A man could not be prevented from making himself a big wax doll, and kissing it. But if the man were to come with the doll and sit before a man in love, and begin caressing his doll as the lover caressed the woman he loved, it would be distasteful to the lover. Just such a distasteful sensation was what Mihail felt at the sight of Trotsky’s painting: he felt it both ludicrous and irritating, both pitiable and offensive.

Anna Karenina