Chapter 79 (2) - The Mysterious Art Museum
I turned my gaze to the paintings the maid had been looking at.
"Horse paintings."
Toulouse loved animals, especially horses, and drew many horse paintings that have survived to this day.
But why did the maid leave after looking at the horse paintings with such an expression?
Left alone in the dark room, Toulouse carefully opened the curtain. But if he wanted to see outside, why open it only a little? It seemed like he didn't want those outside to see him.
What was he trying to see?
I moved behind him to see what he was looking at, bending over since the curtain was barely open. The garden, with servants working. The number of servants indicated immense wealth.
Whom is he watching?
I looked at the side of Toulouse's face to try and follow his gaze.
Then, I saw a tremor in his eyes and the emotion that quickly rose. It was sadness. I furrowed my eyebrows and followed his gaze.
In the distance, beyond the horizon, I saw a group of men on horseback approaching. The man at the front, sporting a fancy mustache and a hat with white fur, had animal carcasses like raccoons and rabbits tied to his horse, and a gun in one hand. The men riding with him, judging by their attire, seemed like servants.
A faint murmur from Toulouse.
"Father..."
Father? So that man is the head of this family. No wonder he was dressed so lavishly.
I straightened my back and looked down at Toulouse with a complex expression.
I feel I faintly understand his feelings. I too have a brother with a disability.
My brother always envied me. He was also ashamed of himself.
He had done nothing wrong, but he retreated because of his disability.
My brother was always curious. When I returned from school, he bombarded me with questions about what classes I had, what I did during lunch, every little detail. It was annoying when I was younger, but as I grew up, I understood why he did it.
He was envious.
Of the everyday things I experienced.
Of the many things he couldn't do.
The boy in front of me now has the same expression as my brother.
The sight of his father riding a horse and the servants running alongside him. He wants to be part of that.
I nodded again, looking at the horse paintings that the maid had looked at with a pained expression earlier. I now understand why this boy is attached to these paintings. They are not just simple horse paintings, but the ideal he yearns for.
As soon as his father arrived, having ridden the horse, he dismounted and arrogantly handed the reins to a servant before looking up at the mansion. The son, who had been secretly watching his father, was startled and quickly closed the curtain.
When I studied about this person, I only thought of him as a dwarf painter. It seems he had such a dark and painful childhood.
Toulouse gasped, clutching his chest and bending over. I hope this isn't dangerous.
Fortunately, after lying down for a while, Toulouse straightened up.
His face seemed a bit red, but he didn't look too bad. He just seemed very shocked.
The trembling child, catching his breath, grabbed the armrest of the chair to stand up.
I instinctively reached out to help, but hesitated.
Because I realized that I, being pulled into this dream, couldn't exert any physical force.
One step.
It took the child more than a minute to take just one step.
The child, who had to overcome dozens of near falls just to take that one step.
After a long time, the child sits in front of the canvas placed in front of the mirror.
Now that I think about it, there are a lot of chairs in this room.
One in front of the window, one beside the bed, in front of the vanity and the door. It's a large room, but having more than ten chairs for one person is unusual. It seems the kind maid arranged them so that the child who can't walk well can slowly reach and sit in them.
The child, sitting in front of the blank canvas, quietly looks at his reflection in the mirror on the vanity. Trying different angles, the child finally sits at a diagonal angle and brings the canvas over, likely to draw his self-portrait.
The face is drawn, the body, and the objects in front of the mirror.
The drawing gradually approaches completion, but strangely, the most important part of the self-portrait, the face, remains undrawn.
Finally, after completing every other part of the drawing, the child looks quietly at the mirror to draw the eyes, eyebrows, nose, the beginnings of a beard, and the mouth. But as he moves to draw the eyes, he hesitates.
The child, alternating his gaze between his reflection in the mirror and the canvas, sadly smears the paint for the eyes, spreading it in a round shape, and then puts down the brush.
The self-portrait, obscured in shadow, is hard to identify.
The dark, roughly smeared area looks ominous.
The fear behind the self-portrait he wanted to reveal.
I felt sadness looking at this ominous painting drawn by the child.
I heard that Toulouse had two accidents in May when he was sixteen and the following August. His upper body developed almost normally, but due to these accidents, his lower body degenerated, making it difficult to move, and he secluded himself, only painting. I learned that this painting was drawn in 1882. Its the only self-portrait he left during a time when he didn't want to look at himself.
In painting his reflection, the boy concealed his lower body.
A disabled child raised in a wealthy French noble family, he was considered a cursed child during those times.
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