Faldoni, parts 2600 - 2603

 2600. But I will not defend myself and claim that I did not copy the story line from a movie. The story line I am going to refer to exists very often in life itself, and so it is not surprising to find it appearing here and there in many existing biographies.

 2601. What I am talking about is that situation where a novice goes to a master and asks to learn a specific martial art. The master refuses to teach the student until the student spends some weeks or months involved in some seemingly meaningless task, like the waxing of cars in the, “Karate Kid.” 

 2602. This endless involvement it a repetitive task is used to mold the aspiring character’s temperament, and somehow, in that activity, the necessary transformation  happens, and the student becomes in his turn, a master.

2603. So Faldoni’s painting of faces every day served the same function as the waxing of cars, and both have their origin in the story of the man who must dig a tunnel through a mountain. I do not know the source of this story or where I first heard it, but I consider it the grandfather of all of the others and I will give it here in an abbreviated form.