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“If one looked one would find others. But the point is that art
cannot suffer doubt and discussion. And before the picture of Ivanov
the question arises for the believer and the unbeliever alike, ‘Is it God,
or is it not God?’ and the unity of the impression is destroyed.”
“Why so? I think that for educated people,” said Mihailov, “the
question cannot exist.”
Golenishtchev did not agree with this, and confounded Mihailov
by his support of his first idea of the unity of the impression being
essential to art.
Mihailov was greatly perturbed, but he could say nothing in de-
fense of his own idea.
Chapter 12.
Anna and Vronsky had long been exchanging glances, regretting
their friend’s flow of cleverness. At last Vronsky, without waiting for
the artist, walked away to another small picture.
“Oh, how exquisite! What a lovely thing! A gem! How exquisite!”
they cried with one voice.
“What is it they’re so pleased with?” thought Mihailov. He had
positively forgotten that picture he had painted three years ago. He
had forgotten all the agonies and the ecstasies he had lived through
with that picture when for several months it had been the one thought
haunting him day and night. He had forgotten, as he always forgot, the
pictures he had finished. He did not even like to look at it, and had
only brought it out because he was expecting an Englishman who
wanted to buy it.
“Oh, that’s only an old study,” he said.
“How fine!” said Golenishtchev, he too, with unmistakable sincer-
ity, falling under the spell of the picture.
Two boys were angling in the shade of a willow-tree. The elder
had just dropped in the hook, and was carefully pulling the float from
behind a bush, entirely absorbed in what he was doing. The other, a
little younger, was lying in the grass leaning on his elbows, with his
tangled, flaxen head in his hands, staring at the water with his dreamy