Beauty when unadorned is adorned the most.

Host: The room was lit by a single candle, its flame bending and stretching with the soft breath of night. A faint violin played from the street below — the kind of melody that wandered, never quite arriving, never quite leaving.

Through the half-open window, the moonlight poured in like spilled milk, falling upon a wooden table scattered with brushes, paint-stained rags, and a half-finished portrait.

Jack sat before the canvas, his grey eyes shadowed and tired, a cigarette burning low between his fingers. Jeeny stood behind him, her hair loose, her hands clasped, watching the soft strokes of color take shape — not of beauty perfected, but of truth unveiled.

The words had been spoken moments earlier, and they still floated in the air, quiet yet vast:

"Beauty when unadorned is adorned the most." — St. Jerome

Jeeny: (gazing at the painting) “He was right, you know. There’s something sacred in simplicity — something more honest than all the decoration in the world.”

Jack: (not looking up) “Honest, maybe. But not enough. The world doesn’t pay for honesty, Jeeny. It pays for polish. For perfection. Strip beauty bare, and no one looks twice.”

Host: The candle flame flickered, casting trembling shadows across Jack’s face — a man carved from both light and fatigue. The painting before him was rough, incomplete — a woman’s face, her eyes alive with emotion, her lips barely defined. A portrait caught between flaw and divinity.

Jeeny: “You always say that — as if beauty exists only when someone else approves. But maybe it’s the imperfections that make something unforgettable. Think of the Venus de Milo — she’s broken, yet she’s timeless. Because she’s real.”

Jack: (exhaling smoke) “You call that real? It’s marble, Jeeny. Cold, dead stone. People worship her because they can’t see themselves in her anymore. They can admire without the risk of comparison.”

Jeeny: (softly) “Or maybe they see themselves exactly in her — incomplete, yet still enough.”

Host: The music below swelled, a slow, aching waltz. The flame danced, painting the room in moving gold. Jack’s hand hovered over the canvas, uncertain — the artist’s eternal hesitation between control and surrender.

Jack: “You sound like you’ve never met the world. It doesn’t love simplicity, Jeeny. It devours it. Look at the magazines, the screens, the filters. Everything beautiful must be edited, branded, marketed. Even truth wears makeup now.”

Jeeny: (stepping closer) “That’s exactly why unadorned beauty is so powerful — because it refuses to play along. It exists without apology. Like a rose that blooms in the dark where no one sees it. It doesn’t need applause to be complete.”

Jack: (his voice rough) “You think beauty can survive unseen?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Because beauty isn’t meant to be possessed — it’s meant to be felt. The moment you dress it up for others, you start killing it.”

Host: Her words lingered, slow and steady, the kind that reach past the air and into the ribs. The silence that followed was not empty — it was full of unspoken defiance.

Jack: (after a pause) “You know, when I was younger, I painted for myself. No galleries, no commissions. Just the brush and the breath of a thought. But then people started to notice. And suddenly, I was painting to please — to impress — to survive.”

Jeeny: (gently) “And did you survive?”

Jack: (a bitter laugh) “Barely. The art did worse.”

Host: The cigarette ember flared, then died, leaving a curl of smoke that drifted upward — a fragile ghost of flame. Outside, the violinist’s bow paused for a heartbeat before sliding into another mournful note.

Jeeny: “You’re chasing approval, Jack. But beauty doesn’t need it. Look at nature — the mountains, the sea, a child’s face before it learns vanity. None of them care who’s watching. They just are.”

Jack: “That’s easy for them. They’re born perfect. Humans aren’t. We have to earn beauty — build it, layer by layer, until it hides the cracks.”

Jeeny: (firmly) “No. The cracks are the beauty. You think the Japanese invented kintsugi — filling broken pottery with gold — because they wanted to hide the damage? No. They believed the fracture is part of the story. That wholeness is a lie.”

Host: The candle sputtered, casting a brief flash of light that made the gold flecks in Jeeny’s eyes shimmer like sparks. Jack froze, brush midair, his breath caught between disbelief and revelation.

Jack: (quietly) “You think simplicity can carry all that meaning?”

Jeeny: (soft smile) “It’s the only thing that ever has. Every masterpiece begins with emptiness — a blank page, a silent note, an unpainted canvas. It’s the world’s way of reminding us that creation doesn’t start with adornment... it starts with truth.”

Host: Jack stared at the painting again — at the raw strokes, the uneven lines, the absence of gloss. He saw it then: not an incomplete work, but an honest one. A woman unguarded. A soul unmasked.

Jack: “Maybe St. Jerome understood something artists like me forget — that beauty isn’t what you add, it’s what you let go of.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. We spend our lives decorating our wounds, polishing our masks. But sometimes the most radiant thing we can do is just stand there — flawed, human, unpolished — and still say, this is me.”

Host: The music outside softened into silence. The last note hung, trembling, then vanished into the night. Jack placed his brush down, the faintest smile tugging at his lips.

He whispered, almost to himself:

Jack: “Maybe art doesn’t need more color. Maybe it just needs more courage.”

Jeeny: (whispering back) “And courage is the purest adornment of all.”

Host: The candle burned lower, its light no longer fighting the dark but embracing it. The room glowed with a strange kind of peace — not perfection, but presence.

On the canvas, the unfinished woman seemed to breathe — her eyes luminous, her face still rough but alive. There was no frame, no gold leaf, no flourish — and yet, she shone.

Jack looked at Jeeny, and for once, there was no argument left between them. Only understanding — raw and rare, like the flame that refuses to flicker out.

Host: Outside, the moon climbed higher, shedding its quiet blessing through the window. The air smelled of oil paint and warm wax, and time seemed to hold its breath.

And in that stillness, the truth of St. Jerome’s words unfolded fully — that beauty doesn’t live in perfection, nor in ornament, but in the courage to be bare, to be seen, and to remain unhidden.

The candle finally dimmed, but the light on the painting — and on their faces — stayed.

In that dim, trembling glow, simplicity itself was adorned — not by artifice, but by truth.