The “artificial twilight” of the basement gives it an ominous and uncertain quality. And twilight, an ambiguous time of day when it’s neither light nor dark but somewhere in between, mirrors the ambiguity that characterizes the experience of the typical Berghof resident: their chronic illness leaves them in a meandering, restless state between life and death. Hans’s impulse to look away from Clavdia’s X-ray out of “respectability” suggests a perverse sexual or sensual attraction to her insides: to the organs that are making her ill. This, in turn, reinforces that Clavdia’s illness—and the freedom Hans has decided it gives her—are what he’s most attracted to.