meaning - Does this ‘twice’ mean two times, or double in quantity?




She caught sight of Mr. Diggory’s feet, and slowly, tremulously, raised her eyes to stare up into his face; then, more slowly still, she looked up into the sky. Harry could see the floating skull reflected twice in her enormous, glassy eyes. (p134, Harry Potter 4, US edition)



NB – The floating skull is an ill omen, which a gangster launched into the sky by using magic, to show that his group is going to do bad things. The sign is illuminating the entire wood like some grisly neon sign. ‘She’ is an innocent passerby with big eyes. Mr. Diggory is a kind of policeman who thinks she is the gangster.


I’d like to know what the ‘twice’ means.


When I ran into the sentence, I thought she blinked and the sign reflected two times in her eyes, though there’s no ‘blink’ like expression around the sentence. Then, another idea occurred to me that the sign reflected in her two eyes, one by one.


Would you give me the right meaning of the ‘twice’?



Answer



I think it is meant to refer to one reflection in each of her two eyes. There is no mention of blinking, nor any reason to think that the idea blinking is meant to be raised. Also, a blink would usually be thought of as interrupting a reflection rather creating a new reflection. Because eyes are convex, each of the two eyes normally shows a reflection of its own of each visible item in the environment.


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