Android Karenina (59 page)

She said a few words to him, speaking of nothing at all. Konstantin Dmitrich had naturally told her every incredible detail of the tête-à-tête at the Huntshed, but hardly could she acknowledge in public that astonishing event. Instead she turned away immediately to Princess Marya Borissovna, and did not once glance at him till he got up to go; then she looked at him, but evidently only because it would be uncivil not to look at a man when he is saying good-bye.

Only then did she summon the courage to speak, in whispered tones, of the great secret that lay between them: their mutual knowledge of the nascent resistance to the so-called New Russia. “How is it that you and Anna have returned to society?” In the urgency of her whisper was communicated her hope and expectation that the amnesty request was a gambit, a cover story, and that Vronsky was in Moscow for the same reason as Levin: awaiting the chance to move against the Ministry.

“Anna Arkadyevna and I wish only to make amends for our ill-considered transgressions,” he pronounced, loudly enough for Princess Borissovna to hear. The old woman nodded her approval. “We have therefore cashiered our Class Ills in accordance with the law, and appealed to Minister Karenin for amnesty. I have many skills, of course, that could be put to use in the service of the New Russia.”

Kitty could not determine whether Vronsky was playing false, for the old princess’s benefit, or whether his contrition was sincere. As always in the past, Count Vronsky remained a mystery.

On the way home, she was grateful to her father for saying nothing to her about their meeting Vronsky, but she saw by his special warmth to her after the visit during their usual walk that he was pleased with her. She was pleased with herself. She had not expected she would have had the power, while keeping somewhere in the bottom of her heart all the memories of her old feeling for Vronsky, not only to be perfectly indifferent and composed with him, but to do her best to sound out the depth of his loyalties.

Levin flushed a great deal more than she when she told him she had met Vronsky at Princess Marya Borissovna’s. It was very hard for her to tell him this, but still harder to go on speaking of the details of the meeting, as he did not question her, but simply gazed at her with a frown.

Her truthful eyes told Levin that she was satisfied with herself, and in spite of her blushing he was quickly reassured and began questioning her, which was all she wanted. When he had heard that she was just as direct and as much at her ease as with any chance acquaintance, Levin was quite happy and said he was glad of it.

“But there is more,” she added. “More that we must discuss, relating to our Golden Hope.”

They leaned their heads together, as much co-conspirators as husband and wife, to ponder the difficulties that Kitty’s new information posed. If Count Vronsky had truly abandoned his rebellious posture, surely this raised the danger that he would report to the Ministry what he knew about Kitty and Levin and
their
secrets.

“I will seek an opportunity to speak directly to Vronsky, and then, together, you and I shall discuss what to do,” Levin replied, emphasizing the word “together,” as if to affirm to Kitty his belief that she had handled herself perfectly in this situation.

“I miss my beloved-companion,” Kitty sighed.

“And I, mine, my love. And I, mine.”

T
HE FOLLOWING NIGHT,
Levin reached the club just at the right time. Members and visitors were driving up as he arrived. Levin had not been at the club for a very long while—not since he lived in Moscow, when he was leaving the university and going into society. He remembered the club, the external details of its arrangement, but he had completely forgotten the impression it had made on him in the old days. But as soon as he drove into the wide, semicircular court and got out of the sledge; as soon as he saw in the porter’s room the cloaks and galoshes of members who thought it less trouble to take them off downstairs; as soon as he heard the I/Bell/6 that tolled three times behind its semi-transparent panel to announce him, as he ascended the easy, carpeted staircase, and saw the slow rotation of the glittering I/Statue/9 on the landing, unobtrusively identity-confirming each arriving guest, Levin felt the old impression of the club come back in a rush, an impression of repose, comfort, and propriety.

The difference, of course, was that in the old days the picture included dozens of Class IIs. Tonight there was no drone of busy motors, no dull hum of mechanical servitude. No II/Butler/97 politely removed his hat with careful end-effectors; no II/Porter/6 asked his name at the door and announced it with a Vox-Em flourish when he entered the main hall. Instead a fat and surly peasant in an ill-fitting vest grunted and gestured with a rude thumb to the staircase.

Passing through the outer hall, divided up by screens, and the room partitioned on the right, where a man sat at the fruit buffet, Levin overtook an old man walking slowly in, and entered the dining room full of noise and people.

He walked along the tables, almost all full, and looked at the visitors. He saw people of all sorts, old and young; some he knew a little, some intimate friends. Despite all of society’s convulsions, he did not see a single cross or worried-looking face. All seemed to have left their cares and anxieties downstairs with their hats, and were all deliberately getting ready to enjoy the material blessings of life.

“Ah! Why are you late?” the prince said to Levin, smiling, and giving him his hand over his own shoulder. “How’s Kitty?” he added, smoothing out the napkin he had tucked in at his waistcoat buttons.

“All right; they are dining at home, all three of them.”

“Go to that table, and make haste and take a seat,” said the prince, and turning away he carefully took a plate of eel soup.

Konstantin Dmitrich sat, and an irritated-looking young peasant brought a bowl of soup, carelessly sloshing the hot liquid over the sides and into Levin’s lap. He grimaced in pain and annoyance; the perfect, gyroscopically maintained balance of a Class II waiter would never make such a careless error.

But the others only laughed at the accident, and Levin realized that the view held by those in the club—or, at least, the view loudly expressed by those who wanted to be heard saying the right sorts of things—was very different than his own. It was agreed at every table that Russian life had been much
improved
by the disappearance of those “pesky” robots, always motoring about underfoot, making one feel self-conscious and intruded upon, their circuits forever buzzing and whirring away.

“To humanity!” said the prince, and raised his glass. “To the New Russia!” echoed Sviashky.

“Levin, this way!” a good-natured voice shouted a little farther on. It was Turovtsin. He was sitting with a young officer, and beside them were two chairs turned upside down. Levin gladly went up to them. He had always liked the good-hearted rake, Turovtsin, and at that moment, after the strain of intellectual conversation, the sight of Turovtsin’s good-natured
face was particularly welcome.

And maybe . . . Levin narrowed his eyes and felt his heart pounding in his chest . . .

With exaggerated casualness, Levin smoothed his beard and approached his old friend with an easy smile. Pulling his chair close to the other man’s, breathing hotly into Turovtsin’s ear, he murmured a single word:

“Rearguard.”

“Eh?” responded Turovtsin loudly, his eyes lighting up. Levin’s heart beat faster; his blood roared in his ears. Could it be Turovtsin? Did he share in the Golden Hope? Who would have thought it was foolish Turovtsin?

“Rearguard?” repeated Turovtsin, but loudly, his eyes glittering with anticipatory merriment in his eyes, as if awaiting the punchline.

Levin drew back, stammering. “Ah . . . I thought . . . but, never mind, never mind. I said nothing.”

“Oh, well,” said Turovtsin. “Here, then.” He handed Levin a pair of glasses. “For you and Oblonsky. He’ll be here directly. Ah, here he is!”

“Have you only just come?” said Oblonsky, coming quickly toward them. “Good day. Had some vodka? Well, come along then.”

Levin, with difficulty hiding his disappointment, got up and went with him to the big table spread with spirits and appetizers of the most various kinds. One would have thought that out of two dozen delicacies one might find something to one’s taste, but Stepan Arkadyich asked for something special, and the tetchy adolescent waiter trudged back into the kitchen to search it out. They drank a glass of wine and returned to their table.

“Ah! And here they are!” Stepan Arkadyich said toward the end of dinner, leaning over the back of his chair and holding out his hand to Vronsky, who came up with a tall officer of the Guards.

Vronsky’s face, too, beamed with the look of good-humored enjoyment that was general in the club. He propped his elbow playfully on
Stepan Arkadyich’s shoulder, whispering something to him, and he held out his hand to Levin with the same good-humored smile.

“Very glad to see you,” he said, and then added with a wink—or at least, what Levin thought was a wink—“It has been a long time.”

“Yes, yes,” said Levin. In the next moment, a roar of laughter convulsed the table, as Oblonsky described the old slop-slinging peasant who’d replaced the household II/Cook/98. Levin judged that his moment was ripe. He leaned forward, and, laying one hand on the upper part of Vronsky’s arm, whispered the code word both men had heard together from Federov.

“Rearguard.”

For a long moment, the word seemed to shimmer in the air between them, while Levin sought a sign of life in the impassive face across from his. But the count did not whisper “Action.” Instead he laughed genially and meaninglessly, twirled his mustache, and turned away.

Levin turned away as well, his worst suspicions confirmed: the resistance, if there were truly such a thing, could not number Alexei Kirillovich among its ranks.

But what danger did this fact pose to Levin? What should he do? He wished for the means to run a complete analysis of the situation; wished, not for the first or last time, that loyal Socrates were present to give him counsel.

“Well, have we finished?” said Stepan Arkadyich, getting up with a smile. “Let us go.”

O
BLONSKY LED THEM
like the piper of myth to the gambling tables. I/Dice/55s trembled and bobbled and danced,
zipping in algorithmic patterns across the green acetate of the table, randomizing some men into small fortunes, and others into disappointment. Oblonsky himself was of the fortunate group, to his great delight. “Perhaps Small Stiva was bad luck to me for all those years!” he decreed jovially, provoking great merriment in his fellow gamblers, and naught but melancholy disdain in Levin.

Oblonsky had again clutched the I/Dice/55s in his fist, hoping to add further to his fast-growing pile of rubles, when a crowd of thin, high-cheeked men-who-were-not-men strode purposefully into the room.

“Ah!” said Stepan Arkadyich, only the tiniest flutter of fear rippling his habitually good-natured expression. “Gentlemen. Or, rather, gentle-machines, if I may be so bold as to coin a term.”

“Might we invite you to join us in our games?” Vronsky ventured.

“To the contrary, your Excellency,” said the tallest of the man-machines, who wore what looked like a scruffy two-day growth of beard; Levin marveled in spite of himself at the artistry of it. “We are here to collect these apparatuses.”

One of the other Toy Soldiers held out his hand, and Stiva, wide-eyed with astonishment, placed the I/Dice/55 into the lifelike pink of the robot’s open palm.

“Now, wait . . . if I might . . . hold on, now . . . ,” protested the old prince tremulously. “Is there no place in the New Russia for a bit of friendly gambling?”

“It is not the gambling that is proscribed, gentlemen, it is the technology.” The machine-man spoke rapidly. “Russia has her enemies, more now than ever. Enemies above; enemies within. The open distribution of technology is dangerous and can no longer be countenanced.”

And the face of the Toy Soldier all at once wavered and blurred, revealing the machinery hiding behind the skin of his face. From where the eye had been, the muzzle of a miniature cannon jutted forth already shooting, and a quick and efficient volley of electric fire blasted the green Class I gaming table neatly to ash. The tiny cannon disappeared and
the man’s face reassembled itself; he cleared his throat
(There is no throat!
Levin adamantly reminded himself,
no throat!
)—and spoke: “I ask that you place your Class I devices on the floor before you.”

Into a large pile it all went: heirloom I/Hourprotector/ls, I/CigarLighter/4s, I/Bifocal/6s, all the tiny, convenient wonders that had been made possible by groznium technology. All were heaped and vaporized as thoroughly as the gaming table. The Toy Soldiers turned on their black boot heels and departed, leaving in their wake a long, stunned silence, which Stepan Arkadyich filled with a pitiful murmur.

“Such is the price of happiness.”

“Yes,” said the old prince, shaking his head and wearing no expression. “Such is the price.”

Levin, disgusted by the scene, pulled on his coat.

“Levin,” said Stepan Arkadyich, and Levin noticed that his eyes were not full of tears exactly, but moist, which always happened when he had been drinking, or when he was moved by emotion. Just now it was due to both causes. “Levin, don’t go,” he said, and he warmly squeezed his arm above the elbow, obviously not at all wishing to let him go.

“This is a true friend of mine—almost my greatest friend,” he said to Vronsky. It was evident to Levin that Oblonsky, more affected than he could openly admit by the evolution of the New Russia, was casting out for some source of happy feeling to console him. “You have become even closer and dearer to me. And I want you, and I know you ought, to be friends, and great friends, because you’re both splendid fellows.”

“Well, there’s nothing for us now but to kiss and be friends,” Vronsky said with good-natured playfulness, holding out his hand, acting as if the only past between them were a long-distant romantic rivalry.