It is long ago since the Lama first heard the tidings
of sage Baron Humboldt,
who travels the world
and knows all things.
I know nothing.
I've spent my life understanding nature.
I have collected knowledge and travelled the world.
Sorry?
The Master requests you awaken his dog.
Sorry, I don't understand the metaphor.
It's not a metaphor.
The Master's favourite dog died two days ago.
He thinks you most knowledgeable,
and requests you return the animal to life.
That I cannot do.
The Master knows that an initiate may not do this often.
"Initiate"? Is that really what he said? -Yes.
He requests this kindness from you, a clever, travelled man.
He is very attached to the dog. -Yes, but I can't. . .
It's not within my capabilities to wake someone from the dead.
The Master comprehends what the clever man means.
I don't mean anything. I simply can't do it.
The Lama comprehends that, too.
There is nothing to comprehend.
The Lama comprehends all things.
All things. -All things? -All things.
Alexander von Humboldt was born to the life of a German nobleman:
Castle, family, hunting and church on Sundays.
But he wanted to travel. . . to measure. . . to understand.
MEASURING THE WORLD
1 785
in the Duchy of Brunswick.
Education had just become compulsory,
and Carl Friedrich Gauss had learned
that it is at times better to be silent.
I'll teach you to bother your master
with stupid questions.
Sit down.
One. . . Plus two. . .
plus. . .
three. . .
plus. . .
four. . .
plus five. . .
plus. . .
six. . .
plus. . .
seven. . .
and continuing ever thuswise. . .
up to one hundred.
And woe betide anyone who disturbs me
before he has the answer!
Yes!
Gauss is giving up?
The boy's mad. He'll be punished.
Where's this from?
That's the point. We were to add together. . .
all numbers from one to one hundred.
1 . . .
plus 1 00
is 1 01 .
2 plus 99. . .
equal 1 01 . . .
3 plus 98 equal 1 01 .
Always 1 01 . Fifty times 1 01 .
50 times 1 01
is 5050.
Gauss, get in the corner.
Be quiet. And stay behind.
But. . . -Talking back?
Alexander?
Alexander!
Alexander. . .
Wilhelm, help your brother.
Alexander. -Wilhelm.
Continue. . .
1 1 87, 1 1 93. . . -God sees all things.
You know that. -1 201 . . .
Yes.
Come here.
On your word of honour. . . did you do this on your own?
It wasn't difficult, you just add. . . -The formula of geometric progression.
Higher arithmetic.
Read, mark, learn. . .
Imagine! Schoolmaster Büttner
was a mathematician of sorts.
He had published several treatises, and one glorious day
Immanuel Kant had deigned to answer one of his letters.
Since diligence and strength had not trumped,
he was a schoolmaster.
My father can't pay for this.
You'll be bringing home other books in days to come,
yet pay for none.
But be warned: one spot, one dog-eared or torn side,
and you'll feel my rod such that God himself would pity you.
Now go!
Here he comes. -I can see him. . .
Be quiet. -Hey, want to pet her?
No.
How did you work it out, Carl?
It's easy. You just have to take a step back.
Then the sum solves itself.
If I take a step back, things just get smaller.
Well, Johanna. . .
Come on!
Take that! -Know-it-all. -Let him be!
Stop it!
Alexander was the best student at the Freiberg Mining Academy.
He developed a miner's lamp to examine plant-life
in deep mining galleries.
Whatever scares you,
he said,
you have to measure.
People thought the earth's interior was cold and solid,
with a core of hard stone.
Both churches thought this ordained by God.
Alexander thought it false.
He felt strength within himself and wild curiosity.
But sometimes, he wrote to his brother,
he feared he was going insane.
It was only by luck
that a fellow pupil happened to find him in time.
Come!
What's wrong?
Go on! Bow!
Come along.
What's so bad about Germany?
Nothing, Sir.
But I want to dedicate my life to study.
The peculiar tenacity
of plant life.
All plant life.
I want to understand it, and reveal it to the world.
But then you'll settle down here,
marry a good woman and procreate, right?
One marries if one has nothing better to do.
Alexander!
Everyone says his brother is the future chancellor of Prussia.
Why can't Alexander be more like his brother?
Settle down with one's compatriots?
Nothing could be finer. -Indeed, no.
But don't go overboard with those French girls now!
Sir!
His father died young.
His upbringing fell to me alone.
Perhaps the traces of a female hand remains.
I was too weak.
But this I'd have you know:
If you travel overseas,
there'll be no money for you! None. Over my dead body!
He wants to travel the world, too, yes?
Sir, this is the young Carl Gauss.
His talents relate more to the field of mathematics.
Calculate something.
Begging your pardon, Sir,
but the young man is no calculating prodigy.
As Sir is doubtless aware,
higher mathematics has nothing to do with arithmetic.
Some of the greatest mathematicians were very bad
at arithmetic.
Did someone speak?
I must beg Sir's pardon.
The young man is of lowly birth.
I am, however, convinced he is capable of great things
that will augment the fame of the fatherland.
Perhaps he will be a second Immanuel Kant.
All we require is a grant from the court.
He shall have it and is to come again when he can do arithmetic.
Bow!
Knowledge, huh!
Right. . .
Alexander.
Maybe he'll be someone like you.
Company. . . halt!
Is this your child prodigy, Büttner? -Yes. . . it's young Mr Gauss.
You know what a number is, boy?
A number is no plaything.
A number is the diameter of the hole between the eyes of a dying soldier.
A number. . .
is the depth of the hole.
One number describes the angle of entry,
another the echo of, and distance to, enemy canons.
Numbers!
They tell me where the enemy is, and how strong his army. . .
so that I can act.
So that the comrade, coughing out his last drops of warm blood
on the dusty ground where my boots stand, has not died in vain.
You are a German boy.
And a number is no plaything!
Company. . .
Mama!
What did the Duke say? -We have the grant.
Yes. -Rubbish. I need him here.
I'm studying. . . Papa.
Not. . . to the head!
It belongs to the Duke of Brunswick.
You may not damage it.
Damn!
This place is going to the dogs! They treat folk anyway they like!
They take your son and. . . -You're going to study, Carl.
You're going to leave us. -Never.
You'll see.
I'll always be with you,
always be in this house. For sure.
Always. -Good, upstairs you go now.
Excuse me, Mr Büttner, -Yes?
Albrecht, go away.
This thing, Carl. . . and mathe. . .
mathe-matics, is it going anywhere?
Sorry?
Well, I mean, university.
You have to be smart. Is my Carl up to it?
Mr Büttner, it is most unkind that you mock me.
I'm a simple woman and I'm concerned.
It is not good of you. -No. Excuse me.
Beg your pardon, Mrs Gauss. . .
but your son shall be one of the world's greatest mathematicians.
I know it.
A strong will makes it possible, to reach a goal early.
But it also makes waiting possible.
Alexander!
Wilhelm, to a Frenchman!
You throw my money
into the maul of a Frenchman!
Mouldy shite!
Damn. . .
dirty shit! Filthy shitty. . .
It hurts me so.
Wilhelm, be strong.
Foul vile filth!
Sit up straight!
Humboldt invested his whole inheritance in the trip.
And in Aimé Bonpland,
a French doctor and botanist,
he found an ideal travelling companion.
Attention!
Careful!
Hey, can't you secure the cargo?
That is Parisian Time!
Lord! -Mauricio, Alberto,
come here. -Find all the boxes.
Cuidad, las casas.
Gracias.
America! -America!
Aimé, at last!
Far from Germany at last! From. . .
. . . Prussia, my brother. At last I can breathe.
Far from family.
Unbeatable! -I'll never see my father again!
My brothers! -My mean uncle!
My mother. -My imbecilic sisters.
M. Bonpland, how good to have met you!
Hallelujah!
"To anyone who explores a new continent"
he at once wrote to Wilhelm,
"all things must be important."
What are you writing, Alexander?
A travelogue for my brother.
So he always knows where I am.
I can hardly wait. Allez, Aimé.
Come along. -Good.
The excitement in me is like 1 0,000 boars!
At last being one with the nature I dreamt of as a child.
And I'm not counting on going back.
What are you thinking about, Carl?
What a number really is.
Is that difficult?
One cloud. . . plus one cloud. . .
how many clouds is that?
It wouldn't be two?
It's about. . . my re-ordering. . .
all of number theory.
How long will it take?
It's the work of a lifetime.
One year, perhaps.
And then I should be done.
I hope I need longer.
You hope you'll need longer?
You'll need longer!
All I can tell you about numbers
is they're on the banknotes you owe me.
I can't always give you credit!
Gauss!
What is this filth, Gauss?
A heptadecagon. -A what?
A heptadecagon. -"A heptadecagon."
Does our young grant-winner believe it's what he owes his country?
I've solved a 2000-year-old problem. . . forever.
All your purported intelligence won't be required to comprehend this:
Remember:
One more heptadecagon,
more worthless piss like this, and you'll be paying back your grant!
There'll be no professorship for you,
you won't even be calculating the shit produced here,
and that's plenty of shit.
There'll be no more Gauss-the-mathematician!
I trust you can comprehend that.
. . . 46. . .
1 47 on one head!
How very interesting.
There's so much to do, and you count lice!
Un piojo! -Sorry?
Un piojo! -What good. . .
are statistics about head lice?
We'll know when we have them.
Little enigmas are not to be passed over.
All things count when exploring a new continent.
He wanted to discover animals no one had seen,
collect plants no one yet owned.
He wanted to understand the flow of air and water,
to weigh the earth and measure the height of the firmament,
so great, rich, varied and enigmatic
was nature.
Four, five. . .
Lord!
Where is the donkey?
Gone! -Señor. . .
On the donkey were two barometers,
a hypsometer and my best theodolite!
Alexander! -This is completely. . .
mad! It's. . . loco!
My best theodolite! No!
Find the donkey! I don't care if it takes you three days.
Failure is unacceptable.
Please. Such things happen.
"Such things happen." Merci beaucoup!
Such things are not to happen!
You. . . go and look for the donkey.
Yield is not the same as size.
That's what counts.
Well I don't know. My Lorinda had huge ones.
If being large doesn't make them high-yielding,
being small certainly doesn't!
This one. . .
this one. . .
is the best one. . .
I take both, right?
Right, but let's go and drink tea now.
Children! Come and drink coffee.
If one gives me none, I'll get it from the other. . .
Milk!
My God, he's just a child. Remove the chains.
-Of course, of course.
You just have to buy them. Three gold doubloons.
He's still very young but he's sturdy.
Is that not the man everyone is speaking about?
Don't have him work too much at first, and he'll last longer.
You can examine him first.
Stop, I'm no slave owner. . . -Alexander. . .
Just him? 1 5 gold doubloons for the lot.
1 4. A special price for my friend,
the slave liberator! The liberator of slaves.
But that's the lowest I can go.
You are free! -I get new ware next week.
Sois libres!
Vous êtes libre. Tell them they're free.
He wants to know where to go.
They don't know where to go.
Wherever they like. They are free.
I'll buy them all. All. Here's the money.
I'm taking them all. Remove their chains.
They can't be released. -All of them!
All. -Calm down.
All of them. . . remove the chains.
No! -Remove all the chains.
You have offended the name of God. . .
What? -. . . and the Spanish crown. . .
All people were equally born to freedom. -Watch out. . .
. . . von Humboldt. -You shall hear my name again.
Calm down. . . -That you shall!
They are also free.
Slavery is the second greatest evil of our era.
Really? -Yes.
What's the greatest one?
The claim that humans are descended from monkeys.
8 degrees, 33, 36. . .
Eat.
Food. -Eat?
Food. -Here.
Alexander!
Alexander! Help!
Help, Alexander!
Aim well! There's only one shot.
Damn it, Alexander. . .
shoot!
What the hell! Why won't you help me?
Ducks. No pattern. Random distribution.
But order increases. Why? Oh, look, it's the dog.
He's herding them.
The force of order.
Scram!
Get lost! Damn hound! Get lost!
Ludwig, get lost.
Thanks. -What are you doing there?
I'm measuring the land.
It's work. Staking out triangles. -Triangles?
It's called triangulation. -Aren't you. . .
Aren't you that Carl
whose maths got him into higher education?
You don't remember me? -Johanna!
Have you heard of the Prussian baron
who's measuring the New World? Everyone's talking about him.
Measuring is not very demanding.
Any idiot can do it. Even a trained monkey could do it.
It looks tricky to me.
You need only know one side and two angles of a triangle,
then, with this device, you can determine the other sides and angle.
Run up a series of such triangles and you've got the whole plane.
But a landscape is not a plane.
Right?
You're right.
Because a triangle only has a total of. . .
1 80 degrees on a flat surface. . .
That can't be true of a sphere, can it?
Who knows? I didn't have higher education.
You're absolutely right.
Fine, but then. . . the measurements are wrong.
Yes, slightly, the globe. . . Are you engaged?
No.
But the errors are accumulative.
To compensate you would have to. . . after measuring you'd have to. . .
in a sense shrink them into. . .
infinitely small units.
A simple differential operation, actually.
But in this form. . .
No one has yet done it in this form. The simplest things elude one.
Monsieur Bonpland! Are you all right?
Good.
My head.
It has been correctly bandaged. The ache is normal and will fade.
You're a doctor yourself, Aimé Bonpland.
You know this as well as I do.
Alexander, don't you think we have too much cargo?
It's little compared to all that we have to explore and measure.
I meant too much for the boat.
We'll send some items to Europe from the next missionary point.
To Europe?
This is going to Europe?
Put that back down now! -Oh, is it valuable?
That's the Humboldt Monkey. -What?
Simia Humboldt, it's named after me.
Have you named anything after me, too? -Not yet.
What an honour for our mission, Baron.
Your reputation precedes you.
You speak German?
Spanish, German, French, English,
Greek and Aramaic. -You're a Jesuit.
You know that the Jesuits were driven from this land. They are no longer here.
Right. So you're not one?
I didn't say that.
Do you have any requests, Baron. Can we help you?
Yes. I'd like to send cases of samples to Europe.
And I require oarsmen
familiar with the dangerous waterfalls.
Natives who are not afraid to take a risk.
I understand.
We will doubtless find such men.
They have to be volunteers. -Of course.
Volunteers.
But you do know, I hope,
that cannibals dwell beyond the waterfalls.
This is my assistant, Aimé Bonpland.
What?
Alexander, I'm not your assistant.
"Colleague", if you please.
Come along, please.
After you.
Let me see. -Get lost.
I just want a peek. -Get off!
If you'll be seated. . . -How much?
Bargain rates, 1 5 pfennigs to pull a tooth.
Ten. -I've a living to make, too, Sir. 1 2!
By your leave, I have to strap you in.
Careful, careful. . .
It doesn't look good.
Back right, is it?
It doesn't look good.
Oh God, the pincers!
Won't you at least wash them?
Schnapps washes best.
So. . .
Does it still hurt? -Yes!
Wrong tooth.
It happens.
It's lucky humans have so many teeth.
Should I shave you, too?
It's five pfennigs more.
Terrible weather we've been having.
Have you heard of that. . .
Napoleon?
He knew perfectly well that in 200 years
there would be dentists,
and toothless people would be a thing of the past.
And no one would go bald any more.
Almost got it.
Why didn't people think of such things?
For them things were self-evident.
Analgesics. . . How simple it would be.
Just dull the nerve at the right place.
Curare had to be researched properly.
"Dear Brother,
the trip outstrips all expectations,
as does the abundance of discoveries.
Ditto its dangers.
The Orinoco is full of waiting caimans,
their backs like floating logs in the shimmering midday sun.
Only recently I was able to free some slaves.
Happiness and silent gratitude illuminated their faces.
A sight. . .
hard to forget.
The concept of a new science,
one of physical geography, becomes apparent.
As soon as you receive this, have it announced in the papers:
I think the world will know my name."
M. Bonpland! An electric eel.
What?
What is this in aid of?
An experiment. -An experiment. Good.
What is it to demonstrate? -If we knew that,
it wouldn't be an experiment.
We have seen that such eels
can give off galvanic shocks
that can knock you out or kill you. -So it would seem.
What a strange force
this electricity must be.
We cannot measure it, there are no formulas,
but feel it we can.
Hang it up!
Place two cupping glasses on my back.
Good.
Good. The second.
Good. -Remove them and cut open the blisters.
Cut them open?
Yes. Good.
Now the piece of zinc.
Zinc.
Very good. Now please apply a piece of silver to the other wound.
Aimé, so much knowledge is lost to man because he fears pain, but he who. . .
Please take a note.
Cucullaris muscle.
Occipital bone. Extension of the dorsal vertebra.
There is definite flow of galvanic energy.
Have you got that? -Indeed. -Good.
Now, quick. . .
the eel. I have to know. . .
if its muscles still contain electric energy.
The eel. . .
Good. Now the silver.
Silver? -Silver!
Silver!
One, two, three. . .
Carl?
Have you seen?
The baron writes of caimans in the river,
and is searching for the passage between the Orinoco
and the Amazon.
He is quite fearless.
And so handsome.
I've almost finished my book.
And. . . what's it about?
The number line.
This is zero,
One, two, three, the natural numbers.
The integers, the negative ones, too.
There are fractions, rational numbers, square roots, irrational numbers.
Calculations yield new numbers,
the field must always be extended.
There is no more room here,
but if I include the vertical axis,
a new mathematical space opens.
I name this number i,
that number minus i, and can solve previously irresolvable equations,
can describe the reduction of polynomials and show. . .
that all polynomials are reducible.
And what use is that?
Electricity can be. . . Use? It's not a matter of usefulness.
I've almost finished.
Then I will come to you.
Gracias.
Yes. . .
Thank you. . .
Aimé Bonpland?
Stop! -Alexander!
One moment. . .
What is your problem? -My problem?
Yes. -Aimé Bonpland, if you do this again,
I'll no more work with you.
What's wrong about it?
You yourself are a man. -Think of your fiancée.
My fiancée?
I don't have one. -Man is not an animal.
Yet at times he is. -Kant!
Have you read Immanuel Kant?
"Act only according to that maxim which
you can will it become universal law." -Alexander.
I am a Frenchman. -Well?
We don't read foreign books.
One more time,
and you're travelling alone, you hear me?
Well, do you? -I do.
Listen, Alexander.
If anyone has reason to be angry here
it's me. -Not that again!
I had to save the equipment. Had I not reacted quickly,
Parisian Time would have been damaged. You'd have done the same.
You say I wouldn't have helped you
if those two were beating you to death?
Right.
I'd have let him smash your brains out? -Of course.
I expect you're right.
Oh God, Alexander! Why must you be so German?
Work calls.
Usurers! Impertinent usurers! -This is still cheap.
Nonsense. Our discount. . .
. . . was taken into account. This is excellent meat.
Rubbish. 7, 5.
5. Take P, a positive prime number,
you pig! -Take K, an integer non-divisible by P,
you stingy wreck! Take A, the entirety of all numbers.
Take B, the entirety of all numbers.
Half P plus 1 , half P plus 2,
half P plus 3, half P plus 5,
and continuing ever thuswise. . .
Take the smallest positive results of the products of K,
and the individual digits of A, as specified by P. . .
Finished!
I'm getting married, Mother.
Why?
Who knows how long you'll be here for me?
I need someone.
Her name is Johanna.
I went to school with her. -That's right.
You cannot be alone.
You need someone.
You'll need to find a post. -That's right.
You'll have to be able to feed a family.
Unbelievable!
Yes! Unbelievable.
What a find.
What are you doing there. . . Alexander?
Alexander!
We're leaving! Pack up! Now!
What happened? -Aimé. . .
Come on. Help me. -Yes, but how?
Take a mummy. -Why?
Lord, need I always argue with you?
Take one!
Go on!
Do it! -Help me. -Allez.
You cannot be serious.
Alexander! We're grave robbing from the Indians.
You go too far.
Oh, come along, now!
Aimé, my dear friend,
scientific knowledge is all that counts here.
What's in there? -Various things.
Some things. -Doesn't seem so.
Want to take a look?
A look?
Bonpland?
Come on!
My God, all this superstition, it's unbearable.
How are we to import the Enlightenment?
What is this?
Your oarsmen, the volunteers.
I cannot accept this.
I would advise you to swiftly travel forth.
There's bad blood.
You didn't behave diplomatically. -Stop.
Those two men did no harm. And they are not volunteers.
You never know with these people.
First they volunteer, then they can't be found.
And anyway, they all look so similar.
Take your stones and corpses
and, as you travel, give thought to how. . .
how easy it is to be humane
if one is in Weimar or Paris.
But if with just a few soldiers, you have to rule over thousands of heathens,
who wouldn't hesitate a moment to chop your head off. . .
- and why should they hesitate - then everything is slightly more complex.
Why are you here at all?
What is your real plan?
Nobody travels across the whole world
just to measure a piece of land they don't even own.
But. . . But. . .
What is it to be: the waterfalls or a journey home. . .
your exploration, your skeletons,
or the freedom of these people?
So, I have no choice.
I wouldn't say that.
You have ten seconds.
We leave the mummies here.
I told you. . . -This is no use.
This is by no means acceptable.
I will not tolerate this.
Now three seconds remain.
One. . . two. . . three. . .
four. . . five. . . six. . .
seven. . . and all that is one snake!
Who do we have here?
Ah. . . Humboldt Monkey. Ah, Gauss!
You wished to see me? -My book. . .
Baron.
The first copy.
This is. . .
fine, Gauss.
Fine.
We need capable teachers
for our new university.
Our youth. . .
needs teaching. -Baron. . .
Let's have a look.
These teeth!
Come. Want to touch them?
It is. . . Such unbelievable teeth!
I brought you something.
Your book. -Yes.
"Disquisitiones Arithmeticae, by. . . Carl Friedrich Gauss".
It's central to mathematical history.
How modest. -Modesty is irrelevant.
It is a key work in mathematical history. No one will deny that.
My life's work is done. . .
The future is an anticlimax.
And it's me you're sharing this with? -Yes.
Johanna, I. . .
I can feed a family. It's not hard at all.
I can measure land.
I can discover stars, I can speculate on the stock exchange.
Earning money is easy if you've nothing better to do.
You needn't worry about that. -I don't worry about it.
But?
He's too fine for a proper job!
A book! -Excuse me, Minna.
I doubt that it's possible to be happy beside you.
Have I. . . -You have too much to do.
A man like you shouldn't marry.
You draw strength and life from the people around you,
like the earth from the sun, or. . .
the sea from rivers. . . I . . .
I am honoured,
and I am moved, and. . .
perhaps I do love you, but. . .
I must, nonetheless, refuse.
I expected rejection,
but not with such good justification.
I remain your servant. . .
Are you going away? -I am travelling to Königsberg.
I must visit someone.
There are two ways to be understood:
One is through true love,
the other through pure reason.
881 ,451 . . .
881 ,473. . .
881 ,477. . .
881 ,479. . .
Are you praying? -Prime numbers.
How far will we go?
The Amazon. -To the Amazon?
There's no way from here to the Amazon, everyone knows that.
There must be a passage.
A natural canal.
The world is a unity.
All currents interact,
all systems are one.
Even if you're right, it's deep in the jungle.
The jungle is only a forest.
Don't breathe so deeply, there are miasma and fever-vapours. . .
Always complaining, objecting, always the negative energy.
Is a little enthusiasm too much to ask?
The magnetic equator.
As a child, Humboldt had dreamt of this place.
The terrain was detailed on no map.
They could only guess where the water was bringing them.
Might I speak with Professor Kant? -The professor receives no visitors.
Listen, I have come from very, very. . .
very far away, and must speak to him.
And believe you me, he wants to speak to me, too.
Is that him?
My name is Carl Friedrich Gauss, you may have heard of me.
This is my work, the foundation of number theory.
Professor Kant, I . . .
Professor Kant, I have never been able to speak to someone as an equal.
Everyone is slower, duller, more stupid. . .
I didn't ask for this.
I am. . . very alone. . . But you must know this feeling.
He explained everything:
His presumption that space buckles;
that parallel lines meet in the infinite;
his suspicion that time is flexible;
that these insights are neither dream nor fantasy,
but calculable matters which, in the future,
will be thought self-evident.
He had never spoken of this.
He knew how swiftly one is ridiculed or called mad,
how dangerous thought is.
Professor, I need your opinion.
I've waited all my life to meet the one person
who can understand me, and to whom I can explain. . .
all I have discovered.
Wiener! -Sorry?
The servant should buy wieners.
Wieners. And stars.
He should buy them, too.
You see, Sir:
Civility has not quite left me.
This is Immanuel Kant?
The Lord, in His great bounty. . .
to this day accompanies me. . .
The Lord, in His great bounty. . .
to this day sustaineth me. . .
Carl. . .
I've thought it over. -What?
I want to marry you. -What, now?
Yes.
Now it's too late. -What?
Curare!
The whole bottle. -But. . .
But I want to say "I do." -Johanna. . .
I'm dying.
I drank the whole bottle.
What? -The whole bottle.
Nothing and no one can save me. -Stop.
Johanna. . . I'm dying.
Carl?
Ejaculate of the Lord!
What shit luck!
Aimé, are you well?
I'm feverous. -I did tell you.
It's the miasma rising from the jungle.
I can feel it, too, but uniform helps.
Uniform? -Yes.
One must be so correct that fever cannot assail one.
Illness is disorder. But, if you refuse to admit disorder. . .
And this works? -Hitherto, yes. Commendably.
Sometimes I think you're joking,
but then I remember you're Prussian.
A most injust prejudice.
Prussians have splendid humour.
Yes, yes. . . -Indeed. Prussians laugh often.
Yes!
Read Gryphius' splendid comedies,
or the unmatched poetry of Martin Opitz. -Martin Opitz?
Martin Opitz, yes.
Martin Opitz.
The bride!
Gauss, a speech! -No, no, no!
Carl, yes, a speech. -No. . . no!
Now, Son, don't be coy. -Mama, please.
A speech. Get on with it!
I don't believe in happiness,
I didn't believe I'd find happiness,
and now it's here it looks to me like. . .
a miscalculation:
Something unintended and soon to be rectified.
Let's hope that won't happen soon. Thanks to you all, enjoy the party.
That was the speech I've always wished for.
Have you ever done this before? -No.
What makes you ask?
I don't believe it!
I've got it. -What?
How to offset errors in planet-trajectory calculation.
I've got it at last.
What. . . right now?
It'll alter cosmology.
It's all thanks to you. You did it.
You make the sweetest compliments.
Strange, these roast monkeys.
They resemble the limbs of small humans.
It takes an effort of will to eat them.
I can't eat that.
You have to. Our supplies are finished. You have to.
If I eat anything. . . -Y es?
Oh, nothing.
You know, Alexander,
we are scientists.
Yes. -We want to be realistic.
True. -Everyone knows there's cannibalism here.
So?
Alexander,
the people here regularly eat human flesh.
So? -So?
So. . . so. . .
so this looks like human flesh,
and they eat people around her. -Aimé!
What? -We are all exhausted.
You're feverous, so I won't be pedantic.
Sorry? -If you ever,
ever again dare say a Prussian civil servant,
a scion of the Humboldt family, the godson of the Duke of Brunswick,
ate human flesh, Aimé, then. . .
I'll demand satisfaction.
Unbelievable! -What!
Truly.
Mon Dieu!
Aimé!
Aimé
Come along! Come on. Careful!
Aimé, come on.
Come on, more around.
Just turn a little. Good.
No, no. He stays on the ground.
No, listen, let go of him. Leave him there.
What are you doing? Stop it!
Hey, stop that. Let go of him!
That's my friend. He has a fever. What are you doing?
Alexander!
Aimé! -Alexander, you wouldn't believe it.
Aimé, how are you?
Write down what happened. You have to be my witness.
The things I saw. . . -The boats, Aimé. We. . .
have a long way to go.
But the singing!
Did you hear it?
It healed me.
Tra-la-la-la. Singing.
But I know. . . I know what I saw.
Maybe we're dreaming. Or maybe the jungle is.
You don't understand
what happened to me. . . -Aimé, we have to survive.
We have to keep all things in order.
No matter what we see. -Unbelievable.
Don't you want to make a note of it
for the sake of science?
For science's sake, Aimé, I shall not.
Now come along.
Given this superiority. . . it seems virtually hopeless.
The French are vastly superior in number.
Shouldn't we talk to Napoleon?
It's too late. The enemy is here.
Morale is what counts.
One German soldier is worth ten Frenchmen.
58,000 men stand ready to serve you.
That moves me indeed.
So, war is here, then.
War.
Where is my horse?
My sabre?
On the one side an unwilling commander,
the Duke of Brunswick,
Look!
on the other, the greatest military genius in history,
Napoleon Bonaparte.
The battle was brief.
What's going on? -From the duke!
Infantry, the guard. . . Going to war for the fatherland!
We will annihilate Napoleon.
. . . And continuing ever thuswise,
until infinity equals zero.
Professor?
I'm leaving. -What?
Our duke fell in battle this morning. -Yes. . .
I understand nothing of what you teach. It's too hard, no mortal can keep up.
But he can fight and, if need be, die.
I'm marching with the troops. -Vengeance!
Vengeance for the duke!
Revenge! -Victory!
Good. Good.
Professor. . .
What now? -Your wife. . . It's begun.
I'm here, I'm here.
Will I die?
Yes.
Don't grieve too long.
One lives, then dies. . .
It is so.
You must marry again.
You won't manage alone.
Take Minna.
She'll say yes.
Yes.
Come along, Aimé. We're going too slowly.
Fascinating. . .
Aimé, I have to. . . Aimé. . .
Aimé, I have to ask you a question.
Concentrate, now.
The wall here, this thing, it's a wall, right?
Two minutes to simmer. "Considering air pressure,
and temperature. . ."
Aimé, I can inform you that we are at an altitude of. . .
1 8,690 feet.
Hallelujah! -Wonderful.
No man has risen to this height before.
We've ascended Chimborazo.
Yes, Chimborazo! -The world's highest mountain.
Come along! Yes.
But. . . the summit.
With or without summit, we're the highest of anyone.
One could just claim to have been up there.
Monsieur Bonpland, I'll pretend not to have heard that!
Exploration, Aimé, is motion.
By definition, it is motion that never ceases.
There is no summit.
And thus no reason to reach it.
You see? -Yes, I do.
Voilà. -You are right.
And we discovered the Orinoco-Amazon Channel.
Excuse me, what's that? The channel?
Of course. We were there. -You were feverous.
Yes, but. . . -You noticed nothing.
I dragged you along. Who did it, then?
Tell me.
What help were you? -That. . .
I'm waiting, Aimé. Well?
You see? -No man had ever been so high,
no one knew that lack of oxygen causes delusions.
Voilà.
Alexander?
Alexander!
Cher ami,
Aimé.
Aimé,
come on, we have to be down by sunset. -I thought I'd killed you.
What's that?
it's hard to hear.
My ears. . . the wind. . .
What did you say?
Let's go. -Yes.
Exploration is motion that never ceases.
By definition.
Come along.
Who were they, he wondered.
How had they grown so quickly?
Why did they want so much,
were so much like him, yet were capable of so little?
So, Eugen,
is there more red in your glass than apple juice in Wilhelmine's?
Look, you lost one spoonful of red, gained one of mixed instead.
The glass is as full as before.
Papa, can I have a drink now? -Here I am.
Something else. . .
Mnemonics. You'll like this.
You can remember a whole deck of cards. It's easy.
For each number we think of an animal, for each suit an emotion,
the court cards are actions.
Then we make all that into a story.
Shall we try it out? Here we go.
Five of leaves,
knave of acorns,
eight of hearts
king of bells.
The. . .
rabid rat
scared the big fat cat
as she was laying eggs.
Repeat!
Did you get it?
I'm tired. -Goodnight.
Perhaps parallel lines do meet at the infinite,
perhaps time is indeed flexible,
but, above all things, time passes.
It passes always, passes ever faster,
and when scarcely any time is left is when time passes fastest of all.
Over the years, Alexander von Humboldt became the world's most famous explorer,
and Carl Friedrich Gauss became old.
Carl?
Carl, wake up! -No.
Carl, the coach is waiting. -Get lost!
Carl, you have to get up. You can't. . .
Carl! -Get lost!
It's me. You have to get up.
A horse-drawn carriage is waiting.
With four horses, Carl. Get up.
Mama, I don't want to. -You have to.
It's not for long, you'll be back soon.
Come on, get up. Where is he, then,
my brave young boy? Well?
Come on. He's off for a big trip.
Yes.
In September, 1 828,
the country's greatest mathematician
left his hometown for the first time in years,
so as to attend the German Natural Science Congress in Berlin.
He of course hadn't wanted to go,
had refused for months on end,
but Alexander von Humboldt persisted in his demands
until, in a weak moment and the hope the day would never come,
Gauss had finally consented.
Papa, we're there.
Professor Gauss? -Er, no. . .
Eugen Gauss. . . just the son.
Eugen!
Professor Gauss!
At last. This is a great moment for Germany,
for science and for myself.
I meet you at last. -We've met before.
It is truly. . . so long have I waited
to stand, countenance to countenance with you.
You don't remember? -I . . . do.
You don't remember. I knew it.
And I knew we'd meet again.
Attention, attention!
Attention!
What happens now? What's all this?
My employee, M. Daguerre, has been working on a device
that captures the instant on a light-sensitive, silver-iodide surface,
and creates an image of us both for posterity.
Please do not move.
Not at all.
I want to go home. -One instant. Please don't move.
How was your journey? -Potholes, rain, cramped coach.
Do you like Berlin? -Dreadful town.
Yes.
How soon will this be over? -Another ten minutes.
It used to take much longer. I thought at first. . .
. . . my back. . . -This is ridiculous!
Now the instant is lost forever.
Like all the rest of them.
Got anything to eat?
Excuse me.
Papa, I'm to remind you to take your pills.
Get lost. -Papa, you said. . .
I've no interest in what I said.
But I . . . -I may contradict myself, but you shan't.
What do you look like?
I'm meeting friends. -How amusing.
You have friends? -Thousands of them.
The whole country. And the despot has a thousand enemies.
Freedom shall be ours, not just a word in a play by Schiller.
Yes. . . it's. . . the animals. . .
Yes. . .
Family is a great challenge.
The greatest, perhaps.
My brother, Wilhelm,
is known as the teacher of Prussia. . .
And as for our congress,
the king will be there, as shall no less than three ministers,
all of whom will be glad to make your acquaintance.
I am not glad. -I'm so glad.
The coach is waiting. -Receptions. . .
projects, talk, plans,
intrigue, that's not science.
And what, may I ask, is science? -A man, alone.
On his desk, before him, a sheet of paper.
A pencil in his hand, clear skies ahead. If he does not surrender. . .
before understanding something,
that is science.
And what if the man at the desk leaves it and goes travelling?
He'll be hiding somewhere. In a hole, a volcano, the mountains,
the forest. -Jungle!
The jungle is only a forest. Hiding out is chancing it.
A pursuit for the mediocre.
For those suffering boredom. -The man at the desk needs a caring wife
to cook his meals, warm his feet, and also. . .
wondrous and wonderfully educated children
to clean his equipment, and remind him to take his pills.
He needs a house to shelter him from the rain, and a priori, above all,
a hat to stop his ears from hurting.
Whom are you talking about? -I'm just. . .
generalising. -He needs all that and more!
House, wife, hat. . . How else should he stand it all?
Where would you have been without your Frenchman?
Life is terrible.
It can be improved. -By whom?
We can improve it, Mr Gauss.
I don't care to.
Five years of preparation,
and now this. -Excellency. . .
If you require. . . -No, get out!
Alexander.
Pleased to meet you.
The prince of mathematicians.
Oh yes? Very nice.
Welcome. -Thank you.
My grandson also likes maths.
What is 1 4 times 1 6? -221 .
Is he right? -Huh? -Is he right?
I beg to differ.
Well, we're establishing a new university,
with the help of one's venerable brother.
We'd like to offer you a professorship
I beg to differ. -What?
I like it at home.
Yes. . .
Ancient theories! All Paris was laughing about it three years ago.
No, no, no. . . -Who does he think he is?
Prince of mathematicians? The devil take him!
What arrogance!
Humboldt's days are over.
Ah, Mr von Humboldt, we'll remember this.
Thanks. -We don't find this funny.
We know about your inclinations, we know about everything.
And we don't forget.
Mr Gauss. . . -Are there no carriages to bring me home?
Mr Gauss, that was a catastrophe.
You. . . insulted the king. -How?
I even shook his hand.
Should the king feel honoured? -Why ever not?
This congress was a one-time opportunity
to find funds for new projects. . . -Spare me with your projects!
Stay where you are!
Lord, what is going on?
In you go! -Is that not your son?
Shut up! Not a word!
Come along. Come with me.
Mr Vogt?
Gendarme Commander Vogt.
Mr von Humboldt. -My dear Vogt.
This is an unfortunate thing.
That carriage contains this gentleman's son.
My son and his thousand friends.
Congratulations! -Mr Gauss, the pre-eminent mathematician.
It is of great importance that you be merciful here.
Of great importance? -Let him go. . .
Please. -This is a serious matter.
Forced labour at least. 20 years to life.
Perhaps the death sentence, even.
It's not that nothing can be done, but. . .
it's not easy. -You need only send him home.
His name has not yet been noted.
No one will know, and. . . my gratitude. . . -. . . expresses itself how?
Excuse me? -Your gratitude?
Excuse me? -Expresses itself how, Mr von Humboldt?
I don't understand. -Lord! The man wants a bribe.
Are you mad? -Corrupt!
The miserable scum-swiller! -I don't have to take this.
Oh, but you do, faecal friend!
Crooked, lippy, shitty dwarf, hear the truth!
Gauss! -I demand satisfaction. My second. . .
To hell with him. Think I'd let a corrupt crapper kill me?
Not another word! Stop, stop at once!
Dear Mr Vogt, this man is mad, old, confused, not to be taken seriously.
Not seriously at all, no!
Please be understanding.
There are limits, though.
It's not that easy.
But a civil servant is also a human.
Get the old man out of here.
You see. . .
You've bribed him.
He's corrupt, that Mr Vogt.
Corrupt! The whole town is.
Stop that! -Arrest him!
A shadow is cast across this land. It darkens by the day.
I shouldn't have come. I knew it.
All this to do you a favour!
Excuse me, did you say favour?
Yes.
To do me a favour? -A favour, yes.
A. . .
Who do you think you are? A favour!
You think God outdid himself when he made you?
Because you don't have to count?
1 +2+3+4. . . can be done step by step. It just takes a little application.
You, Mr Gauss, you've never had to apply yourself,
but others have to fight.
They don't have your brain, your genius, but they get things done.
Through diligence, Mr Gauss, and discipline.
But that just makes you grin, doesn't it?
Who do you think you are?
Do you feel disadvantaged,
feel sorry for yourself because of your poor background?
We are disadvantaged, Mr Gauss!
We are disadvantaged. You didn't earn that mind.
Sign it!
It's nothing to be proud of. Pride is for those who earned it.
Don't do me any favours.
Don't talk to me about God. And I worked harder than you!
I doubt that. -When I'd had enough,
couldn't stand it anymore, found it too silly, I took curare.
And God, of whom you like to speak, saved my life in what was doubtless
one of His most idiotic miracles.
I don't know why He did it.
You don't? -No.
You can drink all the curare you want. -Sorry?
It has to be introduced into the bloodstream.
Then it kills at once.
Are you certain? -Of course. I discovered it.
The bottle you emptied was doubtless one I brought back.
I have to leave the country.
What? -I have to go far away.
I can never return.
We might also have to leave the country.
You like to travel, anyway.
I am old.
Not all that old. You just feel frail from always being in this ghastly town.
I was invited to Russia.
The effort and expense involved is great. -Did that ever stop you?
I could see the great expanses of Asia before I die,
and measure the magnetic field.
I'd like to find out if the inside of the earth
contains one or many magnets.
The question is wrongly formulated. The vertical component of magnetism
can be represented as a function of geographic location.
And the horizontal ones can figure in a power series
reciprocal to the earth's radius.
Simple spherical harmonics. . . no?
I'll calculate it for you.
You only need a measuring needle,
and to send me the results.
Travel far.
Travel far. Don't fail.
Honestly? -There's nothing better than being busy.
You have five years.
Approximately. -Sorry?
Mortality statistics. I work with them now.
It's well paid. You've got 5, I've got 9, my wife, sadly, 1 1 .
Unpleasant to think she'll survive me.
Five years? -Statistically speaking, yes.
Yes. I'll go to Asia.
I sometimes wonder which of us travelled more,
and which stayed more at home.
But we've nothing to complain of. We're here.
No cannibal ate you, no imbecile beat me to death.
And what remains?
Curiosity.
Dear friend. . . Never-ending curiosity.
Contrary to statistical predictions, Carl Friedrich Gauss died
four years earlier than Alexander von Humboldt,
who managed to travel Russia, Siberia and the steppes of Asia.
One year after Humboldt, on the other side of the world,
his poor and abandoned colleague,
Aimé Bonpland, died at the age of 85.
And what of Eugen?
I memorised the pack. -Memorised it?
My father taught me. -What, to memorise the pack?
He tried to. I never got it, but today it worked.
We'll do a test.
One mistake, and you're swimming to America.
Now come here.
Give him the cards.
Eight of clubs.
Eight stupid rhinos wait for rain in the castle.
Eight of hearts.
Is your father proud of you?
Three of spades.
America!
Eugen Gauss never saw his father again.
He invented nothing,
discovered nothing,
and no law of nature bears his name.
But he lived his own life.
He got to Missouri,
founded the First National Bank,
and had seven children.
BABELFISCH TRANSLATIONS Thomas Cooper