The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett [385]
Jack said: “Besides, now that I understand the principles of geometry I may be able to devise solutions to new problems that baffled my stepfather.” He felt rather frustrated by the conversation: Euclid had come to him like the blinding flash of a revelation, but he was failing to communicate the thrilling importance of these new discoveries. He changed tack somewhat. “It’s Euclid’s method that is the most interesting,” he said. “He takes five axioms—self—evident truths—and deduces everything else logically from them.”
“Give me an example of an axiom,” Raschid said.
“A line can be prolonged indefinitely.”
“No it can’t,” said Aysha, who was handing round a bowl of figs.
The guests were somewhat startled to hear a girl joining in the argument, but Raschid laughed indulgently: Aysha was his favorite. “And why not?” he said.
“It has to come to an end sometime,” she said.
Jack said: “But in your imagination, it could go on indefinitely. ”
“In my imagination, water could flow uphill and dogs speak Latin,” she retorted.
Her mother came into the room and heard that rejoinder. “Aysha!” she said in a steely voice. “Out!”
All the men laughed. Aysha made a face and went out. Josef’s father said: “Whoever marries her will have his hands full!” They laughed again. Jack laughed too; then he noticed they were all looking at him, as if the joke was on him.
After dinner, Raschid showed off his collection of mechanical toys. He had a tank in which you could mix water and wine and they would come out separately; a marvelous water-driven clock, which kept track of the hours in the day with phenomenal accuracy; a jug that would refill itself but never overflow; and a small wooden statue of a woman with eyes made of some kind of crystal that absorbed water in the warmth of the day and then shed it in the cool of the evening, so that she appeared to be weeping. Jack shared Raschid’s fascination with these toys, but he was most intrigued by the weeping statue, for whereas the mechanisms of the others were simple once they had been explained, no one really understood how the statue worked.
They sat in the arcades around the courtyard in the afternoon, playing games, dozing, or talking idly. Jack wished he belonged to a big family like this one, with sisters and uncles and in-laws, and a family home they could all visit, and a position of respect in a small town. Suddenly he recalled the conversation he had had with his mother the night she rescued him from the priory punishment cell. He had asked her about his father’s relations, and she had said Yes, he had a big family, back in France. I have got a family like this one, somewhere, Jack realized. My father’s brothers and sisters are my uncles and aunts. I might have cousins of my own age. I wonder if I will ever find them?
He felt adrift. He could survive anywhere but he belonged nowhere. He had been a carver, a builder, a monk and a mathematician, and he did not know which was the real Jack, if any. He sometimes wondered if he should be a jongleur like his father, or an outlaw like his mother. He was nineteen years old, homeless and rootless, with no family and no purpose in life.
He played chess with Josef and won; then Raschid came up and said: “Give me your chair, Josef—I want to hear more about Euclid.”
Josef obediently gave up his chair to his prospective father-in-law, then moved away—he had already heard everything he ever wanted to know about Euclid. Raschid sat down and said to Jack: “You’re enjoying yourself?”
“Your hospitality is matchless,” Jack said smoothly. He had learned courtly manners in Toledo.
“Thank you; but I meant with Euclid.”
“Yes. I don’t think I succeeded in explaining the importance of this book. You see—”
“I think I understand,” Raschid said. “Like you, I love knowledge for its own sake.”
“Yes.”
“Even so, every man has to make a living.”
Jack did not see the relevance of that remark, so he waited for Raschid to say more. However, Raschid sat back with his eyes half closed, apparently