Happy Surprises

It is rare for me to think of this line, but when I read it, it made quite an impression on me, and I have never quite forgotten it, though the words themselves have often eluded me:

As quickly as a tiny woman in a group on the cinema screen is followed by the woman's face in close-up six times life size, Germaine's face filled the world...

I've always liked the notion, particularly the idea of surprise: From a group of undifferentiated people--strangers, friends, acquaintances--there suddenly looms one, six times life size. How this happens does strike me as something of a mystery, no matter what Gang of Four said in Anthrax.

Business trips, actual work, and a dying battery (left the power cord at work) means that the line from Jean Cocteau's The Miscreant is it for tonight -- time to listen to some Enrico Caruso while relearning my Latin...