The brothers speak frankly: the artist confesses that the foundling has the same birthmark under his shoulder blade that his wife had, and decides to take the boy into his home as a son. In response, the doctor reveals everything he has been holding onto for thirty years. Then Andrey Ivanovich climbs up to the dusty attic, finds a forgotten canvas—a portrait of a girl with black eyes—and for the first time in many years remembers how it all happened: Rome, lazy dolce far niente, a compliant copyist, and the owner of a small house with two daughters.