Only through art can we emerge from ourselves and know what

Host:
The gallery was quiet except for the echo of footsteps on marble and the soft hum of climate-controlled air. The light was low — not dim, but deliberate — as if the walls themselves were holding their breath. Paintings stretched from floor to ceiling: landscapes trembling with memory, faces lost in the distance of color, shapes that whispered rather than spoke.

It was evening, closing hour. The guards had retreated to the far end, and only two figures remained in the central hall: Jack and Jeeny.

Jack stood before a small portrait, hands in his pockets, his reflection ghosting the glass. The subject — a woman with eyes both curious and tired — seemed to look past him. Across the room, Jeeny leaned against a column, a small notebook in her hand, her gaze flicking between the painting and Jack’s silhouette.

Jeeny: “Marcel Proust once said — ‘Only through art can we emerge from ourselves and know what another person sees.’”
Jack: [without turning] “Proust. Always turning emotion into architecture.”
Jeeny: “Or truth into mirrors.”
Jack: “You believe that? That art lets us escape ourselves?”
Jeeny: “Not escape — expand. The walls stay, but the room gets bigger.”
Jack: [smiling faintly] “So, empathy as an aesthetic experience.”
Jeeny: “Exactly. We don’t just look at art — we borrow another person’s eyes.”

Host:
The sound of rain began outside, faint but insistent, drumming softly against the high glass ceiling. The light rippled across the painting, giving the illusion that the woman inside it blinked — alive, if only for a moment.

Jack: “It’s a beautiful idea. But what if all we see in someone else’s art is ourselves? Our own hunger, our own ghosts?”
Jeeny: “That’s still empathy, Jack. Even self-recognition is connection. The line between us and others is thinner than we admit.”
Jack: “So when I stand here, staring at her — I’m not looking at her, but at my own longing?”
Jeeny: “Maybe both. Art’s a conversation without words. You bring your questions, the artist leaves their answers, and somewhere between the two, truth happens.”
Jack: “But truth’s subjective.”
Jeeny: “So is love.”

Host:
The lights dimmed slightly, signaling closing time. Yet no one rushed them. The museum was in that brief, perfect stillness before absence — when presence feels sacred simply because it’s about to vanish.

Jack: “You know, Proust lived in isolation. He wrote from his own mind like it was a labyrinth. Maybe that’s why he believed in art — it was the only way out.”
Jeeny: “And the only way in — to others. He knew that solitude without imagination is just loneliness. But solitude with art becomes communion.”
Jack: “So the artist is both prisoner and prophet.”
Jeeny: “Yes. Trapped inside their own perception, but able to paint the key.”
Jack: “And the viewer?”
Jeeny: “The viewer’s the one who dares to use it.”

Host:
The rain intensified, the sound like applause for silence. The painting’s glass shimmered; the woman’s eyes seemed almost wet, as if the storm had reached her too. Jeeny walked closer, her voice lowering to something intimate, reverent.

Jeeny: “You ever think about what a painting actually is? It’s not just color on canvas. It’s another person’s sight frozen in time. When you look at it, you’re literally stepping into someone else’s seeing.”
Jack: “That’s terrifying.”
Jeeny: “Why?”
Jack: “Because it means we can never look at the world the same way again. Once you’ve seen through another’s eyes, your own become unreliable.”
Jeeny: “Good. That’s what art’s supposed to do — make certainty impossible.”
Jack: “And empathy inevitable.”
Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Host:
Jack turned toward her, the faint glow of the emergency exit light tracing his profile. His expression was softer now, the kind that comes not from understanding, but from surrendering the need to.

Jack: “You think that’s why we crave art — because it gives us a chance to feel what we can’t explain?”
Jeeny: “Yes. Because words build walls, but art builds windows.”
Jack: “And when you look through the window?”
Jeeny: “You realize no one’s ever truly foreign — just unseen.”
Jack: “That’s idealistic.”
Jeeny: “It’s necessary. Empathy is the last language we have left.”

Host:
The security lights blinked, a soft reminder that they were overstaying their welcome. Yet the hall remained hushed — as if even the paintings approved of their rebellion. The world outside could wait a few more minutes.

Jack: “When I was younger, I thought artists made things to show the world who they were. Now I think they make art to find out who they are.”
Jeeny: “And we look at it to find out who we are.”
Jack: “So every painting’s a mirror held between two strangers.”
Jeeny: “Exactly. You, me, the artist — all reflected, all searching.”
Jack: “That’s the tragedy of beauty, isn’t it? You touch it, but you never hold it.”
Jeeny: “That’s also the mercy. Because if you could hold it, it would stop being beautiful.”

Host:
Jeeny stepped closer to the portrait, her face illuminated by the faint gallery light. She whispered something — a wordless sound, more breath than speech — and for a second, Jack swore the painted woman was listening.

Jack: “Do you ever wonder what she saw — the woman in the painting? What the artist wanted us to feel?”
Jeeny: “I think she saw what we’re seeing — the attempt. That’s the whole point of art: the reaching. We’ll never fully know her, but we’ll never stop trying.”
Jack: “That sounds a lot like love.”
Jeeny: [smiling] “That’s because love is just empathy painted red.”
Jack: “So Proust was right.”
Jeeny: “He usually was.”

Host:
The lights flickered once more, brighter now, signaling the end. But neither moved. The rain softened, and the air was filled with that scent of stone and water and time — the smell of endings that don’t feel like losses.

Jack: “You know, when I look at this painting now, I don’t see a stranger anymore. I see a bridge — fragile, but real.”
Jeeny: “That’s what art is. The invisible bridge between solitude and understanding.”
Jack: “And once you cross it?”
Jeeny: “You never go back the same.”
Jack: “You sound certain.”
Jeeny: “No. I just believe in connection more than isolation.”
Jack: “Then maybe that’s the art I need to learn.”

Host:
The museum doors opened behind them with a low mechanical sigh. The world waited outside — rain-slicked, imperfect, alive. Jack and Jeeny turned, walking side by side down the long corridor lined with silent witnesses of paint and canvas.

And as they stepped into the cool night air,
the truth of Marcel Proust’s words lingered in the stillness —

that art is not escape,
but entrance.

That to see through another’s eyes
is to momentarily dissolve the prison of self.

That empathy is not imagined —
it is experienced
each time color becomes emotion,
each time form becomes feeling,
each time silence becomes understanding.

And so, through art,
we do not simply learn about others —
we become them,
if only for a heartbeat.

For in every brushstroke,
every note,
every word,
lies the miracle Proust named:
the gentle, defiant act
of emerging from ourselves
to finally see
as another sees.