ad 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.

Chapter 14

Levin had been married three months. He was happy, but not at
all in the way he had expected to be. At every step he found his
former dreams disappointed,