Someone was standing beside him. He turned his head and saw it was the man who’d been playing piano. He had a dark, foreign-looking face with intense black eyes; just then he was smiling, as though at a secret joke.
“You’re new here, aren’t you? Or just get put in this ward, which?”
“New. George Vine’s the name.”
“Baroni. Musician. Used to be, anyway. Now—let it go. Anything you want to know about the place?”
“Sure. How to get out of it.”
Baroni laughed, without particular amusement but not bitterly either. “First, convince them you’re all right again. Mind telling what’s wrong with you—or don’t you want to talk about it? Some of us mind, others don’t.”
He looked at Baroni, wondering which way he felt. Finally he said, “I guess I don’t mind. I think I’m Napoleon.”
“Are you?”
“Am I what?”
“ Are you Napoleon? If you aren’t, that’s one thing. Then maybe you’ll get out of here in six months or so. If you really are—that’s bad. You’ll probably die here.”