Momo’s arrival at Nowhere House is both a meeting with Professor Secundus Minutus Hora and a revelation of the refuge’s purpose: Cassiopeia has brought her to a place where the Men in Gray cannot reach her. The encounter unfolds among countless clocks, but its decisive turn comes through the professor’s welcome and his explanation that Momo is being protected. A homecoming into wonder becomes a moment of safety—and an introduction to the strange rules governing time.

Arrival in the Hall of Clocks

Momo finds herself in the largest room she has ever seen, a hall whose vastness exceeds even the greatest cathedral or concert hall. Massive columns disappear into the gloom beneath a roof too distant to see clearly, and there are no windows. Instead, countless candles cast golden light across the space, their flames so steady that they resemble painted marks rather than ordinary lights consuming wax.

The room’s sound comes from its clocks. Their whirring, ticking, humming and chiming fill the hall, while timepieces of almost every kind occupy tables, glass cabinets, wall brackets and shelves: pocket watches, tin alarm clocks, hourglasses, musical clocks, sundials, and clocks made of wood, marble or glass, including those driven by water. Cuckoo clocks and pendulum clocks hang on the walls; galleries rise one above another, reached by a spiral staircase. The collection extends from grandfather clocks to full-size church clocks. Each shows a different time, so one or another is always striking or chiming, yet their overlapping sounds form a harmony compared to leaves rustling in a spring wood.

Momo moves among these curiosities with wide-eyed attention. Beside an ornate clock, she pauses over two tiny dancers standing hand in hand, about to touch them to see whether they move. That small gesture places her in the room as a curious visitor, not someone who already understands its wonders. Then a voice behind her recognizes Cassiopeia and asks whether she has brought Momo. The question reveals that the tortoise’s arrival was expected and that the room’s owner knows whom she has brought.

The Professor’s Welcome

Looking down an avenue between grandfather clocks, Momo sees a frail, silver-haired man bending over Cassiopeia. His gold-embroidered coat, silk knee breeches, white stockings, buckled shoes and braided pigtail belong to a fashion two centuries out of date. The antique costume makes him seem as if he has emerged from another period of time, an impression sharpened by the hall’s innumerable timepieces.

When Momo calls out, the man approaches with both hands extended. As he draws nearer, he appears to grow younger; by the time he reaches her and warmly shakes her hands, he looks little older than she does. He welcomes her to Nowhere House and gives his full name: Professor Secundus Minutus Hora. His manner is delighted and cordial, and the visible change in his age makes his identity as an ordinary, elderly host impossible to take for granted.

The welcome also answers a question before Momo has to ask it. The professor explains that he sent Cassiopeia to fetch her, and he checks a diamond-studded fob watch to show that Momo has arrived punctually. The watch is both a specific object of his greeting and a sign that her arrival has been anticipated and measured. For Momo, who is surprised that anyone expected her, the meeting begins with a gap between her uncertainty and the professor’s foreknowledge.

A Refuge from the Men in Gray

After Momo has eaten, she asks why the tortoise was sent for her. The professor replies that the Men in Gray are searching everywhere for her and that she is safe from them only at Nowhere House. The encounter therefore changes the meaning of Cassiopeia’s journey: the tortoise has not simply brought Momo to an astonishing house, but has led her out of immediate danger. The professor’s welcome is an act of protection as well as hospitality.

The explanation prompts Momo to ask whether the Men in Gray mean to hurt her. Her alarm places the threat plainly within this otherwise wondrous setting. The house’s scale, candlelit darkness and forest of clocks may first appear to belong to spectacle; now they also define a sanctuary whose importance is measured against pursuit. The danger remains outside the room, but it gives Momo’s arrival its stakes.

Professor Hora’s account of Cassiopeia’s foresight deepens the scene’s questions about time. Cassiopeia knows for certain what will happen in the next thirty minutes, but such knowledge does not allow events to be changed. If she knows she will meet the Men in Gray at a particular place, she will meet them there and cannot prevent it. In Momo’s case, however, Cassiopeia knew that Momo would take a certain route and would not encounter them. Foreknowledge can thus sometimes guide someone safely, even though it cannot undo what is already going to happen. The distinction makes the tortoise’s role more intricate than simple prediction: her knowledge matters through the route Momo takes, not through control over the future.

Meaning of the Encounter

The scene brings together two kinds of welcome. Before this journey, Momo’s neighbours had offered to take her into one of their homes; when she preferred to remain where she was, they agreed to look after her together, repaired her ruined room and celebrated her settlement with food and a housewarming party. Now Professor Hora welcomes her into a radically different home: a huge, candlelit chamber filled with timepieces, where a host whose age seems to shift has arranged her arrival. The circumstances differ, but both moments make care concrete through shelter and attention to what Momo needs.

At Nowhere House, that care is joined to knowledge unavailable to Momo. She can explore the clocks and ask questions, but she does not yet know who Professor Hora is beyond his name, or why the Men in Gray are pursuing her. His patient hospitality after her arrival—including letting her eat before engaging her in conversation—allows wonder and explanation to proceed at Momo’s pace. The scene thus makes refuge more than a location: it is the protected space in which she can begin to understand the danger surrounding her and the larger significance of time.

The event’s importance is also clarified by the story’s later return to ordinary city life. When Momo and Beppo Roadsweeper are reunited, they laugh, cry, embrace and walk together back toward the old amphitheater; people around them have time to play, talk, care for patients and do their work attentively. That later scene does not erase the peril that made Nowhere House necessary. Instead, it throws the refuge’s purpose into relief: protection matters because Momo’s story ultimately returns to a world in which people can once again share their time freely.