Mona Lisa Smile Page

Lisa’s painted hand—immobile for four hundred years—seemed to ache to reach out.

“It’s exhausting,” Lisa replied. But the corner of her mouth curled, just slightly.

“It’s not a code!” For the first time in five centuries, Lisa’s voice cracked. The famous mouth flattened. “It’s just… the corner of my mouth. Sometimes it curves because I am amused. Sometimes because I am sad. Sometimes because the light is pretty. But they come with their Freuds and their Da Vincis and their conspiracy theories, and they refuse to see me .” Mona Lisa Smile

And for once, nobody tried to solve it.

The gallery softened. Even Géricault’s dying men seemed to exhale. “It’s not a code

“She had been crying. I could tell—her eyes were pink, her jaw tight. And she whispered, very quietly, ‘How do you keep smiling when everyone wants something from you?’”

Lisa finally turned from the empty floor. Her face, in the low gallery light, was no longer the placid mask of legend. It was tired. “I am not a riddle,” she said. “I am a woman sitting in a chair. I am tired. I am warm. I am thinking about whether my eldest will marry well. That is all.” Sometimes it curves because I am amused

Veronese’s bride, tipsy on allegorical wine, leaned forward. “Then why keep doing it? Why not give them a frown tomorrow? A sneer? A yawn?”