For a minute we are both silent. Then we have a smoke. And the old man takes up his spade.

“But that’s nothing out of the ordinary. Whereas once I…”

Just then the bells in the tower above the gate gave a shudder and from behind the wall there wafted, like a draft, a length of quavery choir song. The old man’s back dove down into the pit—and over the smack of his shovel and clods of clay upon clay, I heard: “You got me talking and now the grave’s not ready. Things go awry like that: first you have a pit with no departed, then you have a departed with no pit. Now step back, else the earth’ll hit you.”

I turned toward the way out. One set of gates, then another. Under the stone archway in between, I stepped aside to let the procession pass. And walking out of the gates, I thought: Leonardo was right in saying that one can sometimes learn more from water stains than from the creations of a master.