Anna Karenina by Part 5 Chapter 11 Page 10

felt that it was the center of the picture, and so praise of it would be pleasant to the artist. “One can see that He is pitying Pilate.”

This again was one of the million true reflections that could be found in his picture and in the figure of Christ. She said that He was pitying Pilate. In Christ’s expression there ought to be indeed an expression of pity, since there is an expression of love, of heavenly peace, of readiness for death, and a sense of the vanity of words. Of course there is the expression of an official in Pilate and of pity in Christ, seeing that one is the incarnation of the fleshly and the other of the spiritual life. All this and much more flashed into Mihailov’s thoughts.

“Yes, and how that figure is done — what atmosphere! One can walk round it,”