![]() Yet he hears plenty of stories about victims breathing into the faces of passers by, or infected men randomly hugging and kissing women in the street. Is it possible, he asks, that there are some people so wicked that they deliberately infect others? He just can’t square the idea with his more kindly view of human nature. ![]() He is a devout Christian, but the stories that worry him most are the ones that still shock everyone today, regardless of their beliefs. Later, exhibiting one of his less appealing traits, he is gratified to hear that they all caught the plague and died. At one point he confronts a group of rowdies and gets a torrent of abuse in return. HF is appalled by those who opened up taverns and spent their days and nights drinking, mocking anyone who objected. After all, they might be locked in their homes to catch the disease and die. Reporting was difficult, partly because people were reluctant to admit there was an infection in the family. Still, it was impossible to be sure who had died directly of the disease, just as in the BBC news today we hear people have died “with” rather than “of” COVID-19. They charted deaths by parish, giving a picture of how the plague was moving around the city. HF becomes obsessed with the weekly mortality figures. ![]()
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