“The dinner-table is often the terrain of critical conversations, for it is there one has the better of one's interlocutor. There is no escape without scandal, there is no turning aside without self-betrayal. To invite a person to dinner is to place them under observation. Every dining-room is a temporary prison where politeness chains the guests to the laden board.” DiningDinner PartyDinner TableDining Table Book:Hands of Orlac Source: Hands of Orlac
“But Rosine had read books . . . so many books ... Her over-excited memory was filling her mind with terrifying images . . . The very excess of her imaginings forced her to take a grip on herself.” ReadingBooksOver Stimulation Book:Hands of Orlac Source: Hands of Orlac
“The emergency services had not yet been organized. Rosine could go where she wished. Her high heels made her stumble in the darkness, over the stones, the frozen clods of soil, over the tussocks of grass, the countless obstacles of the rough earth. She was shivering with cold and thought she might be about to faint away amid the sinister din of the disaster. A fearful chaos was becoming apparent. Rude forms stood erect, the silhouette of a heap of rails. Lanterns, miserable yellow stars, circulated hither and thither. There were even household oil-lamps to be seen, with which the wind dealt harshly. And, all the time, people were running ...” CrashRailwayDiaster Book:Hands of Orlac Source: Hands of Orlac
“The young woman had read a good many novels, and she had seen a good many films; this education by newspaper, serial and film had, in a thousand and one ways, blunted her sensibilities to the wonderful; reading about and seeing impossible events had prepared her to be un-astonished by the most improbable phenomena. All the same, her terror had brought with it a stupefaction, and the doctor's voice drew her from a species of torpor that came close to swooning.” IndifferenceApathyDisenchantment Book:Hands of Orlac Source: Hands of Orlac