Nathalie Sarraute

"Remain silent, look at them; and right in the middle of the grandmother's illness, rise and, making an enormous hole, escape, knocking against the lacerated walls, and run shouting amidst the crouched houses standing watch all along the gray streets, flee, stepping over the feet of the concierges seated in front of their doors taking the air, run with her mouth contorted shouting incoherencies, while the concierges looked up from their knitting and their husbands lowered their newspapers to their knees, to press their gaze along the length of her back, until she had turned the corner.

Sometimes, when they were not looking at him, to try and find something that was warm and living around him, he would run his hand very gently along one of the columns of the sideboard . . . they would not see him, or perhaps they would think that he was merely "touching wood" for luck, a very widespread custom and, after all, a harmless one. When he sensed that they were watching him from behind, like the villain in the movies who, feeling the eyes of the policeman on his back, concludes his gesture nonchalantly, gives it the appearance of being offhanded and naive, to calm their apprehension he would drum with three fingers of his right hand, three times three, which is the really effectual lucky gesture."

-Nathalie Sarraute, Tropisms