Theo has rescued–or stolen–a portrait of “a yellow finch…chained to a perch by its twig of an ankle…”

Carel Fabritius- The Goldfinch, 1654.

Later, wondering how much the work reflects its creator, Theo thinks, “There’s only a tiny heartbeat and solitude, bright sunny wall and a sense of no escape. Time that doesn’t move, time that couldn’t be called time.”

— The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt.

From: Francine Prose, “After Great Expectations,” The New York Review of Books, January 9, 2014.