I checked in on a friend this week. She is in her 90s, and I thought she might be worried about the spread of the coronavirus, but I found her in the highest of spirits. “Look,” she said, sinking into a graceful curtsy, “so much better than shaking hands, isn’t it?”

Yes, it is. And infinitely more elegant than the elbow-bumping that has become modish.

Indeed, it is hard to understand why curtsying went out of fashion in the first place.

A handshake can be an awkward thing – a clumsy, clammy grapple. But a woman breathes something of herself into her curtsy. She can make the gesture demure or haughty, coy or brazen. She can dip perfunctorily or sweep into a balletic plié. She can swish her skirts alluringly or bob coldly.

The same is true, mutatis mutandis, for men. A bow allows you to convey precisely the degree of respect or affection you consider appropriate. How tawdry and pedestrian to clutch at someone’s proffered hand when you could instead pull back your right foot and “make a leg” in the manner of some dandyish Jane Austen character.

If one good thing emerges from these pestilential times, let it be a return to our traditional forms of salutation.