It wasn't long before Archimboldi's fourth book arrived at the publishing house. It was called Rivers of Europe, although it was really about only one river, the Dnieper. One might say the Dnieper was the protagonist and the other rivers were the chorus. Mr. Bubis read the book in one sitting, in his office, and his laughter as he read it could be heard all over the house. This time the advance he sent Archimboldi was bigger than any previous advance, in fact so large that Martha, the secretary, before mailing the check to Cologne, brought it into Mr. Bubis's office and asked (not once but twice) whether the sum was correct, to which Mr. Bubis answered yes, it was, or it wasn't, what did it matter, a sum, he thought when he was alone again, is always approximate, there is no such thing as a correct sum, only the Nazis and teachers of elementary mathematics believed in correct sums, only sectarians, madmen, tax collectors (God rot them), numerologists who read one's fortune for next to nothing believed in correct sums. Scientists, meanwhile, knew that all numbers were only approximate. Great physicists, great mathematicians, great chemists, and publishers knew that one was always feeling one's way in the dark.