Anna Karenina

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,
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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 medieval 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
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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
exasperated and tortured Golenishtchev, but Vronsky was incapable of
deceiving and torturing himself, and even more incapable of exasperation.
With his characteristic decision, without explanation or apology, he simply
ceased working at painting.
But without this occupation, the life of Vronsky and of Anna, who
wondered at his loss of interest in it, struck them as intolerably tedious in
an Italian town. The palazzo suddenly seemed so obtrusively old and dirty,
the spots on the curtains, the cracks in the floors, the broken plaster on the
cornices became so disagreeably obvious, and the everlasting sameness of
Golenishtchev, and the Italian professor and the German traveler became so
wearisome, that they had to make some change. They resolved to go to
Russia, to the country. In Petersburg Vronsky intended to arrange a