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 Golenishchev, 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 material.
This exasperated and tortured Golenishchev, 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 work 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 Golenishchev, 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 Peterburg 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.
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TOLSTOY: Anna Karenina Part 5, Chapter 14[Previous Chapter] [Table of Contents] Chapter 14 Levin had been married two months. He was happy, but not at all in the way he had expected to be. At every step he found disenchantment in his former dreams, and new, unexpected enchantment. He was happy; but on entering upon family life he saw at every step that it was utterly different from what he had imagined. At every step he experienced what a man would experience who, after admiring the smooth, happy course of a little boat on a lake, should get himself into that little boat. He saw that it was not all sitting still, and floating smoothly; that one had to think too, not for an instant forgetting where one was floating; and that there was water under one, and that one must row; and that his unaccustomed hands would be sore; and that it was only easy to look at; but that doing it, though very delightful was very difficult.
As a bachelor, when he had watched other people's married life, had seen the petty cares, the squabbles, the jealousy, he had only smiled contemptuously in his heart. In his future married life there could be, he was convinced, nothing of that sort; even the external forms, indeed, he fancied, must be utterly unlike the life of others in everything. And all of a sudden, instead of his life with his wife being made on an individual pattern, it was, on the contrary, entirely made up of the pettiest details, which he had so despised before, but which now, by no will of his own, had gained an extraordinary and indisputable importance. And Levin saw that the organization of all these details was by no means so easy as he had fancied before. Although Levin believed himself to have the most exact conceptions of domestic life, unconsciously, like all men, he pictured domestic life only as enjoyment of love, with nothing to hinder and no petty cares to distract. He ought, as he conceived the position, to do his work, and to find repose from it in the happiness of love. She ought to be beloved, and nothing more. But, like all men, he forgot that she too would want work. And he was surprised that she, his poetic, exquisite Kitty, could not merely in the first weeks, but even in the first days of their married life, think, remember, and busy herself about tablecloths, and furniture, about mattresses for visitors, about a tray, about the cook, and the dinner, and so on. While they were still engaged, he had been struck by the definiteness with which she had declined the tour abroad and decided to go into the country, as though she knew of something she wanted, and could still think of something outside her love. This had jarred upon him then, and now her trivial cares and anxieties jarred upon him several times.
But he saw that this was essential for her. And, loving her as he did, though he did not understand the reason for them, and jeered at these domestic pursuits, he could not help admiring them. He jeered at the way in which she arranged the furniture they had brought from Moscow; rearranged their rooms; hung up curtains; prepared rooms for visitors, and for Dolly; saw after an abode for her new maid; ordered dinner of the old cook; came into collision with Agathya Mikhailovna, taking from her the charge of the stores.
He saw how the old cook smiled, admiring her, and listening to her inexperienced, impossible orders; how mournfully and tenderly Agathya Mikhailovna shook her head over the young mistress's new arrangements in the pantry. He saw that Kitty was extraordinarily sweet when, laughing and crying, she came to tell him that her maid, Masha, was used to looking upon her as her young lady, and so no one obeyed her. It seemed to him sweet, but strange, and he thought it would have been better without this.
He did not know how great a sense of change she was experiencing;she, who at home had sometimes wanted some pickled cabbage, or sweets, without the possibility of getting either, now could order what she liked, buy pounds of sweets, spend as much money as she liked, and order any cakes she pleased.