Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART FIVE CHAPTER 10
with his wife he put on an olive-green overcoat with a velvet collar and a hat, and
went towards his studio. The successful figure he had already forgotten. Now he
was delighted and excited at the visit of these people of consequence, Russians, who
had come in their carriage.
Of his picture, the one that stood now on his easel, he had at the bottom of his heart
one conviction–that no one had ever painted a picture like it. He did not believe that
his picture was better than all the pictures of Raphael, but he knew that what he
tried to convey in that picture, no one ever had conveyed. This he knew positively,
and had known a long while, ever since he had begun to paint it. But other people’s
criticisms, whatever they might be, had yet immense consequence in his eyes, and
they agitated him to the depths of his soul. Any remark, the most insignificant, that
showed that the critic saw even the tiniest part of what he saw in the picture, agitated
him to the depths of his soul. He always attributed to his critics a more profound
comprehension than he had himself, and always expected from them something he
did not himself see in the picture. And often in their criticisms he fancied that he
had found this.
He walked rapidly to the door of his studio, and in spite of his excitement he was
struck by the soft light on Anna’s figure as she stood in the shade of the entrance
listening to Golenishtchev, who was eagerly telling her something, while she evidently
wanted to look round at the artist. He was himself unconscious how, as he
approached them, he seized on this impression and absorbed it, as he had the chin
of the shopkeeper who had sold him the cigars, and put it away somewhere to be
brought out when he wanted it. The visitors, not agreeably impressed beforehand
by Golenishtchev’s account of the artist, were still less so by his personal appearance.
Thick-set and of middle height, with nimble movements, with his brown hat,
olive-green coat and narrow trousers–though wide trousers had been a long while
in fashion,–most of all, with the ordinariness of his broad face, and the combined expression
of timidity and anxiety to keep up his dignity, Mihailov made an unpleasant
impression.
“Please step in,” he said, trying to look indifferent, and going into the passage he
took a key out of his pocket and opened the door.
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