Sentence No. 162 · 5 September 2026
It must have been selfishness indeed that could hear unmoved that cry of anguish that, like a pebble thrown over a precipice, revealed the depths of his despair
Honoré de Balzac, Father Goriot
Honoré de Balzac — Father Goriot (1835) · Read it at Project Gutenberg
What holds this sentence together
Two commas fence off the simile "like a pebble thrown over a precipice", which is dropped in between the relative word "that" and its verb "revealed" — so anything sitting inside those commas must be lifted out to hear the main frame click together.
How it appears in Sentle
On Sentle this sentence arrives in 7 pieces, shuffled, with the lines that lead up to it for context. A father's cry of helplessness lands between two quarrelling daughters. Putting it back in the author’s order is the puzzle — and the order is rarely arbitrary, which is what the note above is about.
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