This is how the character, Clair, a painter initially blocks the guilt from her conscious, when she takes up an art seller on his his offer to duplicate Degas' work and showcase it as an original. She tells herself "There's no crime in copying a painting."
Readers are introduced to Clair, an amateur artist, as she is sorting through her paintings deciding which decides ones she should display on Common Wealth Avenue. Her paintings include "Woman Leaving Her Bath" and "The Tower" Reproductions.com pays her to repaint them and sells the paintings online as "perfect replicas" unfortunately this only pays a few thousand dollars per painting. Not nearing enough to pay for rent, painting supplies and her tab at a local bar.
Not only is Clair barely surviving on an artist' wage but she also fails to win at the Art World Trans contest to another painter. Clair will do anything to seek revenge on this painter, and when Markel, a rich art seller, tells her that he'll get her work showcased at a One-Woman Show at Markel 6, Clair is entranced by this offer, knowing this is exactly the revenge she seeks. She becomes even more allured when Markel offers $50,000 to Clair, to paint for him one of Degas' original work. Markel plans to sell it as an original, which is illegal, but he counteracts this term of illegal, by saying "there is illegal, and then there is illegal."
