assent to Kepler's plea for an imperial stipend; he must be made to understand that a few florins annually would not purchase another wizard to add to his collection. "Of course," he went on, "I believe that the stars do, yes, influence us, and that it is permissible a ruler be allowed once in a while to take advantage of such influence. But, if you will permit me, sir, there are dangers…" The Emperor waited, smiling vaguely and nodding, yet managing to convey a faint unmistakable chill of warning. "I mean, your majesty, there is, " with deliberate emphasis, while Tycho Brahe raked together the ingredients of another cautionary cough, "there is a danger if the ruler should be too much swayed by those about him who make star magic their business. I am thinking of those Englishmen, Kelley and the angel-conjuror Dee, who lately, I am told, deceived yo- your court, with their trickery."

Rudolph had turned slowly away, still with that pained vacant smile, still nodding, and Tycho Brahe immediately jumped in and began to speak loudly of something else. Kepler was annoyed. What did they expect of him! He was no crawling courtier, to kiss hands and curtsy.

The day waned, the lamps were lit, and there was music. Rudolph took to his throne at last. It was the only seat in the room. Kepler's legs began to ache. He had expected much of this day. Everything was going wrong. Yet he had done his best to be upright and honest. Perhaps that was not what was required. In this empire of impossible ceremony and ceaseless show Johannes Kepler fitted ill. The music of the strings sighed on, an unobtrusive creaking. "It was the predictability of astronomical events," the Dane was saying, "which drew me to this science, for I saw, of course, how useful such predictions would be to navigators and calendar makers, also to kings and princes…" but his efforts were not succeeding either, Rudolph's chin was sunk on his breast, and he was not listening. He rose and touched Kepler's arm, and walked with him to the great window. Below them the city was dissolving into the twilight. They stood in silence for a moment, gazing down upon the little lights that flickered forth here and there. All at once Kepler felt a rush of tenderness for this soft sad man, a desire to shield him from the world's wickedness.

"They tell us that you have done wonderful works," the Emperor murmured. "We care for such things. If there were time…" He sighed. "I do not like the world. More and more I desire to transcend these… these…" His hand moved in a vague gesture toward the room behind him. "I think sometimes I might dress in rags and go among the people. I do not see them, you know. But then, where should I find rags, here?" He glanced at Kepler with a faint apologetic smile. "You see our difficulties."

"Of course, certainly."

Rudolph frowned, annoyed not at his guest it seemed but with himself. "What was I saying? Yes: these tables which Herr Brahe wishes to draw up, you consider them a worthwhile venture?"

Kepler felt like a hamfisted juggler, diving frantically this way and that as the balls spun out of control. "They would contain, your majesty, everything that is known in our science. "

"Facts, then, you mean, figures?"

"Everything that is known."

"Yes?"

"The Tychonic tables will be the foundation of a new science of the sky. Herr Brahe is a great and diligent observer. The material he has amassed is a priceless treasure. The tables must be made, they shall be, and those who come after us will bless the name of any who had a hand in their making. "

"I see, I see, yes," and coughed. "You are an Austrian, Herr Kepler?"

"Swabia is my birthplace; but I was in Graz for some years before I-"

"Ah, Graz."

"But I was driven out. The Archduke Ferdinand-"

" Graz," Rudolph said again. "Yes, our cousin Ferdinand is diligent."

Kepler closed his eyes. His cousin, of course.

The music ceased, and a parting glass was distributed. Tycho took Kepler's arm, trying it seemed to crush it in his fist. They bowed, and backed off towards the doors that were drawing open slowly behind them. Kepler halted, frowning, and trotted forward again before the Dane could stop him, muttering under his breath. "Nines, nines of course! Your majesty, a moment. See, sire, it is because of the nines, or I mean the tens, because we count in tens, and therefore the result will always be divisible by nine. For if we computed by nines, now, it would be eight, divisible by eight that is, and so on. You see?" sketching a triumphantly gay figure eight on the air. But the Emperor Rudolph only looked at him, with a kind of sadness, and said nothing. As they went out Tycho Brahe, sucking his teeth, turned on Kepler savagely. "The wrong thing you say, always the wrong thing!"

In the lamplight at the gate a few absent-minded flakes of snow were falling. The horse's hoofs rang on the cold stones, and somewhere off to the left the watch called out. At Kepler's side the Dane snorted and struggled, trying to contain the unwieldy parcel of his rage. "Have you no sense of of of," he gasped, "no understanding of-of anything? Why, at times today I suspected that you were trying, trying to anger him."

Kepler said nothing. He did not need Tycho to tell him how badly he had fared. Yet he could not be angry at himself, for it was not he had done the damage, but that other Kepler shambling at his heels, that demented other, whose prints upon his life were the black bruises that inevitably appeared in the places whereon Johannes the Mild had impressed no more than a faint thumb-print of protest.

"Well, it is no matter, in the end," said Tycho wearily. "I convinced him, despite your clumsiness, that you should work with me in compiling the tables. I am to call them the Tabulae Rudolphinae. He believes that those who come after us will bless his name!"

"Yes?"

"And he will grant you two hundred florins annually, though God knows if you will ever see it, he is not renowned either for generosity or promptness."

On the bridge the carriage halted, and Kepler gazed for a long time into the illusory emptiness outside. What would be his future, bound to a protector in need of protecting? He thought of that woebegone king immured in perpetual check in his ice palace. Tycho elbowed him furiously in the ribs. "Have you nothing to say?"

"O-thank you." The carriage lurched forward into the darkness. "He does not like the world. "

"What?"

"The Emperor, he told me that he does not like the world. Those were his words. I thought it strange. "

"Strange? Strange? Sir, you are as mad as he."

"We are alike, yes, in ways…"

That night he fell ill. An insidious fever originated in the gall, and, bypassing the bowels, gained access to the head. Barbara forced him to take a hot bath, though he considered total immersion an unnatural and foolhardy practice. To his surprise the measure brought him temporary relief. The heat, however, constricted his bowels; he administered a strong purgative, and then bled himself. He decided, after careful investigation of his excreta, that he was one of those cases whose gall bladder has a direct opening into the stomach. This was an interesting discovery, though such people, he knew, are shortlived as a rule. The sky was catastrophic at that time. But he had so much still to do! The Emperor sent good wishes for his recovery. That decided him: he would not die. The fever abated at last. He felt like one of those neatly parcelled flies that adorn spiders' webs. Death was saving him up for a future feast.

Was there a lesson for him in this latest bout of illness? He was not living as he knew he should. His rational self told him he must learn continence of thought and speech, must practise grovelling. He set himself diligently to work at the Rudolphine Tables, arranging and transcribing endless columns of observations from Tcyho's papers. In his heart the predictability of astronomical events meant nothing to him; what did he care for navigators or calendar makers, for princes and kings? The demented dreamer in him rebelled. He remembered that vision he had glimpsed in Baron Hoffmann's garden, and was again assailed by the mysteriousness of the commonplace. Give this world's praise to the angel! He had only the vaguest notion of what he meant. He recalled too the squabbling when he had come first to Tycho, the farce of that flight from Benatek and the ignominious return. Would it be likewise with Rudolph? He wrote to Mästlin: I do not speak like I write, I do not write like I think, I do not think like I ought to think, and so everything goes on in deepest darkness. Where did these voices come from, these strange sayings? It was as if the future had found utterance in him.