At first, when I was trying to do a drawing of Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery, I included a crowd scene, in the temple, with the woman in the foreground, and her accusers looking to Jesus as they gestured and awaited his reaction, but then I started over, this time omitting everything but the face of the woman, whose expression was downcast, as if she was certain she’d be put to death, so that she seemed sad and afraid, and unable to say anything in her own defense, but then I quit even that, and began once more, depicting now only the dirt in which Jesus is said to have written, with his finger, remaining silent, until, when the men would still not depart, but remained in his presence, insisting, he looked up and spoke those words that caused them to drop the stones and rocks they’d brought with them, for the purpose of retribution, and, beginning with the eldest, to one by one walk away.