Page 1035 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

pulling the float from behind a bush, entirely absorbed in
what he was doing. The other, a little younger, was lying
in the grass leaning on his elbows, with his tangled, flaxen
head in his hands, staring at the water with his dreamy

blue eyes. What was he thinking of?
The enthusiasm over this picture stirred some of the
old feeling for it in Mihailov, but he feared and disliked
this waste of feeling for things past, and so, even though
this praise was grateful to him, he tried to draw his visitors
away to a third picture.
But Vronsky asked whether the picture was for sale. To
Mihailov at that moment, excited by visitors, it was
extremely distasteful to speak of money matters.
‘It is put up there to be sold,’ he answered, scowling
gloomily.
When the visitors had gone, Mihailov sat down
opposite the picture of Pilate and Christ, and in his mind
went over what had been said, and what, though not said,
had been implied by those visitors. And, strange to say,
what had had such weight with him, while they were
there and while he mentally put himself at their point of
view, suddenly lost all importance for him. He began to
look at his picture with all his own full artist vision, and
was soon in that mood of conviction of the perfectibility,

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