Moving Target.

‘It’s all very well, Catherine, putting your head above the parapet,’ my tutor said at that final seminar, ‘yet when it comes to cogent arguments you keep dodging the bullets.’
        Behind me I heard a hateful half-suppressed titter. 
        ‘I agree. But can’t you see?’ I explained desperately. ‘That’s what comes from being chronically parapetetic.’
        (Groans.)

Esmeralda at the parapet at Notre-
Dame de Paris. Vladimir Bekhteyev’s
illustration for Victor Hugo’s novel 
Notre-Dame de Paris. 

For more apposite reflections on reading Notre-Dame de Paris, see

https://catherineeisnerfrance.blogspot.com/2019/04/shaking-bell-towers-of-notre-dame-and.html