CHAPTER X
The painter Mikhaïlof was at work as usual, when the cards of Count Vronsky and Golenishchef were brought him. He had been painting all the morning in his studio on his great picture, but, when he reached his house, he became enraged with his wife because of her failure to make terms with their landlady, who demanded money.
"I have told you twenty times not to go into explanations with her. You are a fool anyway; but when you try to argue in Italian, you are three times as much of a fool," said he, at the end of a long dispute.
"Why do you get behindhand so? It is not my fault. If I had any money...."
"For heaven's sake, give me some peace!" cried Mikhaïlof, his voice thick with tears; and, putting his hands over his ears, he hastily rushed to the workroom, separated from the sitting-room by a partition, and bolted the door. "She has n't any common sense," he said to himself, as he sat down at his table, and, opening a portfolio, addressed himself with feverish ardor to a sketch which he had already begun.
He never worked with such zeal and success as when his life went hard, and especially when he had been quarreling with his wife. "Akh! it must be somewhere!" he said to himself, as he went on with his work. He had begun a study of a man seized with a fit of anger. He had made the sketch some time before; but he was dissatisfied with it. "No," said he, "that one was better .... but where is it?".... He went back to his wife with an air of vexation, and, without looking at her, asked his eldest daughter for the piece of paper which he had given her. The paper with the sketch on it was found, but it was soiled and covered with drops of tallow. Nevertheless, he took it as it was, laid it on the table, examined it from a distance, squinting his eyes; then suddenly he smiled, with a satisfied gesture.
"So! so!" he cried, taking a pencil, and drawing
