Shen Yuan does paint in silence, for a while, but he doesn't want Aleksander to get bored> "So, um," he says. "Obviously I know some things about you, due to circumstances that neither of us would have chosen. But—if you had been free to speak about yourself, from the beginning. What would you have said?"

He means to anyone, not just himself, but Aleksander would be forgiven for thinking the latter is implied instead.