Android Karenina (37 page)

Levin rose, beaming, and escorted Kitty to the door, their two revivified Class Ills trailing behind, arm in arm.

In their conversation everything had been said; it had been said that she loved him, and that she would tell her father and mother that he would come tomorrow morning.

T
HE STREETS WERE STILL EMPTY
the next morning, when Levin went to the house of the Shcherbatskys. The visitors’ doors were closed and everyone was asleep. He walked back, went into his room again, and ordered coffee from the II/Samovar/1(8). Levin tried to drink coffee and put some roll in his mouth, but his mouth was quite at a loss what to do with the roll. Instead he put on his coat and went out again for a walk. It was nine o’clock when he reached the Shcherbatskys’ steps the second time. In the house they were only just up, and he watched as
the II/Cook/89 motored off toward the market. He had to get through at least two hours more.

All that night and morning Levin lived perfectly unconsciously, and felt perfectly lifted out of the conditions of material life. He had eaten nothing for a whole day, had not slept for two nights, had spent several hours undressed in the frozen air, and felt not simply fresher and stronger than ever, but utterly independent of his body; he moved without muscular effort, and felt as if he could do anything. He was convinced he could fly upward or lift the corner of the house, if need be. He spent the remainder of the time in the street, incessantly looking at his wrist-borne I/Hourprotector/8 and gazing about him.

And what he saw then, he never saw again after. The children, especially going to school, the bluish doves flying down from the roofs to the pavement, and the little loaves covered with flour, thrust out by an unseen hand, touched him. Those loaves, those doves, and those two boys were not earthly creatures. It all happened at the same time: a boy ran toward a dove and glanced smiling at Levin; the dove, with a whir of her wings, darted away, flashing in the sun amid grains of snow that quivered in the air, while from a little window there came a smell of fresh-baked bread, and the loaves were put out. All of this together was so extraordinarily nice that Levin laughed and cried with delight. Going a long way round by Gazetny Place and Kislovka, he went back again to the hotel, and putting the Hourprotector before him, he sat down to wait for twelve o’clock. In the next room they were talking about some new sort of Ministry policy being spoken of, something about a registry—was that what they said, registry?—of Class III robots, some sort of improvement project . . . none of it mattered. Not to Levin. He could hardly believe that these men did not realize that the dial of the Hourprotector was approaching twelve.

At last the hour was at hand. Levin went out onto the steps, and hired a sledge; the II/Coachman/47-T knew the Shcherbatskys’ house, and drew up at the entrance with a curve of his flexible effector and a
hearty, resonant
“Ho!”
The Shcherbatskys’ household Class IIs, Levin knew, were not programmed for emotional sensitivity, but it was obvious to Levin that the II/Porter/42 certainly knew all about everything—there was something so cheery in the red glow of its faceplate, something positively mischievous in the way it intoned:

“Enter, sir . . . enter, sir . . .”

As soon as he entered, swift, swift, light steps sounded on the parquet, and his bliss, his life, himself—what was best in himself, what he had so long sought and longed for—was quickly, so quickly approaching him. She did not walk, but seemed, by some unseen force, to float to him, Tatiana trailing behind her with a tinkling snippet of Chopin playing from her Third Bay. But he could hardly hear the gentle strains, indeed hardly noticed the Class III, for he saw nothing but his darling’s clear and truthful eyes, frightened by the same bliss of love that flooded his heart. Those eyes were shining nearer and nearer, blinding him with their light of love. She stopped still close to him, touching him. Her hands rose and dropped onto his shoulders.

She had done all she could—she had run up to him and given herself up entirely, shy and happy. He put his arms round her and pressed his lips to her mouth that sought his kiss.

She too had not slept all night, and had been expecting him all the morning.

Her mother and father had consented without demurring, and were happy in her happiness. She had been waiting for him. She wanted to be the first to tell him her happiness and his. “Let us go to Mamma!” she said, taking him by the hand. For a long while he could say nothing, not so much because he was afraid of desecrating the loftiness of his emotion by a word, as that every time he tried to say something, instead of words he felt that tears of happiness were welling up. He took her hand and kissed it.

“Can it be true?” Levin said at last in a choked voice, straightening up. “I can’t believe you love me, dear!”

She smiled at that “dear,” and at the timidity with which he glanced at her.

“Yes!” she said significantly, deliberately. “I am so happy!”

And then Socrates motored into the room, and Levin was startled, for the first time realizing that in his clouded, joyous state he had left his beloved-companion behind at the hotel. He blushed and lowered his head, and his embarrassment and shame were only compounded when Socrates explained what had befallen him on the way.

“I was detained by a man some sort of man some sort of man, a man with a mustache a man a man,”
Socrates intoned in an agitated rush, his eyebank flickering wildly.
“He said he was from the Ministry, from Enforcement.”

“A Caretaker?” Levin began, taken aback; he had never seen his oft-agitated Class III quite so agitated as this.

“Not a Caretaker. No IIs with him. His uniform was of a kind I did not recognize. He took my information, and then then then then . . .”

“Socrates?” Levin said again, his confusion deepening into anxiety and fear.

“He said unaccompanied Class Ills will be no longer allowed to pass unescorted.”

“What?!”

Levin was startled by such a report, but Kitty, in her childish and charming innocence, was merely affronted. “Well, who was this man with his little mustache, to talk such foolishness!” she tittered, and Tatiana nodded, though hesitantly—for she understood, as only another android could, the depth of cold mechanical terror reflected in Socrates’ eyebank.

The prince and princess then entered, and in half an hour the man with the mustache was entirely forgotten, and the wedding planning had begun.

G
OING OVER IN HIS
memory the conversations that had taken place during and after dinner, Alexei Alexandrovich returned to his solitary sub-basement laboratory in the Moscow Tower. Darya Alexandrovna’s words about forgiveness had aroused in him a queer pity, but from the Face it had earned nothing but contempt. Indeed, the Face continually recalled to him the phrase of that stupid, good-natured Turovtsin—
“Acted like a man, he did! Called him out and blasted him!”
Everyone had apparently shared this feeling, though from politeness they had not expressed it.

AND YOU—YOU WITH SUCH POWER . . .

“But the matter is settled, it’s useless thinking about it,” Alexei Alexandrovich replied bitterly. He sat down at his desk, tried to turn his energies to the monumental task ahead of him: the long logistical effort of identifying the Class Ills, of gathering them up, of implementing the necessary changes in appearance, in circuitry . . .

IN LOYALTY. . .

“Two communiqués,”
said a II/Porter/7e62, buzzing into the room.
“Beg pardon, excellency, two communiqués . . . two . . .”

Alexei Alexandrovich impatiently ordered them transferred to his desk-mounted monitor; the first was the announcement of Stremov’s appointment to the very post Karenin had coveted, as overseer of the final phase of the Project. Alexei Alexandrovich trembled in his seat.

YOU CANNOT ALLOW

“I know.”

NOT NOW

“I know!” Stremov could not be allowed to take over the Project, he would ruin everything . . . but his colleagues in the Higher Branches had spoken.

If Karenin could not undo the appointment . . .

YOU MUST UNDO STREMOV.

Alexei Alexandrovich stabbed the monitor into silence, and flushing a little, got up and began to pace up and down the room shouting
“Quos vult perdere dementat!”
He was furious that he had not received the post, that he had been conspicuously passed over; and it was incomprehensible, amazing to him that they did not see that the wordy phrasemonger Stremov was the last man fit for it.

THEY WILL PAY

THEY WILL PAY

WE WILL MAKE CERTAIN THAT THEY PAY.

“This will be something else in the same line,” Alexei Alexandrovich said bitterly, cuing the second communiqué. It was from his wife.

SHE

SHE WHO TORMENTS YOU

SHE—

Alexei blocked out the voice of the Face as Anna’s tearful, pained eyes swam into view. “I am dying; I beg, I implore you to come. I shall die easier with your forgiveness,” said the tinny image of Anna Karenina.

He smiled contemptuously, and flicked his finger to stop this communiqué as well, but then paused, and he watched it again, growing tearful himself. “I am dying; I beg, I implore you to come. I shall—”

THIS IS A TRICK AND A FRAUD. THERE IS NO DECEIT SHE WOULD STOP AT.

“She is near her confinement,” Alexei Alexandrovich replied, trying idiotically to have a reasoned and rational conversation with the rageful Face. “Perhaps it is the confinement . . . what would be the aim of a trick?

TO LEGITIMIZE THE CHILD, TO COMPROMISE YOU, TO PREVENT A DIVORCE.

“But something was said in it . . .” He cued the communiqué again—“I am dying; I beg, I implore you to come. I shall die easier with your forgiveness”—and suddenly the plain meaning of what was said in it struck him.

“And if it is true?” he said aloud, and the Face laughed, sneeringly.

TRUE? TRUE THAT SHE SUFFERS? TRUE THAT SHE MAY DIE? THEN GOOD! ONLY A SHAME THAT HER DEATH SHOULD COME OTHERWISE THAN AT YOUR HANDS.

“If it is true that in the moment of agony and nearness to death she is genuinely penitent, and I, taking it for a trick, refuse to go? That would not only be cruel, and everyone would blame me, but it would be stupid on my part.”

“Call a coach,” he said to the II/Porter/7e62.

NO—NO, YOU CAN’T—YOU MUST STAY HERE—YOU MUST COMPLETE THE PROJECT . . . STOP STREMOV . . . REGAIN CONTROL CONTROL CONTROL CONTROL

But when the II/Coachman/47-T returned, Alexei Alexandrovich said, “I am going to Petersburg.”

*   *   *

And all the long way back to Petersburg, Karenin’s mind was hushed and still; not a further whisper did he hear from the Face. When he arrived, a II/Porter/44 opened the door before Alexei Alexandrovich rang; still the Face was silent.

“How is she?” he demanded.

“Very ill, sir.”

“Ill?” said Alexei Alexandrovich, and he went into the hall.

On the hat stand there was a silver regimental overcoat. Alexei Alexandrovich noticed it and asked:

“Who is here?”

“The doctor, the midwife, and Count Vronsky.”

Alexei Alexandrovich paused at the steps, expecting at any moment to be brought up short by the angry roar of the Face, but he heard nothing. He went into the inner rooms.

In the drawing room there was no one; at the sound of his steps there came out of her boudoir a scared and tired looking doctor with his II/Prognosis/64. “Thank God you’ve come! She keeps on about you and nothing but you,” said the man.

Alexei Alexandrovich went into her boudoir.

At the table, sitting sideways in a low chair, was Vronsky, his face hidden in his hands, weeping; at his feet was Lupo, his wolf-like Class III, who at the sight of Alexei Alexandrovich reared back on his haunches and growled warningly. Seeing the husband, Vronsky was so overwhelmed that he sat down again, drawing his head down to his shoulders, as if he wanted to disappear; but he made an effort over himself, got up, and said:

“She is frozen.”

“Frozen? What can that mean?”

“It comes and goes. In some moments she snaps out of it, and is entirely herself, seeming to have no recollection of what has just occurred. Then it begins again: her hair stands on end, her back arches, her eyes roll back into her head, and she is locked into that strange posture. The doctors say they have no idea, that they have seen nothing like it before.”

Vronsky stopped for a moment, and then stammered what was hardest for him to say to the husband: “But as for me, I have seen it. . . .” He trailed off, unable to speak aloud to Alexei Alexandrovich the intimate circumstance in which he had previously seen Anna enter this bizarre altered state.

“I am entirely in your power,” he said instead. “Only let me be here. . . .”

At those words, “Only let me be here,” Karenin’s mind exploded in light and noise, as if a bomb had been detonated in the depths of his
cerebral cortex.

“LET ME BE HERE! LET ME BE HERE!”

The Face shouted through Karenin’s mouth, angry and incredulous, and it was then that the struggle began, a struggle between Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin’s true human heart and his hateful mechanical Face, which is to say, between Karenin and himself; a struggle to be fought inside his brain, the crevices and folds of gray matter contested like the rugged hills of a battlefield; a struggle for the soul of a man, and for the future of a nation.

HE WOULD HAVE YOUR FORGIVENESS! YOUR LOVE!