Doctors Wear Scarlet

“For Christ’s sake,” I said, “we must all get out of here and talk sense where we can see ourselves.”
“People talk sense when they can see each other,” said Roddy very softly in my ear, “but they often cease to tell the truth.”

Most simple people are good at producing grim superstitions; but the Slav and Magyar inhabitants of Eastern Europe share with certain Scandinavians a genius for spicing their tales with a kind of succinct and plausible nastiness that one seldom finds elsewhere.