had led to a sudden attack of depression in Anna, quite out of proportion with the cause - a late supper with bachelor friends. Relations with the society of the place - foreign and Russian - were equally out of the question, owing to the irregularity of their position. The inspection of objects of interest, apart from the fact that everything had been seen already, had not for Vronsky, a Russian and a sensible man, the inexplicable significance Englishmen are able to attach to that pursuit.

And, just as the hungry animal eagerly clutches every object it can get, hoping to find nourishment in it, Vronsky quite unconsciously clutched first at politics, then at new books, and then at pictures.

As he had, ever since he was a child, a taste for painting, and as, not knowing what to spend his money on, he had begun collecting engravings, he came to a stop at painting, began to take interest in it, and concentrated upon it the unoccupied fund of desires which demanded satisfaction.

As he had a capacity for understanding art, and for true and tasteful imitation in the art of painting, he supposed himself to have the real thing essential for an artist, and after hesitating for some time which style of painting to select - religious, historical, realistic, or genre painting - he set to work to paint. He appreciated all kinds, and could have felt inspired by any one of them; but he had no conception of the possibility of knowing nothing at all of any school of painting, and of being inspired directly by what is within the soul, without caring whether what is painted will belong to any recognized school. Since he knew nothing of this, and drew his inspiration, not directly from life, but indirectly from life embodied in art, his inspiration came very quickly and easily, and as quickly and easily came his success in painting something very similar to the sort of painting he was trying to imitate.

More than any other style he liked the French - graceful and effective - and in that style he began to paint Anna's portrait in Italian costume, and the portrait seemed to him, and to everyone who saw it, extremely successful.