[She says] “no I’m not leaving. […] Tell him I give up the land. Tell him that he can have it, title deed and all.”

There is a pause between them.

“How humiliating”, he says finally. “Such high hopes, and to end like this”.

“Yes, I agree, it is humiliating. But perhaps that is a good point to start from again. Perhaps that is what I must learn to accept. To start at ground level. With nothing. Not with nothing but. With nothing. No cards, no weapons, no property, no rights, no dignity”.

“Like a dog”.

“Yes, like a dog”.

— J. M. Coetzee Disgrace (NY: Penguin 1999) 205.