Picnic at Hanging Rock

by Joan Lindsay

As always, in matters of surpassing human interest, those who knew nothing whatever either at first or even second hand were the most emphatic in expressing their opinions; which are well known to have a way of turning into established facts overnight.

On the Rock, darkness stored all day in its fetid holes and caves seeped out into the twilight and it was night.

The old comfortable silence settled down between them like a cat on a communal hearth

Strong-minded persons in authority can ordinarily grapple with practical problems of facts. Facts, no matter how outrageous, can be dealt with by other facts. The problems of mood and atmosphere known to the Press as ‘Situations’ are infinitely more sinister. A ‘situation’ cannot be pigeonholed for reference and the appropriate answer pulled out of a filing cabinet. An atmosphere can be generated overnight out of nothing or everything, anywhere that human beings are congregated in unnatural conditions.

I’m an expert on nightmares since I came to Australia.’ ‘Not exactly a nightmare this wasn’t . . . Oh, Hell! I can’t explain.’ ‘Go on. Try! Mine are so real sometimes I can’t even be sure they are dreams.’

From the staircase the grandfather clock had become so loud that Mrs Appleyard fancied she could hear its everlasting tick-tock through the study wall. Minute by minute, hour by hour: like a heart beating in a body already dead.