‘You shouldn’t let it go for so long, it’s not my fault. If I had money...’
‘Leave me alone, for God’s sake!’ Mikhailov exclaimed with tears in his voice and, stopping his ears, went to his workroom behind the partition and locked the door behind him. ‘Witless woman!’ he said to himself, sat down at the table, opened a portfolio, and at once set to work with particular ardour on a sketch he had begun.
He never worked so ardently and successfully as when his life was going badly, and especially after quarrelling with his wife. ‘Ah, it can all go to blazes!’ he thought as he went on working. He was making a sketch for the figure of a man in a fit of anger. There was an earlier sketch, but he had not been satisfied with it. ‘No, that one was better ... Where is it?’ He went to his wife and, scowling, without looking at her, asked the older girl where the paper he had given them was. The paper with the discarded sketch was found, but it was dirty and spattered with stearin. All the same he took the drawing, placed it on his table and, stepping back and squinting, began to study it. Suddenly he smiled and joyfully threw up his hands.
‘That’s it, that’s it!’ he said and, taking up his pencil at once, began drawing quickly. A spot of stearin had given the man a new pose.
As he was drawing this new pose, he suddenly remembered the energetic face, with its jutting chin, of the shopkeeper he bought cigars from, and he drew that very face, that chin, for his man. He laughed with joy. The figure, from a dead, invented one, had come alive, and it was now impossible to change it. The figure lived and was clearly and unquestionably defined. He could correct it in keeping with what it demanded, could and even must place the legs differently, change the position of the left arm completely and have the hair thrown back. But in making these corrections, he did not alter the figure, but only cast off what concealed it. It was as if he removed the wrappings that kept it from being fully seen. Each new stroke only revealed more of the whole figure in all its energetic force, as it had suddenly appeared to him thanks to the spot of stearin. He was carefully finishing the figure when the cards were brought to him.
‘One moment, one moment!’
He went to his wife.
‘There now, Sasha, don’t be angry!’ he said to her, smiling timidly and tenderly. ‘It was your fault. It was my fault. I’ll settle everything.’ And, having made peace with his wife, he put on an olive-green coat with a velvet collar and his hat and went to the studio. The successful figure was already forgotten. He was now gladdened and excited by the visit to his studio of these important Russians who had come in a carriage.
About his picture, which now stood on his easel, he had one judgement in the depths of his soul - that no one had ever painted such a picture. He did not think that his painting was better than any of Raphael‘s,24 but he knew that what he wanted to convey and did convey in this picture no one had ever conveyed before. He knew that firmly and had known it for a long time, from the very moment he had begun painting it; nevertheless people’s opinions, whatever they might be, were of great importance for him and stirred him to the bottom of his soul. Every observation, however insignificant, which showed that the judges saw at least a small part of what he saw in this picture, stirred him to the bottom of his soul. He always ascribed to his judges a greater depth of understanding than he himself had, and expected something from them that he himself did not see in his picture. And often in the opinions of viewers it seemed to him that he found it.
He approached the door of his studio with quick steps and, despite his excitement, was struck by the soft lighting on the figure of Anna, who was standing in the shadow of the porch and, while listening to Golenishchev vehemently telling her something, at the same time obviously wished to look at the approaching artist. He himself did not notice how, as he came up to them, he snatched and swallowed this impression, just as he had the chin of the shopkeeper who sold cigars, and hid it away somewhere where he could find it when it was needed. The visitors, disappointed in advance by what Golenishchev had told them about the artist, were still more disappointed by his appearance. Of average height, stocky, with a fidgety gait, Mikhailov, in his brown hat, olive-green coat and narrow trousers, when wide ones had long been in fashion, and especially with the ordinariness of his broad face and his combined expression of timidity and a desire to maintain his dignity, produced an unpleasant impression.
‘Come in, please,’ he said, trying to look indifferent and, going into the front hall he took a key from his pocket and unlocked the door.
XI
