Mr B: And in this display case, a pair of North European mares

The sign offered half-price admission to anyone over 70. The columnist had only just turned 57, but the museum employee’s pointed reading of the handwritten notice made him feel suddenly, and offensively, much older.

He and his wife had arrived at the only tourist attraction in a small Italian town. Admission cost six euros per person, and they briefly considered postponing the visit. Then the young woman at the entrance turned toward a carelessly laminated sheet of paper and read its message with exaggerated clarity: “Half price when you’re over 70.”

He kept his first reaction to himself. Instead, he bought two full-price tickets. The episode came just after his birthday, which had brought its own psychological discomfort. Each time he says he is 57, he imagines a divine prankster appearing from behind a door to tell him the joke is over and that he should not forget his ID when buying alcohol.

The columnist says such an intervention seems more plausible to him than the fact that he is actually 57. He also describes a revealing slip in his writing. A sentence he began as a reflection on being 57 somehow ended with the words “that I would be afraid of death.” He corrected it easily, but says the incident has weakened his faith in the idea of Freudian slips of the tongue, or in this case, slips of the pen.

Despite the discomfort, he says he loves museums, whether large or small, precise or confusing. They always teach visitors something, even the cruelest ones.