Watching the World

Three Women Looking Out from an Open Door

Of course, we join them, you and I Who must stand deeper within the house Around us is the darkness of a theater And light plays on its stage of sky We see them framed in this inner gloom (The walls are thick in this old house) Two of the women sit, backs to us In the arched doorway, watching the world, One nearly conceals the other, seated As she is, near us, on a short chair The third stands amid her folds and drapes Her face unfinished, a brush outline But we shouldn't mind, her body's Gesture is eloquent, all interest What's outside? We want to ask them As the light pours past like soft silver From the bright street where someone stands, Perhaps bends slightly from the waist Like the standing woman nearest us And like us, bowing ever so slightly, Waiting for the next moment, a voice, A sparrow's glint, someone come home at last.

—drawing, Rembrandt van Rijn, 1635–1640

Woman Seated in an Armchair with Her Head Resting on Her Left Hand

The chair's arm is a low one So she's bending down to reach her hand Which we see at first Knuckles just beneath her nose Which is rather large Because it's spread by the pressure Of the hand resting against her face And by something like dejection Rembrandt has drawn a ring of curls Around her high forehead Which look like the leaves of trees In his farmhouse landscapes Her eyes are closed, perhaps In rest, but possibly in suffering— No, I could not call it sleep Because the chair beneath Keeps moving, drawn as it is In such violence—oh yes It holds her up and answers To the laws of physics but Reluctantly. See how the folds Of her robe are trembling. She is like water, calm nearest The point the wind is coming from But stirred into hatches and waves On that far shore where the chair Is threatening to explode As soon as you turn away The moment you turn away

—drawing, Rembrandt van Rijn, 1637–1640