Doctor Copernicus (30 page)

How simply and cheerfully it was said! How convincing it sounded!

*

Thus was conceived my
Narratio prima
, which in the thirty-six years since its publication has gained such fame (for
him
, not for me, whose work it was!). I have
not given here a strictly literal account of how I was inveigled into writing it, but have contented myself with showing how cunningly he worked upon my youthful enthusiasm and my gullibility in
order to achieve his own questionable ends. That nonsense about going at once to Nuremberg and writing the account from memory was only a part of the trap, of course, a condition on which he could
without harm concede, and thereby appear gracious. Anyway, he had to concede, for I had no intention of leaving his side, having heard him threaten (a threat which, I confess, I did not take
seriously—but still . . .) to burn his book.

I began the writing that very night. Copernicus’s book is built in six parts, each part more intricate, more difficult than the one before. By that time I was thoroughly familiar with the
first three, had some grasp of the fourth, and only a general idea of the last two—but I managed, I managed, and the
Narratio prima
, as you may judge, while it is not so elegant as I
would wish, is yet a brilliant piece of work. Who else—I ask it in all modesty—who else could have made such a compressed, succinct account, in so short a time, of that bristling mesh
of astronomical theory, who else but I? And was I aided in my herculean labours by the
domine praeceptor
? I was not! Each evening, when I had finished work for the day, he came with some
flimsy excuse and took away from me the precious manuscript. Did he think I was going to eat it? And how he dithered, and fussed and fretted, and plucked at my sleeve in his nervousness, hedging me
about with admonitions and prohibitions. I must not mention him by name, he said. Then how could I proceed? A theory without a theorist? Was I to claim the work as my own? Ah,
that
made him
bethink himself, and he went away and thought about it for a day or two, and came back and said that if I must name him, then let me call him only
Doctor Nicolas of Torun.
Very
well—what did I care? If he wanted to be dubbed Mad Kaspar, or Mandricardo the Terrible, it was all one to me. So I wrote down my title thus:

What a start it must have given old Schöner (he taught me in mathematics and astronomy at Nuremberg) to find himself the unwitting target, so to speak, of this controversial work. The
dedication was a piece of cunning, for Schöner’s name could not but lend respectability to an account which, I knew, would stir up the sleeping hive of academic bees and set them
buzzing. Also, for good measure, and in the hope of placating Dantiscus somewhat, I appended the
Encomium
Borussiae
, that crawling piece in praise of Prussia, its intellectual giants, its
wealth in amber and other precious materials, its glorious vistas of bog and slate-grey sea, which had me wracking my brain for pretty metaphors and classical allusions. And since I had decided to
print at Danzig, that city being but a day’s ride away, instead of at Nuremberg, and since the Mayor there, one John of Werden, had invited me to visit him, I did not let the opportunity pass
to devote a few warm words to the city and the lusty Achilles that it had for Mayor.

The
Narratio prima
was completed on the 23rd of September, in 1539. By then I had returned with Copernicus to Frauenburg. Although I cannot say that I was overjoyed to find myself once
more in that dreary town, I was relieved nevertheless to be away from that fool Giese, not to mention that magicked castle of Löbau. (Leaving Raphaël was another matter, of course . . .)
Alone with Copernicus in his cold tower, at least the issues were clear, I mean I could see clearly the chasm that lay between his horror of change and my firm faith in progress. But I shall deal
with that subject later. Did I say we were alone in the tower—how could I forget that other presence planted in our midst like some dreadful basilisk, whose sullen glare followed my every
movement, whose outraged silence hung about us like a shroud? I mean Anna Schillings, frightful woman. She did not fulfil her threat to be gone when we returned, and was there waiting for us
grimly, with her arms folded under that enormous chest. O no, Anna, I have not forgotten you. She cannot have been very much younger than Copernicus, but she possessed a vigour, fuelled by
bitterness and spite, which belied her years. Me she loathed, with extraordinary passion; she was jealous. I would not have put it past her to try to do me in, and I confess that, faced with those
bowls of greenish gruel on which she fed us, the thought of poison oftimes crossed my mind. And speaking of poisoning, I suspect Copernicus may have considered ridding himself thus of this
troublesome woman: I remember watching him concocting some noisome medicine which he had prescribed for one of her innumerable obscure complaints, grinding the pestle, and grinding it, with a
wistful, horrid little smile, as though he were putting out eyes. Of course, he would not have dreamed of daring so bold a solution. Anyway, most like he feared even more than the harridan herself
the prospect of her ghost coming back to haunt him.

He insisted that I lodge with him in the tower. I was flattered, until I realised that he wanted me near him not for love of my company, but so that he would have an ally against the Schillings.
In truth, however, I must admit I was not of much use to him in that respect. O I could handle her, no question of that, she soon learned to beware the edge of my tongue, but when she could get no
good of me she redoubled her efforts on the unfortunate Copernicus, and fairly trounced him; so that my presence in fact exacerbated his problems. Whenever she drew near he winced, and sank into
the carapace of his robe, as though fearing that his ears were about to be boxed. Well, I had little sympathy for him. He had only to take his courage in his hands (what a curious phrase that is)
and kick her out, or poison her, or denounce her as a witch, and all would have been well. What, anyway, was the hold she had on him? Apparently he had rescued her from a knocking shop, or so they
said; she was a cousin of some sort. I confess it made me feel quite nauseous to ponder the matter, but I surmised that some cuntish ritual, performed years before when they were still capable of
that kind of thing, had subjected him to her will. I have seen it before, that phenomenon, men turned into slaves by the tyranny of the twat. Women. I have nothing against them, in their place, but
I know that they have only to master a few circus tricks in bed and they become veritable Circes. Ach, leave it, Rheticus, leave it.

When I say I had little sympathy for him in his plight, I do not mean that I was indifferent. The
Narratio prima
was completed, and I was ready to set off for Danzig, and after Danzig it
was imperative that I return to Wittenberg, for I had already overstretched my term of leave; all this would mean that I could not be back in Frauenburg before the beginning of the following
summer. By then, God knows what disasters would have occurred. Copernicus was an old man, far from robust, and his will was crumbling. Dantiscus had renewed his campaign, and almost by the week now
he sent letters regarding Anna Schillings, bristling with threats under a veneer of sweetness and hypocritical concern for the astronomer’s reputation; each letter, I could see it in
Copernicus’s stricken grey countenance, further jeopardised the survival of the manuscript. I knew, remembering what Giese had said that day in the pine wood below the walls of Löbau,
that when Dantiscus spoke of his duty to extirpate vice from his diocese et cetera, he was in fact speaking of something else entirely: viz. his burning jealousy of Copernicus. Would the
Meister’s
nerve hold until I returned, or, alone against the Schillings’s bullying and in the face of Dantiscus’s threats, would he burn his book, and bolt for the safety
and silence of his burrow? It was a risk I could not take. If the Schillings could not be got rid of—and I despaired early of shifting that grim mass of flesh and fury—then the one for
whom she was a weapon must be persuaded that the war he was waging was already lost. (Another riddle—solution follows.) I made a last, token effort to wrest the manuscript from the old
man’s clutches, but he only looked at me, mournfully, accusingly, and spoke not a word; I packed my bags and bade farewell to Frauenburg.

*     *     *

I
shall not dwell upon my stay at Danzig. The Mayor, mine host, Fat Jack of Werden, was a puffed-up boorish burgher, whose greatest love, next to
foodstuffs, that is, was the making of sententious speeches in praise of himself. He was pleased as punch to have as his guest that most exotic of beasts, a Lutheran scholar from Germany, and he
missed no opportunity of showing me off to his friends, and, more especially, to his enemies. O, I had a rollicking time in Danzig. Still, the printer to whom I brought the manuscript of the
Narratio
was a civil enough fellow, and surprisingly capable too, for a jobber, I mean, out there in the wilds. The first edition came off his presses in February of 1540. Copies were sent
to Frauenburg, and also to Löbau Castle, whence Giese dispatched one to the Lutheran Duke Albrecht of East Prussia at Königsberg—a shrewd move, as I was later to discover, which
nevertheless annoyed Copernicus intensely, there being an old grudge there. A piece of shrewdness of my own was well rewarded, when my good friend Perminius Gassarus, on receipt of the copy I sent
him, immediately brought out a second edition at Basle, which he financed out of his own pocket, thereby sparing me no little expense. For it was a costly business, this publishing, and, despite
what they may say, I got no help, not a penny, from that old skinflint at Frauenburg, for whose benefit it was all done. Remember, these volumes to the Duke et cetera were delivered gratis
(although Perminius, to my secret amusement, not only repaid my gift in the manner already recorded,
but also sent me a gold piece, the fool), and as well as to Giese and of course Copernicus
himself, copies went also to Schöner, and Melanchton, and to many other scholars and churchmen—including Dantiscus, in whose presence, at Heilsberg Castle, I first saw my own book in
print . . .

*

Yes, it was at Heilsberg that I saw the
Narratio prima
between boards for the first time. Here is how it came about. Having found the printer trustworthy, I left the
completion of the work in his hands, packed my bags, said goodbye to Fat Jack and his household, and set out on the long trek to Heilsberg. I must have been out of my mind to make that hideous
journey for the sake of one undeserving of the effort, whose only thanks was a peevish outburst of abuse. But as I have said more than once before, I was young then, and not half so wise as I am
now. Howsoever, despite the delicate state of my health, and the foul vapours of that Prussian marsh in winter, not to mention the appalling conditions in which I had to travel (lame horses, lousy
inns, so on), I reached Heilsberg at the beginning of March, not too much the worse for wear. Impetuous as ever, I went straightway to the castle and demanded to see the Bishop. I had forgotten, of
course, that you do not simply walk up to these papist princelings and grasp them warmly by the arm, O no, first the formalities must be observed. Well, I shall not go into all that. Suffice it to
say that it was some days before I made my way at last one morning through the gate into the vast courtyard. There I was met by a cringing cleric, a minor official with ill-shaven jowls, who
inspected me with furtive sidelong glances, the tip of his chapped red nose twitching, and informed me that the Bishop had just returned from the hunt, but nevertheless had graciously agreed to
receive me without further delay. As we made our way toward the sanctum, we passed by a low cart, drawn up under one of the arched stone galleries of the courtyard, on which was flung the
morning’s kill, a brace of boar, one of them still whimpering in agony, and a poor torn doe lying in a mess of her own guts. Whenever now I think of Dantiscus, I think first of that steaming,
savaged flesh.

I had expected him to be another Giese, a pompous old fool, thick as pigshit, a petty provincial with no more style to him than an oxcart, but I was mistaken. Johannes Flachsbinder was
four-and-fifty when I
met him, a vigorous, striking man who wore well his weight of years. Although he was but the son of a Danzig beer brewer, he carried himself with the grace of an aristocrat.
In his time he had been a soldier, scholar, a diplomat and a poet. He had travelled throughout Europe, to Araby and the Holy Land. Kings and emperors he listed among his friends, also some of the
leading scientists and explorers of the age. His amorous adventures were famous, in legend as well as in his own verses, and there was hardly a corner of the civilised world that could not boast a
bastard of his. A daughter, got by a Toledan noblewoman, was his favourite, so it was said, and on this brat he continued to lavish love and money, for all that Rome might say. He feared no one. At
the height of the Lutheran controversy he maintained close connections with the foremost Protestants, even while the Pope himself was hurling thunderbolts at their heads. Yes, Dantiscus was a
brilliant, fearless and elegant man. And a swine. And a fraud. And a lying, vindictive cunt.

In a blue and gold hall I found him, breakfasting on red wine and venison, surrounded by a gaudy crowd of huntsmen and toadies and musicians. If I thought Giese’s peasant garb ridiculous,
this fellow’s outfit was farcical: he was clad in velvet and silk, kneeboots of soft leather, a belt inlaid with silver filigree, and—I do not lie!—a pair of close-fitting purple
gloves. A prince, one of those Italian dandies, would have been daring indeed to be seen out hunting in such foppery—but a Prussian Bishop! How odd it is, the value which these Romish
churchmen attach to mere show; without it, silk and so forth, they feel naked, apparently. Yet the apparel, and the music, and the Florentine splendour of the hall, could not disguise the true
nature of this hard pitiless autocrat. He was a burly, thickset man, balding, with a gleaming high forehead, a great beak of a nose, and eyes of palest blue, like those of some strange vigilant
bird. As I entered he rose and bowed, smiling blandly, but the glance with which he swept me was keen as a blade. His manner was warm, urbane, with just a hint of haughtiness, and all the while
that he talked or listened, that faint smile continued to play about his mouth and eyes, as though some amusing, slightly ridiculous incident were taking place behind me, of which I was ignorant,
and to which he was too tactful to draw attention. O, a polished fellow. He took his seat again, and, with a magisterial gesture, bade me sit beside him. He said: