Chapter 105 (1) - The Mysterious Art Museum
"Claude, do I really have to wear this outfit? I really don't want to."
The red garment is splendid, its magnificence heightened by the gold dragon embroidery on the kimono.
The blonde woman looks distressed, wrapped in the extravagant kimono. Holding Lea and leaning against the wall, I deduce the situation here as I gaze at the beautiful woman standing in the center of the carpet.
'It's 1875, the time when Monet painted Camille in a kimono.'
Lea, seemingly uneasy about intruding into someone elses house without permission, remains silent and obserBant. I readjust Lea in my arms and say,
"Lea, you might not believe it, but we are dreaming right now."
Lea tilts her head adorably, questioning.
"A dream? The kind you have when sleeping?"
"Yes, we're asleep now."
"I don't quite understand."
I put Lea down on the floor and point out,
"See those two people over there?"
Monet is laying down his belongings on the floor and taking something out of his bag, while Camille sighs deeply, checking her kimono. Lea nods her head, observing them.
"I see."
"They can't see us."
Would she be surprised? Think I'm crazy? I wonder what her reaction would be.
Lea looks back and forth between the two people and me, then suddenly breaks into a wide smile.
"This is fun!"
The innocence of a child.
Instead of suspicion and wariness, she finds it amusing.
Lea toddles over to the frowning Camille, sticks out her tongue playfully, and spins around laughing.
"I'm really invisible, like a ghost!"
Haha, cute, but that's enough.
"Come here, Lea."
Lea runs into my arms, and I lift her up again, assuring her,
"We don't need to be scared because they can't see us. We just need to watch what they're doing."
"Okay!"
Monet, having settled on the couch with his art supplies, takes out a canvas that he had placed behind him.
It's not a blank canvas. Over half of the painting is already complete.
Discovering the color-filled painting, Lea raises her hands and claps.
"Wow! So well drawn! Better than Ban!"
Hmm, not quite, Lea.
What you saw was just scribbling on the ground with rocks.
Honestly, that can hardly be called a painting.
I'll show you my real skills later.
Monet looks at his wife apologetically.
Camille, locking eyes with her husband, sighs and then assumes her usual pose. Monet examines her with a sharp gaze and instructs,
"Sorry about this, honey. Just bear with it a bit longer. Raise your shoulder a bit more, and tilt your head slightly down. Move your left foot forward. Yes, that's good. Stay like that."
An uncomfortable posture.
Initially resistant, Camille soon maintains a mesmerizing expression as the painting session begins.
As Monet's brush begins to dance as if alive, Lea opens her mouth in awe. Even if she wasn't a mere country girl, who wouldn't be amazed by Monet's painting?
Lea alternates her gaze between the painting and me, then asks,
"Ban."
"Yes?"
"Can you paint like that? It looks like a photograph. Just like the real thing."
"Yeah, I can."
"Really?"
"Yes, I can actually paint better than that."
Lea looks skeptical.
Really, Lea. I can paint better than that.
"Lea."
"Yes?"
"The painting you're looking at isn't his real work."
Lea looks puzzled at Monet's painting.
"Not his painting? But he's the one painting it?"
Hmm, how should I explain this?
Just then, Camille, who had been posing, speaks up.
"Dinner's ready. Let's eat together when you're done working."
I had been wondering about the smell of food; it turns out his wife had prepared dinner. Monet nods without a word and focuses back on his work.
I carry Lea to the kitchen.
The house is so small that the kitchen is just a few steps away from the living room.
Pointing to the dish on the table, I ask Lea,
"Do you know what this dish is?"
Lea looks at the food in the pot, blinks, and responds,
"Bouillabaisse."
"."
You know it? A six-year-old Italian countryside girl knows a French dish?
"How did you know?"
"We eat it often too."
Wow, I see. After all, people in our country also make Japanese-style udon or soba noodles at home.
Holding Lea, I explain,
"Originally, Bouillabaisse wasn't a luxurious dish like it is now. France, being a country surrounded by vast seas, had an abundance of seafood. Fish that couldn't be sold at the harbor would be discarded or sold cheaply, and this dish was made by boiling those fish together like a mixed stew."
Leah nods her head and holds her nose, making a face.
"I don't like that. It's fishy."
"Ha ha, right. Real Bouillabaisse is indeed very fishy."
I remember eating something similar when I lived by the sea.
It was not long after my father had passed away.
In our country's insurance laws, in cases of disappearance rather than confirmed death, the payment of insurance money is delayed until death is confirmed. This is because it's difficult to recover the insurance money if the person returns alive.
My father's body was never found.
So, our family didn't receive any insurance money for 5 years.
My mother, unable to work because of my older brother, did sewing or candy packaging jobs at home, but it was obviously tough to make ends meet.
She would go to the harbor market and buy unknown mixed fish sold by grandmothers in rubber basins. With two hundred won's worth of bean sprouts, half a radish, and some chili powder, she made a mixed stew.
Looking back, I'm not sure how we managed to survive on such food, but at the time it was delicious. Even if they were just random fish, the ones that were plump and well-fed were abundant in meat.
It seems that the dining situations of the poor living near the sea have always been similar.
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