Opposite him, two individuals who were ironically also neighbours on the outside, lived next to each other under the words LIBERA NOS DEUS NOSTER. Both denied being insane and regarded themselves as victims of deceitfully concocted intrigues. One, a town scribe, christened Bonaventure by the canons of the Holy Sepulchre on his first day, blamed his confinement on his wife, who was gladly making merry with her lover in the meanwhile. Bonaventure treated Reynevan and Scharley right at the start to a long disquisition about women, who he called base, perverse, lecherous, indecent, vile and treacherous by their very nature. The disquisition plunged Reynevan into dark recollections and even darker melancholy for a long time.

The other neighbour was nicknamed the Institor in Reynevan’s mind, since he endlessly and loudly worried about his institorium, his rich and profitable stall in the town square. His children, he claimed, had taken away his liberty by denouncing him, with the goal of seizing the stall and the profits from it. Like Bonaventure, the Institor confessed to scientific interests—both of them dabbled in astrology and alchemy. Both fell strangely silent at the sound of the word “Inquisition.”

One more citizen of Frankenstein who didn’t conceal his identity had his pallet beneath the word ARSE. This was Nicolaus Koppirnig, a mason from a nearby village and an amateur astronomer, on top of that—sadly—a taciturn, uncommunicative and unsociable character.

Not far away, by the wall and set a little apart from the scientific enclave, sat Circulos Meos—Circulos for short—the man who had shouted at Scharley. He was sitting in a pile of straw like a pelican in its nest. The impression was heightened by his bald pate and large goitre. The fact he was not dead was proved by a foul smell, the flashing of his bald pate and his ceaseless, annoying scratching with chalk on the wall or dirt floor. It was explained that he wasn’t, like Archimedes, a mechanic, that his graphs and figures served other purposes. Circulos had been put in the nuthouse for that reason.

There was a forbidding iron cage, used as a punishment cell, next to the pallet of Isaiah, a young, apathetic fellow, christened thus for endlessly quoting from that Old Testament book. The cage was empty, and Tomasz Alpha, who had been imprisoned for the longest, had never seen anybody put into it. Brother Tranquillus, declared Alpha, was indeed a calm and very forbearing monk. Until anybody annoyed him, of course.

The person who was soon to annoy Brother Tranquillus was Normal, who continued to ignore everybody. For during morning prayers, Normal devoted himself to his favourite activity—playing with his private parts. This had not escaped the eagle eyes of the canon of the Holy Sepulchre and Normal was given a sound beating with the oaken club, which, it turned out, wasn’t just for show.