nsible of its loss. The letter revealed to
him the extreme point in his ruin.

Hence he experienced a new and very painful sensation, which we have
already spoken of. He began to take an interest in his household--what
it was to be in the future--how he was to set things in order; matters
of which he had taken no heed for two months past. These trifling cares
wounded him with a thousand tiny points, worse in their aggregate than
the old despair. A sorrow is doubly burdensome which has to be endured
in each item, and while disputing inch by inch with fate for ground
already lost. Ruin is endurable in the mass, but not in the dust and
fragments of the fallen edifice. The great fact may overwhelm, but the
details torture. The catastrophe which lately fell like a thunderbolt,
becomes now a cruel persecution. Humiliation comes to aggravate the
blow. A second desolation succeeds the first, with features more
repulsive. You descend one degree nearer to annihilation. The
winding-sheet becomes changed to sordid rags.

No thought is more bitter than that of one's own gradual fall from a
social position.

Ruin is simple enough. A violent shock; a cruel turn of fate; a
catastrophe once for all. Be it so. We submit, and all is over. You are
ruined: it is well; you are dead? No; you are still living. On the
morrow you know it well. By what? By the pricking of a pin. Yonder
passer-by omits to recognise you; the tradesmen's bills rain down upon
you; and yonder is one of your enemies, who is smiling. Perhaps he is
thinking of Arnal's last pun; but it is all the same. The pun would not
have appeared to him so inimitable but for your ruin. You read your own
sudden insignificance even in looks of indifference. Friends who used to
dine at your table become of opinion that three courses were an
extravagance. Your faults are patent to the eyes of everybody;
ingratitude having nothing more to expect, proclaims itself openly;
every idiot has foreseen your misfortunes. The malignant pull you to
pieces; the more malignant profess to pity. And then come a hundred
paltry details. Nausea succeeds to grief. You have been wont to indulge
in wine; you must now drink cider. Two servants, too! Why, one will be
too many. It will be necessary to discharge this one, and get rid of
that. Flowers in your garden are superfluous; you will plant it with
potatoes. You used to make presents of your fruits to friends; you will
send them henceforth to market. As