On my way back, near Battery Park, an old bookseller was selling second-hand books. He had a beautiful four-volume set of books on Claude Monet, full of wonderful pictures. I absolutely loved them.
We started haggling over the price. I think he was asking for thirty dollars, and I was offering twenty. In the end, I didn’t buy the books.
And for almost thirty years, that regret never really left me. From time to time, I kept thinking about those four Monet books. As I came to know and appreciate Monet more and more over the years, the regret became even stronger.
Of course, I can never find those exact books again. I don’t know the title, the publisher, or anything else about them. This was 1997—there were no smartphones, and I didn’t take any photographs.
But today I bought this beautiful book on Claude Monet, published by Taschen, written by Daniel Wildenstein. It is a fantastic book.
And now, I think, I can finally put that regret to rest.
