Anna Karenina · Chapter 13

第一百三十七章 第十三节

第十三节

米哈伊洛夫将画作卖给了弗龙斯基，并同意为安娜绘制肖像。到了约定那天，他便前来开始工作。

从第五次作画起，这幅肖像便令所有人——尤其是弗龙斯基——惊叹不已，不仅因其形似，更因其所呈现的独特之美。令人称奇的是，米哈伊洛夫竟能捕捉到她独有的风韵。"必须像我这般了解她、爱她，才能发现她灵魂中最甜美的表情。"弗龙斯基暗想，然而正是通过这幅肖像，他才真正领略到这份灵魂的甜美。这表情真实得仿佛他与其他人都早已熟知。

"我苦苦挣扎许久却毫无成就。"他谈及自己为安娜画的肖像时说道，"而他只是看上一眼便画出来了。这就是技巧所在。"

"会好起来的。"戈列尼谢夫安慰道，在他看来，弗龙斯基既有天赋，更重要的是有教养——这赋予他对艺术更广阔的视野。戈列尼谢夫对弗龙斯基才华的信任，其实建立在他需要后者对自己文章与思想的同情与认可之上，他深知赞美与支持必须相互。

在别人家中，尤其是在弗龙斯基的宫殿里，米哈伊洛夫与在画室里判若两人。他带着敌意的礼貌周旋，仿佛惧怕接近那些他不尊重的人。他称弗龙斯基为"大人"，尽管安娜与弗龙斯基再三邀请，他除了作画时间从不肯留下用餐。安娜对他比对其他人更为亲切，对这幅肖像深表感激。弗龙斯基对他热情有加，显然渴望知晓这位画家对自己作品的看法。戈列尼谢夫则从不错过向米哈伊洛夫灌输正确艺术观的机会。然而米哈伊洛夫对所有人都保持冰冷的距离。安娜从他的眼神中看出他喜欢注视她，却刻意回避交谈。对于弗龙斯基谈论绘画的话题，他以倔强的沉默应对；当弗龙斯基展示自己的画作时，他同样固执地缄默不语。戈列尼谢夫的滔滔不绝显然令他厌倦，他连反驳都懒得尝试。

随着相处渐深，米哈伊洛夫这种矜持、令人不快、近乎敌视的态度使他们对他厌恶起来。当肖像完成后，他们庆幸终于摆脱了他，只留下一幅华美的肖像。戈列尼谢夫率先道出大家心照不宣的想法：米哈伊洛夫纯粹是嫉妒弗龙斯基。

"说嫉妒或许不妥，毕竟他确有才华；但令他不悦的是，一个上流社会的富翁，还是个伯爵（你知道他们都憎恨爵位），可以不费吹灰之力就达到甚至超越他献身艺术一生的成就。最关键的还是教养问题，这正是他所欠缺的。"

弗龙斯基为米哈伊洛夫辩护，心底却信了这番话——在他看来，来自较低阶层的人必然会嫉妒。

安娜的肖像——同样题材，他与米哈伊洛夫都现场写生过——本该让弗龙斯基看清自己与后者的差距，但他视而不见。直到米哈伊洛夫完成肖像后，他才放弃绘制安娜的肖像，认定已无必要。他继续酝酿那幅中世纪题材的作品。他本人、戈列尼谢夫，乃至安娜都认为这幅画极为出色——因为它远比米哈伊洛夫的作品更像他们熟知的名画。

与此同时，尽管米哈伊洛夫深受安娜肖像的吸引，但创作结束时他比他们更为欣喜——终于不用再听戈列尼谢夫关于艺术的高谈阔论，也可以忘却弗龙斯基的绘画。他深知无法阻止弗龙斯基以绘画自娱，也知道所有业余爱好者都有权画他们喜欢的东西，但这仍令他反感。正如无法阻止一个人做个大蜡娃娃并亲吻它，可如果这人抱着娃娃坐到一位恋人面前，像爱人抚摸心爱女子般爱抚娃娃，那恋人的感受必定厌恶至极。米哈伊洛夫看到弗龙斯基的画作时正是这种感觉：既可笑又恼火，既可悲又冒犯。

弗龙斯基对绘画与中世纪的兴趣并未持久。他的艺术品味足以让他无法完成那幅画。作品陷入了停滞。他隐约感到，若继续画下去，最初不显眼的缺陷将变得触目惊心。他遭遇了与戈列尼谢夫相同的困境——后者觉得无话可说，却不断用"思想尚未成熟"、"正在打磨构思、收集材料"的理论欺骗自己。这令戈列尼谢夫恼怒痛苦，但弗龙斯基不会欺骗折磨自己，更不会陷入恼怒。以他果决的性格，他既不作解释也不致歉，干脆停止了绘画。

然而失去这项消遣后，弗龙斯基与安娜（安娜对他的兴趣丧失感到困惑）在意大利小城的生活变得难以忍受的乏味。那座宫殿突然显得过分陈旧肮脏，窗帘上的污渍、地板的裂纹、檐口的剥落全都刺目地暴露出来，戈列尼谢夫、意大利教授与德国游客永恒不变的重复令人厌倦至极。他们必须做出改变。他们决定返回俄罗斯，前往乡下。弗龙斯基打算在彼得堡与兄弟分配地产，安娜则渴望见到儿子。他们计划将夏天消磨在弗龙斯基的祖传庄园里。

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 talent was propped up by his own need of Vronsky’s sympathy and approval for his own articles and ideas, and he felt that the praise and support must be mutual.

In another man’s house, and especially in Vronsky’s palazzo, Mihailov was quite a different man from what he was in his studio. He behaved with hostile courtesy, as though he were afraid of coming closer to people he did not respect. He called Vronsky “your excellency,” and notwithstanding Anna’s and Vronsky’s invitations, he would never stay to dinner, nor come except for the sittings. Anna was even more friendly to him than to other people, and was very grateful for her portrait. Vronsky was more than cordial with him, and was obviously interested to know the artist’s opinion of his picture. Golenishtchev never let slip an opportunity of instilling sound ideas about art into Mihailov. But Mihailov remained equally chilly to all of them. Anna was aware from his eyes that he liked looking at her, but he avoided conversation with her. Vronsky’s talk about his painting he met with stubborn silence, and he was as stubbornly silent when he was shown Vronsky’s picture. He was unmistakably bored by Golenishtchev’s conversation, and he did not attempt to oppose him.

Altogether Mihailov, with his reserved and disagreeable, as it were, hostile attitude, was quite disliked by them as they got to know him better; and they were glad when the sittings were over, and they were left with a magnificent portrait in their possession, and he gave up coming. Golenishtchev was the first to give expression to an idea that had occurred to all of them, which was that Mihailov was simply jealous of Vronsky.

“Not envious, let us say, since he has _talent_; but it annoys him that a wealthy man of the highest society, and a count, too (you know they all detest a title), can, without any particular trouble, do as well, if not better, than he who has devoted all his life to it. And more than all, it’s a question of culture, which he is without.”

Vronsky defended Mihailov, but at the bottom of his heart he believed it, because in his view a man of a different, lower world would be sure to be envious.

Anna’s portrait—the same subject painted from nature both by him and by Mihailov—ought to have shown Vronsky the difference between him and Mihailov; but he did not see it. Only after Mihailov’s portrait was painted he left off painting his portrait of Anna, deciding that it was now not needed. His picture of mediæval life he went on with. And he himself, and Golenishtchev, and still more Anna, thought it very good, because it was far more like the celebrated pictures they knew than Mihailov’s picture.

Mihailov meanwhile, although Anna’s portrait greatly fascinated him, was even more glad than they were when the sittings were over, and he had no longer to listen to Golenishtchev’s disquisitions upon art, and could forget about Vronsky’s painting. He knew that Vronsky could not be prevented from amusing himself with painting; he knew that he and all dilettanti had a perfect right to paint what they liked, but it was distasteful to him. A man could not be prevented from making himself a big wax doll, and kissing it. But if the man were to come with the doll and sit before a man in love, and begin caressing his doll as the lover caressed the woman he loved, it would be distasteful to the lover. Just such a distasteful sensation was what Mihailov felt at the sight of Vronsky’s painting: he felt it both ludicrous and irritating, both pitiable and offensive.

Vronsky’s interest in painting and the Middle Ages did not last long. He had enough taste for painting to be unable to finish his picture. The picture came to a standstill. He was vaguely aware that its defects, inconspicuous at first, would be glaring if he were to go on with it. The same experience befell him as Golenishtchev, who felt that he had nothing to say, and continually deceived himself with the theory that his idea was not yet mature, that he was working it out and collecting materials. This exasperated and tortured Golenishtchev, but Vronsky was incapable of deceiving and torturing himself, and even more incapable of exasperation. With his characteristic decision, without explanation or apology, he simply ceased working at painting.

But without this occupation, the life of Vronsky and of Anna, who wondered at his loss of interest in it, struck them as intolerably tedious in an Italian town. The palazzo suddenly seemed so obtrusively old and dirty, the spots on the curtains, the cracks in the floors, the broken plaster on the cornices became so disagreeably obvious, and the everlasting sameness of Golenishtchev, and the Italian professor and the German traveler became so wearisome, that they had to make some change. They resolved to go to Russia, to the country. In Petersburg Vronsky intended to arrange a partition of the land with his brother, while Anna meant to see her son. The summer they intended to spend on Vronsky’s great family estate.