Android Karenina (19 page)

Anna said what came to her lips, and marveled, hearing herself, at her own capacity for lying. How simple and natural were her words, and how likely that she was simply sleepy! She felt herself clad in an impenetrable force field of falsehood.

“Anna, I must warn you,” he began, and flicked Android
Karenina—
her
Class III—into Surcease, exercising a crude patriarchal prerogative that caused Anna’s eyes to widen with startlement. The warm glow that Android Karenina had been shedding snapped off, plunging the room into a preternatural gloom.

“Warn me?” Anna said, when she had recovered from the start of surprise. “Of what?”

She looked at him so simply, so brightly, that anyone who did not know her as her husband knew her could not have noticed anything unnatural, in either the sound or the sense of her words. Moving bit by minute bit, his steely oculus scanned every inch of her flesh, gathering in an instant a universe of physiognomic datum points: the subtle flinch of her retinas, her skin’s agitated flush. He saw that the inmost recesses of her soul, which had always hitherto lain open before him, were closed against him. More than that, he heard from her tone that she was not even perturbed at that, but, as it were, said straight out to him:
Yes, it’s shut up, and so it must be, and will be in the future.
Now he experienced a feeling such as a man might have, returning home and finding his own house locked up.

BUT PERHAPS THE KEY MAY YET BE FOUND
,
suggested the ever-thinking Face of Alexei Alexandrovich.

“I want to warn you . . .” he said in a low voice, and then found himself embarrassed, unable to continue.

“Yes?”

Alexei Alexandrovich continued, lamely, “To, to warn you of the likelihood of more UnConSciya violence, in the form of koschei. A woman was set upon by a leech-like machine-beast, and had her spinal column pierced and drained of its fluid, as she shopped in the open-air fruit and vegetable market Thursday last.”

“Very well,” replied Anna Karenina, and smiled with evident relief, as if daring him to continue, to announce the true cause of his vexation.

HAVE STRENGTH, FRIEND ALEXEI. HAVE STRENGTH
.

“I want to warn you, too, that through thoughtlessness and lack of caution you may cause yourself to be talked about in society. Your too-animated conversation this evening with Count Vronsky—” he enunciated the name firmly and with deliberate emphasis—“attracted attention.”

He talked and looked at her laughing eyes, which frightened him now with their impenetrable look.

HAVE STRENGTH
.

“You’re always like that,” Anna answered, as though completely misapprehending him, and, of all he had said, only taking in the last phrase. “One time you don’t like my being dull, and another time you don’t like my being lively. I wasn’t dull. Does that offend you?”

Alexei Alexandrovich shivered, and out of old habit raised a hand before his chin and tapped a neat fingernail against the cold, hard metal of his right cheek.

“Oh, please, don’t do that, I so dislike it,” she said. “But what is this all about? What do you want of me?”

Alexei Alexandrovich struggled to speak. Indeed, what did he want of her? The answer came from his Class III:
INSTEAD OF DOING WHAT YOU HAD INTENDED—THAT IS TO SAY, WARNING YOUR WIFE AGAINST A MISTAKE IN THE EYES OF THE WORLD—YOU HAVE UNCONSCIOUSLY BECOME AGITATED OVER WHAT WAS THE AFFAIR OF HER CONSCIENCE
.

Yes. Why, that is it precisely.

YOU STRUGGLE AGAINST THE BARRIER YOU FANCY BETWEEN YOU
.

Alexei drew strength from the calm counsel of his Face, and he continued. “This is what I meant to say to you, and I beg you to listen to it. I consider jealousy, as you know, a humiliating and degrading feeling, and I shall never allow myself to be influenced by it; but there are certain rules of decorum that cannot be disregarded with impunity. This evening it was not 7 who observed it, but judging by the impression made on the company, everyone observed that your conduct and deportment were
not altogether what could be desired.”

“I positively don’t understand,” said Anna, shrugging her shoulders, believing that it was other people who had upset him, the fact that they had noticed it. “You’re not well, Alexei Alexandrovich,” she said, and she got up, and would have gone toward the door, but for a strange, thick power that suddenly welled up in the atmosphere around her, like invisible fingers of fog, holding her body in place. She gasped, and looked to Alexei Alexandrovich.

He for his part saw that his wife had stopped by the door, and was gladdened, and felt she had done so because she was now willing to listen to reason. For in the previous moment he had been silently willing her to do so: he had been thinking,
Stop, Anna, do stop, try and understand what I ask of you.
He did not understand that this will had been translated, somehow, into physical reality—that it was the force of his desire holding her in place.

When she looked at her husband, Anna saw that the natural portion of his face had a most relaxed, calm expression, and was even smiling; while the metal half was alive with movement, glowing with a weird grey-green light. The thin lines of groznium that laced his faceplate were pulsing furiously, as if they were rushing veins, alive with the movement of blood. Anna forced herself to remain calm, and idly began taking out her hairpins, as if no queer thickening of the air around her were holding her in place where she stood.

“Well, I’m listening to what’s to come,” she said, calmly and ironically, “and indeed I listen with interest, for I should like to understand what’s the matter.”

She spoke, and marveled at the confident, calm, and natural tone in which she was speaking, and the choice of the words she used.

“To enter into all the details of your feelings I have no right, and besides, I regard that as useless and even harmful,” began Alexei Alexandrovich. As he continued, she slowly, slowly felt the pressure around her release like a fist unclenching, and that she could again move
normally. “Ferreting in one’s soul, one often ferrets out something that might have lain there unnoticed. Your feelings are an affair of your own conscience; but I am in duty bound to you, to myself, and to God, to point out to you your duties. Our life has been joined, not by man, but by God, blessed in the eyes of Mother Russia, and sanctified by the Ministry. That union can only be severed by a crime, and a crime of that nature brings its own chastisement.”

“I don’t understand a word. And, oh dear! How sleepy I am, unluckily,” she said, rapidly passing her hand through her hair, feeling for the remaining hairpins.

“Anna, for God’s sake, don’t speak like that,” he said gently. “Perhaps I am mistaken, but believe me, what I say, I say as much for myself as for you. I am your husband, and I love you.”

For an instant the mocking gleam in her eyes died away, but the word “love” threw her into revolt again. She thought:
Love? Can he love? If he hadn’t heard there was such a thing as love, he would never have used the word. He doesn’t even know what love is.
She looked longingly at the still-Surceased Android Karenina, wishing for the warm comfort of her activated eyebank.

“Alexei Alexandrovich, really I don’t understand,” she said. “Define what it is you find . . .”

“Pardon, let me say all I have to say.” The pulsating movement along the thin lines of the Face had stopped now, Anna noted fleetingly and again the thing upon her husband’s skull was a simple cold mask of silver. “I love you. But I am not speaking of myself; the most important persons in this matter are our son and yourself. It may very well be, I repeat, that my words seem to you utterly unnecessary and out of place; it may be that they are called forth by my mistaken impression. In that case, I beg you to forgive me. But if you are conscious yourself of even the smallest foundation for them, then I beg you to think a little, and if your heart prompts you, to speak out to me. . . .”

“I have nothing to say. And besides,” she said hurriedly, with
difficulty repressing a smile, “it’s really time to be in bed.”

Alexei Alexandrovich sighed, and, without saying more, went into the bedroom.

*   *   *

From that time a new life began for Alexei Alexandrovich and for his wife. Nothing special happened. Anna went out into society, as she had always done, was particularly often at Princess Betsy’s, and met Vronsky everywhere. Alexei Alexandrovich saw this, but could do nothing. Prompted by occasional reminders that appeared in his mind, issued in the dispassionate voice of the Face, he made continual efforts to draw her into open discussion, all of which she confronted with a barrier that he could not penetrate, made up of a sort of amused perplexity.

Outwardly everything was the same, but their inner relations were completely changed. Alexei Alexandrovich, a man of great power in the Higher Branches of the Ministry, great power in the world of politics, felt himself helpless in this. Like a decommissioned Class II, awaiting its destruction, he submissively awaited the blow that he felt was lifted over him. Every time he began to think about it, he felt that he must try once more, that by kindness, tenderness, and persuasion there was still hope of saving her, of bringing her back to herself, and every day he made ready to talk to her. But every time he began talking to her, he felt that the spirit of evil and deceit, which had taken possession of her, had possession of him too, and he talked to her in a tone quite unlike that in which he had meant to talk. Involuntarily he talked to her in his habitual tone of jeering at anyone who should say what he was saying. And in that tone it was impossible to say what needed to be said to her.

T
HAT WHICH FOR VRONSKY
had been, for almost a whole year, the one absorbing desire of his life, replacing all his old desires; that which for Anna had been an impossible, terrible, and for that reason even more entrancing dream of bliss; that desire had been fulfilled. They were alone, entirely alone; their respective Class IIIs were not present. By unspoken agreement, they had left them behind as each traveled to the place of assignation, for robots were barred from viewing this most human of phenomena.

Vronsky stood before her, pale, his lower jaw quivering, and besought her to be calm, not knowing how or why.

“Anna! Anna!” he said with a choking voice, “Anna, for pity’s sake . . . !”

But the louder he spoke, the lower she dropped her once proud and gay, now shame-stricken head, and she bowed down and sank from the sofa where she was sitting, down on the floor, at his feet; she would have fallen on the carpet if he had not held her.

“My God! Forgive me!” she said, sobbing, pressing his hands to her bosom.

She felt so sinful, so guilty, that nothing was left for her but to humiliate herself and beg forgiveness; and as now there was no one in her life but him, to him she addressed her prayer for forgiveness. Looking at him, she had a physical sense of her humiliation, and she could say nothing more. He felt what a murderer must feel when he sees the body he has robbed of life. That body, robbed by him of life, was their love, the first stage of their love. There was something awful and
revolting in the memory of what had been bought at this fearful price of shame. Shame at their spiritual nakedness crushed her and infected him. But in spite of all the murderer’s horror before the body of his victim, he must hack it to pieces, hide the body, must use what he has gained by his murder.

And with fury, as it were with passion, the murderer falls on the body, and drags it and hacks at it; so he covered her face and shoulders with kisses. She held his hand, and did not stir.

“Yes, these kisses—that is what has been bought by this shame. Yes, and one hand, which will always be mine—the hand of my accomplice.” She lifted up that hand and kissed it. He sank on his knees and tried to see her face; but she hid it, and said nothing. At last, as though making an effort over herself, she got up and pushed him away. Her face was still as beautiful, but it was only the more pitiful for that.

“All is over,” she said. “I have nothing but you. Remember that.”

“I can never forget what is my whole life. For one instant of this happiness . . .”

“Happiness!” she said with horror. She felt that at that moment she could not put into words the sense of shame, of rapture, and of horror at stepping into a new life, and she did not want to speak of it, to vulgarize this feeling with inappropriate words. “For pity’s sake, not a word, not a—”

As if to underscore her determination for him to be silent, Anna stopped speaking midway through her sentence. Indeed, Vronsky realized, it was not only her lovely mouth but her entire body: Anna had stopped moving, her body locked in place, eyes half-open, limbs stilled, frozen like a statue upon the bed.

“Anna?” he cried out. “Anna! What is the matter?”

It is he,
Vronsky thought immediately, meaning the husband—
her bizarre and cruel husband has discovered us, and somehow poisoned her . . .
but this was something stranger and more powerful than any poison: for as Vronsky watched, Anna’s body, still frozen like it was carved from marble, rose slowly several inches off the bed and oscillated wildly in the air.

“Anna!”

He reached toward her with a shaking hand, unsure of how to proceed, ashamed to admit to himself that he was afraid even to touch her—when, as suddenly as this extraordinary episode had begun, it ended. Anna’s body stopped quivering, fell back softly onto the mattress, and reanimated; indeed, Anna returned to their conversation exactly where she had stopped.

“—a word more,” she concluded, while Vronsky stared back at her, trying to comprehend what he had witnessed.

“Anna,” he finally began. “Anna, I . . .”

But it was too late. With a look of chill despair, incomprehensible to him, she parted from him.

*   *   *