Part 14 (1/2)

Different things, this and that. This chamberlain in particular advised the king on important decisions, if his experience extended to some field in which it might be of use. He was often asked to be there as adviser during diplomatic conversations. The king desired him to be present at almost every dinner. He was completely obsessed by information about the New World.

So one was paid to eat and have chats?

The secretary sn.i.g.g.e.red, went pale, and asked pardon, he had a cough.

The real tyrants, said Eugen into the silence, weren't the laws of nature. There were powerful movements afoot in the country, freedom wasn't just a word from the likes of Schiller.

Donkeys' movements, said Gauss.

He had always got on better with Goethe, said Humboldt. Schiller had been closer to his brother.

Donkeys, said Gauss, who would never come to anything. They might inherit some money, and a good name, but never any intelligence.

His brother, said Humboldt, had recently completed a profound study of the works of Schiller. As for himself, literature had never meant that much to him. Books without numbers made him uneasy. And he'd always been bored in the theater.

Quite right, exclaimed Gauss.

Artists were too quick to forget their task, which was to depict reality. Artists held deviation to be a strength, but invention confused people, stylization falsified the world. Take stage sets, which didn't even try to disguise the fact that they were made of cardboard, English paintings, with backgrounds swimming in an oily soup, novels that wandered off into lying fables because the author tied his fake inventions to the names of real historical personages.

Disgusting, said Gauss.

He was working on a catalogue of features of plants and natural phenomena which would be legally obligatory for all painters to consult. Something similar for dramatic poetry would be a good thing. He was thinking of lists of the characteristics of important people, and authors would no longer have the freedom to deviate from them. If Monsieur Daguerre's invention were perfected one day the arts would become irrelevant anyway.

That one writes poems. Gauss tilted his chin at Eugen.

Really, asked Humboldt.

Eugen went red.

Poems and all kinds of nonsense, said Gauss. Since he was a child. He didn't show them to people, but sometimes he was stupid enough to leave the pieces of paper lying about. He was a miserable scientist, but an even worse artist.

They were being lucky with the weather, said Humboldt. Last month had been extremely wet, but now they could hope for a beautiful fall.

He was a parasite. At least his brother was in the military. But this one hadn't learned anything or had any skills. Poems, if you please!

He was studying rights, said Eugen quietly. And mathematics.

And how, said Gauss. A mathematician who didn't recognize a differential equation until it bit him in the foot. That studying per se didn't amount to anything was common knowledge: he had had to stare at the blank faces of young people for decades. But he'd expected more from his own son. Why did it have to be mathematics?

It wasn't what he'd wanted, said Eugen. He'd been forced!

Oh, and by whom?

The changeable weather and seasons, said Humboldt, were what made the beauty of these lat.i.tudes. In contrast to the sheer variety of tropical flora, what Europe offered was the yearly drama of a reawakening creation.

By whom indeed, cried Eugen. And who had employed an a.s.sistant for all the measuring?

Magnificent a.s.sistance. He had had to remeasure mile upon mile because of all the errors.

Errors in the fifth place after the decimal point! They had absolutely no effect, they were utterly irrelevant.

A moment please, said Humboldt. Errors in measurement were never irrelevant.

And the damaged heliotrope, said Gauss. Was that irrelevant too?

Measuring was a high art, said Humboldt. A responsibility that no one could take lightly.

Two heliotropes, come to that, said Gauss. He'd dropped the other one, but only because some idiot had sent him down the wrong path.

Eugen leapt to his feet, reached for his stick and his red cap, and ran out. The sound of the door banging after him echoed through the castle.

That was what you got, said Gauss. Grat.i.tude was a lost concept.

Of course things weren't easy with the young, said Humboldt. But one also should not be too strict, sometimes a little encouragement was more effective than reproach.

If there was nothing there, nothing would become of it. And as for magnetism, the question as posed was wrong: it wasn't a matter of how many magnets the earth contained. Whichever way you looked at it, there were two poles and a single magnetic field that could be described in terms of the force of the magnetism and the angle of inclination of the needle.

He had always traveled with a magnetic needle, said Humboldt. He had collected more than ten thousand measurements.

G.o.d in Heaven, said Gauss. Carrying the thing around wasn't enough, you had to think. think. The horizontal component of magnetic force could be represented as the function of geographical lat.i.tude and longitude. The vertical component was best worked out using a power series following the reciprocal earth's radius. Simple functions of a sphere. He laughed softly. The horizontal component of magnetic force could be represented as the function of geographical lat.i.tude and longitude. The vertical component was best worked out using a power series following the reciprocal earth's radius. Simple functions of a sphere. He laughed softly.

Functions of a sphere. Humboldt smiled. He hadn't understood a single word.

He was out of practice, said Gauss. At twenty he hadn't needed a day for children's stuff like that, now he needed to set aside a week. He tapped his forehead. This up here didn't work the way it once had. He wished he had drunk curare back then. The human brain died a little every day.

One could drink as much curare as one wanted, said Humboldt. One had to drip it into the bloodstream for it to be fatal.

Gauss stared at him. Was that true?

Of course it was true, said Humboldt indignantly. He was the one who'd effectively discovered that.

Gauss was silent for a moment. What, he asked eventually, really did happen to this Bonpland person?

It was time! Humboldt got to his feet. The reception wouldn't wait. After his introductory speech there would be a small reception for the guest of honor. House arrest!

Pardon?

Bonpland was in Paraguay under house arrest. After their return he'd been unable to settle down in Paris. Fame, alcohol, women. His life had lost its clarity and direction, the one thing that must never happen to anybody. For a time he'd been the director of the imperial gardens, and a superb breeder of orchids. After the fall of Napoleon he had gone across the ocean again. He had an estate and a family over there, but he had attached himself to the wrong side in one of the civil wars, or perhaps it was the right one, but in any case it was the losing one. A crazed dictator named Francia, a doctor to boot, had confined him to his estate under permanent threat of death. Not even Simon Bolivar had been able to do anything for Bonpland.

Horrible, said Gauss. But who was the fellow anyway? He'd never heard of him.

THE F FATHER.

Eugen Gauss was wandering through Berlin. A beggar held out an open hand, a dog whimpered at his leg, a hackney horse coughed in his face, and a watchman ordered him not to be ambling about. On a street corner he fell into conversation with a young priest, from the provinces like him, and very intimidated.

Mathematics, said the priest, interesting!

Oh, said Eugen.