I knew that for this breach of discipline new incarceration awaited him.
"O, impetuous youth," I thought when he had grown somewhat calmer, and I was tenderly unfolding his fine hair which had become entangled, "how easily you fall into despair! A bit of drawing, which may in the end fall into the hands of a dealer in old rags, or a dealer in old bronze and cemented porcelain, can cause you so much suffering!" But, of course, I did not tell this to my youthful friend, striving, as any one should under similar circumstances, not to irritate him by unnecessary contradictions.
"Thank you, old man," said K., apparently calm now.

"To tell the truth you seemed very strange to me at first; your face is so venerable, but your eyes.

Have you murdered anybody, old man ?" I deliberately quote the malicious and careless phrase to show how in the eyes of lightminded and shallow people the stamp of a terrible accusation is transformed into the stamp of the crime itself.
Controlling my feeling of bitterness, I remarked calmly to the impertinent youth: "You are an artist, my child; to you are known the mysteries of the human face, that flexible, mobile and deceptive masque, which, like the sea, reflects the hurrying clouds and the azure ether.

Being green, the sea turns blue under the clear sky and black when the sky is black, when the heavy clouds are dark.

What do you want of my face, over which hangs an accusation of the most cruel crime ?" But, occupied with his own thoughts, the artist apparently paid no particular attention to my words and continued in a broken voice: "What am I to do?
You saw my drawing.