Alberic the Wise and Other Journeys. Norton Juster
when he would curl up in one corner of the shop to dream happily of the day’s accomplishments and carefully sort and pack into his memory everything he’d learned. For some time he did only the menial jobs, but soon under the watchful eye of the master he began taking part in more important and exacting procedures. He learned to chip and shape the glass into pieces often no larger than the palm of his hand and then apply the colours mixed in gum or oil with a delicate badger brush and fire these to permanence in the glowing kilns. Then from measurements and patterns he learned to set each piece in the grooved strips of lead and solder them carefully at each joint. For almost two years he worked and watched as all these small and painstaking operations took form in great windows and medallions of saintly lives or tales of moral instruction which glowed in deep splendid blues and vivid rubies.
Finally the time came for Alberic to prove his skill and take his place among the glassmakers – to create a work entirely on his own. He was determined that it would be a rare and lovely thing and he set about it with quiet intensity.
“What will it be, Alberic?” they all asked eagerly.
“Beautiful,” he replied with never a moment’s doubt, and that was all he’d say.
And for weeks he worked secretly in one corner of the shop until the day came when his work was to be judged. Everyone gathered to see it. The master looked long and carefully. He stood back to view it in the light and squinted close at matters of fine detail, and then he rubbed his chin and then he tapped his finger and then he swayed and then he sighed and then he frowned.
“No,” he said sadly and slowly, “certainly not. You will never be a glassmaker.” And everyone agreed, for despite the best of intentions Alberic’s work was poor indeed.
How miserable he was! How thoroughly miserable! Why wasn’t it beautiful when he had tried so hard? How could he have learned so much and yet still fail? No one knew the answer. “There is no reason now for me to stay,” he said quietly, gathering up his bundle, and without even as much as a last look back he walked out into the lonely countryside. For several days he wandered aimlessly, seeing nothing, heading nowhere, his thoughts turned inward to his unhappy failure.
But it was spring and no one who has ever worked the land can long ignore the signs this season brings. Sweet promising smells hung gently in the warm air, and all around the oxlips, daisies and celandine splashed the fields in lively yellow. A graceful bird and then another caught Alberic’s eye. The busy buzz and click of smaller things were reassuring to his ear and even the bullfrogs’ heavy thump set his heart beating once again. His spirits and then his hope revived. The world seemed large and inviting once again.
“There are other places and other things to learn,” he thought. “Beauty isn’t everything. The true measure of wisdom is utility. I’ll do something useful.” He hurried now and before long came to a city whose stonecutters and masons were renowned throughout the world for the excellence of their work. His thoughts turned to castles and cloisters, massive walls, towering vaults and steeples which only miracles of skill could hold suspended in the air.
“Everything of use and value is made of stone,” he concluded, and rushed to seek employment with the master stonecutter.
And for two more years he busied himself learning the secrets of this new vocation – selecting and cutting only the finest stone from the quarry – matching, marking and extracting the giant blocks to be moved on heavy wheeled carts to each new building – and then noting carefully how each shaped stone was fitted in its place so that walls and buttresses grew and arches sprang from pier to pier with such precision that no blade however sharp could slip between the joints. Soon he learned to mix and measure mortar and operate the windlasses whose ingenious ropes and pulleys allowed one man to lift for fifty. Then to make his first careful cuts with bolster and chisel and then stop and watch again as surer hands than his cut and shaped the graceful mouldings and intricate tracery which brought the stone to life. As he worked he questioned and remembered everything he saw and heard, and as each day passed, his confidence and his knowledge grew and he began to think of his future life as a great and skilful stonecutter.
When the time came for him to prove his skill to the masons and sculptors of the guild, Alberic chose a piece of specially fine, delicately veined marble and set to work. It was to be the finest carving they had ever seen. With great care he studied and restudied the block and planned his form, then cut into the stone in search of it. He worked in a fever of excitement, his sharp chisels biting off the unwanted material in large chips and pieces. But the image he saw so clearly in his mind seemed always to be just out of sight, a little deeper in the stone. The block grew smaller and the mound of dust and chips larger, and still, like a phantom, the form seemed to recede and still he chased it. Soon there was nothing left at all. The great block of stone had disappeared and soon after, the stonecutter too. For again, without a word, Alberic gathered up his belongings and passed through the city gate. He had failed once more.
“Usefulness isn’t everything,” he decided after roaming about disconsolately for several days. “Innovation is surely a measure of wisdom. I’ll do something original.”
The opportunity presented itself in the very next town, where the goldsmiths, it was said, produced objects of unsurpassed excellence and fancy. Bowls and magic boxes, mirrors, shields and sceptres, crowns, rings, enchanted buckles and clasps, and candlesticks and vases of incredible grace and intricacy spilled from these workshops and found their way to every royal court and market in the land. It was here that Alberic learned to draw and shape the fine gold wire and work the thin sheets of metal into patterns and textures of light and shape and then inlay these with delicate enamels and precious stones. It was here also that he worked and hoped for the next two years of his life and it was here that for the third time he failed and for the third time took his disappointment to the lonely countryside.
And so it went, from town to town, from city to city, each noted for its own particular craft or enterprise. There were potters who turned and shaped their wet clay into graceful bowls and tall jugs fire-glazed with brilliant cobalt, manganese and copper oxides. Leather finishers who transformed smooth soft skins into shoes and boots, gloves, tunics, bombards, bottles and buckets. There were weavers and spinners who worked in wools and silks, carpenters and cabinetmakers, glassblowers, armourers and tinkers. There were scholars who spent their days searching out the secrets of ancient books, and chemists and physicians, and astronomers determining the precise distances between places that no one had ever seen. And busy ports which offered men the sea and all it touched, and smiths and scribes and makers of fine musical instruments, for anyone with such a bent. Alberic tried them all – and watched and learned and practised and failed and then moved on again. Yet he kept searching and searching for the one thing that he could do. The secret of wisdom and skill he so desired.
The years passed and still he travelled on – along the roads and trails and half-forgotten paths – across plains and deserts and forests whose tangled growth held terrors that were sometimes real and sometimes even worse – over hills and cruel high mountain passes and down again perhaps along some unnamed sea – until at last, alone and old and tired, he reached the ramparts of the great capital city.
“I will never find wisdom,” he sighed. “I’m a failure at everything.”
At the edge of the market square Alberic set his bundle down and watched longingly as all the students, artisans and craftsmen went unconcernedly about their business. He wiped the dust from his eyes and sat for a moment, thinking of his future and his past. What a strange sight he was! His beard was now quite long and grey and the cloak and hat and shoes bore evidence of some repair from every place he’d been. His great bundle bulged with the debris of a lifetime’s memories and disappointments and his face was a sad scramble of much the same. As he rummaged through his thoughts, a group of children, struck by his uncommon look, stopped and gathered close around him.
“Where have you come from?”
“What do you do?”
“Tell us what you’ve seen,” they eagerly asked, and poised to listen or flee as his response required.
Alberic was puzzled. What could he tell them? No one had ever