The sound of hammers echoed faintly across the quadrangle.
Mr Blottisham looked up from his newspaper.
"They're repairing the chapel again."
Professor Quillibrace glanced towards the window.
"They seldom stop."
"I've been here twelve years."
"Yes."
"I've never seen it finished."
Quillibrace smiled.
"Perhaps because it isn't."
Miss Elowen Stray closed her notebook.
"I rather like that."
"You do?"
"It means the building is still alive."
Blottisham looked puzzled.
"I should have thought a proper building was one that had been completed."
Quillibrace rose.
"Shall we investigate?"
A few minutes later they stood beneath the great west window of the college chapel.
Stone masons were working high above them.
Part of one aisle was hidden behind scaffolding.
Several carved blocks lay waiting to be lifted into place.
Blottisham surveyed the scene.
"It looks rather untidy."
"It does."
"Which part," asked Quillibrace quietly, "is the chapel?"
Blottisham looked surprised.
"All of it."
"The finished arches?"
"Yes."
"The scaffolding?"
"No."
"The drawings in the architect's office?"
"I shouldn't think so."
"The stones still lying in the yard?"
Blottisham hesitated.
"I'm no longer sure."
Miss Stray was watching one of the masons carefully.
"The building seems to exist in several states at once."
Quillibrace nodded.
"Go on."
"There are parts that are complete."
"Yes."
"Parts that are being altered."
"Indeed."
"And parts that exist only because someone has imagined them."
They walked slowly along the north aisle.
Blottisham remained unconvinced.
"But science isn't architecture."
"No?"
"No. Science discovers things."
"Does it?"
"It doesn't build cathedrals."
Quillibrace stopped beneath a section of newly erected scaffolding.
"What happens when an observation refuses to fit an existing theory?"
"We invent a new explanation."
"Only one?"
"Well..."
Miss Stray smiled.
"Usually several."
"Quite."
"A new particle."
"Perhaps."
"A new field."
"Possibly."
"A different geometry."
"Sometimes."
"Modified symmetries."
"Indeed."
Blottisham sighed.
"There always seem to be rather a lot."
Quillibrace rested a hand upon one of the stone pillars.
"Imagine that one crack appears in this wall."
"Very well."
"Would the masons replace only that stone?"
"Not necessarily."
"They might reinforce the arch."
"Yes."
"Strengthen the buttress."
"Quite."
"Alter the roof above it."
"I suppose they might."
"And perhaps redesign an entire section."
Blottisham nodded slowly.
"I see."
"The crack has not dictated the solution."
"No."
"It has altered the architecture."
For a while they watched the masons at work.
One carefully removed a carved stone that had been in place only a few weeks.
Blottisham looked horrified.
"They've just taken it out!"
"They have."
"Was it wrong?"
"Perhaps."
"Then all that work..."
"...was not wasted."
"No?"
"It taught them what could not bear the weight."
Miss Stray looked thoughtfully towards the scaffolding.
"I've just realised something."
Quillibrace waited.
"We tend to admire finished buildings."
"Naturally."
"But without scaffolding..."
"...yes?"
"...nothing ambitious could ever be built."
Quillibrace laughed softly.
"I suspect theoretical physics possesses rather more scaffolding than most people realise."
As they returned across the quadrangle, they passed the college architect studying a large roll of drawings.
Several sections had been crossed through in red ink.
Blottisham looked sympathetic.
"Poor fellow."
"Why?"
"He keeps changing his plans."
The architect overheard him and smiled.
"My dear sir," he said, rolling up the drawings, "that is the plan."
He continued on his way.
The three scholars walked on in silence.
At length Miss Stray spoke.
"Perhaps that is why speculative science can seem so untidy."
Quillibrace looked at her.
"We are accustomed to judging buildings after the scaffolding has gone."
"And science?"
"We are watching it while the masons are still at work."
The chapel bell began to ring for Evensong.
Behind them, another stone was carefully lowered into place.
Another was quietly removed.
The building remained the same chapel.
Yet its architecture continued to evolve.
Quillibrace watched the masons for a moment before turning away.
"The true test of a cathedral," he said, "is not whether it possesses scaffolding..."
He smiled.
"...but whether it knows when the scaffolding must come down."
The three disappeared through the cloister.
Above them, the sound of careful hammering continued into the evening.
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