Here is a man whose wildness takes place in dream, in a corner of a Parisian apartment, on a narrow cot. Here is a man who never dreams except of a curve of smoky cheek, a colorless landscape, a strange smile. The Imp of Opportunity smiles from the far corner. One mere opportunity may separate a man destined for quick oblivion from a man not. How many people do you pass in the road who are such a circus on the inside? 

What imps live on the backs of thieves?

*

There are two prevailing theories about why Vincenzo Peruggia stole the Mona Lisa in 1911. Firstly: it was an act of patriotism, however confused. 

Peruggia claimed he wanted to bring the painting back to an Italian gallery to correct the theft of Napoleon. No matter if Napoleon never stole it, no matter if Leonardo himself had brought the panel to France as a gift for Francis I. 

The other theory: money.

Here’s how Peruggia did it: first, he happened to have worked at the Louvre in the past. He knew the Louvre’s hours of operation, how the employees got inside, and how to act inconspicuously. He put on a white smock, bicycled to work as if he’d never left, strolled right up to the Mona Lisa, and simply took it off the wall. He then shuffled over to an out-of-the-way stairwell and removed the panel from its frame. Wrapping it in his smock, Peruggia strolled out of the building, went home and stashed the painting in a trunk in his closet. 

The police, searching every person who currently or recently worked at the Louvre, knock on Perrugia’s door. They peek inside. They believe his alibi, tip their hats and try the next employee. Perrugia shuts the door, does a little tarantella, and high-tails it to Varese. Like a dog with a car in its jaws, Perrugia discovers that he’s not sure what to do.

I picture him having drawn a bath, lukewarm by the time it’s full, less hot than the early September air. Peruggia lowers himself into it full-clothed, as if a little above the bottom of a well, as if in a watery urn, looking at nothing, thinking of nothing but his Da Vinci inside the trunk. Late summer pollen drifts along the window. The painting is cool and dry in its box, which Peruggia—carpenter, glazier, and amateur painter—constructed himself. Some farmer lies on a bank of hay a hundred yards away from the window and sings a clumsy aria. Peruggia thinks the only a propos thought of his life, as the bathwater soaks the corners of his stupid mustache: “That farmer sings for no one.”
He is eventually caught when trying to get the painting exhibited at a gallery in Florence.

*

Where I live, a small town on the Colorado Plateau, we’re bicycle people. So much so that we have a monthly event called Bike Party, which is pretty much what it sounds like. A few dozen of us ride around town a few hours before sundown. We stop a few times to socialize, play kickball or watch the sunset. 

On the evening of May 27th, 2021, Bike Party stopped at a busy intersection, waited until the light turned green, and rode ahead.

Later, the man in the tow truck would claim he hadn’t been able to see the red light. He said the sun was in his eyes. One cyclist died at the scene. Two sustained serious injuries and a few others were hurt as well. Dozens of bicyclists had to watch a speeding truck collide with their friends. 

Not me, though. I stayed home at the last minute. 

*

Why did Vincenzo Peruggia steal the Mona Lisa? Was it her smile? That sly, seductive grin, the apotheosis of Renaissance guile? Was the painting egging him on? 

How many times did he walk past her when he worked at the Louvre? How many other paintings did he walk past and not covet? Why does our soul reach out to this soul, but not to that soul? 

Did she look like his mother? 

I’ve tried but can’t find any pictures of his mother or her name. I can find only one line that he wrote to her a year after the theft: “I am making a vow for you to live long and enjoy the prize that your son is about to realize for you and for all our family.” 

So, Mona Lisa is the family prize. She’s his fiancé! Mona Lisa is the woman that Vincenzo is finally bringing home to mother, to wed. The thirty-year-old late-bloomer has found a girl. The silent flirting in the gallery while no one was looking, the timid glances, the coy smiles. 

No, this can’t be. He stole Mona Lisa, after all. The grin, which he’d thought had been one of flirtatious encouragement, was actually one of mocking. 

“You overrate yourself,” it said. “I could never love you.”

This is why he kept her in the box the whole time. He couldn’t bear that smile. It was worse than the smile of opportunity. It was the smile of the Imp of Impotence, the impotence of someone who can’t finish what they start. Maybe that was the smile that Vincenzo couldn’t stand. Maybe that was why he stole her. Mona Lisa’s smile was a dare. 

I dare you to take me. I dare you to try. 

It could be this game of chicken with masculine entitlement that has inflated the painting’s reputation. She’s baiting toxicity. 

Or maybe it was simple revenge. But what revenge, and against whom? His mother? Da Vinci? Painting as an artform? Art lovers? France? Mona Lisa herself? To convert his exalted love to low, pecuniary motive—was this revenge for spurned advances? 

Maybe he wanted revenge against himself. Maybe that’s who he was punishing: Vincenzo Perrugia. But why? And what kind of self-critical, self-assessing spirit could live in someone so average? How could a mediocre mind commit something so operatic as self-revenge?

*

If the tow truck driver couldn’t see, then why did he keep driving? Was he running late? Was someone tailgating him? The light is notorious for being one of the shortest-changing in town, staying red for just a few seconds. So maybe he was hedging his bets. Even if it were red, what would the chance be that there would be pedestrians or bicyclists slowly crossing the intersection? 

I have driven recklessly. Does that make me as immoral as the tow truck driver that killed my friend? The fact that he caused an accident and I didn’t, isn’t that immaterial? Just a matter of his bad luck and my good luck? Killing someone by mistake isn’t as bad as killing someone on purpose; nobody thinks so. Therefore the driver, having had zero intention to hurt someone, can’t have any moral culpability at all, right? 

He was reckless. He drove dangerously and it resulted in a worst-case scenario. He is entirely responsible for what happened. But can’t one be responsible, but not morally accountable? 

Is he a bad person? 

Why is that the question I can’t release? Do I need him to be a bad person in order for me to understand my grief? To understand my feelings of guilt for not having gone that day? For not being there to help my friends, or for not being hurt myself? 

Maybe I would have seen him coming. Maybe I would have not only saved my friends from being hit, but also saved the driver from becoming a killer. 

What do I do with this guilt? Do I have the right to write about this event at all? Don’t I have to defer to those closer to the grief? The people who were hurt most? Is it hideous to compare the accident with a century-old theft in which no one was hurt, let alone killed? Maybe that makes me the worst of all. Maybe I’m just thinking about myself. Maybe I am failing to understand the difference between empathy and analysis.

But how can I write about the heart of anyone else except through analysis?

*

One journalist says that the scheme involved forgery. Peruggia was to steal the Mona Lisa and sit on it while master forger Yves Chaudron sold his copies of the painting, which would have skyrocketed in value while authorities were still searching for the real thing. However, there are no records that Chaudron actually existed and certainly no records of black market Mona Lisas having been bought or sold during this time. Nor is there evidence that Peruggia made contact with anyone in the art underworld or made any significant professional connections at all, above or below board.

This, finally, is the question that smiles at me: why? Why did Vincenzo Peruggia steal the Mona Lisa?

Because he could. 

*

If you can’t ask “why did he do it?”, then what more is there to say? 

Who is worse? The tow-truck driver who ploughed through a red light because the sun was in his eyes, or Vincenzo Peruggia, who stole the Mona Lisa? On the one hand, you have someone who, because of mere carelessness, took a life and nearly took several others. Someone who rocked a community. Someone whose punishment, if nothing else, will be to live the rest of his life knowing that he is a killer in fact but not in heart. 

On the other hand, you have a man who stole a painting. Who helped create a myth. Who lived a mystifying and intriguing inner life, created no particular ill will in anyone, and caused no real negative repercussions. In fact, there were positive outcomes from his action. Peruggia inflamed our imaginations. There’s the iconic photograph. Admissions to the Louvre increased. Peruggia meant to do ill, but accidentally did good.

Who is worse? This is the thought that haunts me. How can the tow-truck driver be worse than the thief? How can I make him worse? How can I think him into culpability? How can I make him a murderer, so that I can understand him? 

Morality lies in intention. It must. There is no other place for it. Otherwise the word “accident” wouldn’t exist. We’d live in a world of ubiquitous will, where action, whether or not it accords with desire, is always its result. 

One man tried to take beauty out of the world, and failed. One man had no intention to take beauty out of the world, but did. Who is the thief?