“What does it look like? Do you think I sleep with my paintbrush in my mouth?” Josef pushed the brush toward Hosentauf’s nose so that the smell of fresh varnish made the older man’s eyes water and his nose run. “You distrust me,” Josef said, now that he had the advantage. “You’ve always distrusted me. How can I work under such conditions?”

Hosentauf stepped back. “All right. But my wife tells me that you eat more than ten farmhands put together, and I won’t be taken advantage of. We’ve yet to see a glimmer of our painting. You’ve been here six weeks now, eating our good food, using our nice room. The painter my cousin had did his portrait in two weeks and was gone.”

“And the painting probably won’t last much longer than that,” Josef retorted, getting into it. “A good artist needs time.” He pointed dramatically to the draped easel. “Your portrait is covered, I’ve told you. It makes me nervous to show a painting before its done. And it took me a good two weeks to get started as it is; your wife put me in such a mood that I couldn’t think, much less paint.”

“Shush.” Hosentauf’s light blue eyes lowered. Some of the belligerence drained from his face. He’d been shaking his finger at Josef. Now he fussed with his shirt instead, and looked almost pleadingly up into Josef’s stormy face. “My wife is impatient to see the painting. Women, they cannot wait.”

“Ah, don’t I know,” Josef said, as if they shared a dark mysterious secret. “But very soon now I’ll unveil the portrait.” He threw his arms out dramatically, smiled grandly. “You will see your family immortalized through the ages. The Hosentauf Family. The portrait will go down through the generations, from father to son—”

“He’s a lazy clout, and you should put him out in the snow like the cur he is,” yelled Avona Hosentauf from the stairs.

Flinching, her husband closed the door.

“Ahh, very well,” shouted Josef. “I’ll burn my painting rather than give it to the likes of that one. None of you deserves fine art. You’re worse than shopkeepers.” He rummaged through the room, picking up his belongings. Then he stopped in front of the covered easel.

“You will never be completed, never,” he moaned. “Some silly woman prevents it. Ah well, if they resent the few morsels of food I eat, the use of this tiny room in exchange for a masterpiece—”

Hosentauf was an unimaginative man, at least generally speaking. It didn’t occur to him at this point that anyone could fake such anguish. “Now, now,” he said hurriedly. “I’ll talk things over with my wife. I’ll see what she says.” He backed out of the room and closed the door.