Once upon a time:

Once upon a time there was a story that recounted the tragedy or curses of those who had it in that painting, a masked man appears who no one knows who he is.
The story was told by an old mentor from abroad, in a January actual, sitting by the fireplace in his room at the university. At that time the fire was actually lit and the charcoal was carried by a servant in huge brass buckets.
This man was already in his eighties as an oak tree and his mind was as sharp as ever, but disabled by arthritis so severe that he had difficulty walking and leaving his room.
The university took good care of him. He belonged to a dying generation: the former Cambridge graduate who was a family to him at his university.
He had lived in that pleasant environment for over fifty years and would gladly die there.
Meanwhile some of his old students from several generations ago, agreed to visit him from time to time to give them news and impressions of the exterior. Because he loved the world so much.
He loved hearing gossip: hearing who had gotten what job, who was succeeding, who was about to fill that important office, who was involved in some scandal.
But some of his students did not like to give the impression that it was a compassionate visit to an old man from whom the student got little in return.

On the contrary, ___ he was a formidable, resourceful, severe, cunning companion, a sack of stories that were not only the haunting memories of an old man.