Upon finishing his Magdeburg tapestry, his finest, he resigned as Imperial Embroiderer, renounced the sensuous and the superficial, fled from Vienna, and came back here, to the mountains of Bohemia, where, if his father would forgive him for leaving the first time, he wanted to stay and help him pierce the heavens, the tapestry-weaver said, the astronomer told Leibniz.

And the astronomer did forgive him. And the tapestry-weaver stayed.

And that same night the astronomer peered through the tube, and his son wielded the quadrant, and kept an eye on the clock, and together they catalogued 9,137 stars.

And not long after that something seemingly miraculous took place.

“Five minutes,” said the astronomer, peering into his telescope.