Conversation had come to a standstill

"Oh, how he longed for someone to break out of this and say something, if nothing else than a reference to the fact that life has other things to offer. He was really looking for someone to allude to that, if only in a kind of code -- yes, if only someone or other, during one of those quick exchanges in the teacher's lounge, would suddenly point his index finger at the heavens and in that way signal that there existed a long religious tradition, based on Christianity, in our part of the world, and that consequently one often pointed straight up like that, where according to tradition God and his angels, well, the blessed ones too, were supposed to be, for then Elias Rukla would have thrown his arms around his neck, regardless of how ironic such an index finger would have appeared, both to the one who performed this act and to the others."

From Dag Solstad's Shyness and Dignity