Phenomenal nature shadows him wherever he goes. Clouds in the staring sky transmit to one another, by means of slow signs, incredibly detailed information regarding him. His inmost thoughts are discussed at nightfall, in manual alphabet, by darkly gesticulating trees. Pebbles or stains or sun flecks form patterns representing in some awful way messages which he must intercept. Everything is a cipher and of everything he is the theme.

…

The very air he exhales is indexed and filed away. If only the interest he provokes were limited to his immediate surroundings - but alas it is not! With distance the torrents of wild scandal increase in volume and volubility. the silhouettes of his blood corpuscules, magnified a million times, flit over vast plains, and still farther, great mountains of unbearable solidity and height sum up in terms of granite and groaning firs the ultimate truth of his being.

-Nabokov, Signs and Symbols