John Banville - Doctor Copernicus

“It is proposed to break all personal connections with the leper, to demand that he account for the sum of twelve hundred gold florins entrusted to him by this Chapter, to seize his prebend and all other revenues, and to grant him a modest annuity on condition that he takes himself off from our midst immediately. That, Herr Precentor, gentlemen, is what is proposed.” And he turned his dark sullen gaze on Canon Koppernigk. “If these are dissenting voices, let them be heard now.”

The Canon was still watching the snow swirling greyly against the window. All waited in vain for him to speak. He seemed genuinely indifferent to the proceedings, and somehow that genuineness annoyed the Chapter far more than pretence would have done, for they could at least have understood pretence. Had the man no ordinary human feelings whatever? He said nothing, only now and then drummed his fingers lightly, thoughtfully, on the edge of the table. But even if he would not speak they were yet determined to have some response of him, and so, with unspoken unanimity, they agreed that his silence should be taken as a protest. Canon von der Trank, an aristocratic German with the thin nervous look about him of a whippet, pursed up his wide pale pink lips and said:

“Whatever it is that we do, gentlemen, certainly we must do something. The matter must be dealt with, there must be a quick clean end to the present intolerable situation. The Precentor gives it as his opinion that the measures we have proposed are too extreme. He tells us that this—” his sharp fastidious nose twitched at the tip “—this person did not will upon himself the disease that afflicts him, yet we may ask whose will, if not his, was involved? All are aware of the nature of his malady, which he contracted in the bawdyhouses of Italy. We are urged to be charitable, but our charity and our care must be extended firstly to the faithful of this diocese: them we have the duty to protect from this outrageous source of scandal. And further, there is the reputation of this Chapter to be considered. This is the very sort of thing that the monk Luther will be delighted to hear of, so that he may add it as another strand to the whip with which he lashes the Church. Therefore I say let us hear no more talk of charity and caution. Our duty is clear — let us perform it. The leper must be declared anathema and driven hence without delay!”

A rumble of yeas followed this address, and all with set jaws glared at Giese grimly, who squirmed, and mopped his forehead, and turned a beseeching gaze on Canon Koppernigk.

“What do you think, Doctor? Surely you wish to make some reply?”

The Canon took his eyes reluctantly from the darkling window and glanced about the table. Snellenburg, you owe me a hundred marks; von der Trank, you hate me because I am a tradesman’s son and yet cleverer than you; Giese — poor Giese. What does it matter? Lately he had begun to feel that he was somehow fading, that his physical self was as it were evaporating, becoming transparent; soon there would remain only a mind, a sort of grey ghostly amoeba spinning silently in the dead air. What does it matter? He turned away. How softly the snow falls! “I think,” he murmured, “that it would be foolish to worry overmuch as to what Father Luther thinks of us or says. He will go the way all others of his kind have gone, and will be forgotten with the rest.”

They stared at him, nonplussed. Did he think this was some kind of religious discussion? Had he even been listening? For a long time no one spoke, and then Canon Snellenburg shrugged and said:

“Well, if the fellow’s own brother will not even say a word in his defence!—”

“Please, please gentlemen,” Giese cried, as if convinced that the table was about to rise up and attack the Canon with fists. “Please! Doctor, I wonder if you realise fully what is being proposed? The Chapter intends to strip your brother of all rights and privileges whatever, to — to cast him out, like a beggar!”

But Canon Koppernigk paid no heed. Look at them! First they blamed me because he is my brother, now they despise me because I will not defend him. Wait, Snellenburg, just wait, I will have my hundred marks of you! Just then he found an unexpected and unwanted ally, when another of the canons, one Alexander Sculteti, a scrawny fellow with a red nose, stood up and delivered himself of a rambling and disjointed defence of Canon Andreas to which nobody listened, for Sculteti was a reprobate who kept a woman and a houseful of children at his farm outside the walls, and besides, he was far from sober. Canon Koppernigk took up his hat, and wrapping his cloak about him went out into the burgeoning darkness and the snow.

*

As if he had been waiting for a signal, Andreas visited his brother for the first time on the very day that he heard of the Chapter’s decision to banish him. For a man so grievously maimed he negotiated the stairs of the tower with surprising stealth, and all that could be heard of his coming was his laboured breathing and the light fastidious tapping of his stick. He was indeed in a bad way now, but what shocked the Canon most were the signs of ageing that even the damage wrought by the disease could not outweigh. The few swatches of hair remaining on his skull had turned a yellowish grey, and his eyes that had once flashed fire were weary and rheumy and querulous. His uncanny intuition, however, had not forsaken him, for he said:

“Why do you stare so, brother — did you expect me to have become whole again? I am nearing fifty, I do not have long more, thank God.”

“Andreas—”

“Do not Andreas me; I have heard what plans the Chapter has in store for me. And now — wait! — you are going to tell me how on your knees you pleaded my cause, spoke of my sterling work at Rome on behalf of little Ermland, how I have taken up the banner in the crusade against the Teutonic Knights passed on to me by our dear late uncle — eh, brother, eh, are you going to tell me that?”

The Canon shook his head. “I know nothing of your doings, and so how should I plead such mitigation?”

Andreas glanced at him quickly, surprised despite himself at the coldness of his brother’s tone. “Well, it’s no matter,” he growled. He eyed morosely the bare white walls. “Still stargazing, are you, brother?”

“Yes.”

“Good, good. It’s well to have some pastime.” He sat down slowly at the Canon’s desk and folded his ravaged hands on the knob of his stick. His mouth, all eaten away at the corners, was fixed in a horrid leer. Extraordinary, that one could be so damaged and still live. It was spleen and spite, surely, that kept him going. He gazed through the bottled windowpanes at the blurred blue of the Baltic. “I will not be made to go,” he said. “I will not be kicked out, like a dog. I am a canon of this Chapter, I have rights. You cannot compel me to go, whatever you do, and you may tell the holy canons that. I shall leave Frauenburg, yes, Prussia, I shall return to Rome, happily, but only when the interdict against me is lifted, and when my prebend and all my revenues are restored. Until then I shall remain here, frightening the peasants and drinking the blood of their daughters.” Suddenly he laughed, that familiar dry scraping sound. “I am quite flattered, you know, by this unwonted notoriety. Is it not strange, that I had to begin visibly to rot before I could win respect? Life, brother, life is very odd. And now good day; I trust you will communicate my terms to your colleagues? I feel the message will carry more weight, coming from you, who are so intimately involved in the affair.”

Max had been listening outside the door, for he entered at once unbidden, with the ghost of a grin on his lean face. At the foot of the stairs he and Andreas stopped and whispered together briefly; seemingly they had patched up their Heilsberg quarrel. The Canon shivered. He was cold.