Page 1038 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

Chapter 13

Mihailov sold Vronsky his picture, and agreed to paint
a portrait of Anna. On the day fixed he came and began
the work.
From the fifth sitting the portrait impressed everyone,
especially Vronsky, not only by its resemblance, but by its
characteristic beauty. It was strange how Mihailov could
have discovered just her characteristic beauty. ‘One needs
to know and love her as I have loved her to discover the
very sweetest expression of her soul,’ Vronsky thought,
though it was only from this portrait that he had himself
learned this sweetest expression of her soul. But the
expression was so true that he, and others too, fancied
they had long known it.
‘I have been struggling on for ever so long without
doing anything,’ he said of his own portrait of her, ‘and he
just looked and painted it. That’s where technique comes
in.’
‘That will come,’ was the consoling reassurance given
him by Golenishtchev, in whose view Vronsky had both
talent, and what was most important, culture, giving him a
wider outlook on art. Golenishtchev’s faith in Vronsky’s

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