The portrait

When he learned of the mysterious disappearance of Véronique de Coulanges, Oskar Serti could not accept this stroke of fate. He commissioned the artist Pierre Lipart to paint a portrait of Véronique as soon as possible, so that he could have the illusion that she was always at his side.
When the portrait was delivered, Serti was overwhelmed by the breath of life with which she was infused. He felt so captivated by the intensity of her gaze, the vividness of her lips, the satin quality of her skin, that he feared he would never be able to take his eyes off the portrait. The fear that a blind passion for the painting would extinguish that feeling of tender serenity he had always had for Véronique, drove Serti to consult the diary to which he had for years been in the habit of consigning the hours he spent in her company. Thanks to his meticulous account, he was able to make up with the portrait for all the time he had spent with Véronique in the past.
On the 7th of June 1912, after years of pleasant daily contemplation, Serti suddenly had the dreadful impression that he no longer recognised Véronique’s features in the image of the young woman. He had just used up all his time, and the memory of his well-beloved disappeared with it from the surface of the canvas.
Serti had a drape placed over the stranger in the picture; but he was desperate for a miracle to happen: that the drape would fall away of its own accord and that Véronique’s familiar face would appear once more. He might have remained for days waiting in front of the covered picture, but, so that he should not fall into an irrepressible melancholy, he turned to his diary to verify the time he had spent each day waiting at his window for Véronique to come back to him.