was soon in that mood of conviction of the perfectibility, and so of the
significance, of his picture—a conviction essential to the most intense
fervor, excluding all other interests—in which alone he could work.
Christ’s foreshortened leg was not right, though. He took his palette and
began to work. As he corrected the leg he looked continually at the figure of
John in the background, which his visitors had not even noticed, but which
he knew was beyond perfection. When he had finished the leg he wanted to
touch that figure, but he felt too much excited for it. He was equally unable
to work when he was cold and when he was too much affected and saw
everything too much. There was only one stage in the transition from
coldness to inspiration, at which work was possible. Today he was too much
agitated. He would have covered the picture, but he stopped, holding the
cloth in his hand, and, smiling blissfully, gazed a long while at the figure of
John. At last, as it were regretfully tearing himself away, he dropped the
cloth, and, exhausted but happy, went home.
Vronsky, Anna, and Golenishtchev, on their way home, were particularly
lively and cheerful. They talked of Mihailov and his pictures. The word
talent, by which they meant an inborn, almost physical, aptitude apart from
brain and heart, and in which they tried to find an expression for all the
artist had gained from life, recurred particularly often in their talk, as
though it were necessary for them to sum up what they had no conception
of, though they wanted to talk of it. They said that there was no denying his
talent, but that his talent could not develop for want of education—the
common defect of our Russian artists. But the picture of the boys had
imprinted itself on their memories, and they were continually coming back
to it. “What an exquisite thing! How he has succeeded in it, and how
simply! He doesn’t even comprehend how good it is. Yes, I mustn’t let it
slip; I must buy it,” said Vronsky.
Chapter 13
Mihailov sold Vronsky his picture, and agreed to paint a portrait of Anna.
On the day fixed he came and began the work.
From the fifth sitting the portrait impressed everyone, especially
Vronsky, not only by its resemblance, but by its characteristic beauty. It was
strange how Mihailov could have discovered just her characteristic beauty.
“One needs to know and love her as I have loved her to discover the very
sweetest expression of her soul,” Vronsky thought, though it was only from
this portrait that he had himself learned this sweetest expression of her soul.
But the expression was so true that he, and others too, fancied they had long
known it.
“I have been struggling on for ever so long without doing anything,” he
said of his own portrait of her, “and he just looked and painted it. That’s
where technique comes in.”
“That will come,” was the consoling reassurance given him by
Golenishtchev, in whose view Vronsky had both talent, and what was most
important, culture, giving him a wider outlook on art. Golenishtchev’s faith
in Vronsky’s talent was propped up by his own need of Vronsky’s sympathy
and approval for his own articles and ideas, and he felt that the praise and
support must be mutual.
In another man’s house, and especially in Vronsky’s palazzo, Mihailov
was quite a different man from what he was in his studio. He behaved with
hostile courtesy, as though he were afraid of coming closer to people he did
not respect. He called Vronsky “your excellency,” and notwithstanding
Anna’s and Vronsky’s invitations, he would never stay to dinner, nor come
except for the sittings. Anna was even more friendly to him than to other
people, and was very grateful for her portrait. Vronsky was more than
cordial with him, and was obviously interested to know the artist’s opinion
of his picture. Golenishtchev never let slip an opportunity of instilling
sound ideas about art into Mihailov. But Mihailov remained equally chilly
to all of them. Anna was aware from his eyes that he liked looking at her,
but he avoided conversation with her. Vronsky’s talk about his painting he
met with stubborn silence, and he was as stubbornly silent when he was
shown Vronsky’s picture. He was unmistakably bored by Golenishtchev’s
conversation, and he did not attempt to oppose him.
Altogether Mihailov, with his reserved and disagreeable, as it were,
hostile attitude, was quite disliked by them as they got to know him better;
and they were glad when the sittings were over, and they were left with a
magnificent portrait in their possession, and he gave up coming.
Golenishtchev was the first to give expression to an idea that had occurred
to all of them, which was that Mihailov was simply jealous of Vronsky.
“Not envious, let us say, since he has talent; but it annoys him that a
wealthy man of the highest society, and a count, too (you know they all
detest a title), can, without any particular trouble, do as well, if not better,
than he who has devoted all his life to it. And more than all, it’s a question
of culture, which he is without.”
Vronsky defended Mihailov, but at the bottom of his heart he believed it,
because in his view a man of a different, lower world would be sure to be
envious.
Anna’s portrait—the same subject painted from nature both by him and
by Mihailov—ought to have shown Vronsky the difference between him
and Mihailov; but he did not see it. Only after Mihailov’s portrait was
painted he left off painting his portrait of Anna, deciding that it was now not
needed. His picture of mediæval life he went on with. And he himself, and
Golenishtchev, and still more Anna, thought it very good, because it was far
more like the celebrated pictures they knew than Mihailov’s picture.
Mihailov meanwhile, although Anna’s portrait greatly fascinated him,
was even more glad than they were when the sittings were over, and he had
no longer to listen to Golenishtchev’s disquisitions upon art, and could
forget about Vronsky’s painting. He knew that Vronsky could not be
prevented from amusing himself with painting; he knew that he and all
dilettanti had a perfect right to paint what they liked, but it was distasteful
to him. A man could not be prevented from making himself a big wax doll,
and kissing it. But if the man were to come with the doll and sit before a
man in love, and begin caressing his doll as the lover caressed the woman
he loved, it would be distasteful to the lover. Just such a distasteful
sensation was what Mihailov felt at the sight of Vronsky’s painting: he felt
it both ludicrous and irritating, both pitiable and offensive.
Vronsky’s interest in painting and the Middle Ages did not last long. He
had enough taste for painting to be unable to finish his picture. The picture
came to a standstill. He was vaguely aware that its defects, inconspicuous at
first, would be glaring if he were to go on with it. The same experience
befell him as Golenishtchev, who felt that he had nothing to say, and
continually deceived himself with the theory that his idea was not yet
mature, that he was working it out and collecting materials. This
