I was confused by this sudden glare of attention; it was as if the characters in a favorite painting, absorbed in their own concerns, had looked up out of the canvas and spoken to me.

And as the light flickered over it in bands, I had the queasy sense of my own life, in comparison, as a patternless and transient burst of energy, a fizz of biological static just as random as the street lamps flashing past.

That little guy, said Boris in the car on the way to Antwerp. You know the painter saw him-he wasn't painting that bird from his mind, you know? That's a real little guy, chained up on the wall, there. If I saw him mixed up with dozen other birds all the same kind, I could pick him out, no problem.And he's right. So could I. And if I could go back in time I'd clip the chain in a heartbeat and never care a minute that the picture was never painted.

And if what they say is true--if every great painting is really a self-portrait--what, if anything, is Fabritius saying about himself?