he knew assuredly, and had known it ever since he had begun to paint it. Nevertheless, the criticisms of others, whatever they were, possessed for him an enormous weight and stirred him to the depths of his soul. Any remark, however insignificant, which showed that the critic saw even the smallest part of what he himself saw in this picture, stirred him to the depths of his soul. He felt that his critics had a depth of insight superior even to his own, and he expected to have them discover in his picture new features that had escaped his own observation.
And often in the judgments of visitors who came to look at it, it seemed to him, he discovered this. He hurried to the door of his studio, and, in spite of his emotion, was struck by the soft radiance of Anna, who was standing in the shadow of the portico and listening to something which Golenishchef was saying to her, and at the same time eagerly watching the artist's approach. The artist, without definite consciousness of it, instantly stowed away in the pigeonholes of his brain the impression she made on him, to make use of it some day, just as he had used the tobacconist's chin.
The visitors, whose ideas of Mikhaïlof had been greatly modified by Golenishchef's description of him, were still more disenchanted when they saw him. Mikhaïlof was a thick-set man, of medium height, and with a nimble gait, and in his cinnamon-colored hat, his olive-green coat, and his trousers worn tight when the style was to wear them loose, produced an unfavorable impression, increased by the vulgarity of his broad face and the mixture of timidity and pretentious dignity which it expressed.
"Do me the honor to enter," he said, trying to assume an air of indifference, and, going to the vestibule, he took a key out of his pocket and opened the door.
