“The lawyer pushed up his sleeves. Through an opening of his robe, he vigorously scratched his chest. It sounded like someone currying a horse. He placed his magistral cap on the head of a shiny banister beside him and started his counsel’s speech.
“Gentlemen of the jury,” he said, “we will disregard the motive of the murder, the circumstances in which it was committed, and the murder itself. Under these conditions, with what do you accuse my client?”
The jury, struck by a side of the case they hadn’t considered, was silent and rather uneasy. The judge slept, and the public prosecutor was sold to the Germans.”
— Boris Vian, ‘Fog’, Blues for a Black Cat, transl. Julia Older, The University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 1992, p. 80.