Many other people took a middle course between these two, neither restricting themselves in their food like the former, nor running to excess in drinking and dissipation like the latter, but made use of things moderately according to their wants; and instead of shutting themselves up they rambled about the town, some with bunches of flowers, some with odoriferous herbs, and others with fragrant mixtures of spices which they carried in their hands and continually applied to the nostrils, esteeming it an excellent thing to comfort the brain by their perfume because the air was loaded and disgusting with the stench of death, disease, and offensive medicaments. Some again entertained more unfeeling sentiments (as if they were haply more secure), declaring that there was no better, nor even so good a remedy for the plague as to fly before it; so, moved by this argument and caring only for themselves, numbers of both sexes abandoned their native city, their homes, their friendly meetings, their dearest relatives, and all their property, and sought those of the stranger; or else retired to the seclusion of their own country dwellings; as if the anger of God, being once moved thus to punish human wickedness, would spare the rod to them and strike only those enclosed within the walls; or, as if they counselled everyone to fly because the final hour of Florence was arrived. Many died that haply might have lived by timely aid; so that between a want of that assistance which sufferers could not procure, and the malignant nature of this disease, the multitudes of those who daily and nightly expired in Florence would be terrible to hear, even without beholding; wherefore, almost of necessity, things contrary to all former habits were engendered amongst the surviving citizens. [Illustration: LAMP, PALAZZO STROZZI, FLORENCE] It was a custom, and we still see it maintained, that in cases of death every female relation and neighbour should assemble within the house and there weep for his loss; and before the mansion every male kinsman and nearest neighbour also assembled, with other citizens in great numbers, attended by divers of the clergy according to the dead man’s quality; thence on the shoulders of his peers, with funeral pomp of torch and music, the corpse was slowly borne away to that church which he had previously chosen for a sepulchre. But when the pestilence raged most fiercely these things almost entirely ceased, and new customs superseded them; for people then died not only without such assemblies of wailing women, but passed from the world in many instances without even a single witness; and few were those to whom the piteous sobs and tears of relatives were in mercy conceded; but instead thereof was heard the laugh or the jest, or the convivial feast! and this custom the women in general, casting aside their sex’s softness, did for their own especial advantage most quickly learn.