Page 1034 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

Chapter 12

Anna and Vronsky had long been exchanging glances,
regretting their friend’s flow of cleverness. At last Vronsky,
without waiting for the artist, walked away to another
small picture.
‘Oh, how exquisite! What a lovely thing! A gem! How
exquisite!’ they cried with one voice.
‘What is it they’re so pleased with?’ thought Mihailov.
He had positively forgotten that picture he had painted
three years ago. He had forgotten all the agonies and the
ecstasies he had lived through with that picture when for
several months it had been the one thought haunting him
day and night. He had forgotten, as he always forgot, the
pictures he had finished. He did not even like to look at it,
and had only brought it out because he was expecting an
Englishman who wanted to buy it.
‘Oh, that’s only an old study,’ he said.
‘How fine!’ said Golenishtchev, he too, with
unmistakable sincerity, falling under the spell of the
picture.
Two boys were angling in the shade of a willow-tree.
The elder had just dropped in the hook, and was carefully

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