Doctor Copernicus Read Free Page B

to the tiny sounds within, the rustle of papers, squeak of a pen, and once a loud grunt, of astonishment, so it sounded. Andreas announced that he
was not going to sit here any longer doing nothing, and stood up, but then sat down again immediately when the door flew open and Uncle Lucas came out. He looked at them with a frown, as if
wondering where it was that he had seen them before, then shook his head and withdrew again. The flurry of air he had left behind him in the hall subsided.
    At last the summons came. Andreas went in first, pausing at the doorway to wipe his damp hands on his tunic and fix on his face an ingratiating leer. In a little while he came out again,
scowling, and jerked his thumb at Nicolas.
    “You next.”
    “But what did he say to you?”
    “Nothing. We are to be sent away.”
    O!
    Nicolas went in. The door snapped shut behind him like a mouth. Uncle Lucas was sitting at the big desk by the window with the family papers spread before him. He reminded Nicolas of a huge
implacable frog. A panel of the high window stood open on a summer evening full of white clouds and dusty golden light.
    “Sit, child.”
    The desk was raised upon a dais, and when he sat on the low stool before it he could see only his uncle’s head and shoulders looming above him like a bust of hard grey grainy stone. He was
frightened, and his knees would not stay still. The voice addressing him was a hollow booming noise directed less at him than at an idea in Uncle Lucas’s mind called vaguely Child, or Nephew,
or Responsibility, and Nicolas could distinguish only the meaning of the words and not the sense of what was being said. His life was being calmly wrenched apart at the joints and reassembled
unrecognisably in his uncle’s hands. He gazed intently upward through the window, and a part of him detached itself and floated free, out into the blue and golden air. Włocławek. It was the sound of some living thing being torn asunder . . .
    The interview was at an end, yet Nicolas still sat with his hands gripping his knees, quaking but determined. Uncle Lucas looked up darkly from the desk. “Well?”
    “Please sir, I am to be a merchant, like my father.”
    “What do you say, boy? Speak up.”
    “Papa said that one day I should own the offices and the warehouses and all the ships and Andreas would go for the Church because you would find a place for him but I would stay here in
Torun to tend the business, Papa said. You see,” faintly, “I do not think I really want to go away.”
    Uncle Lucas blinked. “What age are you, child?”
    “Ten years, sir.”
    “You must finish your schooling.”
    “But I am at St John’s.”
    “Yes yes, but you will leave St John’s! Have you not listened? You will go to the Cathedral School at Włocławek, you and your brother both, and after that to the University
of Cracow, where you will study canon law. Then you will enter the Church. I do not ask you to understand, only to obey.”
    “But I want to stay here, please sir, with respect.”
    There was a silence. Uncle Lucas gazed at the boy without expression, and then the great head turned, like part of an immense engine turning, to the window. He sighed.
    “Your father’s business has failed. Torun has failed. The trade has gone to Danzig. He timed his death well. These papers, these so-called accounts: I am appalled. It is a disgrace,
such incompetence. The Waczelrodts made him, and this is how he repays us. The house will be retained, and there will be some small annuities, but the rest must be sold off. I have said, child,
that I do not expect you to understand, only to obey. Now you may go.”
    Katharina was waiting for him in the hall. “I told you: far far away.”
    *
    The evening waned. He would not, could not weep, and his face, aching for tears, pained him. Anna the cook fed him sugar cakes and hot milk in the kitchen. He sat under the
table. That was his favourite place. The last of the day’s sunlight