The Sleepwalkers (167 page)

His
rise
in
social
status
was
reflected
in
the
personalities
of
the
godparents
to
the
two
children
who
were
born
to
him
in
Prague:
the
wives
of
halberdiers
to
the
first,
Counts
of
the
Palatinate
and
Ambassadors
to
the
second.
There
was
an
endearing
Chaplinesque
quality
about
Kepler's
efforts
to
display
social
graces:
What
a
job,
what
an
upheaval
to
invite
fifteen
to
sixteen
women
to
visit
my
wife
in
child-bed,
to
play
host
to
them,
to
compliment
them
to
the
door!"
^10a
Though
he
wore
fine
cloth
and
Spanish
ruffles,
his
salary
was
always
in
arrears:
"My
hungry
stomach
looks
up
like
a
little
dog
to
its
master
who
used
to
feed
it."
¹¹

Visitors
to
Prague
were
invariably
impressed
by
his
dynamic
personality
and
quicksilvery
mind;
yet
he
was
still
suffering
from
lack
of
self-assurance
–
a
chronic
ill,
on
which
success
acted
as
a
temporary
sedative,
but
never
as
a
complete
cure.
The
turbulent
times
increased
his
feeling
of
insecurity;
he
lived
in
constant
fear
of
penury
and
starvation,
complicated
by
his
obsessive
hypochondria:

"You
inquire
after
my
illness?
It
was
an
insidious
fever
which
originated
in
the
gall
and
returned
four
times
because
I
repeatedly
sinned
in
my
diet.
On
May
29
my
wife
forced
me,
by
her
pesterings,
to
wash,
for
once,
my
whole
body.
She
immersed
me
in
a
tub
(for
she
has
a
horror
of
public
baths)
with
well
heated
water;
its
heat
afflicted
me
and
constricted
my
bowels.
On
May
31
I
took
a
light
laxative,
according
to
habit.
On
June
1,
I
bled
myself,
also
according
to
habit:
no
urgent
disease,
not
even
the
suspicion
of
one,
compelled
me
to
do
it,
nor
any
astrological
consideration...
After
losing
blood,
I
felt
for
a
few
hours
well;
but
in
the
evening
an
evil
sleep
threw
me
on
my
mattress
and
constricted
my
guts.
Sure
enough,
the
gall
at
once
gained
access
to
my
head,
bypassing
the
bowels...
I
think
I
am
one
of
those
people
whose
gallbladder
has
a
direct
opening
into
the
stomach;
such
people
are
shortlived
as
a
rule."
¹²

Even
without
hypochondria,
there
were
sufficient
reasons
for
anxiety.
His
imperial
patron
sat
on
a
quaking
throne
–
though,
in
truth,
Rudolph
rarely
sat
on
it,
preferring
to
hide
from
his
odious
fellow-creatures
among
his
mechanical
clocks
and
toys,
gems
and
coins,
retorts
and
alembics.
There
were
wars
and
rebellions
in
Moravia
and
Hungary,
and
the
treasury
was
empty.
As
Rudolph
progressed
from
eccentricity
to
apathy
and
melancholia,
his
brother
was
depriving
him
piecemeal
of
his
domains;
in
a
word,
Rudolph's
final
abdication
was
only
a
question
of
time.
Poor
Kepler,
already
expelled
from
his
livelihood
in
Gratz,
saw
a
second
exile
looming
before
him,
and
had
to
start
once
more
pulling
wires,
stretching
out
feelers,
and
clutching
at
straws.
But
the
Lutheran
worthies
in
his
beloved
Wuerttemberg
would
have
nothing
to
do
with
their
enfant
terrible
,
and
Maximilian
of
Bavaria
turned
a
politely
deaf
ear,
as
did
other
Princes
whom
he
approached.
The
year
after
the
publication
of
the
New
Astronomy
saw
him
at
his
lowest
ebb,
unable
to
do
any
serious
work,
"my
mind
prostrate
in
a
pitiful
frost".

Then
came an event which not only thawed it, but set it to bubble and
boil.

4.
The Great News

One
day
in
March
1610,
a
certain
Herr
Johannes
Matthaeus
Wackher
von
Wackenfels,
Privy
Counsellor
to
his
Imperial
Majesty,
Knight
of
the
Golden
Chain
and
of
the
order
of
St.
Peter,
amateur
philosopher
and
poet,
drove
up
in
his
coach
to
Kepler's
house,
and
called
for
him
in
great
agitation.
When
Kepler
came
down,
Herr
Wackher
told
him
the
news
had
just
arrived
at
Court
that
a
mathematician
named
Galileus
in
Padua
had
turned
a
Dutch
spy-glass
at
the
sky,
and
discovered
through
its
lenses
four
new
planets
in
addition
to
the
five
which
had
always
been
known.

"I
experienced
a
wonderful
emotion
while
I
listened
to
this
curious
tale.
I
felt
moved
in
my
deepest
being...
[Wackher]
was
full
of
joy
and
feverish
excitement;
at
one
moment
we
both
laughed
at
our
confusion,
the
next
he
continued
his
narrative
and
I
listened
intently
–
there
was
no
end
to
it..."
¹³