“Asher, in every face I detect sadness.” A crease of curiosity formed between Asher’s eyes. “Why do you say that?” “Well, it is subtle, and maybe it takes an old man — an expert in sadness — to see it, but it is there in every portrait, in some more than others. It is not gloomy or angry or even terribly obvious. It is like a weariness or an unmet longing or a disappointment; something we inherit from those who lived before us. But to these old eyes, it is in every face, the universal affliction.
