Whomever the shoe fits.

I just stumbled over the easily most provocative lines in the history of cinema. I did see that film already several times and they slipped by completely unnoticed. It is only because I've been watching films in chronological order for some time now that I noticed them now. More precisely I still had a sufficiently good memory of Ingrid Bergman in Cactus Flower in order to be interested in how she would have changed in Murder on the Orient Express. Voilà, this is the part she received an Oscar for:

I'm fright.

Only God can give peaceful.

Nej, talar ni svenska.

I... I was born backwards. That is why I work in Africa as missionary, teaching little brown babies more backward than myself.

I was in... In a mis... I... I... International group. In... For getting money for African mission from American rich. I... I speak Swedish to big audiences in... In... In Swedish-American institution in Minneapolis and other big cities. In ten weeks, we make 14000 dollars and... And 27 cents.

From five years. In summer, in... I had been sick as always. And I sat in the grass in the garden. And I... I saw Jesus in the sky, mit many little children, but all the children were brown. So it was a sign for me to look after little brown babies.

Ne, they had no respect for God. No. So it was not just a sign, it was also a punishment.

Ja, and here is my number seven bed.

Is filled with Miss Debenham, a very nice young lady from Baghdad, where she teach English shorthand to children, to forward children.

Ne, she sleep just like me.

In Shimoga Mission, I can hear snake breathe. I would know.

Ne, not till morning, in my bed gown.

Ne, is Jaeger.

Den var em lila.

Just det.

Just as always, money, money for mission.

God will find you a reward.

Tack så mycket. Tack. Tack.

This is decently acted, but Ingrid Bergman looks even intelligent when she's cowering under parental rejection. She has a depth of character she cannot, or at least doesn't, conceal. Some call it class, I call it irony.

I was born backwards. That is why I work in Africa as missionary, teaching little brown babies more backward than myself.

Ass first, not seeking the future, but the past. The only credible reading - and the most ironic. I believe, and I think so did Ingrid Bergman, that any and all conceit can be brought down by childish simplicity of outlook. At the time those lines were probably addressing atheist, eugenicist progressivism in Sweden, calling into mind the human desire for peace and tranquility, but if you read those lines today, they call something else into mind, namely the simplicity of many a person's reasoning and motivation, and not the enemies of Christians seem the target in their reliance on science, but Christians in their comfortability with manipulation.

There is nothing that you cannot overdo. The ironic mind is humble, aware of life's trappings. It seeks no certainty beyond what a child would know. And those who have ventured beyond that find themselves understandably offended by the suggestion that there is no truth but simple truth contained in ironic speech, here that a person is born with his own desires, and no council has the right to replace them.