You remain silent, as though my request for conversation hid thorns. Yet you know well, with a knowledge that lives in your very name, that even a thorn can bring welcome truths. If my thoughts are phrased other than is the custom among men of your circles, then I ask you to turn deaf to the defects of my speech, for an infirmity of the body has long barred me from easy exchange with other philosophes where I might learn gentler habits. I seek nothing more than an answer to what troubles me, as do all sick men and all thinkers. Perhaps it will aid your trust in me to know I have made the acquaintance in London of your former teacher, the Jew Moseh HaCoen Mendes. I think him an admirable and wise man, despite his adherence to beliefs I cannot share. He speaks gently of you, and praises your intelligence.
I wish to discuss with you my prior questions, and add to them these: What is the nature of man’s obligation to the conventions of his society? If those conventions be in error—as must occur, for the conventions of one society contradict the conventions of another and all cannot be correct—then is a man permitted or even required to act upon his own renegade definition of virtue? Finally, what obligation does one human soul bear to another, in such a broken world as this?
Bacon would have us design a House of Solomon in which philosophers might continuously share their notions . . . for every notion must be tested against the evidence of nature and the reasonings of other thinkers—and if it be barren then let it be set at naught. My thought requires discourse with yours. Is it too bold to hope that you might venture to refine your philosophy through discourse with one like-minded, even if the end of such exchange is the disproof of all I essay? A question unanswerable unless engaged.
Thomas Farrow
April 30, 1665
15 Iyyar, 5425
To Daniel, or if I may call you Son,
It is a comfort to hear the words of your letter and to know that you live. I feared, I will now confess, that you had succumbed to some sickness like that which lately shadows this London, which the people here dread so greatly that they begin to shun certain parishes of the city, even to the point of diminishing their useful labors and thus their livelihoods.
I am gladdened greatly to learn that my words have proven helpful to you in your disputations in Florence. Nor am I surprised by your request that I further explain how to use the words of Jeremiah and Isaiah to demonstrate the true portents of the Messiah. You were ever an attentive student and I see you remember well how I counseled against the misinterpretation of these passages. This labor will take some weeks, but as you believe it helpful in the loosening of Sabbatai Zevi’s grip on your congregation, I shall undertake it. In truth, the work will be a salve to the loneliness of my position. You might find it strange that even now my spirit still rebels. Yet when I hear the labors of this household I still at times do yearn to join my body to some useful labor, to see with my eyes and work with my limbs, for such lifts man’s spirits and in my youth did lift mine. Even an old man must guard against the evil impulses of rue and despair. So the acceptance of my infirmities must be a tribute to God, who in his mercy spared me while others more worthy perished, and left me the ability to labor with spirit and mind.
I ask that you write to me often with such questions as trouble your community. In return, I offer you my honesty.
Moseh HaCoen Mendes
?
May 19, 1665
24 of Iyyar, 5425
London
Lightning, and then. Time only for a single thud of her heart. A great roar cracking over the city, sheets of water down the da Costa Mendeses’ window glass. Fury breaching the sky, striking her with childish terror. In each slow fracture, echoes—her brother’s hoarse cries, and her own, and her father’s silhouette as he disappeared up the fiery stair, calling.
Her mother’s name amid a splintering of timbers.
Beside her, the da Costa Mendeses’ silver candelabra, heat silently braiding upward from its three steady flames. Only lightning, she schooled herself. Only thunder, and only lightning. It would not strike here. It would set something else ablaze—a tree in a pasture somewhere, far outside the city walls. How cowardly, she told herself, to fear this when she feared nothing else—not sickness nor death. She stood stiffly, her body a raised fist against the heavens. “Strike me down,” she whispered, her lips to the cool rushing glass.
The rain sluiced against the thick glass, obliterated the street. The world a gray wash.
From the hall behind her came a murmur of laughter. Thomas and Mary had retreated to another room. Easing back from the window, she slipped her hand yet again into her pocket to feel its contents. Ten shillings in copper and lead tokens, and another five in royal coinage. A fair sum for standing here like a statue week after week during Diego da Costa Mendes’s multiplying absences from London, while Thomas and Mary made sport somewhere in the house. Yet the coins in her pocket were still a paltry amount when set against the growing need of the rabbi’s household.
For little question remained that the rabbi had been forgotten: the disbursements sent by Mary’s father, which had become irregular after the arrival of Rabbi Sasportas, had by now ceased altogether. Perhaps Diego da Costa Mendes felt that Sasportas might be insulted by any show of support for another rabbi, even one of such humble repute as HaCoen Mendes. Or perhaps Diego had simply grown forgetful of the rabbi’s need for sustenance. Were Catherine alive, she’d have ensured regular payments were kept up—but Catherine was dead, and in her widower’s mind, other concerns were now foremost.
There was grim humor, to be sure, in carrying Mary’s coins back to a household her father no longer sponsored. But Ester knew better than to tell Rivka the source of the money she handed over each week. It was a sign of Rivka’s growing worry over the household’s need that she never demanded Ester tell her more.
But neither this mad dalliance of Mary’s, nor Ester’s absurd employment as paid companion, could last. A few more weeks, perhaps, and Thomas would tire of trying for Mary’s money. Her father would never permit the marriage.
Restless, Ester surveyed the room. Laid carelessly face-down on the seat of a cushioned chair where she hadn’t noticed it earlier was a thick bound volume. She picked it up. Philosophical Transactions: Giving Some Accompt of the Present Undertakings, Studies, and Labours, of the Ingenious in Many Considerable Parts of the World.
Never had she seen a publication of the Royal Society’s transactions, though of course she’d heard talk of them. Men at the synagogue made reference now and again to some discovery regarding the workings of nature, or some new-published study of the tides that would affect their ships. Eagerly now she lifted the frontispiece, a portrait of the king and a man the caption said was Francis Bacon, and turned the pages. “Physico Mathematic Experimental Reasoning.” “A Narrative Concerning the Success of Pendulum Watches at Sea for the Longitudes.” “An Experimental History of Cold.” “A Spot on One of the Belts of Jupiter.” “A recipe for mulberry cider contributed by the honorable Sir Thomas Williamson”—this last item being the sort any could see was included merely to gain the Society the goodwill and patronage of the titled fool who contributed it. If only she might air her own thoughts as easily as this cider-maker.