little larks apart, searching for clues to the mystery of their flight. They pull out the minuscule livers and intestines and hearts, even their tongues, with tweezers and drop them into bottles of alcohol, writing their notes in spidery black ink. They examine the muscles, the way they are attached across the bird’s tiny chest, the hollow bones of the wings. When they cannot identify what makes them fly, they leave the bones and go to bed.
S TILL LATER, Audubon sits alone with his gannets. The last few moments before the light dies are the best to check light and shade. They stand reproachless, slowly disappearing as darkness comes on. The young bird is good, the speckled grey of its plumage nearly exactly as he saw it. He narrows his eyes critically on the adult bird. Its white feathers no longer give back light. The white is not right. He has not made it resplendent . He would like some chalk from the rocks, or perhaps the white inside of a mussel shell, but there is nothing at all of the pure whiteness that he needs. Nothing in nature is that white except the feathers of the bird itself.
He looks again at his rendering. The two are a pair of opposites — one dark, one light, one contemplating the air, the other the self. Their shapes gash open the great horizontal emptiness in which they live. In the background the Bird Rocks sit in blue-grey water. He is rather pleased with the composition. But the birds are still. They are dead. He sees in his mind’s eye their flight. The wide, peaked pinions. The thrust of those strong wings, and the easy glide forward that follows it.
He has not captured the life of them. When he is tired like this, he wonders if he ever will. He wipes his brushes wearily and goes on deck to say goodnight to Anonyme. He calls the raven and when it comes he absently strokes its head with his thumb and forefinger.
“… a chaos of upstart ragged black rocks .”
The sky is dark, lined with cloud, the stars occluded, the moon a suggestion of silver, the only visible landfall a chaos of upstart ragged black rocks. There is snow to the west, on the hills, and something resembling rain in his face. The air presses at Audubon’s cheeks; it is as if he stands in a moist element stretching from fathoms below his feet to yards above it, the air merely a less dense, floating version of the sea. He feels, beneath him, the secret flurry of cloud after cloud of fish, and around him the reek and teem of winged life.
He thinks of Bayfield, on the deck of his own, nearby ship, measuring the stars. Of the Gulnare herself, all curves in this jagged land, silently riding out the night.
“Lucy,” he says, “Captain Bayfield came onboard today. He is an eminent man, the best surveyor in the entire Royal Navy, says Captain Emery. And he liked my pictures.” He tries to think of more to tell his wife, but he cannot. He pictures the wooden figurehead of the Gulnare , her conical breasts and slender neck. Once Lucy looked like that, but no more. No, it is the shape of Maria.
T HE STORY OF MARIA, the fact of Maria, began in the fall of 1831 when he was walking the streets of Charleston with his assistant, looking for a room to rent. He planned to stay until he could connect with a revenue cutter that would take him to the Floridas. Into his line of sight rolled a buggy loaded with baskets of artichokes, carrots and beans, bunches of tall chrysanthemums and roses sticking out of cones of paper, and, laid one over the other, braces of game, partridge, wild turkey, woodcock. It was a vision of plenty.
As he gazed the driver hailed him. He was John Bachman, pastor of St. John’s Lutheran church, a writer of books on nature himself, and a hunter. Bachman had a guileless bright blue eye and his enthusiasm was as generous as his buggy load of produce, gifts for his parishioners.
There were greetings, introductions, and warm exclamations — Painting the birds! I must be of assistance! — and the pastor insisted
S TILL LATER, Audubon sits alone with his gannets. The last few moments before the light dies are the best to check light and shade. They stand reproachless, slowly disappearing as darkness comes on. The young bird is good, the speckled grey of its plumage nearly exactly as he saw it. He narrows his eyes critically on the adult bird. Its white feathers no longer give back light. The white is not right. He has not made it resplendent . He would like some chalk from the rocks, or perhaps the white inside of a mussel shell, but there is nothing at all of the pure whiteness that he needs. Nothing in nature is that white except the feathers of the bird itself.
He looks again at his rendering. The two are a pair of opposites — one dark, one light, one contemplating the air, the other the self. Their shapes gash open the great horizontal emptiness in which they live. In the background the Bird Rocks sit in blue-grey water. He is rather pleased with the composition. But the birds are still. They are dead. He sees in his mind’s eye their flight. The wide, peaked pinions. The thrust of those strong wings, and the easy glide forward that follows it.
He has not captured the life of them. When he is tired like this, he wonders if he ever will. He wipes his brushes wearily and goes on deck to say goodnight to Anonyme. He calls the raven and when it comes he absently strokes its head with his thumb and forefinger.
“… a chaos of upstart ragged black rocks .”
The sky is dark, lined with cloud, the stars occluded, the moon a suggestion of silver, the only visible landfall a chaos of upstart ragged black rocks. There is snow to the west, on the hills, and something resembling rain in his face. The air presses at Audubon’s cheeks; it is as if he stands in a moist element stretching from fathoms below his feet to yards above it, the air merely a less dense, floating version of the sea. He feels, beneath him, the secret flurry of cloud after cloud of fish, and around him the reek and teem of winged life.
He thinks of Bayfield, on the deck of his own, nearby ship, measuring the stars. Of the Gulnare herself, all curves in this jagged land, silently riding out the night.
“Lucy,” he says, “Captain Bayfield came onboard today. He is an eminent man, the best surveyor in the entire Royal Navy, says Captain Emery. And he liked my pictures.” He tries to think of more to tell his wife, but he cannot. He pictures the wooden figurehead of the Gulnare , her conical breasts and slender neck. Once Lucy looked like that, but no more. No, it is the shape of Maria.
T HE STORY OF MARIA, the fact of Maria, began in the fall of 1831 when he was walking the streets of Charleston with his assistant, looking for a room to rent. He planned to stay until he could connect with a revenue cutter that would take him to the Floridas. Into his line of sight rolled a buggy loaded with baskets of artichokes, carrots and beans, bunches of tall chrysanthemums and roses sticking out of cones of paper, and, laid one over the other, braces of game, partridge, wild turkey, woodcock. It was a vision of plenty.
As he gazed the driver hailed him. He was John Bachman, pastor of St. John’s Lutheran church, a writer of books on nature himself, and a hunter. Bachman had a guileless bright blue eye and his enthusiasm was as generous as his buggy load of produce, gifts for his parishioners.
There were greetings, introductions, and warm exclamations — Painting the birds! I must be of assistance! — and the pastor insisted
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