In the morning, his slumber was disrupted by a tremendous noise. Bulldozers were roaring outside, preparing to crush the building. The roof fell in just as the painter dashed out the door. He shivered from the morning cold and started to walk away, but he was stopped by one of the bulldozer operators, who asked him hurriedly, "Excuse me, is this yours?," and showed him a blank stretched canvas. "This was in the building, in your room." The painter shrugged and replied honestly, "No, it isn't mine, and the room wasn't mine, either," and kept on walking. But he couldn't help himself. He turned around. He saw a lonely white canvas and a folded easel leaning against the concrete wall, which was about to be knocked down. Before he lost his nerve, he dashed back and collected those treasures. He remembered being hungry every day during his school years because of that scoundrel Izvosia, and had vowed never to take another person's property, but in this case he was saving the items from imminent destruction. Dragging the heavy easel, with the canvas under his arm, he decided to look for a lost-and-found.
But, before he had gone far, a cheerful crone crossed his path. The painter asked her if she knew who used to live in the demolished house. "A painter did," she informed him readily. "He had a contract to paint his old classmate's portrait and was almost done, but suddenly died. There were no heirs. Oh dear, what mayhem followed. The gangsters drove up in their tanks, posted guards, grabbed everything. The poor folks got nothing, as usual."
"Take this, then." The painter offered her his treasures.
"Nah," the crone scoffed. "I picked up plenty of junk there: brushes, paints, two rolls of canvas. At the market, no one would give me a penny for them. So I just tossed everything. Painters don't use brushes these days. They use sprays of some kind. And some, I've heard, give themselves enemas with paint and then poop directly on the canvas. Can you believe it?"
The strangely well-informed crone was dancing a kind of jig, like Izvosia, and quickly disappeared around the corner.
Right away, the painter raced to his favorite spot, across from the bakery. Golden baguettes floated in people's arms and grocery bags; the rain had stopped, and the turquoise sky was bright; the pink and yellow buildings were crowding one another, around the little church on the narrow street; and an ancient hag in an orange housedress was limping toward the bakery.
The painter set up his easel and proceeded to work so fast that his movements were blurred. The brushes were dancing in his hands, and very soon the canvas began to shine and glitter. Passersby stopped in amazement, offering friendly comments: "The sky is wrong," "The bread is wrong," and so on. The painter had heard such comments before and ignored them. The swindler Adik, incidentally, had acted differently when they first met. He had approached the painter and praised immoderately a barely started sketch. Naturally, the painter had felt flattered that a sensitive judge of his talent had finally come along, and he had invited Adik to his home to look at other paintings. Full of compliments, Adik had offered to help such a gifted painter sell his apartment at a profit and buy a cheaper one. The same day, he'd given Adik the power of attorney for all his property. We know how that ended.
He soon finished the painting. Suddenly, it occurred to him to check in with his lawyer regarding his lawsuit against Adik. He headed in that direction, carrying the painting with him, and after a few paces looked back, to say goodbye to his beloved spot. But somehow the spot had disappeared. A cloud of thick fog had descended on the intersection and made it invisible. Funny how quickly the weather changes, the painter thought absent-mindedly, and kept walking.
