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Alexander Wedderburn’s
Astraea,
in 1953. From another, beyond the yew hedge which bordered “his” garden, were grassy slopes and the towers of the University, connected by walkways, plazas, and little canals. He could see the Evolution Tower, a spiral of glass and steel, and the Language Tower, a modified ziggurat, in brick.

He was planning a conference on Body and Mind. His desk was covered with neat lists of possible speakers (and listeners). His mind drove towards inclusiveness. There would be linguists, philosophers, biologists, mathematicians, sociologists, medical men. There would have to be physicists, there would have to be discussion of the way modern physics saw the observer affecting—changing—the observed. Embryologists, psychologists, psychoanalysts, Freudian, Jungian, Kleinian. He smiled at himself. He was desiring a biological-cognitive Theory of Everything, which would not be even remotely possible in his life-time. He supposed he must also include students of religion. He was descended from theologians, Dutch Calvinist and Jewish. He had been in his time both a distinguished mathematician and an innovatory grammarian. He believed strongly that universities should be what their name implied, places for the study of everything. He had, with passion, cunning, and meticulous determination, constructed a revolutionary syllabus for his institution, which required
all
students to study some science, more than one language, an art form.
    Probably there should be artists also at the conference. But for the most part, they talked badly, they explained themselves foolishly and inadequately.
    Not that he did not care about art. Across the lawn, which was mazed with shining spider-threads and brilliant with dew, was his Hepworth (purchased by the University, at his instigation). It was a large, pierced white oval stone, strung with crossing wires. He saw the shadow of the threads on the glimmer of the stone, the yew-dark through its centre. He had known Hepworth in Hampstead, in 1938, when he had just arrived from Holland, braced for the war to come. They had talked maths. She had described to him the interest of pierced forms, the way the hole incorporated air and light in the solid stone. She described the sensuous pleasure of working hand and arm into and through a spiralling tunnel.
    He saw also a few white fantail pigeons, at the base of the plinth, their breasts pleasantly and fortuitously echoing the curve of the marble. Then he saw his wife’s Abyssinian cat, Bastet, a brindled shadow lurking under lupins. The pigeons took fright and went up. He loved to see them fly and tumble. He loved the light through the creamy-white of their tailfeathers. Those that were left were canny and hardened. They were fit survivors. Bastet had regularly found and devoured their squabs.

He kept his books elsewhere. In his study were his Rembrandt etchings and his Mondrians. Some of the Rembrandts had come with him from Holland, and others he had bought after the war, when they could still be had very cheaply. He specialised in single figures meditating in profound shadows—old men with fine beards, lined and composed old women. His favourite, perhaps, was “Student at a table by candlelight,” with a pit of darkness and a bright small flame. He had Rembrandt’s only etched still life, a conical shell,
Conus marmorens,
its spiral closest to the onlooker’s eye, its surface patterned like a dark net thrown over bone. He also had a copy of a work known as “Faust in his study.” The old man in his cap looked through gloom at a lit window, where a mystic hand pointed. It pointed at a floating apparition of three concentric circles, scattering brightness. The inmost one was crossed with the Christian INRI in its segments. On the outer ones was written
    + ADAM + TE + DAGERAM + ARMTET + ALGAR + ALGASTNA ++
    No one had ever explained this writing. Wijnnobel’s cabbalist grandfather