He contemplated the secrets people conceal in their hearts when they die, and how only fragments of past experiences survive to be recorded in history: some remnants (in the best cases), some documents, some memories and stories prone to doubt. It was a miserable form of knowledge, and he had to content himself with snippets of information, news, and ruins, and none of it came close to what was lost and tossed into the terrible black hole. Most people feel bitterness towards the end. Few are happy when death approaches. Most people feel, at that point, that they have been cheated and robbed of their rights. They know they will end up in that abyss, and that there will be nothing left of them. Only some hermits and saints welcome death calmly, because they solved the problem right from the
