t is the opening scene of a Hollywood movie. As the night shot gradually comes into focus, we hear the plaintive howling of a dog. A moment later, we see him sitting on the front step of the house, his head pointed toward the dark sky. He gives a few widely separated barks and then returns to his mournful howl. We give a little shiver since we now know something bad is going to happen. Sure enough, the camera zooms in on a window of the house, where we see a small cluster of people: a mother and her grown daughter and a man in a dark suit bending over a bed in which an elderly man is lying. The man in the suit straightens himself and turns to the two women, sadly saying, “I’m afraid that he is dead.” This is not a complete surprise to us since the moment that dog started to howl we had the feeling that someone was about to die.