She fought back with a knitting needle (plunged into his neck), a metal coat hanger (stuck into his eye), and a knife (thrust into his torso) - but the white-masked Shape seemed indestructible." A sweeping camera moves from the King""s crown (resting on a velvet pillow) back through the council in the Swedish court.Some English translations I have made of French poetry had enjoyed some success and I had been appointed to a lectureship at Beardsley College (Ohio) in the fall.Sternwood: I used to like mine with champagne.Champagne cold as Valley Forge and with about three ponies of brandy under it...I like o see people drink...You may take off your coat, sir...Too hot in here for any man who has any blood in his veins.You may smoke, too.I can still enjoy the smell of it.Nice state of affairs when a man has to indulge his vices by proxy.The emaciated Sternwood describes the dreariness of his existence.The humid hothouse is necessary for his survival and he is waiting for death - the "big sleep" of the title - in the temperature-controlled greenhouse:Sternwood: You are looking, sir, at a very dull survival of a very gaudy life - crippled, paralyzed in both legs, very little I can eat, and my sleep is so near waking that it""s hardly worth he name.