“And yet, were there titters?” the astronomer said. “Now, whenever I think back on this moment, I always think, Were there titters? And almost always I think, There were titters, I almost always think there were genuine titters! And I can almost always still hear those titters, that tittering, all of it aimed straight at my father. Whenever I wonder if in doing what I did next I did something immoral, I summon those titters, I play those titters for myself, and in hearing those titters in my head I know I did something moral, for my father I know would rather be dead than be made into an object of ridicule in the court of the Emperor. The head was intended to provoke, among other passions, laughter—but not this kind of laughter. Those titters implied delight perhaps but not the right type of delight, amusement perhaps but not the right form of amusement, everyone was probably highly entertained by the head but they were not entertained by the head for the right reasons. It’s not enough to know they were entertained by the head, we must ask why they were entertained by the head—why were they entertained by the head? I can hear the Emperor tittering, at the idea that this man-made metal head could possibly provide solace to him in his mental torment, that it could even touch him in his torment at all, and I can hear that obsequious young German, who as I later learned was none other than the famous Kepler, tittering, at the contrast between my father’s creation and his own, even though his own brass contraption however big and sophisticated could no more touch the Emperor in his torment than could the mechanical head—and basically I can hear everyone tittering! Hundreds of men of science tittering at my father and tittering at his art! These men who in a few short decades would all be wearing his head on their shoulders! Yet at other times, in remembering the moment my father removed his head from that sack, I cannot summon those titters, sometimes I think I actually hear no titters at all, not a single titter, none. And instead I think I hear silence, I think I hear a perfect and attentive and even reverent silence, and at such times I have to ask myself if I may have added those titters in retrospect, if those aren’t real titters at all, if it’s conceivable that I scored this memory with after-the-fact tittering in order to justify what I did next.”

For when his father placed the Head of Phalaris on the banquet table before the Emperor, the astronomer saw that the clouds had parted just enough to permit a glimpse, for the first time in sixteen days, of the new twinkling thing. It shimmered and burned in the heavens behind the Emperor’s head. His father lay his hand upon the crank, the laughter, if not the silence, reached its peak, the place shook with laughter or silence, and at that moment, before his father could impart life to the head, the astronomer bellowed from the back of the Great Hall: “My Lord, I have invented an instrument that brings far things near, and with it I can yank that twinkling thing down from the firmament into this very room!”