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FIFTY-TWO

‘Well, and so you have settled down here?’ said Vronsky in order to begin a conversation. ‘You are still busy at the same thing?’ he went on, recollecting1 that he had heard the other was writing something.
‘Yes, I am writing the second part of Two Principles,’ said Golenishchev, flushing with pleasure at the question. ‘To be quite exact, I mean, I am not yet writing, but am collecting the materials. The book will be much fuller and will deal with almost all the questions. We in Russia are slow to realize that we are the inheritors of Byzantium,’ and he began a long and heated explanation.
At first Vronsky felt uncomfortable because he did not know even the first part of Two Principles, which the author mentioned as if it were well known. But later on, when Golenishchev began expounding2 his view, and Vronsky was able to follow him, even though he was ignorant of Two Principles he listened with interest, for the man talked well.
Yet Vronsky was surprised at, and sorry to see, the irritable3 excitement with which Golenishchev spoke4 on the subject that interested him. The longer he talked the more his eyes flashed, the more hastily he retorted on imaginary opponents, and the more agitated5 and offended became his face. Remembering him as a thin, active, good-natured, and noble boy, always at the head of his class, Vronsky could not understand the cause of the agitation6, nor approve of it. What most displeased7 him was that Golenishchev, a man belonging to good Society, should put himself on the same level with certain scribblers who irritated him and made him angry. Was it worth while? He did not like this, but nevertheless he felt that Golenishchev was not happy and he was sorry for him. Signs of distress8, of insanity9 almost, were apparent in his mobile and rather good-natured face when, without even observing that Anna had re-entered the room, he continued expressing his views with haste and warmth.
When Anna returned with her hat and mantle10 on, and stood beside him toying with her sunshade with quick motions of her beautiful hand, Vronsky with a feeling of relief turned from Golenishchev’s eyes which were fixed11 on him plaintively12. With renewed love he glanced at his charming companion, so full of vitality13 and joy. With an effort Golenishchev recollected14 himself but he was at first dejected and morose15. Anna, however, who at that time was amiably16 disposed to every one, soon revived him by her simple and cheerful behaviour. After trying several topics of conversation she led him on to the subject of art, about which he talked very well, and listened to him with attention. They walked to the house they had taken and looked over it.
‘I am very pleased about one thing,’ said Anna to Golenishchev when they had returned to the hotel. ‘Alexis will have a nice studio. You must certainly have that room, Alexis,’ she added, having understood that Golenishchev was to be on an intimate footing with them and that there was no need to pretend in his presence.
‘Do you paint?’ inquired Golenishchev, turning quickly to Vronsky.
‘Yes, I went in for it long ago, and now have begun a little,’ answered Vronsky with a blush.
‘He is very talented,’ said Anna with a pleased smile. ‘Of course I am no judge, but people who do know say so.’

Chapter 8

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DURING this, the first period of her freedom and rapid recovery, Anna was unpardonably happy and full of the joy of life. The memory of her husband’s grief did not poison her happiness. On the one hand this memory was too terrible to dwell upon, and on the other hand her husband’s misfortune had meant for her too great a joy for repentance to be possible. The recollection of all that had happened to her since her illness; her reconciliation with her husband, the rupture, the news of Vronsky’s wound, his reappearance in her husband’s house, the preparations for divorce, the parting from her home and son — all now seemed a delirious dream from which she had wakened abroad and alone with Vronsky. The memory of the evil done to her husband aroused in her a feeling akin to repulsion, such as a man might feel who when in danger of drowning had shaken off another who clung to him. That other was drowned; of course it was wrong, but it had been the only way of escape and it was better not to recall such terrible details.
One comforting reflection about her conduct had come to her in the first moment of the rupture, and when she now remembered the past she also recalled that reflection. ‘I was the inevitable cause of unhappiness to him,’ she thought, ‘but I don’t wish to profit by his calamity. I too am suffering and must suffer: I am losing what I most cherished — my good name and my son. I have done wrong, and therefore do not ask for happiness and do not want a divorce. I must go on suffering from the degradation and by the separation from my son.’ But sincerely as Anna desired to suffer, she was not suffering. She was not conscious of degradation. With the tact they both possessed, and by avoiding Russian ladies abroad, the two never placed themselves in a false position and always met people who pretended to understand their mutual relations much better than they themselves understood them. The parting from her son, whom she loved, did not trouble her at first either. The little girl, his child, was so sweet, and Anna had grown so attached to her since she was the only child left to her, that she rarely thought of her son.
The desire to live, enhanced by her recovery, was so powerful, and the conditions of her life were so novel and pleasant, that Anna felt unpardonably happy. The better she knew Vronsky the more she loved him. She loved him both for his own sake and for his love of her. To possess him entirely was a continual joy to her. His nearness was always pleasant. All the traits of character, with which she became better and better acquainted, seemed inexpressibly delightful. His appearance, altered by civilian dress, was as attractive to her as to a girl in love. In all he said, thought, or did, she saw something peculiarly noble and exalted. She herself was frightened at the rapture with which he inspired her; she sought, but could not find, anything in him that was not beautiful. She dared not let him see her consciousness of her own inferiority. To her it seemed that if he knew of it he would the sooner cease to love her, and there was nothing she now feared more — though she had no reason to do so — than the loss of his love. But she could not help being grateful to him for his treatment of her, and showing him how much she valued it. He, who in her opinion had such a decided vocation for statesmanship, in which he ought to have played a conspicuous part, had sacrificed his ambitions for her and never showed the least regret. He was even more lovingly respectful to her than before, and the thought that she must never be allowed to feel the awkwardness of her situation never left his mind for a moment. He, so virile a man, not only never contradicted her, but where she was concerned seemed to have no will of his own and to be only occupied in anticipating her every wish. She could not help appreciating this, although his strained attentiveness, the atmosphere of solicitude with which he surrounded her, became burdensome at times.
Vronsky meanwhile, in spite of the complete fulfilment of what he had so long desired, was not completely happy. He soon felt that the realization of his longing gave him only one grain of the mountain of bliss he had anticipated. That realization showed him the eternal error men make by imagining that happiness consists in the gratification of their wishes. When first he united his life with hers and donned civilian clothes, he felt the delight of freedom in general, such as he had not before known, and also the freedom of love — he was contented then, but not for long. Soon he felt rising in his soul a desire for desires — boredom. Involuntarily he began to snatch at every passing caprice, mistaking it for a desire and a purpose. Sixteen hours daily had to be filled somehow, living abroad as they did completely at liberty, quite cut off from the round of social life that had filled his time in Petersburg. The pleasures of a bachelor’s life, enjoyed by him on his previous travels abroad, were not to be thought of now, for one attempt of that kind had produced in Anna an unexpected fit of depression quite disproportionate to the offence of a late supper with some acquaintances. Intercourse with local Society or with the Russians was, in consequence of the indefiniteness of their relation, likewise impossible. Sight-seeing, apart from the fact that he had already seen everything, had for him — a Russian and an intelligent man — none of that inexplicable importance the English manage to attach to it.
As a hungry animal seizes every object it meets, hoping to find food in it, so Vronsky unconsciously seized now on politics, now on new books, now on pictures.
As in his youth he had shown aptitude for art, and not knowing how to spend his money had begun to collect engravings, he now settled down to painting and began to work at it, putting into it the surplus stock of desire which demanded satisfaction.
He had a talent for understanding art and for imitating it with accuracy and good taste, and he imagined that he possessed the real power an artist needs. After wavering for some time between various kinds of art — religious, historical, genre or realistic — he began to paint. He understood all the different kinds and was able to draw inspiration from all, but he could not imagine that it is possible to be quite ignorant of the different kinds of art and to be inspired directly by what is in one’s own soul, regardless of whether what one paints belongs to any particular school. As he did not know this, and was not inspired directly by life but indirectly by life already embodied in art, he found inspiration very readily and easily, and equally readily and easily produced paintings very similar to the school of art he wished to imitate.
He liked the graceful and effective French School of painting best, and in that style began painting a portrait of Anna dressed as an Italian, and he, as well as every one else who saw it, considered the portrait a great success.

Chapter 9

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THE neglected old palazzo with its high stucco ceilings, its wall frescoes and mosaic floors, with heavy yellow damask hangings at the big windows, vases standing on brackets and mantelshelves, carved doors, and sombre halls filled with pictures, — that palazzo, when they had moved into it, by its very appearance kept alive in Vronsky the pleasant delusion that he was not so much a Russian landowner and equerry without a post as an enlightened connoisseur and art patron, and withal a modest artist himself who had renounced the world, his connections and ambitions, for the sake of the woman he loved.
The rôle Vronsky had chosen, with their removal to the palazzo, was quite successful; and having through Golenishchev made the acquaintance of several interesting persons, he felt tranquil for a time. He painted studies from nature under the direction of an Italian professor, and studied Italian life in the Middle Ages. Mediaeval Italian life had at that time become so fascinating to him that he even began to wear his hat and throw his cloak across his shoulder in a mediaeval manner which was very becoming to him.
‘Here we live and know nothing,’ said Vronsky one morning to Golenishchev, who had come to see him. ‘Have you seen Mikhaylov’s picture?’ and he passed his visitor a Russian newspaper that had just arrived, and pointed to an article on a Russian artist who was living in that town, and had just finished a picture long talked of and bought before completion. The article reproached the Government and the Academy for leaving a remarkable artist without encouragement or help.
‘I have,’ answered Golenishchev. ‘Of course he is not without talent, but his tendency is quite a false one. He has that Ivanov-Strauss-Renan attitude toward Christ and religious art.’
‘What is the subject of his picture?’ asked Anna.
‘Christ before Pilate. Christ is pictured as a Jew with all the realism of the New School.’
Led on by this question about the subject of the picture to one of his favourite topics, he began to explain.
‘I can’t understand how one can make so gross an error! In the art of the old masters Christ was given a definite embodiment: therefore, if they want to depict not God but a revolutionary or a sage, let them choose some historic character — Socrates, Franklin, Charlotte Corday — but certainly not Christ! They choose the one person who must not be chosen as a subject for art, and then . . .’
‘And is it true that this Mikhaylov is so poor?’ inquired Vronsky, thinking that he, as a Russian Maecenas, ought to help this artist regardless of whether his picture was good or bad.
‘Hardly. He is a wonderful portrait-painter. Have you seen his portrait of Vasilchikova? But it seems he does not want to paint any more portraits, so it is possible he may be in want. I say that . . .’
‘Couldn’t one ask him to paint Anna Arkadyevna’s portrait?’ said Vronsky.
‘Why mine?’ said Anna. ‘After the one you painted I want no other. Better have one of Annie’ (as she called her little girl). ‘There she is!’ she added, looking from the window at the beautiful Italian nurse who had taken the baby into the garden, and then immediately glancing round at Vronsky. The beautiful nurse, whose head Vronsky was painting for his picture, was the only and secret sorrow of Anna’s life. Vronsky painted her, admired her beauty and her ‘mediaevalness,’ and Anna dared not confess to herself that she was afraid of being jealous of the nurse; so she treated the woman with special kindness and spoilt her and her little son.
Vronsky too looked out of the window and into Anna’s eyes, and at once turned to Golenishchev saying:
‘Do you know this Mikhaylov?’
‘I have met him. But he is a crank and quite uneducated. You know, he is one of those heathenish new folk one so often meets nowadays; you know! One of those freethinkers who have been brought up from the beginning in disbelief, negation, and materialism. Formerly,’ Golenishchev went on, either not noticing or not wishing to notice that both Anna and Vronsky wanted to speak, ‘formerly a freethinker was a man brought up with ideas of religion, law, and morality, who himself, through struggle and pain, had attained freedom of thought; but now a new type of born freethinkers has appeared. These grow up without so much as hearing that there used to be laws of morality and religion, and that there was once authority in these things; they grow up simply with the idea of negation — that is, as heathens. He is one of these. He is the son of a head footman, I think, and has had no education. When he entered the Academy and won a reputation for himself he, not being stupid, wanted to get some education. So he resorted to what seemed to him to be the wellspring of education — the magazines. You see, formerly a man who wished to get an education — a Frenchman, let us say — would have commenced studying all the classics, theologians, dramatists, historians, and philosophers, and with what mental labour he would have been confronted! But among us at the present day he tumbled straight into the literature of negation and rapidly assimilated the essence of the negative teaching, and there he was! And that is not all. Twenty years ago he would have found in that kind of literature signs of the struggle with authority and of an outlook centuries old, and from that struggle would have deduced that something else had existed; but as it is, he stumbles on a kind of literature that does not even deign to dispute the old point of view, saying straight off, “There is nothing but evolution, selection, the struggle for existence, and nothing more!” In my article I . . .’
‘Do you know what we’ll do?’ cried Anna, who for some time had been furtively exchanging looks with Vronsky and knew that the latter was not at all interested in the education of the artist but was only concerned to help him by giving him a commission for a portrait. ‘Do you know what we’ll do?’ she resolutely interrupted Golenishchev, who was in the full flow of his speech. ‘Let us go and see him.’
Golenishchev pulled himself up and unwillingly agreed, but as the artist lived in a distant part of the town they decided to hire a carriage.
An hour later Anna, seated beside Golenishchev with Vronsky facing them, drove to a new ugly house in a distant quarter of the town. Having learnt from the house-porter’s wife who came out to meet them that Mikhaylov allowed visitors into his studio, but was at that moment at his lodgings a few steps away, they sent her with their cards to beg permission to see his pictures.

Chapter 10

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MIKHAYLOV, the artist, was at work as usual when Vronsky’s and Golenishchev’s cards were brought him. Every morning he worked in the studio at his big picture.
On returning home he had been angry with his wife because she had not managed to pacify the landlady, who clamoured for the rent.
‘Have I not told you scores of times not to enter upon discussions? At best you are only a fool, and when you begin arguing in Italian you become a treble fool!’ he said at the end of a long dispute.
‘Then you shouldn’t get into arrears! It’s not my fault! If I had any money . . .’
‘Shut up, for heaven’s sake!’ cried Mikhaylov with tears in his voice, stopping his ears with his hands as he went into his workroom behind a partition and locked the door behind him.
‘What a duffer!’ he muttered to himself as he seated himself at the table, and having opened a portfolio he at once set to work with particular ardour at an unfinished drawing.
He never worked with such ardour or so successfully as when things were going badly with him, and especially after a quarrel with his wife. ‘Oh dear! If only I could escape somewhere!’ he thought as he worked. He was sketching the figure of a man in a fit of anger. He had sketched him before, but had been dissatisfied with the result. ‘No, the other one was better. . . . Where is it?’ He went back to his wife, and frowning, without looking at her, asked his eldest little girl where the paper was that he had given them. The paper with the drawing that he had thrown away was found, but it was dirty now and spotted with candle grease. Nevertheless, he took it, put it on his table, and, stepping backward and screwing up his eyes, began examining it. Suddenly he smiled and flung up his arms joyfully.
‘That’s it! That’s it!’ he said, and taking up his pencil he began drawing rapidly. A grease spot had given the figure a new pose.
He copied that new pose, and, suddenly remembering the energetic pose and prominent chin of a shopman from whom he had bought cigars, he gave the figure that man’s face and chin. He laughed with joy, for the inanimate, unnatural figure had become alive, and was just the thing. The figure was alive, clear, and well-defined. It was possible to correct the drawing to accord with the requirements of the pose; it was possible and even necessary to place the feet further apart, to alter the position of the left arm, and to throw back the hair. But while making these corrections he did not alter the pose but only removed what interfered with its character. He removed, if one may say so, the coverings which partially obscured the figure, every fresh stroke making its energy and power more apparent and more as it had been suddenly revealed to him by the effects of the grease spot. He was carefully finishing the drawing when the cards were brought to him.
‘Directly! Directly!’
He went out to his wife. ‘Come, Sasha, don’t be angry,’ he said, smiling timidly and tenderly. ‘You were wrong and so was I. I’ll settle it all!’
Having made it up with his wife he put on an olive-green overcoat with a velvet collar, and a hat, and went to the studio. His successful drawing was already forgotten. Now he was pleased and excited by the visit to his studio of these grand Russians who had come in a carriage.
About his picture — the one at present on the easel — he had at the bottom of his heart a firm opinion: that no one had ever painted anything like it. He did not consider his picture better than all Raphael’s, but he knew that what he wanted to express in that picture had never yet been expressed by anyone. Of that he was firmly convinced, and had long been so — ever since he had begun painting it; yet the opinion of others, whoever they might be, seemed to him of great importance, and disturbed him to the depths of his soul. Every remark, even the most trivial, which showed that those who judged it saw even but a small part of what he himself saw in it, moved him deeply. He always attributed to those judges a better understanding than his own, and always expected to hear from them something he had himself not noticed in his work, often fancying that in their criticisms he had really found that something.
With rapid steps he approached the door of his studio, and in spite of his excitement was struck by the soft light on Anna’s figure as she stood in the shadow of the porch listening to something Golenishchev was vehemently saying, and at the same time evidently wishing to look at the approaching artist. He was himself unconscious that as he approached them he seized and absorbed this impression, just as he had retained the tobacconist’s chin and hidden it away where he could find it when it was wanted. The visitors, already disenchanted by Golenishchev’s account of the artist, were still further disillusioned by his appearance. Of medium height, thick-set and with a loose gait, Mikhaylov in his brown hat, olive-green overcoat and narrow trousers (at a time when wide ones had long since come into fashion), and especially his commonplace broad face, expressing a combination of timidity and a desire to be dignified, created an unpleasant impression.
‘Come in, please!’ he said, trying to put on an air of indifference, as he entered the hall and took a key from his pocket to unlock the door.