"It was very puzzling. Why had all this happened to her? In the old days, according to her researches, one blamed a jealous or capricious god for one’s undeserved misfortunes, but nobody had taken the gods seriously for generations. It was, thinkers agreed, a case of the mysterious operations of luck. Emotionally, however, blind chance was a poor substitute for a god when you wanted something on which to turn your resentment at the hard treatment accorded you by fate."