were in office
had been carried off by the plague, or lay sick, or had lost so many
members of their families that they were unable to attend to their
duties; so that thenceforth everyone acted as he thought proper. Others,
in their mode of living, chose a middle course. They ate and drank what
they pleased, and walked abroad; carrying odoriferous flowers, herbs, or
spices, which they smelt at from time to time, in order to invigorate
the brain and to avert the baneful influence of the air, infected by the
sick and by the innumerable corpses of those who had died of the plague.
Others carried their precaution still further, and thought the surest
way to escape death was by flight. They therefore left the city; women
as well as men abandoning their dwellings and their relations, and
retiring into the country. But of these, also, many were carried off,
most of them alone and deserted by all the world, themselves having
previously set the example.

Thus it was that one citizen fled from another--a neighbor from his
neighbors--a relation from his relations; and in the end, so completely
had terror extinguished every kindlier feeling that the brother forsook
the brother, the sister the sister, the wife her husband, and at last
even the parent his own offspring, and abandoned them, unvisited and
unsoothed, to their fate. Those, therefore, that stood in need of
assistance fell a prey to greedy attendants; who, for an exorbitant
recompense, merely handed the sick their food and medicine, remained
with them in their last moments, and then not unfrequently became
themselves victims to their avarice, and lived not to enjoy their
extorted gain.

Propriety and decorum were extinguished among the helpless sick. Females
of rank seemed to forget their natural bashfulness, and committed the
care of their persons, indiscriminately, to men and women of the lowest
order. No longer were women, relatives or friends, found in the houses
of mourning, to share the grief of the survivors; no longer was the
corpse accompanied to the grave by neighbors and a numerous train of
priests, carrying wax tapers and singing psalms, nor was it borne along
by other citizens of equal rank. Many breathed their last without a
friend to comfort them in their last moments; and few indeed were they
who departed amid the lamentations and tears of their friends and
kindred.

Instead of sorrow and mourning, appeared indifference, frivolity, and
mirth; this bein