top the dust swirled around in front of K.'s eyes, robbing him of breath for some time. “Moorland landscape,” said the painter passing the picture to K. It showed two sickly trees, well separated from each other in dark grass. In the background there was a multi-coloured sunset. “That's nice,” said K. “I'll buy it.” K. expressed himself in this curt way without any thought, so he was glad when the painter did not take this amiss and picked up a second painting from the floor. “This is a counterpart to the first picture,” said the painter.

Perhaps it had been intended as a counterpart, but there was not the slightest difference to be seen between it and the first picture, there were the trees, there the grass and there the sunset. But this was of little importance to K.