Note 39 — Chapter III · (continued 2)

We remember some time ago an interesting article by Dr. Adolf Dux, entitled “La tombe du Savant” appearing in the “Pester Lloyd.” The savant was Bolyai, professor of mathematics and physics at Maros-Vásárhely. No statue, no marble mausoleum with sides covered with laudatory inscriptions, marks the place where he lies, but the tomb, by its occupant’s strict direction, is overshadowed by the boughs of an apple-tree—“En souvenir des trois pommes qui out joué un rôle si important dans l’histoire de l’humanité, et il désignait ainsi la pomme d’Ève, et celle de Pâris qui réduisirent la terre à l’esclavage, et la pomme de Newton, qui la replaça au rang des astres.” Strangely enough, when Dr. Dux visited the tomb there hung on the tree just three apples—“ni plus ni moins.” Back