The Sleepwalkers (184 page)

"It
hurts
my
heart
that
the
three
factions
have
miserably
torn
the
truth
to
pieces
between
them,
that
I
must
collect
the
bits
wherever
I
can
find
them,
and
put
them
together
again...
I
labour
to
reconcile
the
parties
with
each
other
whenever
it
can
be
done
with
sincerity,
so
that
I
should
be
able
to
side
with
all
of
them...
Behold,
I
am
attracted
either
by
all
three
parties,
or
at
least
by
two
of
them
against
the
third,
setting
my
hopes
on
agreement;
but
my
opponents
are
only
attracted
by
one
party,
imagining
that
there
must
be
irreconcileable
division
and
strife.
My
attitude,
so
help
me
God,
is
a
Christian
one;
theirs,
I
do
not
know
what."
⁷

It
was
the
language
of
Erasmus
and
Tiedemann
Giese,
of
the
Golden
Age
of
tolerance
–
but
entirely
out
of
place
and
out
of
date
in
Germany
on
the
eve
of
the
Thirty
Years
War.

Engulfed
in
that
European
disaster,
Kepler
had
to
endure
an
additional
ordeal:
a
kind
of
ghastly
private
epicycle
turning
on
the
greater
wheel.
His
old
mother
had
been
accused
of
witchcraft
and
was
threatened
with
being
burnt
alive.
The
proceedings
lasted
for
six
years,
from
1615
to
1621;
compared
with
this,
the
quasi-
or
semi-excommunication
of
Kepler
himself
was
only
a
minor
nuisance.

4.
The Witch Trial

The
witch-hunting
mania,
which
had
grown
in
furore
throughout
the
sixteenth
century,
reached
its
peak
in
the
first
half
of
the
seventeenth,
both
in
the
Catholic
and
Protestant
parts
of
Germany.
In
Weil
der
Stadt,
Kepler's
idyllic
birthplace,
with
a
population
of
two
hundred
families,
thirty-eight
witches
were
burnt
between
1615
and
1629.
In
the
neighbouring
Leonberg,
where
Kepler's
mother
now
lived,
a
place
equally
small,
six
witches
were
burnt
in
the
winter
of
1615
alone.
It
was
one
of
the
hurricanes
of
madness
which
strikes
the
world
from
time
to
time,
and
seems
to
be
part
of
man's
condition.

Kepler's
mother
was
now
a
hideous
little
old
woman,
whose
meddlesomeness
and
evil
tongue,
together
with
her
suspect
background,
predestined
her
as
a
victim.
She
was,
we
remember,
an
inn-keeper's
daughter,
brought
up
by
an
aunt
who
was
said
to
have
perished
at
the
stake;
and
her
husband
had
been
a
mercenary
who
vanished
after
barely
escaping
the
gallows.
In
that
same
year,
1615,
when
Leonberg
was
seized
with
witch-hysteria,
Katherine
had
a
quarrel
with
another
old
hag,
her
former
best
friend,
the
wife
of
the
glazier
Jacob
Reinhold.
This
was
to
be
her
undoing.
The
glazier's
wife
accused
Katherine
of
having
given
her
a
witches'
potion
which
had
produced
a
chronic
illness
(in
fact,
her
ailment
was
caused
by
an
abortion).
It
was
now
remembered
that
various
burghers
of
Leonberg
had
been
taken
ill
at
various
times
after
being
offered
a
drink
from
a
tin
jug
which
Katherine
always
kept
hospitably
prepared
for
her
visitors.
The
wife
of
Bastian
Meyer
had
died
of
it,
and
the
schoolmaster
Beutelspacher
was
permanently
paralysed.
It
was
remembered
that
once
upon
a
time
Katherine
had
asked
the
sexton
for
the
skull
of
her
father,
which
she
wanted
to
have
cast
in
silver
as
a
drinking
goblet
for
her
son
–
that
court
astrologer,
himself
an
adept
of
the
black
art.
She
had
cast
an
evil
eye
on
the
children
of
the
tailor
Daniel
Schmidt,
who
had
promptly
died;
she
was
known
to
have
entered
houses
through
locked
doors,
and
to
have
ridden
to
death
a
calf,
of
which
she
offered
a
cutlet
to
her
other
son,
Heinrich
the
vagrant.

Katherine's
foremost
enemy,
the
glazier's
wife,
had
a
brother,
who
was
court
barber
to
the
Duke
of
Wuerttemberg.
In
that
fateful
year,
1615,
the
Duke's
son,
Prince
Achilles,
came
to
Leonberg
to
hunt,
with
the
barber
in
his
suite.
The
barber
and
the
Town
Provost
got
drunk
together,
and
had
Ma
Kepler
brought
to
the
Town
Hall.
Here
the
barber
put
the
point
of
his
sword
on
the
old
woman's
breast
and
asked
her
to
cure
his
sister
by
witches'
magic
of
the
ailment
she
had
cast
on
her.
Katherine
had
the
sense
to
refuse
–
otherwise
she
would
have
convicted
herself;
and
her
family
now
sued
for
libel
to
protect
her.
But
the
Town
Provost
blocked
the
libel
suit
by
starting
formal
proceedings
against
Katherine
for
witchcraft.
The
incident
which
provided
him
with
an
opportunity
to
do
so
involved
a
girl
of
twelve,
who
was
carrying
bricks
to
the
kiln,
and
on
passing
Ma
Kepler
on
the
road
felt
a
sudden
pain
in
the
arm,
which
led
to
a
temporary
paralysis.
These
sudden,
stabbing
pains
in
shoulder,
arm
or
hip,
played
a
great
part
in
the
trial
of
Katherine
and
others;
to
this
day,
lumbago
pains
and
stiff
necks
are
called
in
Germany
Hexenschuss
–
witches'
shot.