Before going out, you take off your earrings, although you have already fastened one of them. Beside this sweater, even gold looks as though it is trying too hard. Weightless grey-lilac mohair leaves a faint haze around your shoulders. Over it, turquoise, plum and grey lie in dense matte strokes, as though the sweater had been painted directly onto you.
When you adjust your hair, the wide sleeve rises like a light cloud and slowly falls again. The other remains narrow; the dense colour reaches almost to the wrist and makes the line of your arm look especially graceful. One gesture, and the difference becomes obvious. Repeating it in front of the mirror is entirely unnecessary. Pleasant, though.
Outside, it is just cool enough to justify mohair, but not cool enough for the evening to earn the right to interfere with your plans. The fine yarn keeps in warmth and is barely felt. Light passes through the airy knit, the coloured sections deepen, and the grey-lilac haze takes on a faint blue cast.
There is nothing unnecessary in this sweater, although almost nothing in it turned out the same. The denser knit holds the colour; the weightless sections leave room for air. Even jewellery would be an unnecessary clarification of something already said perfectly well.
Next time, you wear the sweater back to front. The coloured line shifts, the wide and narrow sleeves change places, and the pattern looks different. Another time, you wear it inside out: the smooth mohair becomes slightly more textured. Good painting deserves to be examined from more than a respectful distance.
When you return, the earrings are lying beside the mirror exactly where you left them. You put them back in the jewellery box and look at the sweater once more.
Today, gold really would have been too much.