He looks at the cold moon shining bright in the sky. The
wind has picked up. It is going to snow again in the night. He says himself. He
shivers as the wind flow through his body.
'Merde!' He utters.
Then along the pavement he walks a little and stop near the
easel which he is painting for quite some days.
'I have to finish this today.'
He whispers.
Somewhere a car passes.
Someone far plays a violin.
He lit a candle sheltered from the wind and then looked at
the painting.
A beggar sitting before a faded mirror in moonlight.
Something is missing. He thinks. It is now seven days that
he stares at the picture and says the same thing.
The wind now blows in a gust.
He trembles.
The wind so high that it hit the canvas in the easel.
He looks again to the moon.
As if searching a meaning of her such glow tonight.
He scents smell of coffee floating in the air.
How long I have tasted fresh hot coffee?
He cannot remember.
Then for a moment he closes his eyes.
In half sense he is lost in a trance where he can see a
young man walking down on the streets of Paris. Walking in through a cafe.
Stopping to buy a second hand coat in the market of Pigalle. Then one day the
walk in the bookshop where she saw her. The woman he loved all her life. Each
day he went to the bookshop to see her to talk with her on books on poems of
Baudlaire. Then one day he told her everything he can. Beside the Seine on the
grass they made love. They were about to get married and she went back home.
But then she never came back. He took the train to Giverny but he didn't know
her address and never found her. He roamed for days for a week for a month.
Then he came back to Paris but he found he no more can live there. The woman
haunts. He took a small job in Spain and went there.
Suddenly after fifty he felt a terrible pain of missing
Paris.
He left the job he did for twenty five years.
But Paris has changed by then. It is no more the same city.
He started doing all type of jobs and sketching and painting as much he can a
passion which he never left. But that's not enough to earn food and a shelter
in Paris. One day as he was unable to pay the rent, he was thrown out of his
house. Not too long ago. Three months.
Then the winter came.
Then this night.
The wind hit him.
His whole body foodless for days now pains.
He coughs.
But suddenly he open his eyes.
With a new light.
He picked up the brush and mixed water in the frozen paint.
Then with his blurred vision he stares for a while quite a
while and then paints. In the candle light whose flame is becoming thinner and
thinner he paints first as much as his old hands can move.
'Before the candle flame goes'. He says himself.
Then at one time he keeps the brush.
Smiles.
The candle flame extinguishes.
He closes his eyes.
It started snowing.
Next morning when the sunlight came there is a small crowd
on the pavement.
Before them there lies a finished painting where a beggar
stares at the faded mirror where there is a shadow of a woman reflecting.
The fresh colur of the shadow shows it is the last part
painted and not long before.
'Perhaps just six hours ago ', one artist in the crowd says
touching the color.
'What a wonderful painting! ' A woman whispers among the
crowd.
'Let him take to the hospital.' Someone says.
The arist hold the pulse of the beggar.
He nods.
'No, use. He is dead.'
'Dead?' A murmur rises.
'Yes' , the artist looks at the face of the beggar and the
fresh color on the painting.
He added.
'Yes. He is dead perhaps just an hour after he painted his
last brushstroke.'
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