I abandoned myself to so-called `friends' of the worst sort, who degraded me to their own level, then forsook me.
Still I plunged deeper--I was mad.

My one dread was to have a moment to myself--a moment to think of my home, my children, my wife.

How I lived through it all I cannot think--and I did not care.
"At last a letter reached me from my employers, requiring my presence at business.

My money had long gone, my creditors pressed me on every hand, my friends one and all mocked at my destitution.

I returned to -- -, hiding before my employers the traces of my madness, and letting them wonder how grief had changed me.