Measuring the World (20 page)

Gauss observed the movement by the light of an oil lamp for hour after hour. No sound penetrated to him. Just as the balloon flight with Pilâtre long ago had shown him what space was, at some point now he would understand the restlessness in the heart of Nature. One didn't need to clamber up mountains or torment oneself in the jungle. Whoever observed the needle was looking into the interior of the world. Sometimes his thoughts turned to his family. He missed Eugen, and Minna hadn't been well since the boy was not there. His youngest would soon finish school. He wasn't particularly intelligent either, and certainly wouldn't become a student. One had to accept it, one must not overestimate people. At least he was getting on better and better with Weber, and just recently a Russian mathematician had sent him a paper in which the supposition was laid out that Euclid's geometry was not the true geometry, and parallel lines did meet. Since he had written back to say that none of these ideas was new to him, he was considered in Russia to be a pretender.

At the thought that others would make public things he had known for so long, he felt an unaccustomed stab of pain. So he had had to reach this age before he learned what ambition was. Now and again, as he stared at the needle without daring to breathe, so as not to disturb its silent dance, he saw himself as a magus from the dark ages, like an alchemist in an engraving. But why not? The
Scientia Nova
had come out of magic, and some whiff of that would always remain.

Carefully he unfolded the map of Russia. What needed to be done was to distribute huts like this one all across the wastes of Siberia, to be inhabited by reliable men who understood how to pay attention to instruments, spend hour after hour in front of telescopes, and lead a silent, watchful existence. Humboldt was good at organizing things, probably he could handle this too, Gauss thought. As he finished the list of the designated statistics, his youngest son tore open the door and brought him a letter. Wind shot in, papers flew through the air, the needle erupted in panicked movements, and Gauss boxed the child's ears twice with a force he would not forget in a hurry. Only after a half hour of sitting still and waiting had the compass settled sufficiently for Gauss to dare make a movement and open the letter. Plans would have to be changed, wrote Humboldt, he couldn't do anything he wished, a route had been prescribed, and he didn't think it sensible to deviate from it, he could measure along it but nowhere else, and he would try to adjust the calculations accordingly. Gauss laid aside the letter, smiling sadly. For the first time he felt sorry for Humboldt.

In Moscow everything came to a halt. It was quite impossible, said the mayor, that his honored guest should set out again right away. Whether it was a suitable time of year or not was neither here nor there, society awaited him, he simply could not deny Moscow what he had granted to St. Petersburg. So here, too, every evening, while Rose and Ehrenberg collected rock samples in the vicinity, Humboldt had to attend a dinner; toasts were offered, men in evening dress waved their glasses and cried Vivat, and trumpeters blew their instruments out of tune, and someone was always enquiring sympathetically if Humboldt didn't feel well. Of course he did, he replied and watched the setting sun, it was just that he'd never been fond of music and did it really have to be so loud?

It took weeks before he was given permission to set out for the Urals. Even more escorts had attached themselves, and it took an entire day for all the coaches to be made ready for the journey.

It was beyond belief, said Humboldt to Ehrenberg, he would not tolerate it, this was no expedition any longer!

One couldn't always do as one wished, was Rose's contribution.

And besides, asked Ehrenberg, what was the drawback? They were all clever, honorable people, they could relieve him of any work that was perhaps too much for him. Humboldt flushed with anger. But before he could say anything, the coaches started moving and his answer was submerged in the squeaking of wheels and the clattering of hooves.

At Nizhni Novgorod he established the breadth of the Volga with his sextant. For half an hour he stared through the eyepiece, swiveled the alidade, and murmured calculations. The escort watched respectfully. It was, said Volodin to Rose, as if they were experiencing a journey in time, as if they'd been transported into a history book, it was sublime. It made him want to cry!

Finally Humboldt announced that the river was five thousand two hundred and forty point seven feet wide.

But of course it was, said Rose soothingly.

Two hundred and forty point nine, to be exact, said Ehren-berg. But he had to admit it was a pretty good result given how old the method was.

In the city Humboldt was given salt, bread, and a golden key, was named an honorary citizen, had to listen to the offerings of a children's choir and participate in fourteen official and twenty-one unofficial private receptions before they were allowed onto a guard boat to sail up the Volga. At Kazan he insisted on carrying out magnetic measurements. He had the iron-free tent set up on open land, asked for quiet, crawled into it, and attached the compass to the prespecified suspension system. It took him longer than usual, because his hands were trembling, and the wind had started to make his eyes water. The needle swung hesitantly, steadied itself, held still for several minutes, then began to swing again. Humboldt thought of Gauss, a sixth of the earth's circumference away, who was doing the same thing. The poor man had never seen anything of the world. Humboldt gave a melancholy smile, suddenly he was feeling sorry for Gauss. Rose tapped on the surface of the tent from outside and asked if possibly things might go a little faster.

As they continued on their way they passed a column of convict women, escorted by mounted lancers. Humboldt wanted to halt and talk to them.

Out of the question, said Rose.

Completely unthinkable, Ehrenberg agreed. He banged on the roof and the coach moved off; within minutes their cloud of dust had swallowed up the column.

In Perm, as was now the routine, Ehrenberg and Rose set themselves to gathering rocks while Humboldt dined with the governor. The governor had four brothers, eight sons, five daughters, twenty-seven grandchildren, and nine greatgrandchildren, along with an indeterminate number of cousins. They were all there and wanted to hear stories about the land across the sea. He didn't know anything, said Humboldt, he could barely remember, he would really like to go to bed.

Next morning he gave instructions for the collection to be divided: they needed two of every sample, which had to be transported separately.

But they'd been working with divided collections for years, said Rose.

All along, said Ehrenberg.

No sensible scientist did it any other way, said Rose. Everyone was familiar with Humboldt's writings.

They reached Ekaterinburg. The merchant with whom Humboldt was provided lodging had a beard, like everyone here, and wore a long tunic and a sash. When Humboldt returned home late in the evening from the mayor's reception, his host wanted to drink with him. Humboldt declined, the man began to sob like a child, smote his breast, and cried in terrible French that he was wretched, wretched, wretched, and he wanted to die.

Well all right, said Humboldt unhappily, but just one glass!

The vodka made Humboldt so ill that he had to spend two days in bed. For reasons no one could fathom, the administration set a Cossack guard in front of the house, and two officers were not to be deterred from spending the nights snoring in one corner of his room.

When he was able to get up again, Ehrenberg, Rose, and Volodin took him to an open goldmine. The captain of the mine, named Ossipov, was occupied with the question of what could be done against seepage. He took Humboldt into a flooded tunnel: the water was hip-deep and it stank of mold. Humboldt looked down mistrustfully at his sodden trouser legs.

It needed to be better pumped!

They didn't have enough equipment, said Ossipov worriedly.

Then, said Humboldt, they just needed more.

Ossipov asked how it was supposed to be paid for.

Fewer floods, said Humboldt shortly, and they could produce more.

Ossipov looked at him enquiringly.

That way the pumps paid for themselves, didn't they?

Ossipov thought, then seized Humboldt and hugged him to his chest.

On the next stage of the journey, Humboldt caught a fever. He had pains in his neck and his nose ran ceaselessly. A cold, he said, and wrapped himself tighter in his blanket. Could the coachman not go more slowly, he wasn't seeing anything of the pine forests!

Alas, said Rose, it wasn't something one could ask of Russian coachmen, that was how they had learned to drive, they didn't know any other way.

They didn't stop until they reached the famous Magnet Mountain. In the middle of the plain of Visokaya Gora a massive yellowish excrescence reared up into the sky all compasses lost their bearings, and Humboldt started to climb. It was harder going than in earlier days, but certainly his cold was at fault; several times he had to let himself be supported by Ehrenberg, and when he wanted to bend down to get a rock, his back hurt so much that he asked Rose to take over the collecting. This was unnecessary since the director of the local ironworks was already waiting at the summit to present him with a little chest filled with carefully sorted earth samples. Humboldt thanked him hoarsely. The wind tore angrily at his woolen wrap.

So, said Rose, back down again?

In the ironworks a little boy was brought forward. His name was Pavel, said the mine director, he was fourteen and very stupid. But he'd found this stone. The child opened a dirty hand.

Clearly a diamond, said Humboldt after a thorough inspection.

Enormous jubilation broke out, the mine superintendents clapped one another on the shoulders, workmen danced, the male choir started up again, several of the miners gave Pavel friendly but very firm smacks on the ear.

Not bad, said Volodin. Only a few weeks in the country and he'd already found Russia's first diamond, one could feel the hand of the master.

He hadn't found it, said Humboldt.

If he might give him a word of advice, said Rose, it would be better not to repeat that sentence.

There was a superficial truth, and then there was a deeper one, said Ehrenberg, Germans in particular understood this.

Was it too much to ask, said Rose, to give the people what they wanted, just for one moment?

A few days later they were overtaken by a totally exhausted horseman bringing a letter of thanks from the tsar.

Humboldt's cold didn't clear up. They drove through the taiga in clouds of insects. The sky was extremely high and it seemed that the sun no longer went down any more, so night became a vague memory. The distance, with its grassy marshes, low trees, and snaking streams, dissolved in a white haze. Sometimes, when Humboldt jerked awake in shock after a few moments of sleep and realized that the needle of the chronometer had jumped yet another hour, the sky with its small puffs of clouds and the relentlessly burning sun seemed divided into segments and interlaced with cracks that receded along with his field of vision whenever he turned his head.

A watchful Ehrenberg asked if another blanket might be desired.

He had never used two blankets, said Humboldt. But Ehrenberg, unmoved, held out the blanket and weakness overcame anger, and he took it, wrapped himself tight in the soft cotton, and asked, maybe just to fend off sleep, how far it was to Tobolsk.

A very long way, said Rose.

And then again not, said Ehrenberg. The country was so insanely large that distances lost their meaning. They dissolved into mathematical abstractions.

Something in this answer struck Humboldt as impertinent, but he was too tired to keep thinking about it. It occurred to him that Gauss had spoken of an absolute length, a straight line to which nothing could be added, and which, albeit ultimately, extended so far that every single possible distance was only one section of it. For a matter of seconds, in the limbo between wakefulness and sleep, he had the feeling that this line had something to do with his life, and everything would become bright and clear if only he could grasp what it was. The answer seemed close. He wanted to write to Gauss. But then he fell asleep.

Gauss had calculated that Humboldt still had between three and five years to live. He had recently started to occupy himself with death statistics again. It was a contract from the state insurance bank, well paid and, what was more, not mathematically uninteresting. He had just done some rough calculations on the life expectancies of old acquaintances. If he spent an hour counting the number of people who went past the observatory, he could work out from that how many of them would be in their graves in one year, three years, and ten years. This, he said, was something astrologers could copy!

One must not, replied Weber, underestimate the horoscope; a complete and perfect science would have to incorporate it as well, just as galvanic forces were beginning to be incorporated. Besides which the probability bell curve altered nothing in the simple truth that nobody had any idea when he himself would die; dice always roll for the first time.

Gauss asked him to stop talking nonsense. His wife Minna was sickly, so she would die before he did. Then his mother, then himself. That's what statistics said, and that's how it would happen. He kept staring for a time through the telescope at the mirrored scale over the receiver, but the needle didn't move. Weber didn't reply. The impulses must have got lost in transmission again.

They chatted like this frequently. Weber sat there over in the center of town in the physics department, in front of a second coil with an exactly similar needle. Using inductors they exchanged signals at prearranged times. Gauss had tried something similar years ago with Eugen and the heliotropes, but the boy had never been able to pick up the dyadic alphabet. Weber thought the whole thing was a unique discovery that the professor had only to make public and he would be rich and famous. He was already famous, replied Gauss, and actually quite rich too. The idea was so obvious that he was glad to leave it to the numbskulls.