Thomas Bernhard's novel Old Masters, first published in 1985, consists—true to style—of a single paragraph. The plot is very minimal, as with most of Bernhard's works: the tutor Atzbacher (who is also, apparently, a philosopher, even though he has never published anything) has been summoned for a meeting by his elderly friend Reger at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. For thirty years, Reger has visited the so-called Bordone room, which houses Tintoretto's painting White-Bearded Man, every other day. Precisely every other day.