The darkness of each day and the darkness of separation from those they love mingle and may become dreadful.
Day by day, the news from Hama became more dreadful, and the mood in Damascus grew increasingly oppressive.
Yet the show's blank interstitial shots of the photocopier chunking out documents and of people staring at their computer screens, just as before, became increasingly dreadful.
But Mr Justice Butterfield said: "Had it not been for the dreadful events of September 11 2001, I have little doubt that one or more of those proposals would have become a dreadful reality".
No wonder they all become so dreadful.
"If he fails, then the situation can become quite dreadful".
"A glory lights an earnest end" becomes, "A dreadful glory lights an earnest end".
It has become a dreadful occasion of anguish to-day conjecturing how much torture even a saint can put up with if the end is certainly not to be a spectacular martyrdom - but "vaporisation".
He guesses from the demeanour of his mother that his wife has become something dreadful, like a "dancer": "My mother shook her head gravely and said, almost mournfully, 'No a craftswomen.
At that point, full- or part-time employment in retail can easily become a dreadful experience.
