A Storied Smile

A Storied Smile Commentary by Gabriel Torretta, O.P. Bible Passage An officer and a young woman sit facing each other over the corner of a table. He cocks his arm on his hip, apparently mid-story. She cradles a glass of wine and gazes at him, laughing. Behind her is a map of the Netherlands. Beside them is a window out into the radiant world that illuminates them both. He is a raconteur. He tells her of distant ports, of people with strange customs, of the rich smell of spices in the hold. He tells her of the sun sparkling on whale-tossed spray, of storm-blackened nights spent blindly praying for survival. He tells her of blood-curdling encounters with pirates, with ‘savages’, with beasts. She laughs. He is a fraud. He invents rubies as large as a hen’s egg, mountains made of gold, spiders that spin whole tapestries. He invents invisible warriors with enchanted weapons, half-men with bears’ heads and horses’ tails, springs that turn living men to stone. He invents daring deeds, hair’s-breadth victories, mutinies led or single-handedly resisted. She laughs. He is a seducer. He speaks winningly of conquests on foreign shores, of the intoxicating ways of exotic women, of the welcome he finds wherever he goes. He speaks confidently about his position, his authority, his charm. He speaks matter-of-factly about money. She laughs. Johannes Vermeer’s painting is an ever-turning wheel of possibilities. Its spokes are the officer, the window, and the map, but its centre is the girl. More precisely, its centre is her laugh. The world, the hope and cruelty of the age of exploration, politics, cynicism, money, trust, joy, love—they are all contained in a single laugh. But the laugh will not give up its secrets, and Vermeer will not help the viewer by simplifying its implications. Perhaps she laughs because everything changes; perhaps everything changes because she laughs. Perhaps she laughs because she has heard what God has done for another suffering woman long ago; perhaps she laughs because she does not believe it. But perhaps she even dares to laugh because she knows, as Sarah knew, that ‘God has made laughter for me’ (Genesis 21:6). References Gowing, Lawrence. 1997. Vermeer, reprint edn (Berkeley: University of California Press), pp. 104–08 Nash, John. 1991. Vermeer (Amsterdam: Scala Books), pp. 63–66 Roelofs, Pieter and Gregory J.M. Weber (eds). 2023. Vermeer (Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum), pp. 162–63