The Bridge of San Luis Rey

Я умру, служа обществу. «Здесь лежит женщина, не отвергнувшая ни одного приглашения в гости».

It's all right. You love her. You don't have to change because of me.

But the life that Esteban was leading had been full enough for him. There was no room in his imagination for a new loyalty, not because his heart was less large than Manuel's, but because it was of a simpler texture.

It was not the first time that Manuel had been fascinated by a woman... but it was the first time that his will and imagination had been thus overwhelmed. He had lost that privilege of simple natures, the dissociation of love and pleasure. Pleasure was no longer as simple as eating; it was being complicated by love.

And rising one day at dawn she had made a rapid journey through her hospital and convent and orphanage, looking for a soul she might train to be her successor. She hurried from empty face to empty face, occasionally pausing more from hope than conviction.

Anyone else would have said to himself with secret joy: "Within then minutes myself!..." But it was another thought that visited Brother Juniper: "Why did this happen to those five?"

Brother Juniper found that there was least to be learned from those who had been most closely associated with the subjects of his inquiry.

The discrepancy between faith and facts is greater than is generally assumed.

He added up the total for victims and compared it with the total for survivors, to discover that the dead were five times more worth saving.