We are seldom worth the esteem in which we are held, but this disjuncture is the definition of grace.

He was dignified, around my father’s age, with the long clean-shaven face of certain priests seen in movies, and utterly without affectation or self-pity. He had waited in line. And then he stepped forward and spoke in careful English: “My wife is going blind, would you mind signing the book for her? In five years she won’t see anything anymore, but before that happens I would want her to see this.”