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You can’t!”
    The men exchanged glances.
    Holzknecht possessed a very expressive face. At first his lineaments showed doubt. Surely he was mistaken, surely he was investing Schmidt’s response with too much meaning; however, the balance of his judgment was tipped by Schmidt’s rising eyebrow. Holzknecht’s doubt turned to amusement, and his features communicated an amalgam of surprise and approval.
    The silence was broken by Fabian.
    “Uncle,… Brother Stanislav is dead.” The young man pushed the paper toward Schmidt. “The Piarist monk, remember? We met with him last month. We had to talk to him about that incident in Leopoldstadt.”
    “Stanislav—dead?” said Faust. “I don’t believe it!”
    “Murdered,” said Schmidt, without inflection.
    “Murdered?” cried Faust. “Dear God!”
    “It says he was decapitated,” said Fabian.
    “Schmidt, give me that,” said Faust, reaching over and pulling the newspaper out of Schmidt’s hands. Faust’s eyes moved from side to side as he read the column. “Dear God! I don’t believe it. He was a good man… a truly good man.”
    “Yes,” said Schmidt, “but he wasn’t admired universally.” He looked innocently at the ceiling. Then he dropped his gaze and caught Holzknecht’s eye. He saw that he had hit his mark. Hofrat’s face, expressive to the point of transparency, revealed that he was reassessing Schmidt. Perhaps they had underestimated him and his application should be reconsidered.

6
    F ROM THE JOURNAL OF Dr. Max Liebermann
    We had arranged to meet at the natural history museum. It is a favorite haunt of Miss Lydgate’s—and mine, of course. She tarried longest in the geological halls and became utterly absorbed by the meteorites, identifying the exhibits by their technical names: “ordinary chondrites,” “carbonaceous chondrites,” “achondrites,” etc., etc. It amused me, the way she gazed at those gray-black rocks with the same covetous, lingering gaze that other women reserve for diamonds. Indeed, she hardly noticed the precious stones when we passed through the gem hall. We both admired the Knyahinya meteorite, which is reckoned to be the largest in the world (or at least, the largest one to be displayed in any of the world’s museums). It weighs almost six hundred sixty pounds and fell in Hungary. The fiery arrival of the Knyahinya meteorite is celebrated in a canvas panel by Anton Brioschi above one of the doors.
    Miss Lydgate said, “How extraordinary that this object, which has traveled between worlds—through the vast emptiness of space—should, in the fullness of time, find a resting place here, in a cabinet, in Vienna.” Needless to say, I was minded to agree. It is an extraordinary thing. From where did this great lump of rock originate, and how far did it travel before crashing into Earth? The mind can scarcely imagine such an epic voyage.
    When we arrived at the empress Maria Theresa’s mechanical planetarium (an exquisite piece of eighteenth-century craftsmanship), Miss Lydgate fell into a meditative state. She was frowning a little—her lips pressed together—and while she was thus distracted, I positioned myself at a distance, just far enough to steal a few glances (inconspicuous glances, I hope) at her figure and hair. The shame that accompanies such improprieties has now become dulled through repetition: the self-loathing is less acute and is diluted by a vague feeling of tired resignation.
    Without turning her head (she was not aware that I had moved away) Miss Lydgate began to speak. I quickly came forward from behind my observation post. Her contemplation of the immense distances traveled by the Knyahinya meteorite had clearly prompted her to reflect on the great size of the cosmos. She was speaking of Bessel, the German astronomer, who had demonstrated that even the nearest stars were unimaginably distant. I asked her how he had achieved such a feat of measurement, and she replied, “By observation of