Souls of the Louvre

I met her at dusk. 

The Louvre was closing; I stood by the statues of the gods, trying my very best to replicate the sculptures in my drawing pad. The attempt was in vain—I was only beginning to explore my artistry at the time, though the expertise in the carved stone proved too difficult for my stiff hands. 

I loosened my tie, still admiring Zeus’ strong jaw, when the darkness began to creep through the windows. This hindered my ability to sketch, and I put the pad back in my pocket, beginning to tread slowly across the room, looking up at frozen expressions and storing them in my memory (how impressive it is to capture such glory onto stone!). 

Lamps came alight then, shining a dim glow onto the statues—how I wish I could explain the beauty of Aphrodite’s figure, the warmth that eminated from Hestia’s fingers; how I desired to be their Adonis. 

People were starting to leave. The room grew less and less busy, security escorting others out the Louvre doors. I waited, Zeus’ eyes following me as I dove behind sculptures, behind chairs to extend my stay. I knew I’d have to leave soon, but the setting sun illuminated the deities in a hypnotizing manner, and I found myself unable to to tear my gaze from them. 

Then, I heard a woman’s laughter. 

It was exotic—a laughter from the chest’s core. Loud, filled with mirth, and enticing. 

Louder, quicker footsteps followed her laughter, and I turned—

—and there she was. A woman with long, curled brown hair to her waist and the widest smile one can imagine, holding up the frills of her dress as she ran through the hall of the gods. Guards were close behind (the clever woman had taken off her shoes, running deftly through the room with ease—it was as if she’d done this before), but her steps remained carefree. She ran towards something, towards me, directly in her path, and our eyes met across the room. 

The sun was set, moonlight spreading across the hall, and she raised her arm, reaching. 

Guards, running towards us—and I took her arm, ready to go wherever she took me. 

—

Another hall, more statues. But this time, there was a woman by my side. 

We escaped our chasers (somehow), and found refuge in the company of the statues and paintings that surrounded us. We panted, leaning on each other for support, when she began to laugh once more. 

She laughed and laughed, and I soon found myself laughing with her. The thrill of the chase, of holding the arm of an unknown companion as we ran through the Louvre—it was the most alive I’d ever felt. 

“I didn’t think you would take my hand,” she said between breaths, a small accent slipping through her words. 

(She had the most marvelous voice—a soft, melodic sound, rivaling that of the angels.) 

“I didn’t think I would, either,” I said. 

“Well,” she said, flattening her dress, “I am glad you did.” 

I sat, leaning against Nike’s platform. “Why?”

The woman paused, looking into my eyes. “I saw you. You did not look away, you did not run. I am a stranger, yet you followed me. Perhaps, it was meant to be.”

—

“What’s your name?”

”Victoria.” 

—

We sat on the ledge of a window, the moon’s eyes staring back at ours. 

“What were you doing, earlier?” 

She turned her head, “What do you mean?”

“In the hall—you were running.”

“Then that is what I was doing.”

I chuckled. It earned me a grin in return. “You know what I mean.”

Victoria hummed. “It was exciting. Doing what I am not supposed to, trespassing a famous museum I have never been to. I have only read about it, seen it in the papers—Spain has art, but the Louvre has always been the object of my dreams. I am an artist, I see the stories and the humans behind the paintings and sculptures, and one day I wish to be the world’s Van Gogh, the world’s Da Vinci. 

“Artists have lived, you know. They have lived countless lives, and I am certain that if the creator of these statues watched us run past them with the awe we have, they would know we are fulfilling their purpose.”

I was struck by her words. She was right—artists have lived. They’ve lived lives worth living, though most artists were (and are) victims of madness, of sadness. But after hearing her words, I concluded that a life as an artist (to see without seeing, to touch the souls of others) was the life I desired. 

Perhaps my sketching was mediocre, but that was never the criterion to become great. 

“So,” I said, slowly, “you broke into the Louvre because…you want to be an artist?”

Victoria threw her head back, resting against the window with a laugh. “Yes, I suppose so.”

—

She said my name with purpose. 

Theodore. 

Like it meant something to her. 

She practiced it in her tongue, testing the word in her mouth before she whispered it under her breath. Her accent broke through when she said it in laughter. Her features scrunched up when she said it, a small tease. 

It was something important, something that mattered. I had never been the popular type, nor the flashiest—I grew up with middle class parents in a middle class neighborhood, and with what was possibly the most common surname of the country (Brown. Theodore Brown!)—but when she said my name, it was like it was the only one in the world. 

—

We walked through another large hall, one filled with paintings. 

A piano sat at the end of the hall, unused, unable to be used. I learned that Victoria loved the piano, as she skipped over to it with her dress scrunched in her hands, reaching to touch it. I told her the alarms would go off, and she stopped, but I saw the longing in her eyes as she walked away. 

“What’s your favorite song?” I asked. 

“Piano song?” I nodded. “Swan Lake.” 

“I should have guessed.”

“It is beautiful, Theodore!” 

“Yes, objectively—but it’s sad.”

“Are you calling me sad?”

I groaned. “Not exactly,” I started, “more…melancholic. Dramatic. You have stuff to you.”

She considered this. “Hm. Then maybe it is a compliment. Stuff is good, you know. Experience is what creates a person, what makes them who they are. I believe I am made up of my past, and that defines me.”

I blinked. “Right.”

”You don’t agree?”

”I do. But there’s an agency to what makes a person as well. You aren’t defined by what’s happened to you, but you take control over who you can be.”

”Perhaps it is both.”

Even though the piano was untouched, Victoria’s voice filled the air with what the piano could have been. 

Earlier I wrote that her voice was melodic—and that was precisely the word. Not only could she paint, she could sing. She sang in the room, her voice echoing off the walls with perfect control, singing Swan Lake without care of who might hear her. She danced, always reaching at me whenever she went past, and I eventually grabbed her to join. 

Her beautiful voice in my ear, our dancing from hall to hall past the paintings, the sculptures, Zeus and Aphrodite and Hestia, at Nike—it was the most gloriest heaven a man could ask for. 

We danced until the morning broke. 

—

In the light of sunrise, we stood at the statue of Zeus, right at the place she first reached out to me. 

We faced each other, the gods watching.

“May we meet again, Theodore,” she said. 

”We will.”