Rutenberg, his only friend, rescues him and takes him to one of the doorways in the square. There’s no time to lose. Rutenberg has scissors and a blade in his pocket, he becomes an emergency barber, he shaves Gapon clean—farewell, beard; farewell, hair—and his followers scramble for the locks that are falling as if they’re sacred relics. He changes him out of his long robes into the clothes of a regular laborer and takes him to hide in the home of Maxim Gorky, the writer. It’s funny how the heart of Gapon’s movement was made up of all the wretched people living in the Haven, a scene that resembled one out of Gorky’s work, and now he’s ended up seeking refuge from this very author…. But this crazy twist of fate is nothing in comparison to what awaits him, though that’s none of our business for the time being.

Part Three: Karenina’s Portrait: Three months later

PART THREE

KARENINA’S PORTRAIT

Three Months Later

29. Karenina’s Portrait

29. Karenina’s Portrait

Sergei has seen Mikhailov’s portrait of Anna Karenina only once. The lighting wasn’t ideal. Sergei was still a boy, despite everyone insisting he was already a man. He was on the way home from school. The Countess Vronskaya sent the portrait at the precise hour she thought Sergei would arrive. She had planned this carefully; it was her revenge against the son of the woman who had ruined her own.

The portrait was borne by one of the countess’s servants—dressed impeccably in French livery—followed by two others, not quite so well dressed (although she was rich, the Countess Vronskaya counted every ruble, her servants lived with their bellies half-empty, and creditors had to call on her three or four times before she would part with a single kopeck). Rich but stingy, she squandered her wealth on frivolities. Such as? A feather from the farthest corner of the universe to replace the one on a hat she despised; Turkish delight from smugglers, which she shared with no one; fine Belgian lace miniatures she caressed with her fingertips before putting them away in drawers to keep them from being ruined; or French bonbons.

The footman in elegant French livery held the portrait of Anna Karenina by its gold-leaf frame, perhaps an excessive impulse of Vronsky’s that, to a finer eye, didn’t complement the delicate color of Anna’s dress. Iridescent feathers for the mother, gaudy gold leaf for the son.