At other times, heavy, usually empty wagons rolled in, creaking through the entrance gate, on which were loaded boxes and heavily boarded-up crates, to be taken away to an unknown destination before daybreak.

The city followed the sculptor’s secretive movements from a distance, not wanting to become involved in the affairs of a strange person who instilled fear in them.

By then the gravedigger and his home were enveloped in gloomy legends that had grown with the years and cemetery tales filled with rotting corpses and the stench of decay. It was said that the dead were visiting John and carrying on secret talks with him through the night. That’s why no one was courageous enough to steal up to his brightly-lit windows and observe his guests.

Tossati knew of the tales surrounding him and didn’t attempt to contradict them; on the contrary, it seemed as if he wanted to cocoon himself in ever thicker strands of mystery behind which he could hide his dark life.

The blasphemer’s entire fortune arose from the cemetery; his home, possessions and life absorbed with time a corpselike fustiness. And everything went along unpunished. As long as he walked the streets of Foscara, the dead seemed to patiently endure the affront. It was as if the evil demon residing in this person kept the world of shadows chained, as if the gravedigger’s satanic will tethered any sign of revolt on the part of the desecrated deceased.

Tossati still walked around a little stooped and still smiled to no one in particular. In his last years of earthly tramping this smile never left his face, and it even seemed to have become gentle. During this time, Tossati’s face gave the impression of a mummy with a set expression: it was the constantly smiling face of a good-natured soul.

For the stonemason had been wearing the same gypsum mask for two years. The material from which he had made it imitated so perfectly the colour of flesh, and the mask adhered so hermetically to his face, that it wasn’t noticed at all: he went among people freely, not awakening either suspicion or laughter. Only an accident revealed his real face, a strange, unusual occurrence, after which one didn’t see him any more among the living … .

It happened in autumn, on one of those sad, rainy days when the damp earth is enveloped by mists and plunges into gloomy pensiveness. In the afternoon, amidst threatening grey skies, a funeral took place. The town was burying its richest inhabitant, a widely esteemed merchant and owner of the silk mill. The great funeral procession – comprised of the town’s first families, the representatives of every trade and the flower of the city’s youth – accompanied the deceased to the cemetery, where he was placed in his family tomb.

Tossati was in an excellent mood that day and furtively rubbed his hands with glee. The deceased was unusually rich and was laid in the tomb in very costly attire. As he was taking the body off the bier, the gravedigger noticed two diamond signets on the merchant’s middle and little fingers and a priceless ruby stud on his chest. Furthermore, he hadn’t buried anyone for a long while in such a good state of preservation and so well suited to anatomical explorations – the old professor from Padua would be most pleased. The double reward portended well; it necessitated, in truth, hard and laborious work, particularly as the tomb would be securely closed. Yet the affair would be worth the trouble.

Later that day, he got the sudden impulse to drop by The Hyena, an inn not far from the cemetery. This tavern, constructed years ago thanks to his covert efforts and funds, was given this odd name by an unknown carpenter who had arrived at the gravedigger’s special request. The name was justified by the front of the building, which had a stone hyena arching its spotted back over the inn. Soon the inn became the meeting place of pall bearers and gravediggers, who after every burial carried on a wake of their own, drinking away their earnings.

Out of principle Giovanni didn’t show himself in this den of gambling and drinking, though he liked to pass by in the evening and listen to the drunken gaiety of his people.

Despite this, he wasn’t able to resist temptation that day and decided to spend some time there in disguise. He first put on the attire of a high-ranking noble; then he attached his inseparable mask, secured a beard over it, and further hid himself with a wide hat. Thus dressed, he entered the inn early to observe at his leisure the funeral celebrations of his ‘children.’

That evening a considerable number of people, of various occupations and positions, were congregating at the inn – the season was raw, boredom stifled one at home, and a Saint’s Day feast, which would start the next day, brought many customers from surrounding areas. The proprietor of the inn, a sly, roguishly smiling old man, ran from table to table like a spinning top; he curled himself up, hemmed and hawed, poured wine and encouraged the singing. A group of wandering gypsies, squatting in the corner of the room, played melancholic-wild songs.

Around nine o’clock Tossati’s men entered, and the inn took on its true character.

Tossati didn’t take part in the conversations. Squeezed in a dark corner of the room, he covered his face with the wide brim of his hat so that he wouldn’t be recognized, and just consumed innumerable mugs of the honey wine in silence. He listened and observed.

People’s humour was exceptional, the mood, particularly after the entrance of the cemetery workers, gay. Anecdotes abounded, witticisms sparkled, jokes exploded. Peter Randone, a tall, stick-like scoundrel, especially outdid his companions by describing lewd scenes from his own experiences.

After midnight the inn started to slowly empty. The customers, wearied from drinking, went out one by one from the smoke-filled room and disappeared into the black night.