第一百三十五章 第十一节
走进画室，米哈伊洛夫再次打量了来访者，并在脑海中勾勒出弗龙斯基的表情，尤其是他的下颌。尽管他艺术家的直觉一刻不停地在收集素材，尽管随着评判作品的时刻临近，他感到越来越兴奋，他还是从那些难以察觉的迹象中，迅速而微妙地在心里形成了对这三个人印象。
那个家伙（戈列尼谢夫）是住在这里的一个俄国人。米哈伊洛夫记不清他的姓，也记不起在哪里见过他，跟他说过什么。他只记得他的脸，就像他记得所有见过的面孔一样；但他也记得，那是一张被他归入记忆库中那种“虚假的重要而表情贫乏”的巨大人像类别里的脸。浓密的头发和异常开阔的前额，给那张脸增添了一种庄严感，而那张脸上只有一种表情——一种狭隘、孩子气、乖戾的表情，集中在窄鼻子的鼻梁上方。弗龙斯基和卡列宁夫人，米哈伊洛夫猜想，想必是显赫而富有的俄国人，就像所有那些富有的俄国人一样，对艺术一窍不通，却要附庸风雅，扮作行家。“他们很可能已经看遍了所有的古董，现在又来挨个儿拜访新人的画室，那个德国骗子，还有那个疯疯癫癫的拉斐尔前派的英国佬，到我这儿来，只不过是为了让他们的‘见识’更全面罢了，”他想。他太了解那些半瓶醋的作风了（他们越是自认聪明，他就越觉得他们糟糕）——他们看待当代艺术家的作品，唯一的目的就是为了有资格说，艺术已成为过去，看新人的作品越多，就越能看出那些伟大的古典大师的作品是多么无与伦比。他预料到了这一切；他从他们的脸上看到了这一切，从他们彼此交谈时那种漫不经心的冷漠、盯着模特架和半身像看的样子，以及在他们等着他揭开画布时悠然踱步的样子中，看到了这一切。尽管如此，当他在翻找他的习作、拉起遮光帘、取下画布罩布的时候，他仍然异常激动，尤其因为，尽管他深信所有显赫而富有的俄国人肯定都是蠢货和笨蛋，但他还是喜欢弗龙斯基，而更喜欢安娜。
“请这边看，”他说，用他那灵巧的步子闪到一边，指着自己的画，“这幅是《对彼拉多的训诫》。《马太福音》第二十七章，”他说着，感到自己的嘴唇因为激动而开始颤抖。他走开，站到了他们身后。
在来访者默默地凝视着画的那几秒钟里，米哈伊洛夫也以一个旁观者漠然的眼光看着它。在那几秒钟里，他预先确信，他们会——就是刚才还在被他蔑视的这些来访者们——会发表一种更高明、更公正的批评。他忘记了他在画这幅画的那三年里所想的一切；忘记了他原本确信无疑的那些画面的所有优点——他用他们那种漠然的、全新的、外行的眼光来看这幅画，结果在画中看不到任何好的地方。他在前景中看到了彼拉多恼怒的脸和基督安详的脸，在背景中看到了彼拉多随从的身影和正在注视着事态发展的约翰的脸。每一张面孔，都是他经历了那么多痛苦、那么多错误与修正，凭借其独特的个性在他心中生长出来的；每一张面孔，都曾带给他那么多折磨和狂喜；所有这些为了整体和谐而被他反复调整过的面孔，所有这些他呕心沥血才达到的色彩和色调的细微差别——所有这一切，此刻他用他们的眼睛看来，都不过是再粗俗不过的东西，是已经被重复了一千遍的玩意儿。他最为珍爱的面孔，基督的面孔，也就是这幅画的中心，当初在他面前展现时曾带给他如此狂喜的那张脸，当他用他们的眼睛来看这幅画时，却完全失去了神采。他看到的是对提香、拉斐尔、鲁本斯笔下那些无穷无尽的基督像，以及同样的士兵和彼拉多像的一次画得不错（不，甚至算不上不错——他现在分明看到了一大堆缺陷）的重复。这一切都平庸、贫乏、陈腐，而且简直画得很糟——软弱无力，参差不齐。他们完全有理由在画家面前虚伪地说些客套话，然后在背地里可怜他、嘲笑他。
沉默（尽管持续了不到一分钟）对他来说变得难以忍受了。为了打破沉默，也为了表明自己并不激动，他努力地开口对戈列尼谢夫说话。
“我想我有幸见过您，”他说，不安地先看看安娜，又看看弗龙斯基，生怕错过他们表情的任何细微变化。
“可不是嘛！我们在罗西那儿见过面，还记得吗，就是那位意大利女士朗诵——那位新拉歇尔表演的那个晚会上？”戈列尼谢夫轻松地回答，毫无遗憾地将目光从画上移开，转向画家。
不过，注意到米哈伊洛夫在期待他对画的评价，他说：
“您的画比我上次见到时进步多了；这次和上次一样，让我特别注意的是彼拉多这个人物的形象。这个人太容易理解了：一个善良、出色的人，但彻头彻尾是个官僚，根本不知道自己在做什么。不过，我想……”
米哈伊洛夫那张生动的脸立刻容光焕发起来；他的眼睛闪闪发光。他想说点什么，但激动得说不出话来，只好假装咳嗽。尽管他对戈列尼谢夫的艺术鉴赏力评价不高，尽管这个关于彼拉多作为官僚的表情之准确性的评论很微不足道，尽管在更重要的方面什么都没说的情况下，发表这样无足轻重的评论似乎有些冒犯，米哈伊洛夫却对这个评论欣喜若狂。他自己对彼拉多这个人物形象的看法，正是戈列尼谢夫所说的那样。这个想法不过是数百万个正确想法中的一个，而米哈伊洛夫很清楚，这些想法都将是正确的。这一事实并未削弱戈列尼谢夫评论在他心中的重要性。因为这个评论，他的心对戈列尼谢夫热乎了起来，他从沮丧的状态突然变得欣喜若狂。刹那间，他整幅画在他面前活了起来，带着一切活生生事物那种难以形容的复杂性。米哈伊洛夫又想说他正是那样理解彼拉多的，但是他的嘴唇不听话地颤抖着，说不出话来。弗龙斯基和安娜也说了些什么，声音很低，就像通常人们在画展上谈论画作时那样，一方面是为了避免伤害画家的感情，另一方面也是为了避免大声说出什么蠢话——谈论艺术时是很容易说出蠢话的。米哈伊洛夫觉得，这幅画也给他们留下了印象。他向他们走过去。
“基督的表情真是绝妙！”安娜说。在她所看到的一切中，她最喜欢那个表情，她觉得那是这幅画的中心，所以对它的赞美会让画家高兴。“能看出他在怜悯彼拉多。”
这又是可以从他那幅画和基督的形象中发现的无数正确想法之一。她说他在怜悯彼拉多。基督的神情里确实应该含有怜悯之情，因为其中含有爱、含有上天的宁静、含有对死亡的准备以及对言辞虚妄的感受。当然，彼拉多脸上是官僚的表情，基督脸上是怜悯，因为一个是肉体的化身，另一个是精神生活的化身。这一切以及更多的东西，都在米哈伊洛夫的脑海里闪现。
“是的，而且那个人物画得多么好啊——多么有氛围感！简直可以在画里走动，”戈列尼谢夫说，这句话无疑暴露出他对那个人物的含义和构思并不赞同。
“是的，真是技艺精湛！”弗龙斯基说。“背景里的那些人像多么突出！这才是技法，”他转向戈列尼谢夫说道，指的是他们之间关于弗龙斯基自认无法掌握这种技法的一次谈话。
“对，对，太棒了！”戈列尼谢夫和安娜附和道。尽管他处于兴奋状态，但关于“技法”这句话刺痛了米哈伊洛夫的心，他生气地看着弗龙斯基，突然皱起了眉头。他常常听到“技法”这个词，但完全不明白它指的是什么。他知道，这个术语指的是一种与主题完全无关的绘画或素描的机械技巧。他经常注意到，即使在真正的赞誉中，“技法”也被拿来与本质的品质相对立，好像一个人可以把糟糕的东西画得很好似的。他知道，在揭掉遮盖物时，需要十分小心和留意，以免伤害到创作本身，并揭掉所有的遮盖物；但是，这里面并没有什么绘画艺术——根本没有什么技法可言。如果他所看到的东西展现在一个小孩或他的厨娘面前，那小孩或厨娘也能剥掉所见之物的外衣。而即使是最有经验、最灵巧的画家，如果没有先向他揭示出主题的线条，仅凭机械技巧是什么也画不出来的。此外，他认为，如果真要谈论技法，那么不可能因此称赞他。在他所有画过又重画过的东西里，他看到了伤他眼睛的瑕疵，这些瑕疵源于揭掉外衣时不够小心——这些瑕疵他现在已经无法在不破坏整幅画的前提下加以修正了。而且，在几乎所有的人物和面孔上，他也看到了那些没有完全揭掉的外衣残余，破坏了画面。
“有一点可以说说，如果您允许我发表看法的话……”戈列尼谢夫说道。
“哦，我很乐意，请您说吧，”米哈伊洛夫带着勉强的微笑说。
“那就是，您把他画成了神人，而不是人神。不过，我知道这正是您想要表达的。”
“我无法画出自己心中没有的基督，”米哈伊洛夫阴沉地说。
“是的；不过，如果这样，您允许我说说我的想法的话……您的画如此出色，我的看法不会损害它，而且，这只是我个人的观点。您的情况不同。您的立意本身就不一样。但我们拿伊万诺夫来说吧。我想，如果基督被降格为一个历史人物，那么对伊万诺夫来说，最好选择另一个新鲜的、无人触及的历史题材。”
“可是，如果这是呈现给艺术的最伟大的主题呢？”
“如果去找，总能找到其他的。但关键是，艺术不能容忍怀疑和讨论。在伊万诺夫的那幅画面前，信徒和非信徒同样会产生疑问：‘这是神，还是不是神？’印象的统一性就被破坏了。”
“为什么这么说呢？我认为，对于有教养的人来说，”米哈伊洛夫说，“这个疑问是不存在的。”
戈列尼谢夫不同意这一点，他坚持自己最初的观点——即印象的统一性对艺术至关重要——把米哈伊洛夫给弄糊涂了。
米哈伊洛夫非常不安，但他无法为自己的观点辩护。
On entering the studio, Mihailov once more scanned his visitors and
noted down in his imagination Vronsky’s expression too, and especially
his jaws. Although his artistic sense was unceasingly at work
collecting materials, although he felt a continually increasing
excitement as the moment of criticizing his work drew nearer, he
rapidly and subtly formed, from imperceptible signs, a mental image of
these three persons.
That fellow (Golenishtchev) was a Russian living here. Mihailov did not
remember his surname nor where he had met him, nor what he had said to
him. He only remembered his face as he remembered all the faces he had
ever seen; but he remembered, too, that it was one of the faces laid by
in his memory in the immense class of the falsely consequential and
poor in expression. The abundant hair and very open forehead gave an
appearance of consequence to the face, which had only one expression—a
petty, childish, peevish expression, concentrated just above the bridge
of the narrow nose. Vronsky and Madame Karenina must be, Mihailov
supposed, distinguished and wealthy Russians, knowing nothing about
art, like all those wealthy Russians, but posing as amateurs and
connoisseurs. “Most likely they’ve already looked at all the antiques,
and now they’re making the round of the studios of the new people, the
German humbug, and the cracked Pre-Raphaelite English fellow, and have
only come to me to make the point of view complete,” he thought. He was
well acquainted with the way dilettanti have (the cleverer they were
the worse he found them) of looking at the works of contemporary
artists with the sole object of being in a position to say that art is
a thing of the past, and that the more one sees of the new men the more
one sees how inimitable the works of the great old masters have
remained. He expected all this; he saw it all in their faces, he saw it
in the careless indifference with which they talked among themselves,
stared at the lay figures and busts, and walked about in leisurely
fashion, waiting for him to uncover his picture. But in spite of this,
while he was turning over his studies, pulling up the blinds and taking
off the sheet, he was in intense excitement, especially as, in spite of
his conviction that all distinguished and wealthy Russians were certain
to be beasts and fools, he liked Vronsky, and still more Anna.
“Here, if you please,” he said, moving on one side with his nimble gait
and pointing to his picture, “it’s the exhortation to Pilate. Matthew,
chapter xxvii,” he said, feeling his lips were beginning to tremble
with emotion. He moved away and stood behind them.
For the few seconds during which the visitors were gazing at the
picture in silence Mihailov too gazed at it with the indifferent eye of
an outsider. For those few seconds he was sure in anticipation that a
higher, juster criticism would be uttered by them, by those very
visitors whom he had been so despising a moment before. He forgot all
he had thought about his picture before during the three years he had
been painting it; he forgot all its qualities which had been absolutely
certain to him—he saw the picture with their indifferent, new, outside
eyes, and saw nothing good in it. He saw in the foreground Pilate’s
irritated face and the serene face of Christ, and in the background the
figures of Pilate’s retinue and the face of John watching what was
happening. Every face that, with such agony, such blunders and
corrections had grown up within him with its special character, every
face that had given him such torments and such raptures, and all these
faces so many times transposed for the sake of the harmony of the
whole, all the shades of color and tones that he had attained with such
labor—all of this together seemed to him now, looking at it with their
eyes, the 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.
