Android Karenina Part 29

"I knew, I knew!" he repeated his favorite phrase, and s.n.a.t.c.hing the hand that was stroking his hair, he pressed the open palm to his mouth and kissed it. He afforded a sweet glance, too, to Android Karenina, who issued a small hum of pleasure and tried in vain to straighten his mess of childish curls with her slender phalangeals.

"You must go," said Kapitonitch from the door, a note of desperation in his voice. "He must not discover you here. I should not have permitted it. Please, madame." But neither mother nor son would permit their reunion to be interrupted.

The old mecanicien mecanicien shook his head, and with a sigh he closed the door. "I'll wait another ten minutes," he said to himself, clearing his throat and wiping away tears. "I have made a mistake. A terrible mistake." shook his head, and with a sigh he closed the door. "I'll wait another ten minutes," he said to himself, clearing his throat and wiping away tears. "I have made a mistake. A terrible mistake."

Anna could not say good-bye to her boy, but the expression on her face said it, and he understood. "Darling, darling Kootik!" she used the name by which she had called him when he was little, "you won't forget me? You . . . ," but she could not say more.

"Of course not, mother," he responded simply. And then, seeming to think of something suddenly, he said, "She has not been collected for circuitry adjustment?"

"Not yet, dear son, not yet."

"Oh. Then are you among the deserving?"

"What?

"Father says only the deserving ones will have their Cla.s.s Ills returned to them after their circuits have been properly adjusted. Only the deserving are to own robots from now on."

Anna's eyes widened in bafflement. "And who has your father spoken of, as being amongst the 'deserving?'"

Seryozha thought for a moment, and then let out a gale of childish laughter. "Why, he himself, I suppose! None other than he!"

How often afterward she thought of words she might have said. But now she did not know how to say it, and could say nothing. She only trembled, and clutched dearly at Android Karenina like a drowning woman clutches at a lifeboat. Seryozha only understood that his mother was unhappy and loved him. He knew that his father would wake soon, and that his father and mother could not meet, or the consequences would be disastrous. Android Karenina pulled on her mistress's arm, as it was past time for them to depart, but silently Seroyzha pressed close to her and whispered, "Don't go yet. He won't come just yet."

The mother held him away from her to see what he was thinking, what to say to him, and in his frightened face she read not only that he was speaking of his father, but, as it were, asking her what he ought to think about his father.

"Seryozha, my darling," she said, "you must temper his hatred with your goodness. You are the only human thing he has left."

"I fear him!" he cried in despair through his tears, and, clutching her by the shoulders, he began squeezing her with all his force to him, his arms trembling with the strain.

"My sweet, my little one!" said Anna, and she cried as weakly and childishly as he.

"No . . . please . . . sir . . . no . . ." came a cry from just beyond the door. Anna had only time to reflect how the voice of a man as strong as Kapitonitch could be reduced, in a moment of terror and desperation, to one like that of a frightened child-when the door flew open with a sharp clatter, and the body of the mecanicien mecanicien came flying into the room. The corpse slammed into the wall above Sergey's head and slid down the wall, leaving a slick of blood below the colorful tapestry hanging above the boy's bed. came flying into the room. The corpse slammed into the wall above Sergey's head and slid down the wall, leaving a slick of blood below the colorful tapestry hanging above the boy's bed.

Sergey wailed like a bobcat and buried his head in his mother's arms. Android Karenina threw a protective arm around her mistress, and the three of them huddled together, cowering from the tall and dramatic figure of Alexei Karenin, who stood trembling, filling the doorway with his imposing frame.

A long moment pa.s.sed, before he let out a scream of primal rage. His eyes-one human, one rotating with a dead buzz in his silver half-face-glared from the doorway at the huddled band, and the dread oculus slowly extended toward them, its minute click foretelling some dire and inalterable fate.

Anna, though in her mind she prayed frantically for the safety of her son, was outwardly as silent as Android Karenina.

Only Sergey spoke, opening his young, pink lips and forming a single word: "Father . . ."

And even as Alexei Alexandrovich's cruel mechanical eye quivered in its metal socket; even as he stood with stiffened spine and clenched fists in the doorway; even as every inch of his body seemed to strain with hatred and the desire to destroy; even so, his natural eye softened, and his mouth went slack and moist. From somewhere within him, a single, small word welled up and fought its way to freedom.

"Go."

Anna hurriedly rose, but in the rapid glance she flung at him, taking in his whole figure in all its details, feelings of repulsion and hatred for him and jealousy over her son took possession of her. How could she go? How could she leave her dear Sergey with this monster?

But Android Karenina, calculating options at lightning speed, knew that there could be no other choice: if they did not go quickly, all would die. The loyal machine-woman lifted her mistress bodily over her shoulder, as a mother carries a sleeping child to bed, and together they fled the house. Anna had not time to undo, and so carried back with her, the parcel of toys she had chosen the day before in a toy shop with such love and sorrow.

CHAPTER 16.

AS INTENSELY AS ANNA had longed to see her son, and as long as she had been thinking of it and preparing herself for it, she had not in the least expected what had occurred. The man now living in that house-the man with trembling jaw and destructive oculus, who kept a collection of half-built human faces in a shed-this man was not the same man who once had been her husband. On getting back to her lonely rooms in the hotel, she could not for a long while understand why she was there. "Yes, it's all over, and I am again alone," she said to herself, and without taking off her hat she sat down in a low chair by the hearth. Fixing her eyes on a I/Hourprotector/47 standing on a table between the windows, she tried to think. had longed to see her son, and as long as she had been thinking of it and preparing herself for it, she had not in the least expected what had occurred. The man now living in that house-the man with trembling jaw and destructive oculus, who kept a collection of half-built human faces in a shed-this man was not the same man who once had been her husband. On getting back to her lonely rooms in the hotel, she could not for a long while understand why she was there. "Yes, it's all over, and I am again alone," she said to herself, and without taking off her hat she sat down in a low chair by the hearth. Fixing her eyes on a I/Hourprotector/47 standing on a table between the windows, she tried to think.

She thought of the sympathy that Kapitonitch had shown in letting her into the home, and what it had cost him; she thought of Sergey's words: "Only the deserving . . ." She had lost her son now, forever; and how much longer before Android Karenina, too, was torn from her-never to return?

The II/Governess/143 brought the baby to Anna. The plump, well-fed little baby, on seeing her mother, as she always did, held out her fat little hands, and with a smile on her toothless mouth, began, like a fish with a float, bobbing her fingers up and down the starched folds of her embroidered skirt, making them rustle. It was impossible not to smile, not to kiss the baby, impossible not to hold out a finger for her to clutch, crowing and prancing all over; impossible not to offer her a lip, which she sucked into her little mouth by way of a kiss. And all this Anna did, and took her in her arms and made her dance, and kissed her fresh little cheek and bare little elbows; but at the sight of this child it was plainer than ever to her that the feeling she had for her could not be called love in comparison with what she felt for Seryozha. And she was forever-not physically only, but spiritually-divided from him, and it was impossible to set this right.

She gave the baby back to the nurse, let her go, and cued happy Memories of Sergey on Android Karenina's monitor. In the last and best Memory, Sergey was playing in a white smock, sitting astride a chair, trying to solve a I/Puzzle/92 depicting a Huntbear, working with frowning eyes and smiling lips. It was his best, most characteristic expression.

That was the last Memory in the series, and after it, by chance, came one of Vronsky on the moon performing a lighthearted gravity-reduced dance with his longish hair tucked inside his gla.s.s helmet. "Oh, here he is!" she said, regarding the Memory of Vronsky, and she suddenly recalled that he was the cause of her present misery. She had not once thought of him all morning. But now, coming all at once upon that manly, n.o.ble face, so familiar and so dear to her, she felt a sudden rush of love for him.

"But where is he? How is it he leaves me alone in my misery?" she asked of Android Karenina, forgetting she had herself kept from him everything concerning her son. She sent to ask him to come to her immediately; with a throbbing heart she awaited him, rehearsing to herself the words in which she would tell him all, and the expressions of love with which he would console her. The II/Footman/74 returned with the answer that he had a visitor with him, but that he would come immediately, and that he asked whether she would let him bring with him Prince Yashvin, who had just arrived in Petersburg. He's not coming alone, and since dinner yesterday he has not seen me He's not coming alone, and since dinner yesterday he has not seen me, she thought. He's not coming so that I could tell him everything, but coming with Yashvin. He's not coming so that I could tell him everything, but coming with Yashvin. And all at once a strange idea came to her: And all at once a strange idea came to her: "Android Karenina," she asked, "what if he has ceased to love me?" The Cla.s.s Ill's eyebank bubbled a warm, empathetic lavendar, and she held out her arms to comfort her mistress. But it was no use; in going over the events of the last few days, Anna saw in everything a confirmation of this terrible idea: the fact that he had not dined at home yesterday, and the fact that he had insisted on their taking separate sets of rooms in Petersburg, and that even now he was not coming to her alone, as though he were trying to avoid meeting her face to face.

"But he ought to tell me so. I must know that it is so. If I knew it, then I would know what I should do!" she said to the robot, who in response reset her monitor to the previous sequence, hoping with the Memories of Sergey to reverse her mistress's melancholy humor. But Anna was caught in this frightening way of thinking, utterly unable to picture to herself the position she would be in if she were convinced of his not caring for her. She thought he had ceased to love her, she felt close to despair, and consequently she felt exceptionally alert. She left Android Karenina and went to her room alone, and as she dressed, she took more care over her appearance than she had done all those days, as though he might, if he had grown cold to her, fall in love with her again because she had dressed and arranged her hair in the way most becoming to her.

She heard the bell ring before she was ready. When she went into the drawing room it was not he, but Yashvin, who met her eyes. Vronsky was watching the Memory of Sergey, and he made no haste to look round at her.

"We have met already," she said, putting her little hand into the huge hand of Yashvin, whose bashfulness was so queerly out of keeping with his immense frame and coa.r.s.e face. "We met last year at The Cull. Shut that off," she said, indicating sharply to Android Karenina to dim the Memory, and glancing significantly at Vronsky's flas.h.i.+ng eyes. "Were the matches good this year?"

Having talked a little while, and noticing that Vronsky glanced at the clock, Yashvin asked her whether she would be staying much longer in Petersburg, and unbending his huge figure reached after his cap.

"Not long, I think," she said hesitatingly, glancing at Vronsky.

"So then we shan't meet again?"

"Come and dine with me," said Anna resolutely, angry, it seemed, with herself for her embarra.s.sment, but flus.h.i.+ng as she always did when she defined her position before a fresh person. "The dinner here is not good, but at least you will see him. There is no one of his old friends in the regiment Alexei cares for as he does for you."

"Delighted," said Yashvin with a smile, from which Vronsky could see that he liked Anna very much.

Yashvin said good-bye and went away; Vronsky stayed behind.

"Are you going too?" she said to him.

"I'm late already," he answered. "Run along! I'll catch you up in a moment," he called toYashvin.

She took him by the hand, and without taking her eyes off him, gazed at him while she ransacked her mind for the words to say that would keep him.

"Wait a minute, there's something I want to say to you," and taking his broad hand she pressed it on her neck. "Oh, was it right my asking him to dinner?"

"You did quite right," he said with a serene smile that showed his even teeth, and he kissed her hand.

"Alexei, Petersburg is strange now-it is lonely and strange without the Cla.s.s Ills," she said, pressing his hand in both of hers. "Soon ours will be taken from us as well. We will be safer in the provinces, Alexei, safer and happier."

"I cannot agree with you, dear, given what Yashvin was telling me only just before you came in. These aliens, these so-called Honored Guests, rampage everywhere outside the cities; they say that now, when a person falls ill, his family packs up and flees as rapidly as possible, because soon a large, beaked reptile with dozens of eyeb.a.l.l.s will burst forth from inside him and join the hordes. Yashvin says it is quickly becoming very like a full-scale invasion, and speaks as though the provinces will soon be entirely overrun."

"Alexei, I am miserable, and scared. Where can we go? And when?"

"Soon, soon. You wouldn't believe how disagreeable our way of living here is to me too," he said-but then he drew away his hand, and turned his face away.

He is happy that there are these aliens in the woods, she thought bitterly. Happy for a reason to keep us here. Happy for a reason to keep us here.

"Well, go, go!" she said in a tone of offense, and she walked quickly away from him.

CHAPTER 17.

AT DINNER, YASHVIN SPOKE of the sensational new opera then in residence at Petersburg's grand Vox Fourteen; Anna, much to Vronsky's alarm, determined that they should get a box for the evening. After dinner, Yashvin went to smoke, and Vronsky went down with him to his own rooms. After sitting there for some time he ran upstairs. Anna was already dressed in a low-necked gown of light silk and velvet that she had had made on the moon, and had set Android Karenina to a charming pearl-white glow that was particularly becoming. of the sensational new opera then in residence at Petersburg's grand Vox Fourteen; Anna, much to Vronsky's alarm, determined that they should get a box for the evening. After dinner, Yashvin went to smoke, and Vronsky went down with him to his own rooms. After sitting there for some time he ran upstairs. Anna was already dressed in a low-necked gown of light silk and velvet that she had had made on the moon, and had set Android Karenina to a charming pearl-white glow that was particularly becoming.

"Are you really going to the theater?" he said, trying not to look at her.

"Why do you ask with such alarm?" she said, wounded again at his not looking at her. "Why shouldn't I go?" She appeared not to understand the motive of his words.

"Oh, of course, there's no reason whatever," he said, frowning.

"That's just what I say," she said, willfully refusing to see the irony of his tone, and quietly turning back her long, perfumed glove.

"Anna, for G.o.d's sake! What is the matter with you?" he said, exasperated.

"I don't understand what you are asking."

"You know that it's out of the question to go."

"Why so?"

He shrugged his shoulders with an air of perplexity and despair.

"But do you mean to say you don't know . . .?" he began.

"But I don't care to know!" she almost shrieked. "I don't care to. Do I regret what I have done? No, no, no! If it were all to do again from the beginning, it would be the same. For us, for you and for me, there is only one thing that matters, whether we love each other. Other people we need not consider. Why can't I go? I love you, and I don't care for anything," she said, glancing at him with a peculiar gleam in her eyes that he could not understand. "If you have not changed to me, why don't you look at me?"

He looked at her. He saw all the beauty of her face, set against Android Karenina's gentle pearl-white glow. But now her beauty and elegance were just what irritated him.

"My feeling cannot change, you know, but I beg you, I entreat you," he said again in French, with a note of tender supplication in his voice, but with coldness in his eyes.

She did not hear his words, but she saw the coldness of his eyes, and answered with irritation: "And I beg you to explain why I should not go."

"Because . . . because . . ." He hesitated, and then grasped for an explanation which was not the true cause of his reluctance, but which nevertheless had the virtue of being quite true: "Because of Android Karenina! Flaunting yourself in public in the company of your Cla.s.s III will only give your husband and his minions a perfect opportunity to subject her to his ridiculous circuitry adjustment program after all."

"This is a risk I am willing to take," she said, filled with spite toward him, toward Alexei Karenin, and toward their whole pitiful situation. Only her Cla.s.s III did she love and hold blameless, and now she turned tenderly to Android Karenina. "A risk that we we are willing to take. Aren't we, my beloved-companion?" are willing to take. Aren't we, my beloved-companion?"

In answer, Android Karenina flashed her eyebank tenderly at her mistress, and motored off behind her to the Vox Fourteen.

CHAPTER 18.

VRONSKY FOR THE FIRST TIME experienced a feeling of anger against Anna, almost a hatred for her willfully refusing to understand her own position. This feeling was aggravated by his being unable to tell her plainly the cause of his anger. If he had told her directly what he was thinking, he would have said: experienced a feeling of anger against Anna, almost a hatred for her willfully refusing to understand her own position. This feeling was aggravated by his being unable to tell her plainly the cause of his anger. If he had told her directly what he was thinking, he would have said: "In that dress, with that android-cast glow, to show yourself at the theater is not merely equivalent to acknowledging your position as a fallen woman, it is flinging down a challenge to society-that is to say, cutting yourself off from it forever."

What Alexei Kirillovich could not yet understand was that such concerns simply did not matter any longer. After that night at the Vox Fourteen, a night that would be long remembered and long mourned by the people of Russia, he would understood much better.

Left alone in the wake of her departure, he finally got up from his chair and began pacing up and down the room.

"And what's today?"

Lupo gave a gruff yelp, tilted his head, and sc.r.a.ped the hard wooden floor four times with his right front claw. "Yes, of course, the fourth night. Yegor and his wife are there, and my mother, most likely. Of course all Petersburg's there. By now she's gone in, taken off her cloak and come into the light." Vronsky threw himself back into the chair and patted his lap for Lupo to leap into it. "What about me? What about us? Are we frightened? From every point of view-stupid, stupid! . . . And why is she putting me in such a position?" he said with a gesture of despair.

"Come, friend," Vronsky snarled, and his fierce beloved-companion obeyed. "We're going to the theater."

When they arrived at the palatial Vox Fourteen it was half past eight and the performance was in full swing. The II/Boxkeeper/19, recognizing Vronsky as he peeled off his fur coat, called him "your Excellency." In the brightly lighted corridor there was no one but the II/Boxkeeper/19 and two II/Attendant/77s listening at the doors. Through the closed doors came the sounds of the discreet staccato accompaniment of the orchestra, and a single female voice rendering distinctly a musical phrase. The door opened to let the Boxkeeper slide through, and the phrase drawing to the end reached Vronsky's hearing clearly. But the doors were closed again at once, and Vronsky did not hear the end of the phrase and the cadence of the accompaniment, though he knew from the thunder of applause that it was over.

When he entered the Vox Fourteen, brilliantly lighted with I/Lumiere/7s and gas jets, the noise was still going on. On the stage the singer, bowing and smiling, with bare shoulders flas.h.i.+ng with diamonds, was, with the help of the tenor who had given her his arm, gathering up the bouquets that were flying awkwardly over the footlights. Then she went up to a gentleman with glossy pomaded hair parted down the center, who was stretching across the footlights holding out something to her, and all the public in the stalls as well as in the boxes was in excitement, craning forward, shouting and clapping. The conductor from his podium a.s.sisted in pa.s.sing the offering, and straightened his white tie. Vronsky walked into the middle of the stalls, and, standing still, began looking about him. His attention turned upon the familiar, habitual surroundings, the stage, the noise, all the familiar, uninteresting, particolored herd of spectators in the packed theater. There were no Cla.s.s Ills. No beloved-companions lounging at their master's elbows, shedding flattering light, fetching spectacles and lighting cigarettes. All these people-the uniforms and black coats, the dirty crowd in the upper gallery, and in the boxes and front rows, the real real people, the people of society-but not a robot moving among them. people, the people of society-but not a robot moving among them.

Or so it appeared to Count Vronsky.

He had not yet seen Anna. He purposely avoided looking in her direction. But he knew by the direction of people's eyes where she was. He looked round discreetly, but he was not seeking her; expecting the worst, his eyes sought out Alexei Alexandrovich. To his relief he was not in the theater that evening.

"How little of the military man there is left in you!" his friend Serpuhovskoy was saying to him. "A diplomat, an artist, something of that sort, one would say."

"Yes, it was like going back home when I put on a black coat," answered Vronsky, smiling and with a few clicks activating his opera gla.s.s.

"Well, I'll own I envy you there. When I come back from abroad and put on this," he touched his epaulets, "I regret my freedom."

Serpuhovskoy had long given up all hope of Vronsky's career, but he liked him as before, and was now particularly cordial to him.

"What a pity you were not in time for the first act!"

Vronsky, listening with one ear, moved his opera gla.s.s from the stalls and scanned the boxes. Near a lady in a turban and a bald old man, who seemed to wave angrily in the moving opera gla.s.s, Vronsky suddenly caught sight of Anna's head, proud, strikingly beautiful, with Android Karenina's pearl glow casting intricate shadows through the lace of her collar. She was in the fifth box, twenty paces from him. She was sitting in front, and, slightly turning, was saying something to Yashvin. The setting of her head on her handsome, broad shoulders, the restrained excitement and brilliance of her eyes and her whole face reminded him of her just as he had seen her at the float in Moscow. But he felt utterly different toward her beauty now. In his feeling for her now there was no element of mystery, and so her beauty, though it attracted him even more intensely than before, gave him now a sense of injury. She was not looking in his direction, but Vronsky felt that she had seen him already.

When Vronsky turned the opera gla.s.s again in that direction, he noticed that Anna's friend Princess Varvara was particularly red, and kept laughing unnaturally and looking round at the next box. Anna, de-telescoping her I/Fan/6 and tapping it on the red velvet, was gazing away and did not see, and obviously did not wish to see, what was taking place in the next box. Yashvin's face wore the expression which was common when he was losing at cards. Scowling, he sucked the left end of his mustache further and further into his mouth, and cast sidelong glances at the next box.

In that box on the left were the Kartasovs Vronsky knew them, and knew that Anna was acquainted with them. Madame Kartasova, a thin little woman, was standing up in her box, and, her back turned upon Anna, she was putting on a mantle that her husband was holding for her. Her face was pale and angry, and she was talking excitedly. Kartasov, a fat, bald man, was continually looking round at Anna, while he attempted to soothe his wife. When the wife had gone out, the husband lingered a long while, and tried to catch Anna's eye, obviously anxious to bow to her. But Anna, with unmistakable intention, avoided noticing him, and talked to Yashvin, whose cropped head was bent down to her.

Vronsky could not understand exactly what had pa.s.sed between the Kartasovs and Anna, but he saw that something humiliating for Anna had happened. He knew this both from what he had seen, and most of all from the face of Anna, who, he could see, was taxing every nerve to carry through the part she had taken up. And in maintaining this att.i.tude of external composure she was completely successful. Anyone who did not know her and her circle, who had not heard all the utterances of the women expressive of commiseration, indignation, and amazement, that she should show herself in society, and show herself so conspicuously with her lace and her beauty, and with the audacity to parade her Cla.s.s III in such circ.u.mstances in such circ.u.mstances-anyone would have admired the serenity and loveliness of this woman, without suspecting that she was undergoing the sensations of a man in the stocks.