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are other, more suitable scrolls that will interest you. Hannibal, it would please your uncle and me very much if you became the kind of man your father was, that your uncle is."

Hannibal looked at the armor, a questioning glance.

She read the question in his face. "Like him too? In some ways, but with more compassion"-she glanced at the armor as though it could hear and smiled at Hannibal-"but I wouldn't say that in front of him in Japanese."

She came closer, the candle lamp in her hand. " Hannibal, you can leave the land of nightmare. You can be anything that you can imagine. Come onto the bridge of dreams. Will you come with me?"

She was very different from his mother. She was not his mother, but he felt her in his chest. His intense regard may have unsettled her; she chose to break the mood.

"The bridge of dreams leads everywhere, but first it passes through the doctor's office, and the schoolroom," she said. "Will you come?"

Hannibal followed her, but first he took the bloodstained peony, lost among the flowers, and placed it on the dais before the armor.

Chapter 17-18

17

DR. J. RUFIN PRACTICED in a townhouse with a tiny garden. The discreet sign beside the gate bore his name and his titles: DOCTEUR EN MeDECINE, PH. D., PSYCHIATRE.

Count Lecter and Lady Murasaki sat in straight chairs in the waiting room amid Dr. Rufin's patients, some of whom had difficulty sitting still.

The doctor's inner office was heavy Victorian, with two armchairs on opposite sides of the fireplace, a chaise longue with a fringed throw and, nearer the windows, an examining table and stainless-steel sterilizer.

Dr. Rufin, bearded and middle aged, and Hannibal sat in the armchairs, the doctor speaking to him in a low and pleasant voice.

" Hannibal, as you watch the metronome swinging, swinging, and listen to the sound of my voice, you will enter a state we call wakeful sleep. I won't ask you to speak, but I want you to try to make a vocal sound to indicate yes or no. You have a sense of peace, of drifting."

Between them on a table, the pendulum of a ticking metronome wagged back and forth. A clock painted with zodiac signs and cherubs ticked on the mantle. As Dr. Rufin talked, Hannibal counted the beats of the metronome against those of the clock. They went in and out of phase. Hannibal wondered if, counting the intervals in and out of phase, and measuring the wagging pendulum of the metronome, he could calculate the length of the unseen pendulum inside the clock. He decided yes, Dr. Rufin talking all the while.

"A sound with your mouth, Hannibal, any sound will do."

Hannibal, his eyes fixed dutifully on the metronome, made a low-pitched farting sound by flubbering air between his tongue and lower lip.

"That's very good," Dr. Rufin said. "You remain calm in the state of wakeful sleep. And what sound might we use for no? No, Hannibal. No."

Hannibal made a high farting sound by taking his lower lip between his teeth and expelling air from his cheek past his upper gum.

"This is communicating, Hannibal, and you can do it. Do you think we can work forward now, you and I together?"

Hannibal 's affirmative was loud enough to be audible in the waiting room, where patients exchanged anxious looks. Count Lecter went so far as to cross his legs and clear his throat and Lady Murasaki's lovely eyes rolled slowly toward the ceiling.

A squirrelly-looking man said, "That wasn't me."

" Hannibal, I know that your sleep is often disturbed," Dr. Rufin said.

"Remaining calm now in the state of wakeful sleep, can you tell me some of the things you see in dreams?"

Hannibal, counting ticks, gave Dr. Rufin a reflective Rubber.

The clock used the Roman IV on its face, rather than IIII, for symmetry with the VIII on the other side. Hannibal wondered if that meant it had Roman striking-two chimes, one meaning "five" and another meaning "one."

The doctor handed him a pad. "Could you write down perhaps some of the things you see? You call out your sister's name, do you see your sister?"

Hannibal nodded.

In Lecter Castle some of the clocks had Roman striking and some did not, but all those that did have Roman striking had the IV rather than IIII.

When Mr. Jakov opened a clock and explained the escapement, he told about Knibb and his early clocks with Roman striking-it would be good to visit in his mind the Hall of Clocks to