"But different as were the courses pursued, the sickness fell upon all these classes without distinction; neither did [p023] all of any class die, nor did all escape; and they who first set the example of forsaking others now languished themselves where there was no one to take pity on them. I pass by the little regard that citizens and distant relations showed one to the other, for the terror was such that brother even fled from brother, wife from husband, nay, the parent from her own child. The sick could obtain help only from the few who still obeyed the law of charity, or from hired servants who demanded extravagant wages and were fit for little else than to hand what was asked for, and to note when the patient died. Even such paid helpers were scarce, and their desire of gain frequently cost them their lives. The rich passed out of this world without a single person to aid them; few had the tears of friends at their departure. The corpse was attended to the grave only by fellows hired for the purpose, who would put the bier on their shoulders and hurry with it to the nearest church, where it was consigned to the tomb without any ceremony whatever, and wherever there was room. "With regard to the lower classes, and, indeed, in the case of many of the middle rank of life, the scenes enacted were sadder still. They fell sick by thousands, and, having no one whatever to attend them, most of them died. Some breathed their last in the streets, others shut up in their own houses, when the effluvia which came from their corpses was the first intimation of their deaths. An arrangement was now made for the neighbours, assisted by such bearers as they could get, to clear the houses, and every morning to lay the bodies of the dead at their doors. Thence the corpses were carried to the grave on a bier, two or three at a time. There was no one to follow, none to shed tears, for things had come to such a pass that men's lives were no more thought of than those of beasts. Even friends would laugh and make themselves merry, and women had learned to consider their own lives before everything else.