"Gary, don’t think this Monet is sublime? I just love the way he makes the water shimmer."
   Sandy, my girlfriend, is always importuning me with such inanities; nevertheless, I respond. "Actually, I can credit him with some interesting experiments. The manner in which he brings the viewer into active participation, by forcing the combination of colors to occur in the viewer’s eye, is certainly worthy of attention."
   "Honestly, you’re impossible! Here we are, surrounded by some of the greatest works produced by the Impressionists, and you are still on your high horse. ‘I can credit him’, as if … can’t you just let go? Experience without criticism?"
   "Sure, I can …" I was about to elaborate, but entering another gallery, my eye was irresistibly pulled to a somber painting on the wall, Rembrandt’s Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer. Sandy couldn’t expect me to talk and view this masterpiece at the same time.
   "Gary …" Sandy’s soft voice was easy to tune out. She was most likely merely rhapsodizing over another pretty picture.
   I don’t know how long I stood there. In fact, I can’t be sure that I didn’t sit on the divan and get back up. I was

transported by reveries invoked by the work of art. I felt connected to the earthy commercialism of the Dutch Empire and the bonds to the Academy of Athens seemed no less secure. But it was the image, provoked by Homer, of Achilles mobilized to action on the death of his noble friend, Patroclus that held me tightest. Later, my ego tingled when I remembered the connection between philosophy and politics, through Aristotle and Alexander.
   I’d have spent even longer before the idols of the past, had not a tour, led by a talkative cicerone who uttered the most trivial comments, entered.
   Sandy wasn’t in the gallery anymore. I made my way to the huge vestibule in the front of the Met. Across the floor, I could discern Sandy sitting by the tulips. I wonder who is the man she is talking to?
   I made my way towards her, maneuvering through the crowd. Halfway there, I was accosted by a museum aide who grabbed my attention with "… costumes of Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes are on display downstairs."
   I had always enjoyed the aura of the Ballets Russes, but I had never the opportunity to explore it. I headed for the nearby stairwell.
   What was it that I was just wondering about?