Vronsky meanwhile, despite the full realization of what he had desired for so long, was not fully happy. He soon felt that the realization of his desire had given him only a grain of the mountain of happiness he had expected. It showed him the eternal error people make in imagining that happiness is the realization of desires. At first, after he had united with her and put on civilian clothes, he felt all the enchantment of freedom in general, which he had not known before, and of the freedom of love, and he was content, but not for long. He soon felt arise in his soul a desire for desires, an anguish. Independently of his will, he began to grasp at every fleeting caprice, taking it for a desire and a goal. Sixteen hours of the day had to be occupied by something, since they lived abroad in complete freedom, outside the sphere of conventional social life that had occupied their time in Petersburg. Of the pleasures of bachelor life that had diverted him during his previous trips abroad he could not even think, because one attempt of that sort, a late supper with acquaintances, had produced in Anna a dejection both unexpected and exaggerated. Contacts with local or Russian society, given the uncertainty of their position, were also impossible. Looking at places of interest, not to mention that they had already seen everything, did not have for him, a Russian and an intelligent man, the inexplicable importance that Englishmen are able to ascribe to it.
And as a hungry animal seizes upon every object it comes across, hoping to find food in it, so Vronsky quite unconsciously seized now upon politics, now upon new books, now upon painting.
Since he had had an ability for painting from an early age and, not knowing how to spend his money, had begun to collect engravings, he now chose painting, began studying it, and put into it that idle store of desires which called for satisfaction.
He had an ability to understand art and to imitate it faithfully, tastefully, and thought he had precisely what was needed for an artist. After some hesitation over what kind of painting he would choose - religious, historical, genre or realistic - he started to paint. He understood all kinds and could be inspired by one or another; but he could not imagine that one could be utterly ignorant of all the kinds of painting and be inspired directly by what was in one’s soul, unconcerned whether what one painted belonged to any particular kind. Since he did not know that, and was inspired not directly by life but indirectly by life already embodied in art, he became inspired very quickly and easily, and arrived as quickly and easily at making what he painted look very much like the kind of art he wanted to imitate.
He liked the graceful and showy French manner more than any other, and in this manner he began painting a portrait of Anna in Italian costume, and to him and to everyone who saw it this portrait seemed very successful.
IX
The old, neglected palazzo, with stucco mouldings on its high ceilings and frescoes on its walls, with mosaic floors, heavy yellow damask curtains on its high windows, urns on consoles and mantelpieces, carved doors and sombre halls hung with pictures - this palazzo, once they had moved into it, by its very appearance maintained the agreeable illusion in Vronsky that he was not so much a Russian landowner, a chief equerry without a post, as an enlightened amateur and patron of the arts — and also a modest artist himself - who had renounced the world, connections, ambition for the woman he loved.
The role chosen by Vronsky with his move to the palazzo was a complete success and, having met some interesting people through Golenishchev’s mediation, he was initially at peace. Under the guidance of an Italian professor of painting, he painted sketches from nature and studied medieval Italian life. Medieval Italian life had recently become so fascinating for Vronsky that he even began wearing his hat and a wrap thrown over his shoulder in a medieval fashion, which was very becoming to him.
‘And here we live and know nothing,’ Vronsky said when Golenishchev came to see him one morning. ‘Have you seen Mikhailov’s picture?’ he asked, handing him a Russian morning newspaper and pointing to an article about a Russian painter who lived in the same town and had finished a picture of which rumours had long been going about and which had been purchased before completion. The article reproached the government and the Academy for leaving a remarkable painter without any encouragement or aid.
‘I’ve seen it,’ Golenishchev replied. ‘He is certainly not without talent, but his tendency is completely false. The same old Ivanov-Strauss-Renan 21 attitude towards Christ and religious painting.’
‘What does the picture represent?’ asked Anna.
‘Christ before Pilate. Christ is presented as a Jew with all the realism of the new school.22
