Anna Karenina (Penguin) - Leo Tolstoy [277]
‘It was put out to be sold,’ he replied, scowling darkly.
When the visitors had gone, Mikhailov sat down facing the picture of Pilate and Christ and went over in his mind what had been said, or not said but implied, by these visitors. And, strangely, what had carried such weight for him when they were there and when he put himself mentally into their point of view, suddenly lost all meaning for him. He began to look at his picture with his full artistic vision and arrived at that state of confidence in the perfection and hence the significance of his picture which he needed for that tension, exclusive of all other interests, which alone made it possible for him to work.
The foreshortening of Christ’s leg was still not quite right. He took his palette and set to work. As he corrected the leg, he kept studying the figure of John in the background, which the visitors had not noticed but which he knew to be the height of perfection. After finishing the leg, he wanted to get to this figure, but he felt himself too excited for it. He was equally unable to work when he was cold and when he was too receptive and saw everything too well. There was only one step in this transition from coldness to inspiration at which work was possible. But today he was too excited. He was about to cover the painting, but stopped and, holding the sheet in his hand, gazed for a long time and with a blissful smile at the figure of John. Finally, as if sadly tearing himself away, he lowered the sheet and went home, weary but happy.
Vronsky, Anna and Golenishchev, on their way back, were especially animated and merry. They talked about Mikhailov and his paintings. The word ‘talent’, which they understood as an inborn and almost physical ability, independent of mind and heart, and which they wanted to apply to everything the artist experienced, occurred particularly often in their conversation, since they needed it in order to name something they had no idea of, but wanted to talk about. They said that it was impossible to deny his talent, but that his talent had been unable to develop for lack of education - a common misfortune of our Russian artists. But the painting with the boys stuck in their memory and every now and then they went back to it.
‘So charming! He succeeded so well and so simply! He doesn’t understand how good it is. Yes, we must buy it and not let it slip,’ said Vronsky.
XIII
Mikhailov sold Vronsky his little painting and agreed to do Anna’s portrait. On the appointed day he came and set to work.
From the fifth sitting the portrait struck everyone, especially Vronsky, not only by its likeness but by its special beauty. It was strange how Mikhailov was able to find this special beauty in her. ‘One would have to know her and love her as I do to find that sweetest inner expression of hers,’ thought Vronsky, though he had learned of that sweetest inner expression of hers only from this portrait. But the expression was so true that he and others thought they had always known it.
‘I’ve been struggling for so long and have done nothing,’ he said of his own portrait, ‘and he just looked and started painting. That’s what technique means.’
‘It will come,’ Golenishchev comforted him. To his mind, Vronsky had talent and, above all, education, which gives one an exalted view of art. Golenishchev’s conviction of Vronsky’s talent was also supported by the fact that he needed Vronsky’s sympathy and praise for his articles and thoughts, and felt that praise and support ought to be mutual.
In other people’s houses, and especially in Vronsky’s palazzo, Mikhailov was quite a different man than he was at home in his studio. He showed an unfriendly deference, as if wary of getting close to people he did not respect. He called Vronsky ‘your highness’ and, despite Anna’s and Vronsky’s invitations, never stayed for dinner, but came only for the sittings. Anna was nicer to him than to others, and was grateful for her portrait. Vronsky was more than polite, and was obviously interested in the artist’s opinion of his painting. Golenishchev