The system of the world - By Neal Stephenson Page 0,350

let me explain to you why it shall not work, and why you should simply go home.” And then he did, against his better judgment, discourse of Alchemy for a little while, explaining that Newton’s desire to control the Solomonic Gold arose not simply out of a practical need to survive the Trial of the Pyx but out of a quest to obtain the Philosophick Mercury and the Philosopher’s Stone.

But it was to no avail. It only confirmed Leibniz’s desire to remain in London. “If what you are saying is true, Daniel, it means that the root of the problem is a philosophical confusion on Newton’s part. And as I need not explain to you, it is the same confusion that underlies our disputes in the realm of Natural Philosophy.”

“On the contrary, Gottfried, I think that the question of who invented the calculus first is very much one of the who-did-what-to-whom type; a what-did-you-know-and-when-did-you-know-it sort of affair.”

“Daniel, it is true, is it not, that Newton kept his calculus work secret for decades?”

Daniel assented, very grudgingly. He was perfectly aware that to admit to any premise in a conversation with Leibniz would lead to a Socratic bear-trap banging shut on his leg a few minutes later.

“Who started the Acta Eruditorum, Daniel?”

“You, and that other chap. Listen, I stipulate that Newton tends to hide his work while you are very forward in publishing yours.”

“And hiding one’s results—restricting them to dissemination among a tiny fraternity—is a characteristic of what group?”

“The Esoteric Brotherhood.”

“Otherwise known as—?”

“Alchemists,” Daniel snapped.

“So the priority dispute would never have arisen if Sir Isaac Newton were not thoroughly infected with the the mentality of Alchemy.”

“Granted,” Daniel sighed.

“So it is a philosophical dispute. Daniel, I am an old man. I’ve not been in London since 1677. What are the chances I shall ever return? And Newton—who has never set foot outside of England—will not come to me. I shall not have another opportunity to meet with him. I will remain in London incognito—no one need never know I was here—and find some way to engage Newton in Philosophick discourse and help him out of the labyrinth in which he has wandered for so many years. It is a labyrinth without a roof, affording a clear view of the stars and the moon, which he understands better than any man; but behold, when Newton lowers his gaze to what is near to hand, he finds himself trapped and a-mazed in dark serpentine ways.”

Daniel gave up. “Then consider yourself a member of our Clubb,” he said. “You have my vote. Neither Kikin nor Orney shall dare with-old his support from a savant whose pate still glows with the knuckle-prints of Peter the Great. Newton would doubtless vote against you. But he came to a separate peace with the Clubb’s quarry a few evenings since, and no longer has any reason to attend our meetings.”

YEVGENY THE RASKOLNIK had fallen like a tree in the dust of Hockley-in-the-Hole. From the looks of things he had given a fine account of himself. In this posture, viz. lying on his back, his face to the sky and framed in the iron-gray burst of his hair, it was obvious that he must be close to sixty years old. Had he been closer to Peter’s age (the Tsar was forty-two) and in possession of both of his arms, the fight might have gone differently. As it was, Daniel could only interpret this as a spectacular form of suicide. He could not help but wonder whether Yevgeny knew about today’s transfer of the gold from Minerva, and had somehow taken the notion into his head that, as a result, his time in the world was finished.

“This was an odd bloke, who was loyal to Jack for many years, but went his own way in recent years, and tried to burn the Tsar’s new ships in Rotherhithe even as he was conniving with Jack to invade the Tower and sully the Pyx,” Daniel explained to Leibniz. “He was a great villain. But it is a shame to see him, or anyone, lying thus unattended.” At that moment, though, he spied Saturn approaching, with a few lads behind him and an empty wagon.

Daniel, Leibniz, and Solomon caught up with Peter and his entourage at Clerkenwell Court, just as they were mounting up to travel back to Rotherhithe. Daniel sent with them a note to Mr. Orney, giving him the news that the incendiary who had attacked his shipyard was dead. Leibniz took his