John Banville - Kepler

I enclose an old letter which I found unposted among my papers. It concerns matters of scientific interest, and you should have it, for I fancy it will be some little time before I have the heart to turn again to such speculations.

Your colleague, Joh: Kepler

Prague December 1611

Johannes Fabricius: at Wittenberg

Ah, my dear young sir, how happy I am to hear of your researches into the nature of these mysterious solar spots. Not only am I filled with admiration for the rigour amp; ingenuity of your investigations, but also I am carried back out of these hateful times to a happier period of my own life. Can it be only five years ago? Lucky I, who was the first in this century to have observed these spots! I say this, not in an attempt to steal your fire, if I may put it thus (nor even do I mean tojoin the tiresome controversy between Scheiner amp; Galileo over the priority of the discovery), but only to convince myself that there was a time when I could happily, and, one might say, in innocence, pursue my scientific studies, before the disasters of this terrible year had befallen me.

I first observed the phenomenon of solar spots in May of 1607. For weeks I had been earnestly observing Mercury in the evening sky. According to calculations, that planet was to enter into lower conjunction with the sun on May 29th. Since a heavy storm arose in the evening of the 27th, and it seemed to me this aspect would be the cause of such disturbance in the weather, I wondered if perhaps the conjunction should be fixed earlier. I therefore set to work to observe the sun on the afternoon of the 28th. At that time I had rooms at Wenzel College, where the Rector, Martin Bachazek, was my friend. A keen amateur, Bachazek had built a little wooden tower in one of the college lofts, and it was to there that he amp; I retired that day. Rays of the sun were shining through thin cracks in the shingles, and under one of these rays we held a piece of paper whereon the sun's image formed. And lo! on the shimmering picture of the sun we espied a little daub, quite black, approximately like a parched flea. Certain that we were observing a transit of Mercury, we were overcome with the greatest excitement. To prevent error, and to make sure it was not a mark in the paper itself, we kept moving the paper back amp; forth so that the light moved: and everywhere the little black spot appeared with the light. I drew up a report immediately, and had my colleague endorse it. I ran to the Hradcany, and sent the announcement to the Emperor by a valet, for of course this conjunction was of great interest to His Majesty. Then I repaired to the workshop of Jost Burgi, the court mechanic. He was out, and so, with one of his assistants, I covered a window, letting the light shine through a small aperture in a tin plate. Again the little daub appeared. Again I sought verification for my report, and had Burgi's assistant sign it. The document lies before me on my desk, and there is the signature: Heinrich Stolle, watchmaker-journeyman, my hand. How well I remember it all!

Of course, I was wrong, as so often; it was not a transit of Mercury I had witnessed, as you know, but a sunspot. Have you, I wonder, a theory as to the origin of this phenomenon? I have witnessed it often since that day, yet I have not decided to my own satisfaction what is the explanation. Perhaps they are a form of cloud, as in our own skies, but wonderfully black and heavy, and therefore easily to be seen. Or maybe they are emanations of burning gas rising from the fiery surface? For my own part, they are of the utmost interest not in their cause, but in that, by their form amp; evident motion, they prove satisfactorily the rotation of the sun, which I had postulated without proof in my Astronomia nova. I wonder that I could do so much in that book, without the aid of the telescope, which in your work you have put to such good use.

What should we do without our science? It is, even in these dread times, a great consolation. My master Rudolph grows stranger day by day: I think he will not live. Sometimes he seems not to understand that he is no longer emperor. I do not disabuse him of this dream. How sad a place the world is. Who would not rather ascend into the clear amp; silent heights of celestial speculation?

Please do not take my bad example to heart, but write to me soon again. I am, Sir,

yours, Johannes Kepler

Gasthof zum Goldenen Greif

Prague

September 1611

Frau Regina Ehern: at Pfaffenhofen

Life, so it used to seem to me, my dear Regina, is a formless amp; forever shifting stuff, a globe of molten glass, say, which we have been flung, and which, without even the crudest of instruments, with only our bare hands, we must shape into a perfect sphere, in order to be able to contain it within ourselves. That, so I thought, is our task here, I mean the transformation of the chaos without, into a perfect harmony amp; balance within us. Wrong, wrong: for our lives contain us, we are the flaw in the crystal, the speck of grit which must be ejected from the spinning sphere. It is said, that a drowning man sees all his life flash before him in the instant before he succumbs: but why should it be only so for death by water? I suspect it is true whatever the manner of dying. At the final moment, we shall at last perceive the secret amp; essential form of all we have been, of all our actions amp; thoughts. Death is the perfecting medium. This truth-for I believe it to be a truth-has manifested itself to me with force in these past months. It is the only answer that makes sense of these disasters amp; pains, these betrayals.

I will not hold you responsible, dear child, for our present differences. There are those about you, and one in particular, I know, who will not leave in peace even a bereaved amp; ailing man in his hour of agony. Your mother was hardly cold in her grave when that first imperious missive from your husband arrived, like a blow to the stomach, and now you write to me in this extraordinary fashion. This is not your tone of voice, which I remember with tenderness amp; love, this is not how you would speak to me, if the choice were yours. I can only believe that these words were dictated to you. Therefore, I am not now addressing you, but, through you, another, to whom I cannot bring myself to write directly. Let him prick up his ears. This squalid matter shall be cleared up to the satisfaction of all.

How can you insinuate that I am delaying in the payment of these monies? What do I care for mere cash, I, who have lost that which was more precious to me than an emperor's treasury of gold, I mean my wife amp; my beloved son? That my lady Barbara chose not to mention me in her will is a profound hurt, but yet I intend to carry out her wishes. Although I have not the heart at the moment to investigate thoroughly how matters stand, I know in general the state of Frau Kepler's fortune, or what remains of it. When her father died, and the Mühleck estates were divided, she possessed some 3,000 florins in properties amp; goods. She was therefore not so rich as we had been led to believe-but that is another matter. I went with Frau Kepler to Graz at that time, when Jobst Müller had died, and spent no little time amp; pains in converting her inheritance into cash. Styrian taxes then were nothing less than punitive measures against Lutherans, and we suffered heavy losses in transferring her monies out of Austria. That is why there is not now those thousands which some people think I am trying to appropriate. Our life in Bohemia had been difficult, the Emperor was not the most prompt of paymasters, and inevitably, despite Frau Kepler's extreme parsimony, calls were made from time to time upon her capital. There were her many illnesses, the fine clothes which she insisted upon, and then, she was not one to be satisfied with beans amp; sausages. Do you imagine that we lived on air?