We shall hang your portrait in the office." The zeal of creativeness--these are the only words I can apply to the passionate, silent agitation in which K.reproduced my features.

Usually talkative, he now maintained silence for hours, leaving unanswered my jests and remarks.
"Be silent, old man, be silent--you are at your best when you are silent," he repeated persistently, calling forth an involuntary smile by his zeal as a professional.
My portrait would remind you, my indulgent reader, of that mysterious peculiarity of artists, according to which they very often transmit their own feelings, even their external features, to the subject upon which they are working.

Thus, reproducing with remarkable likeness, the lower part of my face, where kindness and the expression of authoritativeness and calm dignity are so harmoniously blended, K.
undoubtedly introduced into my eyes his own suffering and even his horror.

Their fixed, immobile gaze; madness glimmering somewhere in their depth; the painful eloquence of a deep and infinitely lonely soul--all that was not mine.
"Is this I ?" I exclaimed, laughing, when from the canvas this terrible face, full of wild contradictions, stared at me.

"My friend, I do not congratulate you on this portrait.