The Angelus

Millet's Angélus has hung on Josette's 'living room' wall for years.  It's no longer there , not since J.M packed Josette off to a rehabilitation hospital following a well-timed mini-stroke a couple of summers back, which allowed him to carry out an extensive and effective cull of her hoardings.

Prior to this Millet's Angélus had hung, almost unnoticed, in a room crammed from floor to ceiling.  Josettte was untroubled by the mess that surrounded it but disconcerted by the painting itself which she described as 'bewitched,' ' haunted' and at the root of all evil in her house.  

Secretly I coveted it although it's disturbance for Josette disturbed me. 
I interpreted it as an evening angelus; darkness from the west swallowing up the eastern light; the couple bowed, not just in a position of prayer, but heavy shouldered from a day of work.  The little spire on the low horizon reminding them of god's existence.

Josette maintained that this painting, half hidden by accumulated junk, was an original and had hung in the Louvre and somehow found it's way to 8 rue du Béal during the war. I felt it peevish to tell her that the original is still up there in Paris, in the Musée d'Orsay, so didn't.

I read that Dali described this painting as 'the most intimately disturbing, densest pictorial work'.  I read further and found out that x-ray equipment picked up a crib between the couple.  A dead child inside which millet had painted over. 
I went back to the 'original' which is the inverse of Josette's 'copy', meaning that it's a morning Angelus.  The light is coming from the east.  A child that died in the night. 

Boosted by an Gin and tonic, I cycled round to Josettte's this evening and asked her if she knew where the painting had gone. We found it in the lesser jumble of her spare room.  She took one look at it and shuddered.  I didn't tell her about the baby.