Kepler by John Banville Read Free Book Online Page A

his expert opinion in the matter. An audience was granted. Kepler was indignant: expert opinion indeed!
    He was received in a vast and splendid hall. The fireplace of Italian marble was taller than he. A gauze of pale light flowed down from enormous windows. On the ceiling, itself a pendant miracle of plaster garlands and moulded heads, an oval painting depicted a vertiginous scene of angels ascending about an angry bearded god enthroned on dark air. The room was crowded, the milling courtiers at once aimless and intent, as if performing an intricate dance the pattern of which could be perceived only from above. A flunkey touched Kepler's elbow, he turned, and a delicate little man stepped up to him and said:
    "You are Repleus?"
    "No, yes, I-"
    "Quite so. We have studied your model of the world," smiling tenderly; "it makes no sense."
    Duke Frederick was marvellously got up in a cloth-of-gold tunic and velvet breeches. Jewels glittered on his tiny hands. He had close-cut grey curls like many small springs and on his chin a little horn of hair. He was smooth, soft, andjohannes thought of the sweet waxen flesh of a chestnut nestled snug within the lustrous cranium of its shell. He perceived the measure of the courtiers' saraband, for here was the centre of it. He began to babble an explanation of the geometry of his world system, but the Duke lifted a hand. "All that is very correct and interesting, no doubt, but wherein lies the significance
in general?"
    The paper model stood upon a lacquered table. Two of the orbits had come unstuck. Kepler suspected a ducal finger had been dabbling in its innards.
    "There are, sir," he said, "only five regular perfect solids. also called the Platonic forms. They are perfect because all their sides are identical." Rector Papius would be impressed with his patience. "Of the countless forms in the world of three dimensions, only these five figures are perfect: the tetrahedron or pyramid, bounded by four equilateral triangles, the cube, with six squares, the octohedron with eight equilaterals, the dodecahedron, bounded by twelve pentagons, and the icosahedron, which has twenty equilateral triangles. "
    "Twenty," the Duke said, nodding.
    "Yes. Î hold, as you see here illustrated, that into the five intervals between the six planets of the world, these five regular solids may be…" He was jostled. It was the mercurial madman from the
trippeltisch,
trying to get past him to the Duke, laughing still and pursing his lips in silent apology. Johannes got an elbow into the creature's ribs and pushed. "… may be inscribed…" and
pushed
"… so as to satisfy precisely, " panting, "the intervallic quantities as measured and set down by the ancients. " He smiled; that was prettily put.
    The loony was pawing him again, and now he noticed that they were all here, the venereal lady, and Meister Tellus, Kaspar the soldier, and of course the periwig, and, way out at the edge of the dance, the gloomy baron. Well, what of it? He was putting them in their places. He was suddenly intensely aware of himself, young, brilliant, and somehow wonderfully fragile. "And so, as may be seen," he said airily, "between the orbits of Saturn and Jupiter I have placed the cube, between those of Jupiter and Mars the tetrahedron, Mars and earth the dodecahedron, earth and Venus the icosahedron, and, look, let me show you-" pulling the model asunder like a fruit to reveal its secret core: "between Venus and Mercury the octahedron. So!"
    The Duke frowned.
    "That is clear, yes, "he said, "what you have done, and how; but, forgive me, may we ask
why?"
    "Why?" looking from the dismembered model to the little man before him; "well… well because…"
    A froth of crazy laughter bubbled at his ear.
     
    * * *
     
    Nothing came of the project. The Duke did agree that the cup might be cast, but promptly lost interest. The court silversmith was sceptical, and there were cries of dismay from the Treasury. Johannes returned disheartened to