Final Secret of Leonardo da Vinci revealed: why did he paint the Mona Lisa?

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= Woman in the Moon =

Mona Lisa Novel, or: Nocturne in Paris

by John Argo

Page 37.

Leonardo da Vinci's secret: Mona Lisa is his sacred woman in the moonAfter some drawings and doodlings of no apparent purpose, maybe just to pass time while drinking, the next entry read:

November 12: Married and scared. Doubts. Will things ever change? Stana drunk, doesn’t want a baby, says Chetko raped her as a child. What have I gotten into here? And the new supervision at work is from hell: a lieutenant with a low IQ and a huge ego, sociopath monster; and a top striper who hates me and the United States and prays for a white-only South to rise again in Jesus’ name or some such stupid shit.

Wish I could run away to Paris, kneel before Clau, beg her to forgive me. But I am trapped here, drinking too much, my old friends all left at their ETS, as I should have, rather than sink into this nightmare. I have no new friends. Not a soul to talk to. This was heaven, and has become hell. I was a fool. Now all I have to live for is my ETS. Getting Stana out of here so she can become real with herself; and raising a wonderful child in Oregon, free from this Dark Forest.

The document trailed on from there, consisting of many entries probably made while Daddy was drunk, maybe sitting in the Zum Forst with Frau Jones, who became one of his only allies.

The baby died, Stana stayed, and Dan left alone to start life all over.

When Hannah couldn’t stand it anymore, she put the magnifier down sharply, slammed the journal shut, and hoped she would never again have to look inside of it, which was like opening a door and looking into a hot, blazing, blinding hell.

As Hannah sat gathering her breath and calming down, she fought tears.

At the same time, something tingled at her memory. Paris 75012. That would be the Twelfth Arrondissement. She and Yves had driven past that somber, gray address in the douzième or Twelfth upstream on the Seine. She pulled close her computer and researched online maps. She began near Bercy Village, in the general area where the Marne and Seine Rivers flow together westward as one river (the Seine) through the center of Paris. Nothing jumped out at her. It was a dead end, or so it seemed, until a phone call the next day—surprise—from Madame Tournesol at the Louvre administration offices.

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