“Don’t believe him, Master Scharley,” said Bonaventure, who had just awoken from a nap. “He’s saying that now because he fears the stake. Everybody in Frankenstein knows what kind of astronomer he is, because he’s on his roof with his astrolabe every night, counting the stars. And he’s not the only one in the family—all the Koppirnigs are stargazers. Even the youngest, little Nicolaus, who folk tease by saying his first word was ‘mama,’ his second ‘yum-yum’ and his third ‘heliocentrism.’”

The earlier dusk fell, the colder it became and the more the inmates were attracted by conversations and disputes. They talked and talked and talked, sometimes to each other, and sometimes to themselves.

“They’ll squander my institorium, reduce it to nothing. They’ll ruin me. The youth of today!”

“And every woman, every single one, is a harlot. By deed or by choice.”

“The Apocalypse will come, naught will remain. Absolutely nothing. Why would I explain it you laymen?”

“I tell you, they’ll finish us off sooner. The Inquisitor will come. They’ll torture us then burn us. And it serves us sinners right, for we’ve offended against God.”

“Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust: because they have cast away the Law of the Lord of Hosts—”

“Hear that? He’s a nutcase, but he knows.”

“Exactly.”

“The problem is,” said Koppirnig, lost in thought, “we’ve done too much thinking.”

“Quite, quite,” confirmed Tomasz Alpha. “Hence we shall not avoid punishment.”

“… And they shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they be punished.”

“Hear that? He’s a nutcase, but he knows.”

In the distance, by the wall, those suffering from dementia and debilitas gibbered and blabbered. And alongside, on his pallet, Normal was jerking off, grunting and groaning.

The weather grew even colder in October. And then, on the sixteenth—a calendar that Scharley had drawn on the wall in chalk stolen from Circulos allowed them to keep track—a familiar face appeared in the Narrenturm.

Their acquaintance was dragged into the Tower not by the canons of the Holy Sepulchre, but by soldiers in mail shirts and short quilted jerkins. He resisted, was hit a few times on the back of the neck and thrown down the stairs. He tumbled and ended up spreadeagled on the dirt floor. The inmates watched him lying there, and saw Frater Tranquillus approach him with his club.

“Today,” he said, first customarily greeting him in the name of Saint Dymphna, the patron and intercessor of the mentally ill, “is Saint Gall’s Day. But there’ve been so many Galls here, we won’t have another one… Today is also the day of Saint Mommolem, so you will be called ‘Mommolem,’ brother. Clear?”