Mona Lisa Read online

  And then he was hauled out of the prison, taken to the Old Market and beheaded.

  The execution was carried out in full view of the inhabitants of the city, and the Marshal and his suite, the Gonfaloniere della Giustizia Piero Soderini, many members of the Signoria and a large number of the nobility as well as da Vinci were also present. The sight of the surging populace, the glare of the polished armour in the brilliant sunlight, the awesome cape of the executioner, the flash of the sword, the riot of colours and human forms were truly inspiring. Leonardo alone regarded everything with indifference. Immediately after the execution he returned home and with a few strokes of the brush changed Gioconda’s smile. He stood all the while a little to the right of the picture, on the same spot where Bougainville had once stood when he was looking at it, and the eyes of the woman, turned slightly to the left, regarded him in the same way as they had Philippe de Bougainville. After Leonardo had worked on the picture a little longer the smile was transformed completely, and the artist said to himself that it was now perfect. It was totally enchanting, both mysterious and enigmatic; it was impossible to tell if she smiled at Bougainville or whether she was luring him into very heaven; no one could tell what it was she was smiling at.

  The next day the Marshal pulled out of Florence and headed for Naples; however, the light-footed goddess of Victory eluded him, and in December 1503 he was beaten to destruction by the Spaniards at Consalvo.

  It was rumoured that Leonardo had spent four more years ceaselessly working on La Gioconda; in truth however he merely sat before it and stared at it.

  When he moved to Milan he took it with him; later he went with it to France, where he sold it to King Francis I for a large sum of gold. Since then it has been regarded as the most famous picture in the world, and is at present in Paris. There too no end of people fell in love with it; one idiot over-painted it and a certain Vincenzo Perrugia, a glazier, stole it and later gave it back in Florence, no one knows why. Attempts were made to associate it with a tedious love affair in which a real woman had played a part. But the real grounds for this have not come to light. Nor is it ever likely that they shall. No one ever knows the real grounds for anything.

  It has also been claimed that the picture in the Louvre is not authentic, but a fake. However, one would have to have no understanding whatsoever of the colossal stature of the painter or of love itself to insist that this was in fact true.

  PUSHKIN PRESS

  Pushkin Press was founded in 1997, and publishes novels, essays, memoirs, children’s books—everything from timeless classics to the urgent and contemporary.

  Our books represent exciting, high-quality writing from around the world: we publish some of the twentieth century’s most widely acclaimed, brilliant authors such as Stefan Zweig, Marcel Aymé, Antal Szerb, Paul Morand and Yasushi Inoue, as well as compelling and award-winning contemporary writers, including Andrés Neuman, Edith Pearlman and Ryu Murakami.

  Pushkin Press publishes the world’s best stories, to be read and read again. Here are just some of the titles from our long and varied list. For more amazing stories, visit www.pushkinpress.com.

  THE SPECTRE OF ALEXANDER WOLF

  GAITO GAZDANOV

  ‘A mesmerising work of literature’ Antony Beevor

  BINOCULAR VISION

  EDITH PEARLMAN

  ‘A genius of the short story’ Mark Lawson, Guardian

  TRAVELLER OF THE CENTURY

  ANDRÉS NEUMAN

  ‘A beautiful, accomplished novel: as ambitious as it is generous, as moving as it is smart’ Juan Gabriel Vásquez, Guardian

  BEWARE OF PITY

  STEFAN ZWEIG

  ‘Zweig’s fictional masterpiece’ Guardian

  THE WORLD OF YESTERDAY

  STEFAN ZWEIG

  ‘The World of Yesterday is one of the greatest memoirs of the twentieth century, as perfect in its evocation of the world Zweig loved, as it is in its portrayal of how that world was destroyed’ David Hare

  JOURNEY BY MOONLIGHT

  ANTAL SZERB

  ‘Just divine… makes you imagine the author has had private access to your own soul’ Nicholas Lezard, Guardian

  BONITA AVENUE

  PETER BUWALDA

  ‘One wild ride: a swirling helix of a family saga… a new writer as toe-curling as early Roth, as roomy as Franzen and as caustic as Houellebecq’ Sunday Telegraph

  THE PARROTS

  FILIPPO BOLOGNA

  ‘A five-star satire on literary vanity… a wonderful, surprising novel’ Metro

  I WAS JACK MORTIMER

  ALEXANDER LERNET-HOLENIA

  ‘Terrific… a truly clever, rather wonderful book that both plays with and defies genre’ Eileen Battersby, Irish Times

  SONG FOR AN APPROACHING STORM

  PETER FRÖBERG IDLING

  ‘Beautifully evocative… a must-read novel’ Daily Mail

  THE RABBIT BACK LITERATURE SOCIETY

  PASI ILMARI JÄÄSKELÄINEN

  ‘Wonderfully knotty… a very grown-up fantasy masquerading as quirky fable. Unexpected, thrilling and absurd’ Sunday Telegraph

  RED LOVE: THE STORY OF AN EAST GERMAN FAMILY

  MAXIM LEO

  ‘Beautiful and supremely touching… an unbearably poignant description of a world that no longer exists’ Sunday Telegraph

  THE BREAK

  PIETRO GROSSI

  ‘Small and perfectly formed… reaching its end leaves the reader desirous to start all over again’ Independent

  FROM THE FATHERLAND, WITH LOVE

  RYU MURAKAMI

  ‘If Haruki is The Beatles of Japanese literature, Ryu is its Rolling Stones’ David Pilling

  BUTTERFLIES IN NOVEMBER

  AUÐUR AVA ÓLAFSDÓTTIR

  ‘A funny, moving and occasionally bizarre exploration of life’s upheavals and reversals’ Financial Times

  BARCELONA SHADOWS

  MARC PASTOR

  ‘As gruesome as it is gripping… the writing is extraordinarily vivid… Highly recommended’ Independent

  THE LAST DAYS

  LAURENT SEKSIK

  ‘Mesmerising… Seksik’s portrait of Zweig’s final months is dignified and tender’ Financial Times

  BY BLOOD

  ELLEN ULLMAN

  ‘Delicious and intriguing’ Daily Telegraph

  WHILE THE GODS WERE SLEEPING

  ERWIN MORTIER

  ‘A monumental, phenomenal book’ De Morgen

  THE BRETHREN

  ROBERT MERLE

  ‘A master of the historical novel’ Guardian

  Copyright

  Pushkin Press

  71–75 Shelton Street

  London WC2H 9JQ

  Mona Lisa first published in German in 1937 as Mona Lisa

  © Alexander Dreihann-Holenia 2015

  Illustrations © Neil Gower 2015

  English language translation © The Estate of Ignat Avsey, 2015

  First published by Pushkin Press in 2015

  ISBN 978 1 782272 06 9

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from Pushkin Press

  www.pushkinpress.com