Part 8 (2/2)
I looked at the picture A ht hand pressed dra backward to the floor Confronting hiel and Adonis, was athe other man,” I said, aware of a distinct bepuzzlement of my own and of failure to explain
”Why?” asked Sitka Charley
”I do not know,”
I confessed
”That picture is all end,” he said ”It has no beginning”
”It is life,” I said
”Life has beginning,” he objected
I was silenced for thedecoration, a photographic reproduction of somebody's ”Leda and the Swan”
”That picture,” he said, ”has no beginning It has no end I do not understand pictures”
”Look at that picture,” I co Tell me what it means to you”
He studied it for several irl is sick,” he said finally ”That is the doctor looking at her They have been up all night - see, the oil is low in the la in at theIt is a great sickness; maybe she will die, that is why the doctor looks so hard That is the reat sickness, because the ”
”How do you know she is crying?” I interrupted ”You cannot see her face Perhaps she is asleep”
Sitka Charley looked at me in swift surprise, then back at the picture It was evident that he had not reasoned the impression
”Perhaps she is asleep,” he repeated He studied it closely ”No, she is not asleep The shoulders show that she is not asleep I have seen the shoulders of a woreat sickness”
”And now you understand the picture,” I cried
He shook his head, and asked, ”The little girl - does it die?”
It was my turn for silence
”Does it die?” he reiterated ”You are a painter-man Maybe you know”
”No, I do not know,” I confessed
”It is not life,” he delivered hiet well So happen No, I do not understand pictures”
His disappoints that white men understand, and here, in this e in his attitude He was bent upon co me to show him the wisdom of pictures Besides, he had re since learned this He visualized everything He saw life in pictures, felt life in pictures, generalized life in pictures; and yet he did not understand pictures when seen through other men's eyes and expressed by those men with color and line upon canvas
”Pictures are bits of life,” I said ”We paint life as we see it For instance, Charley, you are coht You see a cabin Theis lighted You look through thefor one second, or for two seconds, you see so a letter You saw so happened Yet it was a bit of life you saw You remember it afterward It is like a picture in your memory Theis the frame of the picture”
I could see that he was interested, and I knew that as I spoke he had looked through theand seen thethe letter
”There is a picture you have painted that I understand,” he said ”It is a true picture It hasIt is in your cabin at Dawson It is a faro table There are ame The limit is off”
”How do you know the limit is off?” I broke in excitedly, for here here e who knew life only, and not art, and as a sheer master of reality Also, I was very proud of that particular piece of work I had named it ”The Last Turn,” and I believed it to be one of the best things I had ever done
”There are no chips on the table”, Sitka Charley explained ”Thewith markers That means the roof is the limit One man play yellow markers - maybe one yellow marker worth one thousand dollars, maybe two thousand dollars One man play red markers Maybe they are worth five hundred dollars, ah, up to the roof How do I know? You make the dealer with blood little bit warhted) ”The lookout, you make him lean forward in his chair Why he lean forward? Why his face very ht? Why dealer ith blood a little bit in the face? Why all men very quiet? - the man with yellow markers? the man hite markers? the man with red markers? Why nobody talk? Because very much money Because last turn”
”How do you know it is the last turn?” I asked
”The king is coppered, the seven is played open,” he answered ”nobody bet on other cards Other cards all gone Everybody oneto lose, seven to win Maybe bank lose twenty thousand dollars, maybe bank win Yes, that picture I understand”
”Yet you do not know the end!” I cried triumphantly ”It is the last turn, but the cards are not yet turned In the picture they will never be turned nobody will ever knoins nor who loses”
”And the rowing in his face ”And the lookout will lean forward, and the blood will be war Alill they sit there, always; and the cards will never be turned”
”It is a picture,” I said ”It is life You have seen things like it yourself”
He looked at me and pondered, then said, very slowly: ”No, as you say, there is no end to it nobody will ever know the end Yet is it a true thing I have seen it It is life”
For a long ti the pictorial wisdo it by the facts of life He nodded his head several tirunted once or twice Then he knocked the ashes frohtful pause, lighted it again
”Then have I, too, seen an; ”pictures not painted, but seen with the eyes I have looked at the the letter I have seen , without end, without understanding”
With a sudden change of position he turned his eyes full upon htfully
”Look you,” he said; ”you are a painter-man Hoould you paint this which I saw, a picture without beginning, the ending of which I do not understand, a piece of life with the northern lights for a candle and Alaska for a franored me, for the picture he had init
”There are many names for this picture,” he said ”But in the picture there are s, and it co tio, the fall of '97, when I saw the woood Peterborough canoe I came over Chilcoot Pass with two thousand letters for Dawson I was letter carrier Everybody rush to Klondike at that time Many people on trail Many people chop down trees and round, ice on the lake, on the river ice in the eddies Every day more snow, more ice Maybe one day, maybe three days, maybe six days, any day maybe freeze-up come, then no more water, all ice, everybody walk, Dawson six hundred o boat Everybody say, 'Charley, two hundred dollars you take me in canoe,' 'Charley, three hundred dollars,' 'Charley, four hundred dollars' I say no, all the tiet to Lake Linderht and am much tired I cook breakfast, I eat, then I sleep on the beach three hours I wake up It is ten o'clock Snow is falling There is wind, much wind that blows fair Also, there is a woside She is white wo, very pretty, maybe she is twenty years old, maybe twenty-five years old She look at me I look at her She is very tired She is no dance-woood woman, and she is very tired