The Sleepwalkers (106 page)

There
is not even the usual mitigating addendum at the end. The story
behind the entries is briefly this:

Heinrich
Kepler
married
at
the
age
of
twenty-four.
He
seems
to
have
studied
no
trade
or
craft,
except
"gunnery",
which
refers
to
his
later
military
adventures.
Seven
months
and
two
weeks
after
his
marriage
to
Katherine
Guldenmann,
Johannes
Kepler
was
born.
Three
years
later,
after
the
birth
of
his
second
son,
Heinrich
took
the
Emperor's
shilling
and
went
off
to
fight
the
Protestant
insurgents
in
the
Netherlands
–
an
act
the
more
ignominious
as
the
Keplers
were
among
the
oldest
Protestant
families
in
Weil.
The
next
year,
Katherine
joined
her
husband,
leaving
her
children
in
the
care
of
the
grandparents.
The
year
after
they
both
returned,
but
not
to
Weil,
where
they
were
disgraced;
instead,
Heinrich
bought
a
house
in
nearby
Leonberg;
but
in
a
short
time
left
again
for
Holland,
to
join
the
mercenary
hordes
of
the
Duke
of
Alba.
It
was
apparently
on
this
journey
that
he
"ran
the
risk
of
hanging"
for
some
unrecorded
crime.
He
returned
once
more,
sold
the
house
in
Leonberg,
ran
a
tavern
in
Ellmendingen,
again
went
back
to
Leonberg,
and
in
1588
vanished
forever
from
the
sight
of
his
family.
Rumour
has
it
that
he
enlisted
in
the
Neapolitan
fleet.

His
wife
Katherine,
the
inkeeper's
daughter,
was
an
equally
unstable
character.
In
the
family
horoscope,
Kepler
describes
her
as:
"small,
thin,
swarthy,
gossiping
and
quarrelsome,
of
a
bad
disposition".
There
was
not
much
to
choose
between
the
two
Katherines,
the
mother
and
the
grandmother;
and
yet
the
mother
was
the
more
frightening
of
the
two,
with
an
aura
of
magic
and
witchcraft
about
her.
She
collected
herbs
and
concocted
potions
in
whose
powers
she
believed;
I
have
already
mentioned
that
the
aunt
who
brought
her
up,
had
ended
her
days
at
the
stake,
and
that
Katherine
nearly
shared
the
same
fate,
as
we
shall
hear.

To
complete
the
survey
of
this
idyllic
family,
I
must
mention
our
Johannes'
brothers
and
sisters.
There
were
six
of
them;
of
whom
three
again
died
in
childhood,
and
two
became
normal,
law-abiding
citizens
(Gretchen,
who
married
a
vicar,
and
Christopher,
who
became
a
pewterer).
But
Heinrich,
the
next
in
age
to
Johannes,
was
an
epileptic
and
a
victim
of
the
psychopathic
streak
running
through
the
family.
An
exasperating
problem
child,
his
youth
seems
to
have
been
a
long
succession
of
beatings,
misadventures
and
illnesses.
He
was
bitten
by
animals,
nearly
drowned
and
nearly
burnt
alive.
He
was
apprenticed
to
a
draper,
then
a
baker,
and
finally
ran
away
from
home
when
his
loving
father
threatened
to
sell
him.
In
subsequent
years,
he
was
a
camp
follower
with
the
Hungarian
army
in
the
Turkish
wars,
a
street
singer,
baker,
nobleman's
valet,
beggar,
regimental
drummer,
and
halberdier.
Throughout
this
chequered
career,
he
remained
the
hapless
victim
of
one
misadventure
after
another
–
always
ill,
sacked
from
every
job,
robbed
by
thieves,
beaten
up
by
highwaymen
–
until
he
finally
gave
up,
begged
his
way
home
to
his
mother,
and
hung
to
her
apron
strings
until
he
died
at
forty-two.
In
his
childhood
and
youth,
Johannes
conspicuously
shared
some
of
his
younger
brother's
attributes,
particularly
his
grotesque
accident-proneness,
and
constant
ill-health
combined
with
hypochondria.

2.
Job

Johannes
was
a
sickly
child,
with
thin
limbs
and
a
large,
pasty
face
surrounded
by
dark
curly
hair.
He
was
born
with
defective
eyesight
–
myopia
plus
anocular
polyopy
(multiple
vision).
His
stomach
and
gall
bladder
gave
constant
trouble;
he
suffered
from
boils,
rashes,
and
probably
from
piles,
for
he
tells
us
that
he
could
never
sit
still
for
any
length
of
time
and
had
to
walk
up
and
down.

The
gabled house on the market-place in Weil, with its crooked beams and
dolls-house windows, must have been bedlam. The bullying of red-faced
old Sebaldus; the high-pitched quarrels of mother Katherine and
grandmother Katherine; the brutality of the weak-headed,
swashbuckling father; the epileptic fits of brother Heinrich; the
dozen or more of seedy uncles and aunts, parents and grandparents,
all crowded together in that unhappy little house.

Johannes
was
four
years
old
when
his
mother
followed
her
husband
to
the
wars;
five,
when
the
parents
returned
and
the
family
began
its
restless
wanderings
to
Leonberg,
Ellmendingen,
and
back
to
Leonberg.
He
could
attend
school
only
irregularly,
and
from
his
ninth
to
his
eleventh
year
did
not
go
to
school
at
all
but
was
"put
to
hard
work
in
the
country".
As
a
result,
and
in
spite
of
his
precocious
brilliance,
it
took
him
twice
as
long
as
it
took
normal
children
to
complete
the
three
classes
of
the
elementary
Latin
school.
At
thirteen,
he
was
at
last
able
to
enter
the
lower
theological
seminary
at
Adelberg.