All this he realized, now quite sharply, as he faced the city, cut off from his friends, despoiled of his modest fortune, and even his name, and forced to begin the battle for place and comfort all over again.

He was not old, but he was not so dull but that he could feel he soon would be.

Of a sudden, then, this show of fine clothes, place, and power took on peculiar significance.

It was emphasized by contrast with his own distressing state.
And it was distressing.

He soon found that freedom from fear of arrest was not the sine qua non of his existence.