Let’s be very careful here. The root cause of the artist’s prestige is greed, wheeling and dealing, of that there’s no question. But the roots must belong to a tree, or at the very least a blade of grass, which was born from a seed. And the seed is Tolstoy’s novel, his description of the portrait’s grandeur: It was not a picture, but a living and charming woman with curly black hair, bare shoulders and arms, and a dreamy half-smile.

Mikhailov’s apologists might say that the earth in which this seed was planted is even more important than its Tolstoyan origins, and they’d argue that the painting itself is of great worth, that the canvas has its own intrinsic value. And yet …

34. The Portrait Departs

34. The Portrait Departs

It’s the night of June 14, 1905. In the morning, they’ll come for the portrait by Mikhailov, to take it for installation at the museum, for the exhibit dedicated to the aforementioned artist. Anya now knows; Claudia told her. She reacted violently—furious, obsessive, confused, so irritating that even Claudia lost her patience. Anya refuses to see her brother or her sister-in-law, yet she inundates them with letters full of contradictory messages. Which is why husband and wife, asleep in their separate bedrooms, both have the same dream:

Someone arrives at the door of the house; they assume it’s another letter from Anya. “I’ll have to go and see her,” Claudia says to herself, “to convince her not to make such a mountain out of a molehill.” Sergei says to himself, “I should have prevented things from coming to this.” They’re both thinking of Anya—Claudia’s worrying about what to say and what gift to bring on her visit; Sergei is filled with a brotherly love he never feels in real life—when Leo Tolstoy enters the parlor. He barges in, roaring at the top of his lungs, “I want a world without violence, power, or government…. Government is always corrupt; it uses violence, both real and imaginary, to retain power.” Tolstoy realizes he’s standing in front of Sergei and Claudia, greeting them curtly—“Madame Claudia Karenina”—and continues:

“There’s no time to delay the reason for my visit with pleasantries. Where is Sergei? I need to talk to him.”

Sergei:

“That’s me.” He notices Tolstoy’s confusion and elaborates. “I’m Sergei Karenin.”