I dreamed that I was a servant in a large, wealthy household in Florance in the early 1500s. I was mostly a chambermaid, and sometimes a cook's helper. My parents had died when I was a young child, and I was taken in by my godmother, Maria, who was the cook in this household. She was a kind, but unaffectionate woman. I earned my keep.
Down the cobbled street lived an eccentric gentleman named Leonardo da Vinci. My godmother had told me to stay away from him. He was an artist, apparently, and you couldn't trust people who belonged to the arts. Especially if they were also nobility.
I was walking on the street one day, when da Vinci stepped around a corner, startling me. While I stammered an apology for nearly running into him, he stared at me intently. He then demanded that I come in his house for a moment. I tried to refuse, but he was already halfway back to his gate. I followed. He was a gentleman after all.
He made me sit down on a stool in what looked like a painter's workshop. He stared at me for maybe five minutes, before turning to his desk to write a short note. He handed me the piece of parchment and told me to deliver it to my master. I left, confused, but relieved that was all that had happened.
When I gave my master the note that evening, he laughed.
"It seems as though Senior da Vinci wants to paint you." He looked at me closely. "I can hardly see why. You're not the prettiest, even out of my servants. Oh well, no matter. He has the ear of the court. Any favor I can do is to my benefit. Go to him tomorrow. You're dismissed."
Over the next few weeks, I sat for da Vinci, while he painted my portrait. I was very nervous at first, but it fell into a kind of routine. He was not to be talked to while he was painting, but he was kind once he was finished for the day. I had never known a man like him. He seemed to know everything. He spoke differently than the other nobility I had heard, much more frankly, without the many layers of diplomacy and embellishments.
Only when my portrait was done, did da Vinci allow me to see it. What I saw took my breath away. It was me, certainly. It was my likeness, almost exactly. But it was more than that. It saw past my rather plain appearance, and showed a creature that was vulnerable, beautful and holy. It was as if you could see God looking out through her eyes. I couldn't take my eyes from it. The spell was only broken after several minutes, when da Vinci suddenly covered it with a cloth, and bid me goodnight.
After my time sitting for da Vinci was finished, I found other reasons to visit him. I enjoyed his strange company, but I also felt a strong attraction to the painting. I felt more complete after looking at it, as if it showed me the person I really am. My master tried to curry favor with the artist, so I delivered many parchments back and forth. One day when I walked into his workshop, da Vinci was holding my portrait, looking at it sadly. When I asked him if anything was wrong, he told me that my portrait had caught the eye of a rich nobleman from Rome, and it was to be sent to him tomorrow.
I was horrified. My painting! I felt as if he had told me they were breaking my soul in two, and sending the more beautiful half to Rome. I turned and walked out of the workshop without a word.
I lay in my bed that night in a sort of fever. I couldn't let my portrait be sent away. I had become so fixated on it, so dependent on seeing it almost every day, that I felt I would surely die if I could never see it again. I felt panicked, almost mad with the desperation of staying close to my portrait.
I got out of bed, and dressed in the dark. The house was dark except for one candle in each room. I grabbed only a few items: my purse with what little money I had, my one spare set of clothing, and a loaf of bread and a wheel of cheese out of the kitchen. I crept out of the house and down the street.
Leonardo's house was dark, without candles. I grabbed a candle on the porch of an estate across the road, and made my way into da Vinci's workshop. It was completely silent as I crept towards where my portrait stood covered on an easel. I uncovered it, and felt the immediate euphoria that this painting always held for me. My resolve stiffened. I wrapped the painting back in the cloth. It only fit halfway into my travel sack, but I stuffed it in anyway. Within moments I was out the door, escaping into the night.
I had no idea where to go. I had heard I had a cousin in Fiesole.(*) Without any other options coming to mind, I headed north along the road.
I walked most of the night. In the hours just before dawn, I was on a long, empty stretch of road. At least I thought it was empty until suddenly, 3 men stepped out from the low bushes on the side of the road. They said nothing. They simply came towards me with an air of business like intent. Brisk and emotionless.
One grabbed hold of me from behind. I struggled against him, but I might as well have struggled against a mountain. Another man grabbed my travel sack. He uncovered my painting, holding it up for the others to see.
I screamed, "NO!"
"Calm down, girl. We wouldn't want to hurt you."
I elbowed the man restraining me, in the groin, hard. He let go of me, and doubled over. I ran at the man holding my painting. I hardly knew what I was doing. I acted out of a half-insane, animalistic desire to get the painting away from them. I clawed at the man. He swore and tried to fend me off with one hand. The other man came at me, shouting, but in my wild state, I could not understand him. I went for the eyes of the man holding the painting.
Suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my side. I looked down, and saw that the 3rd man had stabbed me with a dagger. All three of us paused, gawking at my wound. I knew I would die. My only thoughts were that the painting would be taken from me. I looked back at the man I was attacking. With my last strength, I punched my hand as hard as I could through my own portrait's face. I tore as much of the painting off the canvas as I could, and ripped it into several pieces. Then blackness overtook me.
I awoke in a soft bed. My head felt heavy and I ached all over. There was a strong, dull ache in my side. A woman in the room hummed softly as she bustled about. I coughed softly, and she came up to the bed, concern written all over her kind face.
"You're awake! Lord in Heaven! We didn't think you'd make it."
She told me I was in the Twofeather Inn. I was found on the road about a mile away, half-dead and bloody. I had been asleep for 6 days. Before I fell back into a painful sleep, I asked her about the painting. She patted my head affectionately and didn't answer.
Then I woke up.
I suppose it's been a while since I've had a dream as detailed as that. I woke up feeling dejected and achy. What a strange story. Unlike most of my dreams, it almost has an ending, even if it is a depressing one.
(*I have never heard of Fiesole before. But it was a very clear name in the dream. I looked it up, and found it to be a real place. O_o ).
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