Quicksilver (103 page)

Bob had not noticed the skeleton before, and its sudden inclusion in the conversation made him uneasy. “I beg your pardon, sir, ‘twas disgraceful—”

“Oh, stop!” Eliza hissed, “he is a Philosopher, he cares not.”

“Descartes used to come up here when I was a young man, and sit at that very table, and drink too much and discourse of the Mind-Body Problem,” Huygens mused.

“Problem? What’s the problem? I don’t see any problem,” Bob muttered parenthetically, until Eliza crowded back against him and planted a heel on his instep.

“So Eliza’s attempt to clarify your mental processes by purging you of imbalancing humours could not have been carried out in a more appropriate location,” Huygens continued.

“Speaking of humours, what am I to do with this?” Bob muttered, dangling a narrow bulging sac from one finger.

“Put it in a box and post it to Upnor as a down payment,” Eliza said.

The sun had broken through as they spoke, and golden light suddenly shone into the room from off the Plein. It was a sight to gladden most any Dutch heart; but Huygens reacted to it strangely, as if he had been put in mind of some tiresome obligation. He conducted a poll of his clocks and watches. “I have a quarter of an hour in which to break my fast,” he remarked, “and then Eliza and I have work to do on the roof. You are welcome to stay, Sergeant Shaftoe, though—”

“You have already been more than hospitable enough,” Bob said.

HUYGENS’S WORK CONSISTED OF STANDING
very still on his roof as the clock-towers of the Hague bonged noon all around him, and squinting into an Instrument. Eliza was told to stay out of his way, and jot down notes in a waste-book, and hand him small necessaries from time to time.

“You wish to know where the sun is at noon—?” “You have it precisely backwards.
Noon is
when the sun is in a particular place. Noon has no meaning otherwise.” “So, you wish to know when noon is.”

“It is now!” Huygens said, and glanced quickly at his watch. “Then all of the clocks in the Hague are wrong.” “Yes, including all of mine. Even a well-made clock drifts, and must be re-set from time to time. I do it here whenever the sun shines. Flamsteed will be doing it in a few minutes on top of a hill in Greenwich.”

“It is unfortunate that a person may not be calibrated so easily,” Eliza said.

Huygens looked at her, no less intensely than he had been peering at his instrument a moment earlier. “Obviously you have some specific person in mind,” he said. “Of persons I will say this: it is difficult to tell when they are running
aright
but easy to see when something has gone
awry
.”

“Obviously
you
have someone in mind, Monsieur Huygens,” Eliza said, “and I fear it is I.”

“You were referred to me by Leibniz,” Huygens said. “A shrewd judge of intellects. Perhaps a bit less shrewd about
character,
for he always wants to think the best of everyone. I made some inquiries around the Hague. I was assured by persons of the very best quality that you would not be a political liability. From this I presumed that you would know how to behave.”

Suddenly feeling very high and exposed, she took a step back, and reached out with a hand to steady herself against a heavy telescope-tripod. “I am sorry,” she said. “It was stupid, what I did down there. I
know
it was, for I
do
know how to behave. Yet I was not always a courtier. I came to this place in my life by a roundabout path, which shaped me in ways that are not always comely. Perhaps I should be ashamed. But I am more inclined to be defiant.”

“I understand you better than you suppose,” Huygens said. “I was raised and groomed to be a diplomat. But when I was thirteen years old, I built myself a lathe.”

“Pardon me, a what?”

“A lathe. Down below, in this very house. Imagine my parents’ consternation. They had taught me Latin, Greek, French, and other languages. They had taught me the lute, the viol, and the harpsichord. Of literature and history I had learned everything that was in their power to teach me. Mathematics and philosophy I learned from Descartes himself. But I built myself a lathe. Later I taught myself how to grind lenses. My parents feared that they had spawned a tradesman.”

“No one is more pleased than I that matters turned out so well for you,” Eliza said, “but I am too thick to understand how your story is applicable to my case.”

“It is all right for a clock to run fast or slow at times, so long as it is calibrated against the sun, and set right. The sun may come out only once in a fortnight. It is enough. A few minutes’ light around noon is all that you need to discover the error, and re-set the clock—provided that you bother to go up and make the observation. My parents somehow knew this, and did not become overly
concerned at my strange enthusiasms. For they had confidence that they had taught me how to know when I was running awry, and to calibrate my behavior.”

“Now I think I understand,” Eliza said. “It remains only to apply this principle to
me,
I suppose.”

“If I come down in the morning to find you copulating on my table with a foreign deserter, as if you were some sort of Vagabond,” Huygens said, “I am annoyed. I admit it. But that is not as important as what you do next. If you posture defiantly, it tells me that you have not learned the skill of recognizing when you are running awry, and correcting yourself. And you must leave my house in that case, for such people only go further and further astray until they find destruction. But if you take this opportunity to consider where you have gone wrong, and to adjust your course, it tells me that you shall do well enough in the end.”

“It is good counsel and I thank you for it,” Eliza said. “In principle. But in practice I do not know what to make of this Bob.”

“There is something that you must settle with him, or so it would appear to me,” Huygens said.

“There is something that I must settle with the world.”

“Then by all means apply yourself to it. Then you are welcome to stay. But from now on please go to your bedchamber if you want to roger someone.”

SEPTEMBER 1686

I find that men (as high as trees) will write

Dialogue-wise; yet no man doth them slight

For writing so; indeed if they abuse

Truth, cursed be they, and the craft they use

To that intent; but yet let truth be free

To make her sallies upon thee, and me,

Which way it pleases God.

—JOHN BUNYAN
,
The Pilgrim’s Progress

DANIEL WATERHOUSE
, a Puritan.

SIR RICHARD APTHORP,
a former Goldsmith, proprietor of Apthorp’s Bank.

A DUTCHMAN
.

A JEW.

ROGER COMSTOCK,
Marquis of Ravenscar, a courtier.
JACK KETCH,
chief Executioner of England.

A HERALD.

A BAILIFF.

EDMUND PALLING,
an old man.

TRADERS.

APTHORP’S MINIONS.

APTHORP’S HANGERS-ON AND FAVOR-SEEKERS.

JACK KETCH’S ASSISTANTS. SOLDIERS.

MUSICIANS.

Scene: A court hemmed in by colonnades
.
Discover DANIEL WATERHOUSE, seated on a Chair amid scuffling and shouting TRADERS. Enter SIR RICHARD APTHORP, with Minions, Hangers-on, and Favor-seekers
.

APTHORP:
It couldn’t be—Dr. Daniel Waterhouse!

WATERHOUSE:
Well met, Sir Richard!

APTHORP:
Sitting in a chair, no less!

WATERHOUSE:
The day is long, Sir Richard, my legs are tired.

APTHORP:
It helps if you keep moving—which is the whole point of the ‘Change, by the by. This is the Temple of Mercury—not of Saturn!

WATERHOUSE:
Did you think I was beingSaturnine? Saturn is Cronos, the God of Time. For your truly Saturnine character you had better look to Mr. Hooke, world’s foremost clockmaker…

Enter Dutchman
.

DUTCHMAN:
Sir! Our Mr. Huygens taught your Mr. Hooke everything he knows!

Exits
.

WATERHOUSE:
Different countries revere the same gods under different names. The Greeks had Cronos, the Romans Saturn. The Dutch have Huygens and we have Hooke.

APTHORP:
If you are not Saturn, what are you, then, to bide in a chair, so gloomy and pensive, in the middle of the ‘Change?
WATERHOUSE:
I am he who was born to be his family’s designated
participant in the Apocalypse; who was named after the strangest book in the Bible; who rode Pestilence out of London and Fire into it. I escorted Drake Waterhouse and King Charles from this world, and I put Cromwell’s head back into its grave with these two hands.

APTHORP:
My word! Sir!

WATERHOUSE:
Of late I have been observed lurking round Whitehall, dressed in black, affrighting the courtiers.

APTHORP:
What brings Lord Pluto to the Temple of Mercury?

Enter Jew.

JEW:
By’re leave, by’re leave, Señor—pray—where stands the
tablero?

Wanders off.

APTHORP:
He sees that you have a Chair, and hopes you know where is the Table.

WATERHOUSE:
That would be
mesa.
Perhaps he means
banca,
desk…

APTHORP:
Every other man in this ‘Change, who is seated upon a chair, is in front of such a
banca.
He wants to know where yours has got to!

WATERHOUSE:
I meant that perhaps he is looking for the bank.

APTHORP: Y
ou mean, me?

WATERHOUSE:
That is the new title you have given your goldsmith’s shop now, is it not? A bank?

APTHORP:
Why, yes; but why doesn’t he just ask for me then?

WATERHOUSE:
Señor! A moment, I beg you!

Jew returns with a paper.

JEW:
Like this, like this!

APTHORP:
What is he holding up there, I do not have my spectacles.

WATERHOUSE:
He has drawn what a Natural Philosopher would identify as a Cartesian coordinate plane, and what
you
would style a ledger, and scrawled words in one column, and numerals in the next.

APTHORP:
Tablero
—he means the board where the prices of something are billed. Commodities, most likely.

JEW:
Commodities, yes!

WATERHOUSE:
‘Sblood, it’s right over there in the corner, is the man blind?

APTHORP:
Rabbi, do not take offense at my friend’s irritable tone, for he is the Lord of the Underworld, and known for his moods. Here in Mercury’s temple all is movement, flux—which is why we name it the ‘Change. Knowledge and intelligence flow like
the running waters spoken of in the Psalms. But you have made the mistake of asking Pluto, the God of Secrets. Why is Pluto here? ‘Tis something of a mystery—I myself was startled to see him just now, and supposed I was looking at a ghost.

WATERHOUSE:
The
tablero
is over yonder.

JEW:
That is all!?

APTHORP
: You have come from Amsterdam?

JEW:
Yes.

APTHORP
: How many commodities are billed on the
tablero
in Amsterdam now?

JEW:
This number…

Writes.

APTHORP:
Daniel, what has he written there?

WATERHOUSE:
Five hundred and fifty.

APTHORP:
God save England, the Dutchmen have a
tablero
with near six hundred commodities, and we’ve a plank with a few dozen.

WATERHOUSE
: No wonder he did not recognize it.

Exit Jew in the direction of said Plank, rolling his eyes and scoffing.

APTHORP (TO MINION)
: Follow that Kohan and learn what he is on about—he knows something.

Exit Minion.

WATERHOUSE:
Now who is the God of Secrets?

APTHORP
: You are, for you still have not told me why you are here.

WATERHOUSE
: As Lord of the Underworld, I customarily sit enthroned in the Well of Souls, where departed spirits whirl about me like so many dry leaves. Arising this morning at my lodgings in Gresham’s College and strolling down Bishopsgate, I chanced to look in ‘tween the columns of the ‘Change here. It was deserted. But a wind-vortex was picking up all the little scraps of paper dropped by traders yesterday and making ‘em orbit round past all of the
bancas
like so many dry leaves…I became confused, thinking I had reached Hell, and took my accustomed seat.

APTHORP:
Your discourse is annoying.

Enter Marquis of Ravenscar, magnificently attired.

RAVENSCAR:
“The hypothesis of vortices is pressed with many difficulties!”

WATERHOUSE:
God save the King, m’lord.

APTHORP:
God save the King—and damn all riddlers—m’lord.

WATERHOUSE:
‘Twere redundant to damn Pluto.

RAVENSCAR:
He’s damning me, Daniel, for prating about vortices.

APTHORP:
The mystery is resolved. For now I perceive that the
two of you have arranged to meet here. And since you are speaking of vortices, m’lord, I ween it has to do with Natural Philosophy.

RAVENSCAR:
I beg leave to disagree, Sir Richard. For ‘twas this fellow in the chair who chose the place of our meeting. Normally we meet in the Golden Grasshopper.

APTHORP: S
o the mystery endures. Why the ‘Change today, then, Daniel?

WATERHOUSE:
You will see soon enough.

RAVENSCAR:
Perhaps it is because we are going to
exchange
some documents. Voilà!

APTHORP:
What is that you have whipped out of your pocket m’lord, I do not have my spectacles.

RAVENSCAR:
The latest from Hanover. Dr. Leibniz has favored you, Daniel, with a personalized and autographed copy of the latest
Acta Eruditorum.
Lots of mathematickal incantations are in here, chopped up with great stretched-out S marks—extraordinary!

WATERHOUSE:
Then the Doctor has finally dropped the other shoe, for that could only be the Integral Calculus.

RAVENSCAR
: Too, some letters addressed to you personally, Daniel, which means they’ve only been read by a few dozen people so far.

WATERHOUSE:
By your leave.

APTHORP:
Good heavens, m’lord, if Mr. Waterhouse had snatched ‘em any quicker they’d’ve caught fire. One who dwells in the Underworld ought to be more cautious when handling Inflammable Objects.

WATERHOUSE:
Here, m’lord, fresh from Cambridge, as promised, I give you Books I and II of
Principia Mathematica
by Isaac Newton—have a care, some would consider it a valuable document.

APTHORP:
My word, is that the cornerstone of a building, or a manuscript?

RAVENSCAR:
Err! To judge by weight, it is the former.

APTHORP:
Whatever it is, it is too long, too long!

WATERHOUSE:
It explains the System of the World.

APTHORP:
Some sharp editor needs to step in and take that wretch in hand!

RAVENSCAR:
Will you just look at all of these damned illustrations…do you realize what this will cost, for all of the woodcuts?

WATERHOUSE:
Think of each one of them as saving a thousand pages of tedious explanations full of great stretched-out S marks.

RAVENSCAR:
None the less, the cost of printing this is going to
bankrupt
the Royal Society!

APTHORP: S
o that is why Mr. Waterhouse is seated at a chair, with
no
banca
—it is a symbolic posture, meant to express the financial condition of the Royal Society. I very much fear that I am to be asked for money at this point. Say, can either one of you hear a word I am saying?

Silence.

APTHORP: G
o ahead and read. I don’t mind being ignored. Are those documents terribly fascinating, then?

Silence.

APTHORP:
Ah, like a salmon weaving a devious course up-torrent, slipping round boulders and leaping o’er logs, my assistant is making his way back to me.

Enter Minion.

MINION: Y
ou were right concerning the Jew, Sir Richard. He wants to purchase certain commodities in large amounts.

APTHORP:
At this moment on a Board in Amsterdam, those commodities must be fetching a higher price than is scribbled on our humble English Plank. The Jew wants to buy low here, and sell high there. Pray tell, what sorts of commodities are in such high demand in Amsterdam?

MINION:
He takes a particular interest in certain coarse, durable fabrics…

APTHORP:
Sailcloth! Someone is building a navy!

MINION:
He specifically does not want sailcloth, but cheaper stuff.

APTHORP:
Tent cloth! Someone is building an army! Come, let us go and buy all the war-stuff we can find.

Exit Apthorp and entourage.

RAVENSCAR: S
o this is the thing Newton’s been working on?

WATERHOUSE: H
ow could he have produced that without working on it?

RAVENSCAR:
When I work on things, Daniel, they come out in disjoint parts, a lump at a time; this is a unitary whole, like the garment of Our Saviour, seamless…what is he going to do in Book III? Raise the dead and ascend into Heaven?

WATERHOUSE:
He is going to solve the orbit of the moon, provided Flamsteed will part with the requisite
data.

RAVENSCAR:
If Flamsteed doesn’t, I’ll see to it he parts with his fingernails. God! Here’s a catchy bit: “To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction…if you press a stone with your finger, the finger is also pressed by the stone.” The perfection of this work is obvious even to me, Daniel! How must it look to you?

WATERHOUSE:
If you are going down that road, then ask rather how it looks to Leibniz, for he is as far beyond me as I am beyond you; if Newton is the finger, Leibniz is the stone, and
they press against each other with equal and opposite force, a little bit harder every day.

RAVENSCAR:
But Leibniz has not read it, and you have, so there would be little point in asking him.

WATERHOUSE:
I have taken the liberty of conveying the essentials to Leibniz, which explains why he is writing so many of these damned letters.

RAVENSCAR:
But certainly Leibniz would not dare to challenge a work of such radiance!

WATERHOUSE:
Leibniz is at the disadvantage of not having seen it. Or perhaps we should count this as an advantage, for anyone who sees it is dumbfounded by the brilliance of the geometry, and it is difficult to criticize a man’s work when you are down on your knees shielding your eyes.

RAVENSCAR: Y
ou believe that Leibniz has discovered an error in one of these proofs?

WATERHOUSE: N
o
,
proofs such as Newton’s cannot have errors.

RAVENSCAR:
Cannot?

WATERHOUSE
: As a man looks at an apple on a table and says, “There is an apple on the table,” you may look at these geometrical diagrams of Newton’s and say, “Newton speaks the truth.”