Focus on The Difficult Crossing and explore the The 1926 version.
The 1926 version contains a number of curious elements, some of which are common to many of Magritte's works.
The bilboquet or baluster (the object which looks like the bishop from a chess set) first appears in the painting The Lost Jockey (1926). In this and some other works—for example The Secret Player (1927) and The Art of Conversation (1961)—the bilboquet seems to play an inanimate role analogous to a tree or plant. In other instances, such as here with The Difficult Crossing, the bilboquet is given the anthropomorphic feature of a single eye.
Another common feature of Magritte's works seen here is the ambiguity between windows and paintings. The back of the room shows a boat in a thunderstorm, but the viewer is left to wonder if the depiction is a painting or the view out a window. Magritte elevated the idea to another level in his series of works based on The Human Condition where "outdoor" paintings and windows both appear and even overlap.
Near the bilboquet stands a table. On the top, a disembodied hand is holding a red bird, as if clutching it. The front right leg of the table resembles a human leg.
The Human Condition paintings bilboquet right hand eye bishop chess bird baluster boat human leg anthropomorphic table thunderstorm tree window plant