"A certain look came over Lotte’s face, a look I’d seen many times before, and which I can only describe as a kind of stillness, as if everything that normally existed near the surface had retreated into the depths. A moment passed. I felt something one fro time to time experiences with those one is intimate with, when the distance that all the while has been folded up like a Chinese paper toy suddenly springs open between you. And then Lotte shrugged, breaking the spell, and said she didn’t know. She didn’t say anything else about it, but the next day I saw her scanning the newspaper, looking, I felt sure, for some report of the accident. She walked away, you see. She walked away without waiting to find out what had happened."
— Great House, Nicole Krauss.
