Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART FIVE CHAPTER 13
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 mediaeval
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 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 partition of the land with his brother, while Anna meant to see her son.
The summer they intended to spend on Vronsky’s great family estate.
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