Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/641

 But the painting of the two boys appealed to their tastes, and again and again they recurred to it. "How charming! How natural and how simple! And he did not realize how good it was. Certainly, I must not fail to buy it," said Vronsky.

CHAPTER XIII

sold Vronsky the little picture, and also agreed to paint Anna's portrait. He came on the appointed day and began his work.

Even on the fifth sitting the portrait struck every one, and especially Vronsky, by its resemblance, and by its peculiar beauty. It was remarkable how Mikhaïlof was able to hit upon her peculiar beauty.

"One must know her and love her as I love her to get her gentle and spiritual expression," thought Vronsky; and yet he found in Mikhaïlof's portrait exactly that very expression. But this expression was so faithful that it seemed to him and to others that they had always known it.

"I have spent so much time, and never get ahead," said Vronsky, referring to his own portrait of Anna, "and he has only to look at her to paint her. That is what I call technique."

"That will come," said Golenishchef, to console him; for in his eyes Vronsky had talent, and, moreover, had a training which ought to give him a lofty view of art. But Golenishchef's belief in Vronsky's talent was sustained by the fact that he needed Vronsky's praise and sympathy with him in his own work, and he felt that the praise and support ought to be reciprocal; it was a fair exchange.

In a stranger's house, and especially in Vronsky's palazzo Mikhaïlof was an entirely different man from what he was in his own studio. He showed himself almost venomously respectful, as if he were anxious to avoid all intimacy with people whom at heart he did not respect. He always called Vronsky "your excel-