Though
Querelle's murders surrounded him with a kind of charmed, tall hedge, this
sometimes seemed to shrink, down to the dimensions of a low metal wire
border round a flower bed. When it happened, it was a horrifying feeling.
Deprived of their protection--whose reality then seemed doubtful, beyond
his control, or perhaps really reducible to that insignificant form of
a few bent wires--he suddenly stood poor and naked among men. But, sure
enough, he got hold of himself again.
--from Querelle