2
We watch them pass as emissaries of destiny. To us they seem as fatal as the very misfortune of which they are but the heralds; and no one dreams of barring the way before them. So soon as one of them arrives, all unexpected, in our midst, we leave everything, we rush forward, we gather round it. Almost a religious fear compasses it about; we whisper reverently; and we should bow no lower in the presence of a messenger of God. Not only would no one dare to contradict it, or advise it, or beg it to be patient, to grant a few hours of respite, to hide in the darkness or to arrive by a longer road; on the contrary, all compete in offering it zealous if humble service. The most compassionate, the most pitiful are the most assiduous and obsequious, as though there were no duty more unmistakable, no act of charity more meritorious than to lead the dark envoy by the shortest and the quickest way to the heart which it is to strike.