1 FOR more than four years, evil tidings passed night and day over almost half the world of men. Never since our earth came into being were they known to spread in crowds so dense¹ and busy and commanding. In the happy days of peace, we would come upon the gloomy visitants here and there, travelling over hill and dale, nearly always alone, sometimes in couples, rarely in companies of three, timid and shy, seeking to pass unnoticed and humbly² undertaking³ the smallest messages of sorrow that destiny confided⁴ to their charge. Now they go with heads erect⁵; they are almost arrogant⁶; and swollen⁷ with their importance, they neglect any misfortunes that are not deathly. They encumber⁸ the roads, cross the seas[32] and rivers, invade the streets, do not forget the by-ways and climb the most rugged⁹ and stony¹⁰ tracks. There is not a hovel cowering¹¹ in the dingiest¹² and most obscure suburb of a great city, not a cottage hidden in the recesses¹³ of the poorest hamlet of the most inaccessible¹⁴ mountain, which escapes their search and towards which one of them, detached from the sinister¹⁵ band, does not hasten with its little footstep, eager, pitiless and sure. Each has its goal whence nothing can divert it. Through time and space, over rocks and walls they press onward¹⁶, swift and determined¹⁷, blind and deaf to all that would retard¹⁸ them, thinking only of fulfilling their duty, which is to announce as soon as may be to the most sensitive and defenceless heart the greatest sorrow that can fall upon it.
 
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 heralds¹⁹; and no one dreams of barring[33] 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 reverently²⁰; 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 respite²¹, to hide in the darkness or to arrive by a longer road; on the contrary, all compete in offering it zealous²² if humble²³ service. The most compassionate²⁴, the most pitiful are the most assiduous and obsequious²⁵, as though there were no duty more unmistakable, no act of charity more meritorious²⁶ than to lead the dark envoy²⁷ by the shortest and the quickest way to the heart which it is to strike.
 
3
Once again, we are here confounding that which belongs to destiny with that which belongs to ourselves. The misfortune was perhaps not to be avoided; but[34] a great part of the sorrows that attend it remain in our power. It is for us to be careful of them, to direct them, to subdue²⁸ them, disarm²⁹ them, delay them, turn them aside and sometimes even to stop them altogether.
 
In effect, we hardly yet know the psychology³⁰ of sorrow, which is as deep, as complex and as worthy³¹ of study as the passions to which we devote so much of our time. In everyday life, it is true, great sorrows, though not so rare as we could have wished, were nevertheless too widely scattered³² for us to study them easily, step by step. To-day, alas³³, they are the ground of all our thoughts; and we are learning at last that, even as love or happiness or vanity, they have their secrets, their habits, their illusions, their sophistries³⁴, their dark corners, their baffling mazes³⁵ and their unforeseen abysses; for man, whether he love or rejoice or weep, remains³⁶ ever constant to himself!
 
It is not true, as we too willingly agree, that, since unhappiness must be known[35] sooner or later, our only duty is to reveal it at the earliest moment, for the sorrow that is yet green is very different from the sorrow that is already fading. It is not true, as we admit without question, that anything is better than ignorance or uncertainty³⁷ and that there is a sort of cowardice³⁸ in not forthwith announcing the bad news which we know to those whom it must prostrate⁴⁰ in the dust. On the contrary, cowardice lies in ridding ourselves of the bad news as quickly as we may and in not bearing its whole burden, secretly and alone, as long as we are able. When the bad news arrives, our first duty is to set it apart, to prevent it from spreading, to master it as we would a malefactor⁴¹ or a stalking pestilence⁴², to close all means of escape, to mount guard over it, so that it cannot break forth³⁹ and do harm. Our duty is not merely, as the best of us and the most prudent⁴³ seem to believe, to usher⁴⁴ in the bad news with a thousand precautions, with short and muffled⁴⁵, sidelong and measured steps, by the back-door, into the[36] dwelling⁴⁶ which it is to devastate⁴⁷; rather is it our duty definitely to forbid its entrance and to have the courage to chain it in our own dwelling, which it will fill with unjust and insupportable reproaches and upbraidings. Instead of making ourselves the easy echo of its cries, we should think only of stifling⁴⁸ its voice. Each hour that we thus pass in restless and painful intimacy⁴⁹ with the hateful prisoner is an hour of suffering which we accept for ourselves and which we spare the victim of fate. It is almost certain that the malignant⁵⁰ recluse⁵¹ will end by escaping our vigilance; but here the very minutes have their value and there is no gain, however small, that we are entitled to neglect. The hour-glass that measures the phases of sorrow is much finer and truer than that which marks the stages of pleasure. The time that passes between the death of one whom we love and the moment when we hear of his death is as full of pain as it is of days. Most to be feared of all is the first blow of[37] misfortune; it is then that the heart is smitten⁵² and torn with a wound that will never heal. But this blow has not its shattering and sometimes mortal force unless it strike its victim at once and, so to speak, fresh from the event. Every hour that is interposed deadens the sting and lessens⁵³ its virulence⁵⁴. A death already some weeks old no longer wears the same face as that which is made known on the very day when it occurs; and, if a few months have covered it, it is no longer a death, it has become a memory. The days that divide us from it have almost the same value whether they pass before we hear of it or afterwards. They remove beforehand from the eyes and heart the blinding horror of the loss; they step forward and draw it out of the clutch of madness into a past like that which softens⁵⁵ regret. They weave a sort of retrospective memory which stretches into the past and grants straightway all that true memory would have given little by little, hour[38] by hour, during the long months that part the first despair from the sorrow which grows wise and reconciled and ready to hope anew.