Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART FIVE CHAPTER 11
had grown up within him with its special character, every face that had given him
such torments and such raptures, and all these faces so many times transposed for
the sake of the harmony of the whole, all the shades of color and tones that he had
attained with such labor–all of this together seemed to him now, looking at it with
their eyes, the merest vulgarity, something that had been done a thousand times
over. The face dearest to him, the face of Christ, the center of the picture, which had
given him such ecstasy as it unfolded itself to him, was utterly lost to him when he
glanced at the picture with their eyes. He saw a well-painted (no, not even that–he
distinctly saw now a mass of defects) repetition of those endless Christs of Titian,
Raphael, Rubens, and the same soldiers and Pilate. It was all common, poor, and
stale, and positively badly painted–weak and unequal. They would be justified in
repeating hypocritically civil speeches in the presence of the painter, and pitying him
and laughing at him when they were alone again.
The silence (though it lasted no more than a minute) became too intolerable to
him. To break it, and to show he was not agitated, he made an effort and addressed
Golenishtchev.
“I think I’ve had the pleasure of meeting you,” he said, looking uneasily first at
Anna, then at Vronsky, in fear of losing any shade of their expression.
“To be sure! We met at Rossi’s, do you remember, at that soirée when that Italian
lady recited–the new Rachel?” Golenishtchev answered easily, removing his eyes
without the slightest regret from the picture and turning to the artist.
Noticing, however, that Mihailov was expecting a criticism of the picture, he said:
“Your picture has got on a great deal since I saw it last time; and what strikes
me particularly now, as it did then, is the figure of Pilate. One so knows the man:
a good-natured, capital fellow, but an official through and through, who does not
know what it is he’s doing. But I fancy...”
All Mihailov’s mobile face beamed at once; his eyes sparkled. He tried to say
something, but he could not speak for excitement, and pretended to be coughing.
Low as was his opinion of Golenishtchev’s capacity for understanding art, trifling
as was the true remark upon the fidelity of the expression of Pilate as an official,
and offensive as might have seemed the utterance of so unimportant an observation
while nothing was said of more serious points, Mihailov was in an ecstasy of
delight at this observation. He had himself thought about Pilate’s figure just what
Golenishtchev said. The fact that this reflection was but one of millions of reflections,
which as Mihailov knew for certain would be true, did not diminish for him
the significance of Golenishtchev’s remark. His heart warmed to Golenishtchev for
this remark, and from a state of depression he suddenly passed to ecstasy. At once
the whole of his picture lived before him in all the indescribable complexity of everything
living. Mihailov again tried to say that that was how he understood Pilate,
but his lips quivered intractably, and he could not pronounce the words. Vronsky
and Anna too said something in that subdued voice in which, partly to avoid hurting
the artist’s feelings and partly to avoid saying out loud something silly–so easily
said when talking of art–people usually speak at exhibitions of pictures. Mihailov
fancied that the picture had made an impression on them too. He went up to them.
“How marvelous Christ’s expression is!” said Anna. Of all she saw she liked that
437