The Sleepwalkers (104 page)

PART
FOUR
THE
WATERSHED

I
THE
YOUNG
KEPLER

1.
Decline of a Family

JOHANNES
KEPLER,
Keppler,
Khepler,
Kheppler
or
Keplerus
was
conceived
on
16
May,
A.D.
1571,
at
4.37
a.m.,
and
was
born
on
27
December
at
2.30
p.m.,
after
a
pregnancy
lasting
224
days,
9
hours
and
53
minutes.
The
five
different
ways
of
spelling
his
name
are
all
his
own,
and
so
are
the
figures
relating
to
conception,
pregnancy
and
birth,
recorded
in
a
horoscope
which
he
cast
for
himself.
¹
The
contrast
between
his
carelessness
about
his
name
and
his
extreme
precision
about
dates
reflects,
from
the
very
outset,
a
mind
to
whom
all
ultimate
reality,
the
essence
of
religion,
of
truth
and
beauty,
was
contained
in
the
language
of
numbers.

He
was
born
in
the
township
of
Weil
in
wine-happy
Swabia,
a
blessed
corner
of
south-west
Germany
between
the
Black
Forest,
the
Neckar
and
the
Rhine.
Weil-der-Stadt
–
a
freak
name,
meaning
Weil-the-Town,
but
with
the
masculine
"der"
instead
of
the
feminine
"die"
–
has
beautifully
succeeded
in
preserving
its
medieval
character
to
our
day.
^*
It
stretches
along
the
top
of
a
mound,
long
and
narrow
like
the
hull
of
a
battleship,
surrounded
by
massive,
crenelated,
ochre-coloured
walls,
and
slender
watch-towers
topped
by
spire
and
weathercock.
The
gabled
houses,
with
their
irregular
patterns
of
small,
square
windows,
are
covered
with
scarab
green,
topaz
blue
and
lemon
yellow
stucco
on
their
cockeyed
façades;
where
the
stucco
peels,
the
mud
and
lath
peep
through
like
weathered
skin
showing
through
a
hole
in
a
peasant's
shirt.
If,
after
fruitless
knocking,
you
push
open
the
door
of
a
house,
you
are
liable
to
be
greeted
by
a
calf
or
a
goat,
for
the
ground-floors
of
some
old
houses
still
serve
as
stables,
with
an
inner
staircase
leading
up
to
the
family's
living
quarters.
The
warm
smell
of
compost
floats
everywhere
in
the
cobbled
streets,
but
they
are
kept
scrupulously,
teutonically
clean.
The
people
speak
a
broad
Swabian
dialect
and
frequently
address
even
the
stranger
with
"thou";
they
are
rustic
and
gemuetlich
,
but
also
alert
and
bright.
There
are
places
outside
the
walls
still
called
"God's
Acre"
and
"Gallows
Hill";
and
the
old
family
names,
down
from
the
mayor,
Herr
Oberdorfer,
to
the
watchmaker,
Herr
Speidel,
are
the
same
which
appear
on
documents
from
Kepler's
time,
when
Weil
had
only
two
hundred
citizens.
Though
it
produced
some
other
distinguished
men
–
among
them
the
phrenologist
Gall,
who
traced
each
faculty
of
the
mind
to
a
bump
on
the
skull
–
Johannes
Kepler
is
the
town's
hero,
venerated
like
a
patron
saint.
²

____________________

One
of
the
entries,
dated
1554,
in
the
municipal
ledger,
refers
to
the
lease
of
a
cabbage
patch
to
Johannes'
grandfather,
Sebaldus
Kepler:

"
Daniel
Datter
and
Sebold
Kepler,
furrier,
shall
pay
seventeen
pennies
at
Martinmas
out
of
their
cabbage
patch
on
the
Klingelbrunner
Lane
between
the
fields
of
Joerg
Rechten
and
those
of
Hans
Rieger's
children.
Should
they
relinquish
the
cabbage
patch,
they
shall
cart
six
cartloads
of
compost
into
or
onto
it."

From
this bucolic prelude one would expect a happy childhood for the
infant Johannes. It was a ghastly one.

Grandfather
Sebaldus,
the
furrier
with
the
cabbage
patch,
was
said
to
stem
from
a
noble
family,
³
and
became
mayor
of
Weil;
but
after
him,
the
respectable
Keplers
went
into
decline.
His
offspring
were
mostly
degenerates
and
psychopaths,
who
chose
mates
of
the
same
ilk.
Johannes
Kepler's
father
was
a
mercenary
adventurer
who
narrowly
escaped
the
gallows.
His
mother,
Katherine,
an
innkeeper's
daughter,
was
brought
up
by
an
aunt
who
was
burnt
alive
as
a
witch,
and
Katherine
herself,
accused
in
old
age
of
consorting
with
the
Devil,
had
as
narrow
an
escape
from
the
stake
as
the
father
had
from
the
gallows.

Grandfather
Sebaldus'
house
(burnt
down
in
1648
but
rebuilt
later
in
the
same
style)
stood
on
a
corner
of
the
market-place.
Facing
the
house
is
a
beautiful
Renaissance
fountain
with
four
long,
fluted
copper
spouts
which
issue
from
four
human
faces
carved
into
the
stone.
Three
of
the
faces
are
stylized
masks;
the
fourth,
turned
towards
the
Town
Hall
and
the
Kepler
house,
looks
like
the
realistic
portrait
of
a
bloated,
coarse-featured
man.
There
is
a
tradition
in
Weil
according
to
which
it
is
the
likeness
of
old
Sebaldus,
the
mayor.
This
may
or
may
not
be
so,
but
it
tallies
with
Kepler's
own
description
of
him: