WEBVTT

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I was not an
exceptional painter.

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I had gotten used to
that idea long before--

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before the boy was born, before
I met my wife and fell in love.

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It was good for us that I
had made that accommodation

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with myself before
we met, or I would

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have been an unhappy husband
and a miserable father,

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gnawing at myself for my limits.

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What I could do well I did.

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I found pleasure
in the work so long

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as I did not yearn for what
I was incapable of becoming

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in my dreams--

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an artist who painted what
had never before been seen

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and who thus made the world
newer and more interesting.

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The boy might do that one day.

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He was, I'd like to think,
already on that path.

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I excelled in paintings of
seascapes and harbor scenes--

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boats in port at
sunset, lighthouses

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on cliffs in the world
of a white storm I also

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did very successfully.

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Not very original work but mine.

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I like to think work
which was rewarded

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not lavishly but
sufficiently well enough

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to keep a decent life.

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For my own pleasure,
perhaps, with a glow,

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the vanity of
association, I made

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copies of narrative
paintings long disregarded

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by the modernists but
still beloved by a few.

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Myself included, obviously.

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Poussin was then in
process on my easel.

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Not him, naturally,
but his painting

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in which shepherds are
contemplating a plinth

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inscribed with the words
"even in Arcadia I am,"

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meaning death is omnipresent
even in the most beautiful

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places where life richly
abounds, where bounty reigns.

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I still had time to finish
the figure of the shepherdess,

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a woman ravishingly
solid and simple

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like an Ionian temple in a
sacred grove of cypresses.

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I had been stuck for a
while trying to complete her

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because each time I
painted her face it was not

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the face Poussin had rendered
but the face of my dead wife.

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As if my mind saw one thing but
my hand another, and nothing

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I did made the face
look as I had intended.

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I sometimes thought of it as a
good thing, a sign of something

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original living
within me, but finally

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I could not let myself--

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I could not bring myself
to let my little hint

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of a romantic
autobiography disfigure

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Poussin's masterpiece.

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So I sponged out my wife's face,
leaving the shepherdess's torso

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headless in white
anonymous space.

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Audacity in art and in
life was never my style.

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Even at the end, when
death comes and pays

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its one and only
visit, I know that I'll

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follow him meekly,
acquiescent and compliant.

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No trouble, I'll say.

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Here I come.

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I stayed in this
self-defeating mood, the best

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to keep one from working,
for who knows how long,

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when the boy rushed in
barefoot, pale, and frightened.

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Did you have a bad dream,
I asked, lifting him up

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in my arms.

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He did, and when he
woke he went first

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to my room, where
I was not, and then

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to his nana's room, where she
was sleeping in a strange way.

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When he tried to wake
her, she would not wake,

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and so he came to me.

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She was still in her bed
sleeping, her book open.

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She was sleeping with
blank eyes fixed on words.

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Was the story that bad,
mom, I wanted to ask,

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that you would rather have
died than continue reading it,

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calling for death to spare you
from another boring syllable.

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Nana was sleeping a sleep
of sorts, I told my son--

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the sleep that carries
you to the edge of life

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and then drops you into another
life, one which we could not

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join while still awake.

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That is what I told him.

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She was now where his mother
had gone, where we would all

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one day go, where our souls
would go, his and mine too.

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The soul, I said,
thinking it was now

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the best time to tell him,
was that strange, unknown,

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invisible thing he felt
inside himself when

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he made drawings of sounds.

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He knew that, he said.

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He had known for a
long time because nana

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had taught him that years ago.

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But all that didn't matter
because he wanted his nana here

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with him and not with them.

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With whom do you mean, I asked.

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With the men in
the ship, he said.

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He had dreamed that
she was taken there

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and that was what had woken
him-- his dream of her

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being carried away to the ship.

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So he was glad when he saw
that she was still there

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in bed until he realized
when she would not

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wake that it was the other
invisible part of her

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that they had taken away.

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That was a sweet dream, I
said, but it was only a dream.

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It was not a dream, he said.

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She was there on that
ship, and, he added firmly,

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we should go there
and rescue her.

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