Emma Watson Pussy
Books:
Anna Karenina
War And Peace
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negation,
and hes ready. And thats not all--twenty years ago he would
have found in that literature traces of conflict with
authorities, with the creeds of the ages; he would have perceived
from this conflict that there was something else; but now he
comes at once upon a literature in which the old creeds do not
even furnish matter for discussion, but it is stated baldly that
there is nothing else--evolution, natural selection, struggle for
existence--and thats all. In my article Ive..."
"I tell you what," said Anna, who had for a long while been
exchanging wary glances with Vronsky, and knew that he was not in
the least interested in the education of this artist, but was
simply absorbed by the idea of assisting him, and ordering a
portrait of him; "I tell you what," she said, resolutely
interrupting Golenishtchev, who was still talking away, "lets go
and see him!"
Golenishtchev recovered his self-possession and readily agreed.
But as the artist lived in a remote suburb, it was decided to
take the carriage.
An hour later Anna, with Golenishtchev by her side and Vronsky on
the front seat of the carriage, facing them, drove up to a new
ugly house in the remote suburb. On learning from the porters
wife, who came out to them, that Mihailov saw visitors at his
studio, but that at that moment he was in his lodging only a
couple of steps off, they sent her to him with their cards,
asking permission to see his picture.
Chapter 10
The artist Mihailov was, as always, at work when the cards of
Count Vronsky and Golenishtchev were brought to him. In the
morning he had been working in his studio at his big picture. On
getting home he flew into a rage with his wife for not having
managed to put off the landlady, who had been asking for money.
"Ive said it to you twenty times, dont enter into details.
Youre fool enough at all times, and when you start explaining
things in Italian youre a fool three times as foolish," he said
after a long dispute.
"Dont let it run so long; its not my fault. If I had the
money..."
"Leave me in peace, for Gods sake!" Mihailov shrieked, with
tears in his voice, and, stopping his ears, he went off into his
working room, the other side of a partition wall, and closed the
door after him. "Idiotic woman!" he said to himself, sat down to
the table, and, opening a portfolio, he set to work at once with
peculiar fervor at a sketch he had begun.
Never did he work with such fervor and success as when things
went ill with him, and especially when he quarreled with his
wife. "Oh! damn them all!" he thought as he went on working. He
was making a sketch for the figure of a man in a violent rage. A
sketch had been made before, but he was dissatisfied with it.
"No, that one was better...where is it?" He went back to his
wife, and scowling, and not looking at her, asked his eldest
little girl, where was that piece of paper he had given them?
The paper with the discarded sketch on it was found, but it was
dirty, and spotted with candle-grease. Still, he took the
sketch, laid it on his table, and, moving a little away, screwing
up his eyes, he fell to gazing at it. All at once he smiled and
gesticulated gleefully.
"Thats it! thats it!" he said, and, at once picking up the
pencil, he began 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 of a shopkeeper of whom he had bought cigars, a vigorous
face with a prominent chin, and he sketched this very face, this
chin on to the figure of the man. He laughed aloud with delight.
The figure from a lifeless imagined thing had become living, and
such that it could never be changed. That figure lived, and was
clearly and unmistakably defined. The sketch might be corrected
in accordance with the requirements of the figure, the legs,
indeed, could and must be put differently, and the position of
the left hand must be quite altered; the hair too might be thrown
back. But in making these corrections he was not altering the
figure but simply getting rid of what concealed the figure. He
was, as it
Anna Karenina page 268 Anna Karenina page 270
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