Sight and Insight Theme Analysis

The woman looked as if she had been blown about by the wind, although it was a calm day. Her cap was askew so that tiny blond curls escaped and hung about her forehead like bees which she swatted at impatiently several times. Her collar needed straightening and was not as crisp as it could be. She pushed her gray mantle back from her shoulders, and I saw then that under her dark blue dress a baby was growing. It would arrive by the year’s end, or before.

The woman’s face was like an oval serving plate, flashing at times, dull at others. Her eyes were two light brown buttons, a color I had rarely seen coupled with blond hair. She made a show of watching me hard, but could not fix her attention on me, her eyes darting about the room.

I always laid vegetables out in a circle, each with its own section like a slice of pie. There were five slices: red cabbage, onions, leeks, carrots, and turnips. […]

The man tapped his finger on the table. “Are they laid out in the order in which they will go into the soup?” […]

“No, sir.” I hesitated. I could not say why I had laid out the vegetables as I did. I simply set them out as I felt they should be, but I was too frightened to say so to a gentleman.

“I see you have separated the whites […] And then the orange and purple, they do not sit together. Why is that?”

[…]

“The colors fight when they are side by side, sir.”

He arched his eyebrows, as if he had not expected such a response. “And do you spend much time setting out the vegetables before you make the soup?”

The woman standing in the doorway had a broad face, pockmarked form an earlier illness. Her nose was bulbous and irregular, and her thick lips were pushed together to form a small mouth. Her eyes were light blue, as if she had caught the sky in them. She wore a grey-brown dress with a white chemise, a cap tied tight around her head, and an apron that was not as clean as mine. She stood blocking the doorway, so that Maertge and Cornelia had to push their way out round her, and she looked at me with crossed arms as if waiting for a challenge.

Already she feels threatened by me, I thought. She will bully me if I let her.

“My name is Griet,” I said, gazing at her levelly. “I am the new maid.”

I was about to blow out the candle when I noticed the painting hanging at the foot of my bed. I sat up, wide awake now. It was another picture of Christ on the Cross, smaller than the one upstairs but even more disturbing. Christ had thrown his head back in pain, and Mary Magdalene’s eyes were rolling. I lay back gingerly, unable to take my eyes off it. I could not imagine sleeping in the room with the painting. Finally I blew out the candle—I could not afford to waste candles on my first day in the new house. I lay back again, my eyes fixed to the place where I knew the painting hung.

“But you have been in his studio— [but] you told us […] nothing about the painting he is working on. Describe it to me.”

“I don’t know if I can in such a way that you will be able to see it.”

“Try. […] It will give me pleasure to imagine a painting by a master, even if my mind creates a poor imitation.”

So I tried to describe the woman tying pearls around her neck, her hands suspended, gazing at herself in the mirror, the light from the window bating her face and her yellow mantle, the dark foreground that separated her from us.

My father listened intently, but his own face was not illuminated until I said, “The light on the back wall is so warm that looking at it feels the way the sun feels on your face.”

He nodded and smiled, please now that he understood.

“But why do you look at it, sir, when you can look at your own painting?”

“You do not understand. […] This is a tool. I use it to help me see, so that I am able to make the painting.”

“But—you use your eyes to see.”

“True, but my eyes do not always see everything […] Tell me, Griet,” he continued, “do you think I simply paint what is there in that corner? […] The camera obscura helps me to see in a different way,” he explained. “To see more of what is there.”

When he saw the baffled expression on my face he must have regretted saying so much to someone like me. He turned and snapped the box shut. […]

“Sir—”

“Thank you, Griet,” he said as he took it from me. “Have you finished with the cleaning here?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You may go, then.”

[H]e was standing in the doorway. […] The girls ran up to him and tried to snatch off the paternity cape he wore […] He looked both proud and embarrassed. I was surprised—he had become a father five times before, and I thought he would be used to it. There was no reason for him to feel embarrassed.

It is Catharina who wants many children, I thought then. He would rather be alone in his studio.

But […] I knew how babies were made. […] And as difficult as Catharina could be, I had often seen him look at her, touch her shoulder, speak to her in a low voice laced with honey.

I did not like to think of him that way, with his wife and children. I preferred to think of him alone in his studio. Or not alone, but with only me.

“What color are the clouds?”

“Why, white, sir.”

He raised his eyebrows slightly. “Are they?”

I glanced at them. “And grey. Perhaps it will snow.”

“Come, Griet, you can do better than that. Think of your vegetables […] Think of how you separated the whites. Your turnips and your onions. Were they the same white?”

Suddenly I understood. “No. The turnip had green in it, the onion yellow.”

“Exactly. Now, what colors do you see in the clouds?”

“There is some blue in them,” I said after studying them for a few minutes. “And—yellow as well. And there is some green!” I became so excited I actually pointed. I had been looking at clouds all my life, but I felt as if I saw them for the first time that moment.

He smiled. “You will find there is little pure white in clouds, yet people say they are white.”

He listened carefully. When I finished he declared, “You see, we’re not so different, with the attentions we’ve had from those above us.”

“But I haven’t responded to van Ruijven, and have no intentions to.”

“I didn’t mean van Ruijven,” Frans said, his look suddenly sly. “No, not him. I meant your master.”

“What about my master?” I cried.

Frans smiled, “Now, Griet, don’t work yourself into a state.”

“Stop that! What are you suggesting? He has never—”

“He doesn’t have to. It’s clear from your face. You want him. You can hide it from our parents and your butcher man, but you can’t hide it from me. I know you better than that.”

He did. He did know me better.

I opened my mouth but no words came out.

“You watch out for yourself, my dear.”

“What do you mean, sir?”

“You must know that he’s painting you to satisfy van Ruijven. Van Ruijven’s interest in you has made your master protective of you.”

I nodded, secretly pleased to hear what I had suspected.

“Do not get caught in their battle. You could be hurt.”

[…] “I do not think he would ever hurt me, sir.”

“Tell me, my dear, how much do you know of men?”

[…] I did not answer.

“He is an exceptional man,” van Leeuwenhoek continued. “His eyes are worth a roomful of gold. But sometimes he sees the world only as he wants it to be, not as it is. He does not understand the consequences for others of his point of view. He thinks only of himself and his work, not of you.”