The Sleepwalkers (52 page)

Posterity
had
such
faith
in
the
precision
and
trustworthiness
of
Canon
Koppernigk's
statements,
that
a
number
of
scholars
blandly
transferred
Frauenburg
down
to
the
Vistula,
and
as
late
as
1862,
a
German
encyclopaedia
did
the
same.
⁵
The
foremost
of
his
biographers,
Herr
Ludwig
Prowe,
mentioned
this
puzzle
in
a
single
footnote.
^5A
Herr
Prowe
thought
the
Canon
wanted
to
help
readers
of
his
book
to
locate
Frauenburg
by
displacing
it
to
the
shore
of
a
well-known
river;
and
this
explanation
was
taken
over
by
others
who
wrote
after
him.
But
it
misses
the
point.
For
in
the
casual
remark
about
the
noxious
vapours
the
Canon
was
clearly
not
concerned
with
giving
locational
clues;
and
in
the
second
remark,
which
indeed
purports
to
locate
his
observatory
for
other
astronomers,
a
matter
which
requires
utmost
precision,
the
displacement
of
forty
miles
was
preposterously
misleading.

Another
of
Canon
Koppernigk's
whims
had
been
to
call
Frauenburg
"Gynopolis".
Nobody
before
or
after
him
had
thus
graecised
the
German
name
of
the
little
town;
and
this
might
perhaps
provide
a
clue
to
the
apparently
senseless
mystification
of
calling
the
Haff
the
Vistula,
and
placing
both
on
the
meridian
of
Cracow.
Frauenburg,
and
with
it
the
whole
Province
of
Ermland,
lay
wedged
in
between
the
lands
of
the
Polish
King
and
of
the
Order
of
Teutonic
Knights.
It
had
frequently
served
as
a
battleground
before
and
during
the
Canon's
life-time.
The
burning,
plundering,
peasant-slaying
Knights,
and
the
vapours
of
the
Haff
had
grievously
interfered
with
the
Canon's
work;
he
loathed
them
both.
Ensconced
in
his
tower,
he
longed
for
the
civilized
life
of
his
youth
–
which
was
spent
on
the
friendly
banks
of
the
Vistula
and
at
Cracow,
the
brilliant
Polish
capital.
Besides,
the
Vistula
did
send
out
a
small,
half-dry
side-branch
which
trickled
into
the
Haff
a
mere
twenty
miles
from
Frauenburg
–
so
that,
stretching
a
few
points,
one
could
almost
think
of
himself
as
living
not
in
Frauenburg
on
the
Frisches
Haff
,
but
in
Gynopolis
on
the
Vistula,
and
also,
more
or
less,
on
the
meridian
of
the
Polish
capital.
⁶

This
explanation
is
merely
guesswork,
but
whether
true
or
not,
it
is
in
keeping
with
a
curious
feature
in
Canon
Koppernigk's
character:
his
inclination
to
mystify
his
contemporaries.
Half
a
century
of
bitter
experiences,
alternating
between
the
tragic
and
the
sordid,
had
turned
him
into
a
weary
and
morose
old
man,
given
to
secretiveness
and
dissimulation;
his
sealed-up
feelings
leaked
out
only
rarely,
in
roundabout
ways.
When,
two
years
before
his
death,
he
was
at
last
persuaded
by
his
old
friend
Bishop
Giese
and
the
young
firebrand
Rheticus
to
publish
the
Book
of
the
Revolutions
,
he
went
about
it
in
the
same
secretive
and
mystifying
manner.
Did
he
really
believe,
when
he
looked
down
from
the
small
window
of
his
tower
on
the
famous
lagoon,
that
his
eyes
beheld
the
waters
of
the
distant
Vistula
–
or
did
he
merely
wish
to
believe
it?
Did
he
really
believe
that
the
forty-eight
epicycles
of
his
system
were
physically
present
in
the
sky,
or
did
he
merely
regard
them
as
a
device,
more
convenient
than
Ptolemy's,
to
save
the
phenomena?
It
seems
that
he
was
torn
between
the
two
views;
and
it
was
perhaps
this
doubt
about
the
real
value
of
his
theory
which
broke
his
spirit.

In
the
room
leading
to
the
platform
on
the
wall
lived
the
Canon's
instruments
for
observing
the
sky.
They
were
simple,
and
mostly
made
by
himself
according
to
the
instructions
given
by
Ptolemy
in
the
Almagest
,
a
thousand
and
three
hundred
years
before.
They
were,
in
fact,
cruder
and
less
reliable
than
the
instruments
of
the
ancient
Greeks
and
the
Arabs.
One
was
the
triquetrum
or
"cross-bow",
about
twelve
feet
high;
it
consisted
of
three
bars
of
pine.
One
bar
stood
upright;
a
second
bar,
with
two
sights
on
it,
as
on
the
barrel
of
a
gun,
was
hinged
to
the
top
of
the
first,
so
that
it
could
be
pointed
at
the
moon
or
a
star;
the
third
was
a
cross-piece,
marked
with
ink
like
a
yardstick,
from
which
the
angle
of
the
star
above
the
horizon
could
be
read.
The
other
main
instrument
was
an
upright
sundial,
its
base
pointing
north
and
south,
which
indicated
the
sun's
altitude
at
midday.
There
was
also
a
"Jacob's
Staff"
or
Baculus
astronomicus
,
which
was
simply
a
long
staff
with
a
shorter,
movable
crossbar.
Lenses
or
mirrors
were
nowhere
to
be
seen;
astronomy
had
not
yet
discovered
the
uses
of
glass.