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be sure to be envious.
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 medieval 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 ever-
lasting 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.