Long ago, I can't remember exactly when but it was a very long time ago, I was, so to say, born. To be certain, it was so long ago that if memory serves me correctly the world did not look as it does today. Well for one, people dressed differently way back then, they ate different foods, they spoke a different language and the world was, let's just say, a different place. Of course, I myself don't speak. At least I don't speak the way you do. I've worn this same robe since the day I was born. And I've been, so to speak, rooted in this chair since the day I first came to know about the sun. You see, I am really a portrait. Of a woman. And mind you, The Artist never completed me. So parts of me were left unfinished. But that is my secret...
Now I could tell you endless stories about how I came to be here, about where I am from, about who painted me, who I really am, who The Artist was and so on. I was going to say those things would bore you, the finer details of my life, but I think that, as a lady it would be more appropriate to just say nothing. Ahh The Woman, the things she tells you when she doesn't say anything... And instead, to let my mystery speak for itself… But I do want to say this though:
This morning a man came by to see me, there was a pretty woman with him. The man was, as all good men do, trying to impress the woman with his sense of artistic feeling by explaining to Her what The Artist had meant by painting me in this fashion. Oh my, you should have listened to this man. If ever there was a cornier man who didn't know what he was talking about then that man must have stood before me this morning. He ranted on and on about how much I look like the dead mother of The Artist, he even speculated that perhaps I was even a self-portrait of The Artist, he speculated that the look on my face, this soft mysterious smile I portray as my eyes cast themselves deeply towards some spot in the distance as I look out the window of my bedroom, that this look is the look of woman who yearns for her distant lover. He did say though, and to this I agree, that the imperfection of the mole The Artist rendered on my face was a mark of almost Holy style. I suppose that The Artist had tried to copy The Venetian Masters after all, in that respect.
But aren't you listening to me at all? The man, The Artist, and the art student who came by yesterday, they all got it wrong. I never wanted to be just a portrait of a woman. I never wanted to be just a pretty face you'd fall in love with, I never wanted to be a portrait of The Most Beautiful Woman In The World...
I wanted to be the meaning of one.