Measuring the World (16 page)

He found Bonpland where he thought he might be. The house was expensively decorated, the façade covered with Chinese tiles. A porter asked him to wait. Minutes later Bonpland appeared, his clothes thrown on in haste.

Humboldt asked how often he would have to remind him of their bargain.

It was a hotel like any other, Bonpland replied, and their bargain was unreasonable. He had never agreed to it.

One way or the other, said Humboldt, it was still a bargain.

Bonpland told him to spare himself the homilies.

Next day they climbed Popocatepetl. A path led almost the entire way to the summit: Gómez and Wilson, the mayor of the capital, three draftsmen, and almost a hundred sightseers followed them. Whenever Bonpland cut off a plant, he had to show it around. Most of them came back so manhandled that there was no point in putting them in the specimen box. When Humboldt put on his breathing mask in front of a hole in the ground, there was applause. And while he established the height of the summit with the barometer and let his thermometer down into the crater, traders sold refreshments.

On the way down they were addressed by a Frenchman. His name, he said, was Duprés and he wrote for several newspapers in Paris. He had come because of the Academy's expedition led by Baudin. But now Baudin hadn't appeared and he hadn't been able to believe his luck when he'd learned that someone infinitely more important was in the country.

For a moment Humboldt was unable to suppress a self-satisfied smile. He still hoped, he said, he might join up with Baudin and go with him to the Philippines. He intended to catch the captain in Acapulco, so that the two of them could explore the blessed islands.

The two of them, repeated Duprés. The blessed exploration of the islands.

The exploration of the blessed islands!

Duprés crossed it out, rewrote it, and said thank you.

Then they visited the ruins of Teotihuacán. They seemed too large to have been built by man. A straight highway led them to a square surrounded by temples. Humboldt sat down on the ground to do some calculations, the crowd watched him from a distance. Soon one of them got bored, several of them began to curse, after an hour most of them had gone, after ninety minutes so had the last of them. Only the three journalists remained. Bonpland, covered in sweat, came back from the peak of the largest pyramid.

He hadn't imagined it was so high!

Humboldt, sextant in hand, nodded.

Four hours later, evening was already well advanced, he was still sitting there in the same position, hunched over the paper; Bonpland and the journalists, freezing cold, had dropped off to sleep. Shortly afterward, as Humboldt packed up his instruments, he knew that on the day of the solstice, the sun when seen from the highway rose exactly over the top of the largest pyramid and went down over the top of the second-largest. The whole city was a calendar. Who had thought it up? How well had these people known the stars, and what had they wanted to convey? He was the first person in more than a thousand years who could read their message.

Why was he so depressed, asked Bonpland, awakened by the sound of the instruments being closed.

So much civilization and so much horror, said Humboldt. What a combination! The exact opposite of everything that Germany stood for.

Maybe it was time to go home, said Bonpland.

To the city?

Not this one.

For a while Humboldt stared up into the starry night sky. Good, he said eventually. He would learn to understand these terrifyingly intelligently arranged stones, as if they were natural phenomena. After that he would let Baudin leave on his own for the Pacific and take the first ship to North America. From there they would go back to Europe.

But first they went to Jorullo, the volcano that had suddenly erupted fifty years before in thunder, a storm of fire and a blizzard of ashes. As it appeared in the distance, Humboldt clapped his hands in excitement. He must climb it, he dictated to the journalists, it would provide the final refutation of the theory of Neptunism. When he thought of the great Abraham Werner, he spelled out the name, he almost felt sorry for him.

At the foot of the volcano they were received by the governor of the province of Guanajuato with a great retinue, including the first man to climb it, Don Ramón Espelde. He must insist on leading the expedition. It was too dangerous to be left to laymen!

Humboldt said he had climbed more mountains than anyone else on earth.

Unmoved, Don Ramón advised him not to look directly into the sun and every time he set down his right foot to pray to the Madonna of Guadeloupe.

They dragged along slowly. They kept having to wait for this one or that; Don Ramón in particular kept losing his footing or getting so exhausted he couldn't go on. Humboldt regularly, to universal astonishment, went down on all fours to listen to the rock with his ear-trumpet. Once at the top, he let himself down into the crater on a rope.

The fellow was totally mad, said Don Ramón, he'd never seen anything like it.

When Humboldt was pulled up again he was streaked with green, coughing piteously and his clothing was scorched. Nep-tunism, he called out, blinking, was officially buried as of today!

A tragedy really, said Bonpland. It had had a certain poetry.

In Veracruz they took the first ship back to Havana. He had to admit, said Humboldt as the coastline sank away into the haze, he was happy that it was all coming to an end. He leaned against the rail and squinted up into the sky. It occurred to Bonpland that for the first time he didn't look like a young man any more.

They were lucky: in Havana a ship was just leaving to head up the continent, then up the Delaware to Philadelphia. Humboldt went to the captain, showed his Spanish passport one more time, and requested passage.

My God, said the captain, you!

Heavens, said Humboldt.

They stared blankly at each other.

He didn't think it was a good idea, said the captain.

But he had to get north, said Humboldt, and promised not to check any of their positions during the voyage. He trusted him completely. The ocean crossing back then had stayed in his memory as a brilliant feat of seamanship. Despite the disease, the incompetent ship's doctor, and all the false calculations.

And Philadelphia of all places, said the captain. If it were up to him, all rebellious settlers could drop dead, the ones over there and the ones here.

He had fourteen chests full of rock and plant samples, said Humboldt, plus twenty-four cages of monkeys and birds and some glass cases with insects and spiders, which needed special handling. If it was all right, they could begin loading immediately.

This was a busy port, said the captain. Another ship would certainly turn up soon.

He himself would have no objection, said Humboldt. But he had this passport from their Catholic majesties, and they expected him to hurry.

Humboldt kept to his promise and didn't meddle in the navigation. If a monkey hadn't escaped and succeeded on its own in eating half the supplies, loosing two tarantulas, and reducing the captain's cabin to tatters, the voyage would have been without incident. He spent the journey on the afterdeck, sleeping more than usual and writing letters to Goethe, his brother, and Thomas Jefferson. When the chests were unloaded in Philadelphia, the captain and he said another round of farewells.

He very much hoped they would meet again, said Humboldt stiffly.

Certainly no more than he, replied the captain, in his uniform with its scarecrow repairs.

Both saluted.

A coach was waiting to take them into the capital. A messenger delivered a formal invitation: the president asked to have the honor of offering them hospitality in the newly built government residence; he was most eager to learn everything and then more about Herr von Humboldt's already legendary journey.

Uplifting, said Duprés.

Too feeble a word, said Wilson. Humboldt and Jefferson! And he was going to be there too!

And just how was it Herr von Humboldt's journey, asked Bonpland. Why not the Humboldt-Bonpland journey? Or the Bonpland-Humboldt journey? The Bonpland expedition? Could somebody explain it to him just once?

A backwoods president, said Humboldt. Who cared what he thought!

The city of Washington was a building site. Everywhere was covered in scaffolding, trenches, and mounds of bricks, everywhere was a cacophony of saws and hammers. The government residence, just completed and not yet fully painted, was a classical domed building surrounded by columns. He was pleased, said Humboldt as they climbed out of the coach, to see yet another example of the influence of the great Winckelmann!

A double line of raggedy, saluting soldiers had formed up, a trumpet blast cut through the sky, and a flag bellied in the wind. Humboldt held himself ramrod straight and touched the back of his hand to the rim of his cap. Men in dark morning coats were walking down from the building; first came the president, and behind him their foreign minister, Madison. Humboldt said something about the honor of being here, his respect for the liberal idea, and his joy at having left the sphere of an oppressive despotism.

Had he already eaten, asked the president, clapping him on the shoulder. You must eat something, Baron!

The gala dinner was pitiful, but the dignitaries of the republic had all gathered. Humboldt spoke of the ice cold of the Cordilleras and the mosquito swarms of the Orinoco. He was a good narrator, except that he kept losing himself in facts: he reported in such detail on currents and changes of pressure, the relation of elevation to density of vegetation, the minuscule differences between insect species, that several ladies began to yawn. When he took out his notebook and began to read off measurements, Bonpland gave him a kick under the table. Humboldt took a mouthful of wine and moved on to the burden of despotism and the exploitation of earth's riches, which produce a sterile form of wealth from which the economy could never profit. He spoke about the nightmare of slavery. He felt another kick. He cast Bonpland a dirty look and only then realized that it had come from the foreign minister person.

Jefferson had estates, whispered Madison.

And?

With everything that entailed.

Humboldt changed themes. He talked of the squalid harbor of Havana, the highlands of Caxamarca, of Atahualpa's sunken garden of gold, and of the great stone highways, thousands of miles long, built by the Incas to link their countless high redoubts. He had already drunk more than he was accustomed to, his face was flushed and his movements became more expansive. He had always been on the move, ever since he was seven. He had never spent more than six months in one place. He knew every continent and had seen the fabulous creatures described by Oriental fairytales: flying dogs, hydra-headed snakes, and parrots fluent in every language. Then, laughing quietly to himself, he went to bed.

The next day, despite his headache, he had a long conversation in the elliptically formed study of the president. Jefferson leaned back and removed his spectacles.

Bifocal lenses, he explained, exceedingly useful, one of the many inventions of his friend Franklin. Truth be told, the man had always seemed uncanny to him, he had never understood him. Yes, gladly, of course. Here they are!

While Humboldt examined the spectacles, Jefferson folded his hands on his chest and began to ask questions. If Humboldt digressed, he shook his head gently, interrupted, and repeated the question. A map of Central America was lying as if by chance on the table. He wanted to know everything about New Spain, its transport routes and its mines. He was interested in how the administration worked, how orders were transmitted over land and sea, how the mood of the nobles was, how large the army, how well equipped, how well trained. If one had a great power for a neighbor, one could never have enough information. Nonetheless he must alert the baron that since he had been traveling under the auspices of the Spanish crown, he might well be bound to silence.

Oh why, said Humboldt. Who could it hurt? He bent over the map, whose many mistakes he had already pointed out, and put precise crosses on the location of the most important garrisons.

Jefferson sighed and expressed his thanks. What did they know here? They were a tiny Protestant community on the edge of the world. Unimaginably far from everything.

Humboldt glanced through the window. Two workmen were going past carrying a ladder, a third was shoveling out a gravel trench. To be honest, he couldn't wait to go home.

To Berlin?

Humboldt laughed. No one of any intelligence could call that dreadful city home. No, he meant Paris of course. He would never live in Berlin again, of that much he was sure.

T
HE
S
ON

In a bad temper, Gauss laid down his napkin. The food had not been to his taste. But since he was hardly in a position to complain about it, he began to curse the city. He asked how anyone could stand it here.

It had its advantages, said Humboldt vaguely.

Such as?

Humboldt stared at the tabletop for a few moments. He was imagining, he said, covering the earth with a network of magnetic observation points. He wanted to discover whether the planet's interior held one magnet or two, or multiples. The Royal Society had already offered its support, but he still needed the help of the Prince of Mathematicians.

It didn't require a mathematician of any particular skill, said Gauss. He'd already been working on magnetism at the age of fifteen. Child's play. Could he have a cup of tea?

Humboldt snapped his fingers in consternation. It was early afternoon and the professor had been asleep for sixteen hours. Humboldt, on the other hand, had got up at 5 a.m. as usual, had gone without breakfast to do a couple of experiments on the fluctuation of the earth's magnetic field, before dictating a memorandum about the costs and possible uses of breeding seals in Warnemünde, writing four letters to two Academies, talking with Daguerre about the apparently insoluble problem of fixing images chemically on copper plates, drinking two cups of coffee, resting for ten minutes, and then proofreading three chapters of the account of his journey with their footnotes about the flora of the Cordillera. He had discussed the order of the upcoming evening reception at the Choral Hall with the secretary of the Society of Natural Scientists, written a short memorandum on the pumping of groundwater for the new Mexican prime minister, and replied to letters of enquiry from two biographers. That was when Gauss, sleep-ridden and grumpy, had appeared from the guest room and demanded breakfast.

As regards Berlin, said Humboldt, he had really had very little choice. After many years in Paris, his circumstances … He pushed his white hair back off his face, took out a handkerchief, blew into it gently, folded it, and stroked it smooth before putting it back in his pocket. How should he put it?

The money ran out?

That would be putting it too drastically. But documenting the journey had more or less exhausted his resources. Thirty-four volumes. All the plates and engravings, maps and illustrations. And at a time of war, with material shortages and inflated salaries. He had had to be an Academy all on his own. And so now he was a chamberlain, dined at court, and saw the king daily. There were worse things.

Clearly, said Gauss.

And besides, Friedrich Wilhelm revered science! Napoleon had always hated him and Bonpland because three hundred of his scientists in Egypt had accomplished less than the two of them in South America. After their return they had been the talk of the town for months. Napoleon had found that unacceptable. Duprés had recaptured some very beautiful reminiscences of that time in his
Humboldt—Grand Voyageur.
A book that did less damage to the facts than Wilson's
Scientist and Traveller: My Journeys with Count Humboldt in Central America.

Eugen asked what had happened to Herr Bonpland. It was clear just by looking at Eugen that he hadn't slept well. He had had to spend the night in the outbuilding in a stuffy room with two of the servants. He hadn't known human beings could snore so loudly.

During his only audience with the emperor, said Humboldt, the latter had asked him if he collected plants. He had said yes, the emperor had said just like his wife and turned away abruptly.

Because of him, said Gauss, Napoleon had chosen not to bombard Göttingen.

So he'd heard, said Humboldt, but he doubted it, it would more likely have been on strategic grounds. But whatever the case, Napoleon had tried later to have him expelled as a Prussian spy. The entire Academy had had to gather to prevent it. And he never—Humboldt threw the secretary a look and the secretary immediately opened his writing pad—he had never wanted to sound out anyone but Nature herself, and the only secrets he had sought were the so openly displayed truths of creation.

The openly displayed truths of creation, the secretary repeated with pursed lips.

The
so
openly!

The secretary nodded. The servant brought a tray with little silver cups on it.

But Bonpland, Eugen asked again.

A bad business. Humboldt sighed. A really tragic story. But here was the tea finally—a gift from the tsar, whose finance minister had repeatedly invited him to Russia. Naturally he had declined, on political grounds as much—it went without saying—as age.

The right decision, said Eugen. The blackest despotism in the world! He went red with fright over himself.

Gauss bent down, picked up the knobbed stick with a groan, took aim, and struck out under the table at Eugen's foot. He missed and struck again. Eugen jumped.

He couldn't totally disagree, said Humboldt. He made a gesture of dismissal, and the secretary immediately stopped writing. The Restoration lay over Europe like a blight. And he had to admit his brother was partly to blame. The hopes of his youth were a thing of the past and seemed unreal now. On the one side tyranny, on the other the freedom of fools. If three men stood on the street together—he was sure the Gausses knew what he was talking about—it was a forbidden gathering. If thirty of them summoned up spirits in a back room somewhere, nobody had any objections. Dozens of muddled enthusiasts were crisscrossing the country preaching freedom and being fed by unsuspecting fools. Europe was now a theater and the play a nightmare from which none of them could wake any longer. Years ago he had made preparations for a trip to India, had assembled the money, all the equipment, the plan. It should have been the crowning achievement of his earthly life. Then the English had made it impossible. Nobody wanted an enemy of slavery in their territory. And in Latin America dozens of new states had sprung up without rhyme or reason. The life's work of his friend Bolívar now lay in ruins. And did the gentlemen know the title that the Great Deliverer had bestowed on him?

He fell silent. Only after a time did it become clear that he was expecting an answer.

So, what was it, asked Gauss.

The true discoverer of South America! Humboldt smiled into his cup. They could find it in Gómez's
El Barón Humboldt.
An underappreciated book. Apropos, he had heard that the professor was now concentrating on probability theory.

Death statistics, said Gauss. He took a mouthful of tea, made a disgusted face, and set the cup down as far from himself as he could. One thought one controlled one's own existence. One created things, discovered things, acquired goods, found people one loved more than one's life, had children, maybe clever, maybe clods, watched the person one loved die, got old, got ill, and then got buried. One thought one had decided it all oneself. Only mathematics demonstrated that one had always taken the common path. Despotism, he only had to hear the word! Princes were poor pigs too, they lived and struggled and died like everyone else. The real tyrants were the laws of nature.

But it was reason, said Humboldt, that shaped the laws.

The old Kantian nonsense. Gauss shook his head. Reason shaped absolutely nothing and understood very little. Space curved and time was malleable. If one drew a straight line and kept drawing it further and further, eventually one would re-encounter its starting point. He pointed to the sun, which hung low in the window. Not even the rays of this dying star came down in straight lines. The world could be calculated after a fashion, but that was a very long way from understanding it.

Humboldt crossed his arms. First of all, the sun would never burn out, it would renew its phlogiston and shine forever. Second of all, what was all that about space? He had had oarsmen in the Orinoco who spun similar nonsense. He had never understood what they were babbling about. But they had often been using substances that confused their minds.

Gauss asked what a chamberlain actually did.

Different things, this and that. This chamberlain in particular advised the king on important decisions, if his experience extended to some field in which it might be of use. He was often asked to be there as adviser during diplomatic conversations. The king desired him to be present at almost every dinner. He was completely obsessed by information about the New World.

So one was paid to eat and have chats?

The secretary sniggered, went pale, and asked pardon, he had a cough.

The real tyrants, said Eugen into the silence, weren't the laws of nature. There were powerful movements afoot in the country, freedom wasn't just a word from the likes of Schiller.

Donkeys’ movements, said Gauss.

He had always got on better with Goethe, said Humboldt. Schiller had been closer to his brother.

Donkeys, said Gauss, who would never come to anything. They might inherit some money, and a good name, but never any intelligence.

His brother, said Humboldt, had recently completed a profound study of the works of Schiller. As for himself, literature had never meant that much to him. Books without numbers made him uneasy. And he'd always been bored in the theater.

Quite right, exclaimed Gauss.

Artists were too quick to forget their task, which was to depict reality. Artists held deviation to be a strength, but invention confused people, stylization falsified the world. Take stage sets, which didn't even try to disguise the fact that they were made of cardboard, English paintings, with backgrounds swimming in an oily soup, novels that wandered off into lying fables because the author tied his fake inventions to the names of real historical personages.

Disgusting, said Gauss.

He was working on a catalogue of features of plants and natural phenomena which would be legally obligatory for all painters to consult. Something similar for dramatic poetry would be a good thing. He was thinking of lists of the characteristics of important people, and authors would no longer have the freedom to deviate from them. If Monsieur Daguerre's invention were perfected one day the arts would become irrelevant anyway.

That one writes poems. Gauss tilted his chin at Eugen.

Really, asked Humboldt.

Eugen went red.

Poems and all kinds of nonsense, said Gauss. Since he was a child. He didn't show them to people, but sometimes he was stupid enough to leave the pieces of paper lying about. He was a miserable scientist, but an even worse artist.

They were being lucky with the weather, said Humboldt. Last month had been extremely wet, but now they could hope for a beautiful fall.

He was a parasite. At least his brother was in the military. But this one hadn't learned anything or had any skills. Poems, if you please!

He was studying rights, said Eugen quietly. And mathematics.

And how, said Gauss. A mathematician who didn't recognize a differential equation until it bit him in the foot. That studying per se didn't amount to anything was common knowledge: he had had to stare at the blank faces of young people for decades. But he'd expected more from his own son. Why did it have to be mathematics?

It wasn't what he'd wanted, said Eugen. He'd been forced!

Oh, and by whom?

The changeable weather and seasons, said Humboldt, were what made the beauty of these latitudes. In contrast to the sheer variety of tropical flora, what Europe offered was the yearly drama of a reawakening creation.

By whom indeed, cried Eugen. And who had employed an assistant for all the measuring?

Magnificent assistance. He had had to remeasure mile upon mile because of all the errors.

Errors in the fifth place after the decimal point! They had absolutely no effect, they were utterly irrelevant.

A moment please, said Humboldt. Errors in measurement were never irrelevant.

And the damaged heliotrope, said Gauss. Was that irrelevant too?

Measuring was a high art, said Humboldt. A responsibility that no one could take lightly.

Two heliotropes, come to that, said Gauss. He'd dropped the other one, but only because some idiot had sent him down the wrong path.

Eugen leapt to his feet, reached for his stick and his red cap, and ran out. The sound of the door banging after him echoed through the castle.

That was what you got, said Gauss. Gratitude was a lost concept.

Of course things weren't easy with the young, said Humboldt. But one also should not be too strict, sometimes a little encouragement was more effective than reproach.

If there was nothing there, nothing would become of it. And as for magnetism, the question as posed was wrong: it wasn't a matter of how many magnets the earth contained. Whichever way you looked at it, there were two poles and a single magnetic field that could be described in terms of the force of the magnetism and the angle of inclination of the needle.

He had always traveled with a magnetic needle, said Humboldt. He had collected more than ten thousand measurements.

God in Heaven, said Gauss. Carrying the thing around wasn't enough, you had to
think.
The horizontal component of magnetic force could be represented as the function of geographical latitude and longitude. The vertical component was best worked out using a power series following the reciprocal earth's radius. Simple functions of a sphere. He laughed softly.

Functions of a sphere. Humboldt smiled. He hadn't understood a single word.

He was out of practice, said Gauss. At twenty he hadn't needed a day for children's stuff like that, now he needed to set aside a week. He tapped his forehead. This up here didn't work the way it once had. He wished he had drunk curare back then. The human brain died a little every day.

One could drink as much curare as one wanted, said Humboldt. One had to drip it into the bloodstream for it to be fatal.

Gauss stared at him. Was that true?

Of course it was true, said Humboldt indignantly. He was the one who'd effectively discovered that.