"He doesn't break yet, but the first knocks are had, and knocks turn to cracks and cracks turn to fissures and pretty soon the pieces are in a mess on the floor. An apple, the rot of madness from within has worked through the skin and rendered the perfect seeming fruit useless."

It's all about the rotting metaphors.

"Like his very home, indeed. Drunken Denmark, whose own corruption dooms her kings. His syphalitic mother."