Chapter 10
The artist Mihailov was, as always, at work when the cards of CountVronsky and Golenishtchev were brought to him. In the morning he hadbeen working in his studio at his big picture. On getting home he flewinto a rage with his wife for not having managed to put off thelandlady, who had been asking for money.
"I've said it to you twenty times, don't enter into details. You're foolenough at all times, and when you start explaining things in Italianyou're a fool three times as foolish," he said after a long dispute.
"Don't let it run so long; it's not my fault. If I had the money..."
Never did he work with such fervor and success as when things went illwith him, and especially when he quarreled with his wife. "Oh! damn themall!" he thought as he went on working. He was making a sketch for thefigure of a man in a violent rage. A sketch had been made before, but hewas dissatisfied with it. "No, that one was better ... where is it?" Hewent back to his wife, and scowling, and not looking at her, asked hiseldest little girl, where was that piece of paper he had given them? Thepaper with the discarded sketch on it was found, but it was dirty, andspotted with candle-grease. Still, he took the sketch, laid it on histable, and, moving a little away, screwing up his eyes, he fell togazing at it. All at once he smiled and gesticulated gleefully.
"That's it! that's it!" he said, and, at once picking up the pencil, hebegan rapidly drawing. The spot of tallow had given the man a new pose.
He had sketched this new pose, when all at once he recalled the face ofa shopkeeper of whom he had bought cigars, a vigorous face with aprominent chin, and he sketched this very face, this chin on to thefigure of the man. He laughed aloud with delight. The figure from alifeless imagined thing had become living, and such that it could neverbe changed. That figure lived, and was clearly and unmistakably defined.The sketch might be corrected in accordance with the requirements of thefigure, the legs, indeed, could and must be put differently, and theposition of the left hand must be quite altered; the hair too might bethrown back. But in making these corrections he was not altering thefigure but simply getting rid of what concealed the figure. He was, asit were, stripping off the wrappings which hindered it from beingdistinctly seen. Each new feature only brought out the whole figure inall its force and vigor, as it had suddenly come to him from the spot oftallow. He was carefully finishing the figure when the cards werebrought him.
He went in to his wife.
"Come, Sasha, don't be cross!" he said, smiling timidly andaffectionately at her. "You were to blame. I was to blame. I'll make itall right." And having made peace with his wife he put on an olive-greenovercoat with a velvet collar and a hat, and went towards his studio.The successful figure he had already forgotten. Now he was delighted andexcited at the visit of these people of consequence, Russians, who hadcome in their carriage.
Of his picture, the one that stood now on his easel, he had at thebottom of his heart one conviction--that no one had ever painted apicture like it. He did not believe that his picture was better than allthe pictures of Raphael, but he knew that what he tried to convey inthat picture, no one ever had conveyed. This he knew positively, and hadknown a long while, ever since he had begun to paint it. But otherpeople's criticisms, whatever they might be, had yet immense consequencein his eyes, and they agitated him to the depths of his soul. Anyremark, the most insignificant, that showed that the critic saw even thetiniest part of what he saw in the picture, agitated him to the depthsof his soul. He always attributed to his critics a more profoundcomprehension than he had himself, and always expected from themsomething he did not himself see in the picture. And often in theircriticisms he fancied that he had found this.
"Please step in," he said, trying to look indifferent, and going intothe passage he took a key out of his pocket and opened the door.