The Sleepwalkers (185 page)

The
proceedings
were
long,
ghastly
and
squalid.
At
various
stages,
Kepler's
younger
brother,
Christoph,
drillmaster
of
the
militia
of
Leonberg,
and
his
brother-in-law,
the
vicar,
dissociated
themselves
from
the
old
woman,
squabbled
over
the
cost
of
defence,
and
would
apparently
have
been
quite
glad
to
see
their
mother
burnt
and
have
done
with,
except
for
the
reflection
it
would
cast
on
their
own
bourgeois
respectability.
Kepler
had
always
been
fated
to
fight
without
allies,
and
for
unpopular
causes.
He
started
with
a
counter-attack,
accusing
his
mother's
persecutors
of
being
inspired
by
the
devil,
and
peremptorily
advised
the
Town
Council
of
Leonberg
to
watch
their
steps,
to
remember
that
he
was
his
Roman
Imperial
Majesty's
Court
Mathematicus,
and
to
send
him
copies
of
all
documents
relating
to
his
mother's
case.
This
opening
blast
had
the
desired
effect
of
making
the
Town
Provost,
the
barber
and
their
clique
proceed
more
warily,
and
to
look
for
more
evidence
before
applying
for
formal
indictment.
Ma
Kepler
obligingly
provided
it,
by
offering
the
Provost
a
silver
goblet
as
a
bribe
if
he
consented
to
suppress
the
report
on
the
incident
of
the
little
girl
with
the
bricks.
After
that,
her
son,
daughter
and
son-in-law
decided
that
the
only
solution
was
flight,
and
bundled
Ma
Kepler
off
to
Johannes
in
Linz,
where
she
arrived
in
December
1616.
This
done,
Christoph
and
the
vicar
wrote
to
the
ducal
Chancellery
that
should
the
Provost's
accusations
prove
justified,
they
would
disown
old
Katherine,
and
let
justice
take
its
course.

The
old
woman
stayed
for
nine
months
in
Linz;
then
she
got
homesick
and
returned
to
live
with
Margaret
and
the
vicar,
stake
or
no
stake.
Kepler
followed
her,
reading
on
the
journey
The
Dialogae
on
Ancient
and
Modern
Music
by
Galileo
father.
He
stayed
in
Wuerttemberg
for
two
months,
wrote
petitions,
and
tried
to
obtain
a
hearing
of
the
original
libel
suit
–
to
no
avail.
He
succeeded
only
in
obtaining
permission
to
take
his
mother
back
with
him
to
Linz.
But
the
stubborn
old
woman
refused;
she
did
not
like
Austria.
Kepler
had
to
return
without
her.

There
followed
a
strange
lull
of
two
years
–
the
opening
years
of
the
Thirty
Years
War
–
during
which
Kepler
wrote
more
petitions
and
the
court
collected
more
evidence,
which
now
filled
several
volumes.
Finally,
on
the
night
of
7
August,
1620,
Ma
Kepler
was
arrested
in
her
son-in-law's
vicarage;
to
avoid
scandal,
she
was
carried
out
of
the
house
hidden
in
an
oak
linenchest,
and
thus
transported
to
the
prison
in
Leonberg.
She
was
interrogated
by
the
Provost,
denied
being
a
witch,
and
was
committed
to
a
second
and
last
interrogation,
before
being
put
to
the
torture.

Margaret
sent
another
S.O.S.
to
Linz,
and
Kepler
set
out
once
again
for
Wuerttemberg.
The
immediate
result
of
his
arrival
was
that
the
Supreme
Court
granted
Ma
Kepler
six
weeks
to
prepare
her
defence.
She
was
lying
in
chains
in
a
room
at
the
Town
Gate,
with
two
full-time
guards
–
whose
salary
had
to
be
paid
by
the
defence,
in
addition
to
the
extravagant
quantities
of
firewood
which
they
burnt.
Kepler,
who
had
built
a
new
astronomy
on
a
trifle
of
eight
minutes
arc,
did
not
neglect
such
details
in
his
petitions;
he
pointed
out
that
one
guard
would
be
a
sufficient
security
precaution
for
his
chained
mother,
aged
seventy-three,
and
that
the
cost
of
the
firewood
should
be
more
equitably
shared.
He
was
his
irrepressible,
indefatigable,
passionate
and
precise
self.
The
situation,
from
the
point
of
view
of
the
authorities,
was
summed
up
by
a
slip
in
the
court
scribe's
record:
"The
accused
appeared
in
court,
accompanied,
alas,
by
her
son,
Johannes
Kepler,
mathematician."
⁸

The
proceedings
lasted
for
another
year.
The
accusation
comprised
forty-nine
points,
plus
a
number
of
supplementary
charges
–
for
instance,
that
the
accused
had
failed
to
shed
tears
when
admonished
with
texts
from
Holy
Scripture
(this
"weeping
test"
was
important
evidence
in
witch-trials);
to
which
Ma
Kepler
retorted
angrily,
she
had
shed
so
many
tears
in
her
life
that
she
had
none
left.