Dramatic Monologue: Through My Eyes

By: Aaira Mehta, Grade 6 Jais

The years have simply slipped by, like sand sliding out of my bare palms; I remember as every stroke of dry oil was carefully brushed to form me. Each time, the same way, but through the overused bristles of his paint brush, I felt something different each time. Most often, enchantment would overwhelm me. Other times sadness, grief and pain. Now as I look around at the sparkling eyes of all those in the Louvre, standing before me, I come to see what I really mean. They gaze at the immense beauty they imagine I have but really, there’s so much more beneath me.

It all started in 1503, when he first placed a canvas upon a rickety painters board. In a corner of a secluded room I was, for many years, with only a flickering light above me. When I had been left alone, every minute had felt like a year. But when the bristles of his paintbrush began stroking me once more, endless hours felt like simply seconds.

And eventually, as countless time passed, I found myself being secured within a golden frame. No longer was I sitting over a dusty painters board. It started to feel as if it all happened in a blink of an eye. My entire seclusive life was about to change. And miraculously so.

It had never occurred to me that he would have the strength left in his bare palms to complete brushing the numerous droplets of oil I needed to be me. But he did. When we saw him leave this world, the French Republic took my safety upon themselves, carefully placing me in the world renowned, Louvre.

Since then, over 500 years have gone by, and the realities of my life have begun to bestow upon me. As I hear the soft murmuring of all those in front of me, above the distant music that plays in Salle de Etats, my life’s unknown truths, dawn onto me, like a single string unravelling from woven threads. To them I am known as beautiful, even elegant, but no one will see me through the same eyes as he did. And that is my hidden beauty.