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right.” And having made peace 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 conse-
quence 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 ea-
gerly 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 im-
pressed 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 nar-
row trousers—though wide trousers had been a long while in fash-
ion,—most of all, with the ordinariness of his broad face, and the com-
bined 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.