The Sleepwalkers (110 page)

With
all
its
rambling
inconsequences,
its
baroque
mixture
of
sophistication
and
naivety,
it
unfolds
the
timeless
case-history
of
the
neurotic
child
from
a
problem-family,
covered
with
scabs
and
boils,
who
feels
that
whatever
he
does
is
a
pain
to
others
and
a
disgrace
to
himself.
How
familiar
it
all
is:
the
bragging,
defiant,
aggressive
pose
to
hide
one's
terrible
vulnerability;
the
lack
of
self-assurance,
the
dependence
on
others,
the
desperate
need
for
approval,
leading
to
an
embarrassing
mixture
of
servility
and
arrogance;
the
pathetic
eagerness
for
play,
for
an
escape
from
the
loneliness
which
he
carries
with
him
like
a
portable
cage;
the
vicious
circle
of
accusations
and
self-accusations;
the
exaggerated
standards
applied
to
one's
own
moral
conduct
which
turns
life
into
a
long
series
of
Falls
into
the
ninefold
inferno
of
guilt.

Kepler
belonged
to
the
race
of
bleeders,
the
victims
of
emotional
haemophilia,
to
whom
every
injury
means
multiplied
danger,
and
who
nevertheless
must
go
on
exposing
himself
to
stabs
and
slashes.
But
one
customary
feature
is
conspicuously
absent
from
his
writings:
the
soothing
drug
of
self-pity,
which
makes
the
sufferer
spiritually
impotent,
and
prevents
his
suffering
from
bearing
fruit.
He
was
a
Job
who
shamed
his
Lord
by
making
trees
grow
from
his
boils.
In
other
words,
he
had
that
mysterious
knack
of
finding
original
outlets
for
inner
pressure;
of
transforming
his
torments
into
creative
achievement,
as
a
turbine
extracts
electric
current
out
of
the
turbulent
stream.
His
eye-deficiency
seems
the
most
perfidious
trick
that
fate
could
inflict
on
a
stargazer;
but
how
is
one
to
decide
whether
an
inborn
affliction
will
paralyse
or
galvanize?
The
myopic
child,
who
sometimes
saw
the
world
doubled
or
quadrupled,
became
the
founder
of
modern
optics
(the
word
"dioptries"
on
the
oculist's
prescription
is
derived
from
the
title
of
one
of
Kepler's
books);
the
man
who
could
only
see
clearly
at
a
short
distance,
invented
the
modern
astronomical
telescope.
We
shall
have
occasion
to
watch
the
working
of
this
magic
dynamo,
which
transforms
pain
into
achievement
and
curses
into
blessings.

4.
Appointment

He
graduated
from
the
Faculty
of
Arts
at
the
University
of
Tuebingen
at
the
age
of
twenty.
Then,
continuing
on
the
road
of
his
chosen
vocation,
he
matriculated
at
the
Theological
Faculty.
He
studied
there
for
nearly
four
years,
but
before
he
could
pass
his
final
examinations,
fate
intervened.
The
candidate
of
divinity
was
unexpectedly
offered
the
post
of
a
teacher
of
mathematics
and
astronomy
in
Gratz,
capital
of
the
Austrian
province
of
Styria.

Styria
was
a
country
ruled
by
a
Catholic
Hapsburg
prince
and
its
predominantly
Protestant
Estates.
Gratz
accordingly
had
both
a
Catholic
university
and
a
Protestant
school.
When,
in
1593,
the
mathematicus
of
the
latter
died,
the
Governors
asked,
as
they
often
did,
the
Protestant
university
of
Tuebingen
to
recommend
a
candidate.
The
Tuebingen
senate
recommended
Kepler.
Perhaps
they
wanted
to
get
rid
of
the
querulous
young
man,
who
had
professed
Calvinist
views
and
defended
Copernicus
in
a
public
disputation.
He
would
make
a
bad
priest
but
a
good
teacher
of
mathematics.

Kepler
was
taken
by
surprise
and
at
first
inclined
to
refuse
–
"not
because
I
was
afraid
of
the
great
distance
of
the
place
(a
fear
which
I
condemn
in
others)
but
because
of
the
unexpected
and
lowly
nature
of
the
position,
and
my
scant
knowledge
in
this
branch
of
philosophy".
¹⁰
He
had
never
thought
of
becoming
an
astronomer.
His
early
interest
in
Copernicus
had
been
one
among
many
others;
it
had
been
aroused,
not
by
an
interest
in
astronomy
proper,
but
by
the
mystical
implications
of
the
suncentred
universe.

Nevertheless,
after
some
hesitations
he
accepted
the
offer
–
mainly,
it
seems,
because
it
meant
financial
independence,
and
because
of
his
inborn
love
of
adventure.
He
made
it
a
condition,
however,
that
he
should
be
allowed
to
resume
his
study
of
divinity
at
a
later
date
–
which
he
never
did.