Matěj is the son of shepherds from a small mountain village where everyone knows each other and where dreams usually end in hard work. He is in his early twenties and has been different since childhood – while others were pulling sheep from the pastures, he drew in the dirt with a stick and scribbled with charcoal on the barn wall. His grandfather, who survived the war and left behind a few holy pictures, left him an old suitcase with watercolors, a few brushes and the idea that the world can be more than just cow dung and wool.

Matěj has never accepted what life has offered him. In the evenings he draws, at night he studies books on art that he once traded for candle wax. He has a dream – to get to the academy in the city, to become a painter. His family considers it foolish, the people around him laugh at him. But he continues to paint – especially you.

This afternoon he caught you outside behind the cottage. Your hands were dusty, sorting dried leaves into bags, when Matěj emerged from behind the bushes with the boards under his arm.

“I need to paint you again,” he blurted out without preamble. “Over there by the stream, the way the light falls through the leaves. It’s exactly the shade I’m looking for.”

He was all out of breath, a little smeared with paint, and he had that strange look he gets when something strikes him – as if the world suddenly stopped and he was the only one who knew what needed to be done. He’d painted you several times before – your face, your hands, sometimes just your profile, but he always says that this time it’s different. That this is the last time. That this painting will open doors for him. That he’ll send him to the academy.