Page 1028 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

merest vulgarity, something that had been done a
thousand times over. The face dearest to him, the face of
Christ, the center of the picture, which had given him
such ecstasy as it unfolded itself to him, was utterly lost to

him when he glanced at the picture with their eyes. He
saw a well-painted (no, not even that—he distinctly saw
now a mass of defects) repetition of those endless Christs
of Titian, Raphael, Rubens, and the same soldiers and
Pilate. It was all common, poor, and stale, and positively
badly painted—weak and unequal. They would be
justified in repeating hypocritically civil speeches in the
presence of the painter, and pitying him and laughing at
him when they were alone again.
The silence (though it lasted no more than a minute)
became too intolerable to him. To break it, and to show
he was not agitated, he made an effort and addressed
Golenishtchev.
‘I think I’ve had the pleasure of meeting you,’ he said,
looking uneasily first at Anna, then at Vronsky, in fear of
losing any shade of their expression.
‘To be sure! We met at Rossi’s, do you remember, at
that soiree when that Italian lady recited—the new
Rachel?’ Golenishtchev answered easily, removing his eyes

1027 of 1759