And the fear returned, no longer the hot, brutal breath of panic that had catapulted them inside the blockhouse, but a marvelous, almost appealing terror that Grange felt rising from the depths of his childhood—from fairy tales: the terror of children lost in the woods at twilight, listening to the faraway branches crack beneath the dreadful heels of the seven-league boots.

Julien Gracq, Balcony in the Forest, loc. 420