The experiments for learning

1. The Portrait of a Crying Girl

(pics are not mine and thus the artist has all the credit**)

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"Oh my goodness... Helen! Where did you get your hands on such a marvelous piece..." exclaimed a lady, adorned in fluttering yet elegant garments as she admired the portrait of a young girl, surrounded with a pearl chains and lilies of the valley, who had her tears silently streaming down her face. This beautiful portrait was hung up on the wall, in the hallway of the newly made countess Helen.

"This surely is a masterpiece, my lady. But what I am worried about is hanging this kind of portrait in the hallway."

"Yes. What if it draws bad omen towards your family? You and his lordship have just gotten married..."

Today was that fateful day of September when Helen had decided to hold a tea party for the fellow ladies in the high society, two months after her marriage, yet this is not what she wanted to be the topic of their gossip.

She was already aware of her husband's obsessions towards paintings and sculptures and also witnessed it as his library was immensely decorated with these art pieces. Yet, she still couldn't wrap her head around the fact as to why her beloved would put up this inauspicious painting, that too in this damn hallway, right in front of everyone's eyes.

Their butler, in his mid-forties, did not hesitate in showing his distaste towards this painting. "Your Ladyship..." he approached her, a few weeks after its arrival in their household, "You must convince His Lordship to remove that painting or much better burn it otherwise I fear that godforsaken painting would swallow the happiness of this house".

Hearing his absurd words she was stunned speechless, as Alfred knew Lucas much better than her, His lordship doesn't let go of anything that enters his collection. Yet he spoke such words.

At that time she didn't pay any heed to what he had said yet today one of the ladies whom she had invited for some tea also said something similar that reminded her of his words.

"The way this girl's eyes are painted looks like she would devour the spectator's soul. How terrifyingly magnificent is this artist's work..."

Helen and the other ladies just uttered words of agreement yet deep down the young countess's heart was slowly getting trapped in the vines of fear and anxiety.

Later that night after the dinner, Helen thought of wording her worries that were subconsciously wandering at the back of her head. "Lucas... I wanted to talk to you about that portrait in the hallway." "What about that portrait?" the count questioned.

"Can you replace it with something else or rather just throw it away? That thing is troubling my heart for a couple of days. Even Alfred told me about that painting being a bad omen." Hearing this Lucas creased his eyebrows, it wasn't the first time when Alfred exhibited his distaste towards his collection but to call them inauspicious was utterly outrageous.

He tried keeping calm and asked Helen as to why she would pay attention to his meaningless words but was answered with how one of the ladies at the tea party said a similar thing about that painting.

"Those ladies only saw their husbands doing all sorts of brute things which has made them unable to appreciate a piece of art when they see one. And if you are paranoid about what Alfred said then don't. He has zero sense about my 'peculiar' taste according to him. So throw those negative thoughts out of your head and take care of this household and also my mother. Her health has suddenly started declining from the past few weeks."

The countess pondered on this and decided that this paranoid is nothing but a nuisance her head had created but soon after she had been proved wrong. As after four months of this incident she started facing many sleepless nights.