by Anna Karenina (tr Richard Pevear, Larissa Volokhonsky) (Penguin Classics) (epub)
When Anna appeared in her hat and wrap and paused by him, her beautiful hand playing in quick movements with her parasol, Vronsky tore himself with a sense of relief from the intent gaze of Golenishchev’s complaining eyes, and with renewed love looked at his enchanting friend, full of life and joy. Golenishchev, recovering himself with difficulty, was at first dejected and glum, but Anna, kindly disposed towards everyone (as she was at that time), soon revived him with her simple and gay manner. After trying various topics of conversation, she brought him round to painting, about which he spoke very well, and listened to him attentively. They reached the rented house on foot and looked it over.
‘I’m very glad of one thing,’ Anna said to Golenishchev on their way back. ‘Alexei will have a good atelier.* You must certainly take that room, dear,’ she said to Vronsky in Russian, addressing him familiarly, because she already understood that Golenishchev, in their seclusion, would be close to them and that there was no need to hide anything in front of him.
‘So you paint?’ asked Golenishchev, quickly turning to Vronsky.
‘Yes, I took it up a long time ago and now I’ve begun a little,’ Vronsky said, blushing.
‘He has great talent,’ Anna said with a joyful smile. ‘Of course, I’m no judge. But judges who know have said the same thing.’
VIII
Anna, during this first period of her liberation and quick recovery, felt herself unpardonably happy and filled with the joy of life. The memory of her husband’s unhappiness did not poison her happiness. This memory was, on the one hand, too terrible to think of. On the other hand, her husband’s unhappiness had given her too great a happiness to be repentant. The memory of all that had happened to her after her illness: the reconciliation with her husband, the break–up, the news of Vronsky’s wound, his appearance, the preparation for the divorce, the departure from her husband’s house, the leavetaking from her son – all this seemed to her a feverish dream from which she had awakened abroad, alone with Vronsky. The memory of the evil done to her husband called up in her a feeling akin to revulsion and similar to that experienced
* Studio.
by a drowning man who has torn away another man clinging to him. That man drowned. Of course it was bad, but it was the only salvation, and it was better not to remember those dreadful details.
One soothing reflection about her behaviour had occurred to her then, in the first moment of the break–up, and now when she remembered all that had happened, she remembered that one reflection: ‘It was inevitable that I would be this man’s unhappiness,’ she thought, ‘but I don’t want to take advantage of that unhappiness. I, too, suffer and will suffer: I’m deprived of all that I once valued most – my good name and my son. I did a bad thing and therefore I do not want happiness, I do not want a divorce, and will suffer from my disgrace and my separation from my son.’ But however sincerely Anna wanted to suffer, she did not suffer. There was no disgrace. With the tact they both had so much of, they managed, by avoiding Russian ladies abroad, never to put themselves into a false position, and everywhere met people who pretended that they fully understood their mutual position far better than they themselves did. Even the separation from her son, whom she loved, did not torment her at first. The little girl, his child, was so sweet and Anna had become so attached to her, once this little girl was all she had left, that she rarely remembered her son.
The need to live, increased by her recovery, was so strong, and the conditions of life were so new and pleasant, that Anna felt herself unpardonably happy. The more she knew of Vronsky, the more she loved him. She loved him for himself and for his love of her. To possess him fully was a constant joy for her. His nearness was always pleasing to her. All the traits of his character, which she was coming to know more and more, were inexpressibly dear to her. His appearance, changed by civilian clothes, was as attractive to her as to a young girl in love. In everything he said, thought and did, she saw something especially noble and lofty. Her admiration for him often frightened her: she sought and failed to find anything not beautiful in him. She did not dare show him her awareness of her own nullity before him. It seemed to her that if he knew it, he would stop loving her sooner; and she feared nothing so much now, though she had no reason for it, as losing his love. But she could not help being grateful to him for his attitude towards her and showing him how much she appreciated it. He, who in her opinion had such a clear vocation for statesmanship, in which he ought to have played a prominent role, had sacrificed his ambition for her and never showed the slightest regret. He was more lovingly respectful of her than ever, and the thought that she must never be made to feel her awkward position did not leave him for a moment. He, manly as he was, not only never contradicted her, but had no will of his own, and seemed to be concerned only with anticipating her wishes. And she could not help appreciating it, though the very strain of his attentiveness towards her, the atmosphere of solicitude he surrounded her with, was sometimes burdensome to her.
Vronsky meanwhile, despite the full realization of what he had desired for so long, was not fully happy. He soon felt that the realization of his desire had given him only a grain of the mountain of happiness he had expected. It showed him the eternal error people make in imagining that happiness is the realization of desires. At first, after he had united with her and put on civilian clothes, he felt all the enchantment of freedom in general, which he had not known before, and of the freedom of love, and he was content, but not for long. He soon felt arise in his soul a desire for desires, an anguish. Independently of his will, he began to grasp at every fleeting caprice, taking it for a desire and a goal. Sixteen hours of the day had to be occupied by something, since they lived abroad in complete freedom, outside the sphere of conventional social life that had occupied their time in Petersburg. Of the pleasures of bachelor life that had diverted him during his previous trips abroad he could not even think, because one attempt of that sort, a late supper with acquaintances, had produced in Anna a dejection both unexpected and exaggerated. Contacts with local or Russian society, given the uncertainty of their position, were also impossible. Looking at places of interest, not to mention that they had already seen everything, did not have for him, a Russian and an intelligent man, the inexplicable importance that Englishmen are able to ascribe to it.
And as a hungry animal seizes upon every object it comes across, hoping to find food in it, so Vronsky quite unconsciously seized now upon politics, now upon new books, now upon painting.
Since he had had an ability for painting from an early age and, not knowing how to spend his money, had begun to collect engravings, he now chose painting, began studying it, and put into it that idle store of desires which called for satisfaction.
He had an ability to understand art and to imitate it faithfully, tastefully, and thought he had precisely what was needed for an artist. After some hesitation over what kind of painting he would choose – religious, historical, genre or realistic – he started to paint. He understood all kinds and could be inspired by one or another; but he could not imagine that one could be utterly ignorant of all the kinds of painting and be inspired directly by what was in one’s soul, unconcerned whether what one painted belonged to any particular kind. Since he did not know that, and was inspired not directly by life but indirectly by life already embodied in art, he became inspired very quickly and easily, and arrived as quickly and easily at making what he painted look very much like the kind of art he wanted to imitate.
He liked the graceful and showy French manner more than any other, and in this manner he began painting a portrait of Anna in Italian costume, and to him and to everyone who saw it this portrait seemed very successful.
IX
The old, neglected palazzo, with stucco mouldings on its high ceilings and frescoes on its walls, with mosaic floors, heavy yellow damask curtains on its high windows, urns on consoles and mantelpieces, carved doors and sombre halls hung with pictures – this palazzo, once they had moved into i
t, by its very appearance maintained the agreeable illusion in Vronsky that he was not so much a Russian landowner, a chief equerry without a post, as an enlightened amateur and patron of the arts – and also a modest artist himself – who had renounced the world, connections, ambition for the woman he loved.
The role chosen by Vronsky with his move to the palazzo was a complete success and, having met some interesting people through Golenishchev’s mediation, he was initially at peace. Under the guidance of an Italian professor of painting, he painted sketches from nature and studied medieval Italian life. Medieval Italian life had recently become so fascinating for Vronsky that he even began wearing his hat and a wrap thrown over his shoulder in a medieval fashion, which was very becoming to him.
‘And here we live and know nothing,’ Vronsky said when Golenishchev came to see him one morning. ‘Have you seen Mikhailov’s picture?’ he asked, handing him a Russian morning newspaper and pointing to an article about a Russian painter who lived in the same town and had finished a picture of which rumours had long been going about and which had been purchased before completion. The article reproached the government and the Academy for leaving a remarkable painter without any encouragement or aid.
‘I’ve seen it,’ Golenishchev replied. ‘He is certainly not without talent, but his tendency is completely false. The same old Ivanov–Strauss–Renan[21] attitude towards Christ and religious painting.’
‘What does the picture represent?’ asked Anna.
‘Christ before Pilate. Christ is presented as a Jew with all the realism of the new school.’[22]
And, the question about the content of the picture having led him to one of his favourite themes, Golenishchev began to expound:
T don’t understand how they can be so grossly mistaken. Christ found His definitive realization in the art of the old masters. Which means, if they want to portray not God but some revolutionary or wise man, they should take someone from history – Socrates, Franklin, Charlotte Corday,[23] only not Christ. They take the very person who cannot be taken for art, and then …’
‘And is it true that this Mikhailov lives in such poverty?’ asked Vronsky, thinking that he, as a Russian Maecenas, ought to help the artist regardless of whether his picture was good or bad.
‘Hardly. He’s a remarkable portraitist. Have you seen his portrait of Mme Vassilchikov? But it seems he no longer wants to paint portraits, and perhaps he really is in need. What I’m saying is …’
‘Couldn’t we ask him to paint a portrait of Anna Arkadyevna?’ said Vronsky.
‘Why of me?’ said Anna. ‘I don’t want any portrait after yours. Better of Annie’ (so she called her little girl). ‘And here she is,’ she added, looking out the window at the beautiful Italian wet nurse who had taken the child to the garden, and at once glancing surreptitiously at Vronsky. This beautiful wet nurse, from whom Vronsky had painted the head for his picture, was the only secret grief in Anna’s life. While painting her, he had admired her beauty and medievalness, and Anna did not dare admit to herself that she was afraid of being jealous of her, and therefore she especially pampered and spoiled both the woman and her little son.
Vronsky also glanced out the window and then into Anna’s eyes, and, turning at once to Golenishchev, said:
‘And do you know this Mikhailov?’
‘I’ve met him. But he’s an odd fellow and totally uneducated. You know, one of those wild new people you meet so often now, one of those freethinkers who are brought up d’emblée* with notions of unbelief, negation and materialism. It used to be,’ Golenishchev went on, not noticing or not wishing to notice that both Anna and Vronsky also wanted to talk, ‘it used to be that a freethinker was a man who had been brought up with notions of religion, law, morality, and had arrived at freethinking by himself, through his own toil and struggle. But now a new type of self–made freethinkers has appeared, who grow up and never even hear that there were laws of morality, religion, that there were authorities, but who grow up right into notions of the negation of everything – that is, as wild men. He’s like that. It seems he’s the son of a Moscow major–domo and received no education. When he entered the Academy and made a reputation for himself, being far from stupid, he wanted to get educated. And he turned to what he thought was a source of education – the magazines. You understand, in older times a man who wanted to get educated, a Frenchman, let’s say, would start by studying the classics – theologians, tragedians, historians, philosophers – and you can imagine all the mental labour that confronted him. But with us, now, he comes straight to nihilistic literature, very quickly learns the whole essence of its negative teaching, and there he is. And that’s not all: some twenty years ago he’d have found signs of a struggle with authorities, with age–old views, in this literature, and from this struggle he’d have understood that something else existed; but now he comes straight to a literature that doesn’t even deign to argue with the old views, but says directly: There is nothing, evolution, selection, the struggle for existence – and that’s all. In my article I…’
‘You know what,’ said Anna, who had long been cautiously exchanging glances with Vronsky, and who knew that he was not interested in the artist’s education but was concerned only with the thought of helping him and commissioning the portrait. ‘You know what?’ she resolutely interrupted the loquacious Golenishchev. ‘Let’s go and see him!’
Golenishchev recovered himself and willingly agreed. But since the artist lived in a remote quarter, they decided to take a carriage.
An hour later Anna, sitting beside Golenishchev and with Vronsky in the front seat, drove up to a new, ugly house in a remote quarter. Learning from the caretaker’s wife, who came to meet them, that Mikhailov received people in his studio, but was now in his apartment two
* Straight off.
steps away, they sent her to him with their cards, asking permission to see his pictures.
X
The artist Mikhailov was working as usual when the cards of Count Vronsky and Golenishchev were brought to him. In the morning he had worked on the big picture in his studio. Returning home, he got angry with his wife for being unable to handle the landlady, who was demanding money.
‘I’ve told you twenty times, don’t get into explanations. You’re a fool as it is, and when you start speaking Italian you come out a triple fool,’ he told her, after a lengthy argument.
‘You shouldn’t let it go for so long, it’s not my fault. If I had money …’
‘Leave me alone, for God’s sake!’ Mikhailov exclaimed with tears in his voice and, stopping his ears, went to his workroom behind the partition and locked the door behind him. ‘Witless woman!’ he said to himself, sat down at the table, opened a portfolio, and at once set to work with particular ardour on a sketch he had begun.
He never worked so ardently and successfully as when his life was going badly, and especially after quarrelling with his wife. ‘Ah, it can all go to blazes!’ he thought as he went on working. He was making a sketch for the figure of a man in a fit of anger. There was an earlier sketch, but he had not been satisfied with it. ‘No, that one was better … Where is it?’ He went to his wife and, scowling, without looking at her, asked the older girl where the paper he had given them was. The paper with the discarded sketch was found, but it was dirty and spattered with stearin. All the same he took the drawing, placed it on his table and, stepping back and squinting, began to study it. Suddenly he smiled and joyfully threw up his hands.
‘That’s it, that’s it!’ he said and, taking up his pencil at once, began drawing quickly. A spot of stearin had given the man a new pose.
