The other day, Dino, our neighbor across the road, saw me in front of our new home in Italy and called out, “Good evening!” His English, though _________, is much better than my Italian. “You OK?” he asked.

He had_________ me before, usually with a good morning or a good evening. Once, seeing him trying to_________a tall street lamp, I’d held the ladder for him to climb. But that was pretty much it for us: a general air of_________, nothing more.

I’ d just_________46 years living in New York City. But now I ‘ m living in a town in Italy’ s Puglia region, and everyone here except my family is a_________. And, living in the countryside as we do, I’ve started to feel pains of rural_________

This moment therefore seemed an _________to get to know Dino a little. I could have stayed behind our gates to talk with him through his gates. But_________I crossed the road toward him. I stood in the street talking with Dino and his wife, Grazia-I in English, they in Italian. One minute later they______________me in for a tour.

Here was a fig(无花果)tree, ____________ripe figs. Dino picked a few of the fruits, tore one in half, and put one half in his mouth. He handed me the other half and ____________ to me to follow suit, and I did. “Delicious!” I____________

I once saw a wonderful documentary about Gregory Peck. In it, the older actor travels to Ireland to meet his new grandson. But first, wandering a field, he ____________ a fig tree. He picks a fig and eats it with____________delight. To me, the____________ captures the sweetness of life and how such sweetness is all around us if only we’d ____________to reach out and taste it.

Dino and I ____________ this sequence with trees bearing plums and walnuts, too-he picking, I sampling. In spite of our____________in language neither of us knew many of the other’s words - nothing important was lost. Both of us understood all we needed to understand: that now we were ____________neighbors.

One day a famous painter painted a picture. He put it on exhibition with the title “Not for_______”. However, it was so beautiful a painting that whoever_______that exhibition asked the painter to sell that painting for whatever amount he would_______it. But he said, “I'm extremely sorry but I can’t sell this for any amount. I will sell it to only that person who will understand its_______.” Then, an old man came over and said, “I want to buy this painting and here is the_______in this small box for it.” There was a paint brush and colors in it. Then, he gave that painting to the old man.

All the other people asked the painter with_______, “Why did you sell it for a paint brush and a few colors to this old man? We were_______you a huge amount for this painting.” The painter said, “If you_______the painting, there is a man who is teaching a kid to paint with so much_______. So, the man in the picture is this old man and that kid is me. He is my teacher who taught me to paint and made me become what I am today just thanks to his devotion and________. And, the real value of this painting is just a paint brush which is________by my teacher as this paint brush is more________than your wealth. With this paint brush I can paint many more paintings.”All people understood and________the bonding(情谊) of a teacher and his student.

A teacher always gives his best wealth to his student in the form of knowledge, wisdom and art with a(n)________that his student will________make use of it.