Android Karenina, Page 5

  “No, stop a minute, stop a minute,” he said. “You must understand that it’s a question of life and death for me. I have never spoken to anyone of this. And there’s no one I could speak of it to, except you. You know we’re utterly unlike each other, different tastes and views and everything; but I know you’re fond of me and understand me, and that’s why I like you awfully. But for God’s sake, be quite straightforward with me.”

  Socrates bent forward further and a sharp luteous light began to flash from within his eyebank.

  “I tell you what I think,” said Stepan Arkadyich, smiling. “But I’ll say more: my wife is a wonderful woman…” He sighed, remembering his position with his wife, and, after a moment’s silence, resumed. “She has a gift of foreseeing things. She sees right through people, as if she had a physiometer in her face; but that’s not all; she knows what will come to pass, especially in the way of marriages!”

  Both of them laughed lightly, though Levin’s laughter was more out of nervousness than anything like genuine amusement. His true state was reflected by what was happening in Socrates’ eyebank, where lights were blinking rapidly, in alternating shades of yellow, topaz, and orange.

  “She foretold, for instance, that Princess Shahovskaya would marry Brenteln. No one would believe it, but it came to pass. And she’s on your side.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “It’s not only that she likes you-she says that Kitty is certain to be married to you.”

  Levin’s face suddenly lighted up with a smile, a smile not far from tears of emotion.

  “She says that!” cried Levin. “I always said she was exquisite, your wife. There, that’s enough, enough said about it,” he said, getting up from his seat. Socrates got up just after him, one step behind his master, the deep-set lamps of his eyebank now a flickering blur of red and orange, orange and yellow, yellow and red.

  “Do sit down,” cried Stiva to both of them, as Small Stiva twittered with alarm at the other robot’s wild display of lights.

  But Levin could not sit down. He walked with his firm tread twice up and down the little cage of a room, blinked his eyelids so that his tears might not fall, and only then sat down to the table.

  “You must understand,” he said, “it’s not love.”

  “Not merely love,” Socrates echoed in a high-pitched burble.

  “I’ve been in love, but it’s not that. It’s not my feeling, but a sort of force outside me has taken possession of me.”

  “A force, a force, a powerful force!”

  “I went away, you see, because I made up my mind that it could never be, you understand, as a happiness that does not come on earth; but I’ve struggled with myself, I see there’s no living without it. And it must be settled.”

  “It must, it must, it must be settled now!” blared Socrates.

  “What did you go away for?” inquired Oblonsky, but Levin charged on: “Ah, the thoughts that come crowding on one! The questions one must ask oneself!” Socrates now was pacing at furious speed around the dining table, beeping and whirring and whistling in a paroxysm of agitation. “You can’t imagine what you’ve done for me by what you said. I’m so happy that I’ve become positively hateful; I’ve forgotten everything. I heard today that my brother Nikolai… you know, he’s here… he’s ill… I had even forgotten him. But what’s awful… Here, you’ve been married, you know the feeling…” Socrates was now turning, twisting rapidly in place, his eyebank a wild xanthic blur, but Levin hardly noticed. “It’s awful that we-old-with a past… not of love, but of sins… are brought all at once so near to a creature pure and innocent; it’s loathsome-”

  “Loathsome! Loathsome!”

  “And that’s why one can’t help feeling oneself unworthy.”

  “Unworthy! Unworthy! Unworthy!” Socrates bleated, and then there was a loud grinding noise and a small hiss of steam, as Socrates overheated, and went to unintentional Surcease.

  CHAPTER 9

  LEVIN CURSED, REVIVIFIED HIS beloved-companion, and emptied his glass. The two old friends sat in silence for a time, waiting for Socrates’ circuits to realign. Tea cups clinked elsewhere in the restaurant; a I/Samovar/1(8) burbled in the kitchen; a Class I lumière flickered to life automatically just as the gathering twilight demanded it; off in the distance on the streets outside was the tromp of 77s, the sharp hoot of their Caretaker.

  “There’s one other thing I ought to tell you,” said Stepan Arkadyich while they waited. “Do you know Vronsky?”

  “No, I don’t. Why do you ask?”

  “Give us another bottle,” Stepan Arkadyich directed the II/Server/888 who was filling up their glasses, motoring round them just when he was not wanted. “And then turn off your sensors, will you?” Not needing to watch to make sure the white-jacketed Class II complied, since the Iron Laws demanded obedience to a human’s every order, Stepan Arkadyich freely turned back to Levin to share his secret.

  “Why you ought to know Vronsky is that he’s one of your rivals.”

  “Who’s Vronsky?” said Levin, and his face was suddenly transformed from the look of childlike ecstasy which Oblonsky had just been admiring to an angry and unpleasant expression.

  “Vronsky is one of the sons of Count Kirill Ivanovitch Vronsky, and one of the finest specimens of the gilded youth of Petersburg. I made his acquaintance in Tver when I was there on official business, and he came there for the levy of recruits. Fearfully rich, handsome, great connections, a hero of the Border Wars, and authorized to carry a hot-whip and a pair of smokers on his belt. And with all that a very nice, good-natured fellow. But he’s more than simply a good-natured fellow, as I’ve found out here-he’s a cultivated man, too, and very intelligent; he’s a man who’ll make his mark.”

  Levin scowled and was dumb.

  “Well, he turned up here soon after you’d gone, and as I can see, he’s over head and ears in love with Kitty, and you know that her mother…”

  “Excuse me, but I know nothing,” said Levin, frowning gloomily. And immediately he recollected his ill brother Nikolay and how hateful he was to have been able to forget him.

  “You wait a bit, wait a bit,” said Stepan Arkadyich, smiling and touching his hand. “I’ve told you what I know, and I repeat that in this delicate and tender matter, as far as one can conjecture, I believe the chances are in your favor.”

  Levin dropped back in his chair; his face was pale.

  “But I would advise you to settle the thing as soon as may be,” pursued Oblonsky, filling up his glass.

  “No, thanks, I can’t drink any more,” said Levin, pushing away his glass. “I shall be drunk… Come, tell me how are you getting on?” he went on, obviously anxious to change the conversation. He glanced with frustration at Socrates, willing the robot to swiftly revivify, but his beloved-companion’s faceplate remained blank and black.

  “One word more: in any case I advise you to settle the question soon. Tonight I don’t advise you to speak,” said Stepan Arkadyich. “Go round tomorrow morning, make an offer in due form, and God bless you…”

  At once Levin’s whole soul was full of remorse that he had begun this conversation with Stepan Arkadyich. A feeling such as his was profaned by talk of the rivalry of some Petersburg officer, of the suppositions and the counsels of Stepan Arkadyich. He immediately moved to change the subject.

  “Oh, do you still think of coming to me for the Hunt-and-be-Hunted? Come next spring, do,” said Levin.

  “I’ll come Hunt some day,” he said. “But women, my boy they’re the pivot everything turns upon. Things are in a bad way with me, very bad. And it’s all through women. Tell me frankly now,” he pursued, lighting the cigar that Small Stiva proffered, and keeping one hand on his glass, “give me your advice.”

  “Why, what is it?”

  “I’ll tell you. Suppose you’re married, you love your wife, but you’re fascinated by another woman…”

  “Excuse me, but I’m absolutely unable to comprehend how…
just as I can’t comprehend how I could now, after my dinner, go straight to a baker’s shop and steal a roll.”

  Stepan Arkadyich’s eyes sparkled more than usual. Suddenly both felt that though they were friends, though they had been dining and drinking together, which should have drawn them closer, each was thinking only of his own affairs, and they had nothing to do with one another. Oblonsky had more than once experienced this extreme sense of aloofness, instead of intimacy, coming on after dinner, and he knew what to do in such cases.

  “Bill!” he called, and waited impatiently, patting the table with his hands, before remembering he had demanded the II/Server/888 turn off its sensors.

  CHAPTER 10

  THE YOUNG PRINCESS Kitty Shcherbatskaya was eighteen. It was the first winter that she had been out in the world, and shortly she would at last receive her very own beloved-companion robot. Kitty’s success in society had been greater than that of either of her elder sisters, and greater even than her mother had anticipated. To say nothing of the young men who danced at the Moscow floats being almost all in love with Kitty, two serious suitors had already this first winter made their appearance: Levin, and immediately after his departure, that dashing, smoker-wielding hero of the Border Wars, Count Vronsky.

  Levin’s appearance at the beginning of the winter, his frequent visits, and evident love for Kitty had led to the first serious conversations between Kitty’s parents as to her future, and to disputes between them. The prince was on Levin’s side; he said he wished for nothing better for Kitty. The princess for her part, going round the question in the manner peculiar to women, maintained that Kitty was too young, that Levin had done nothing to prove that he had serious intentions, that Kitty felt no great attraction to him, and other side issues; but she did not state the principal point, which was that she looked for a better match for her daughter, and that Levin was not to her liking, and she did not understand him. A groznium miner with a pit-burnt face and alloy dust on his hands? When Levin had abruptly departed, the princess was delighted, and said to her husband triumphantly: “You see, I was right. Let him return to his smoldering hole in the ground!”

  When Vronsky appeared on the scene, she was still more delighted, confirmed in her opinion that Kitty was to make not simply a good, but a brilliant match. Vronsky satisfied all the mother’s desires. Very wealthy, clever, of aristocratic family, a known sharpshooter with a smoker, on the highroad to a brilliant career at court, and a fascinating man. Nothing better could be wished for.

  Vronsky openly flirted with Kitty at the floats, hovered and flipped at her side, and came continually to the house; consequently there could be no doubt of the seriousness of his intentions. But, in spite of that, the mother had spent the whole of that winter in a state of terrible anxiety and agitation; her Class III, a matronly machine with a French inflection called La Shcherbatskaya, had spent many an evening fanning her mistress and offering calming jets of scented air from her Third Bay.

  Now she was afraid that Vronsky might confine himself to simply flirting with Kitty. She saw that her daughter was in love with him, but tried to comfort herself with the thought that he was an honorable man, and would not do this. But at the same time she knew how easy it is, with the freedom of manners of today, to turn a girl’s head, and how lightly men generally regard such a crime.

  Today, with Levin’s reappearance, a fresh source of anxiety arose. “I am afraid for my daughter,” she said to La Shcherbatskaya, who stood beside her, folding laundry.

  “Afraid? Oh dear, madame!”

  “At one time I think she had a feeling for Levin.”

  “Oh yes, oh yes, a feeling. A certain feeling!”

  “Perhaps from some extreme sense of honor she will refuse Vronsky!”

  “Refuse him! No, no, madame. Oh dear oh dear oh dear!”

  “Or that Levin’s arrival might generally complicate and delay the affair so near being concluded.”

  At that moment the daughter entered the room to greet her mother, and the Class III politely put herself into Surcease.

  “Has he been here long?” the princess asked about Levin, after Kitty related to her the dramatic events at the skate-maze, including the heroics exhibited by Konstantin Dmitrich and his Class III.

  “He came today, Mamma.”

  “There’s one thing I want to say…,” began the princess, and from her serious and alert face, Kitty guessed what it would be.

  “Mamma,” she said, flushing hotly and turning quickly to her. “Please, please don’t say anything about that. I know, I know all about it.”

  She wished for what her mother wished for, but the motives of her mother’s wishes wounded her.

  “I only want to say that to raise hopes…”

  “Mamma, darling, for goodness’ sake, don’t talk about it. It’s so horrible to talk about it.”

  “I won’t,” said her mother, seeing the tears in her daughter’s eyes, “but one thing, my love: You promised me you would have no secrets from me. You won’t?”

  “Never, Mamma, none,” answered Kitty, flushing a little, and looking her mother straight in the face, “but there’s no use in my telling you anything, and I… I… if I wanted to, I don’t know what to say or how… I don’t know…”

  No, she could not tell an untruth with those eyes, thought the mother, smiling at her agitation and happiness. The princess smiled that what was taking place just now in her soul seemed to the poor child so immense and so important.

  CHAPTER 11

  AFTER DINNER, AND TILL the beginning of the evening, Kitty was feeling a sensation akin to the sensation of a young man before a battle. Her heart throbbed violently, and her thoughts would not rest on anything.

  She turned on the Galena Box, trying to calm her nerves. She felt that this evening, when they would both meet for the first time, would be a turning point in her life. And she was continually picturing them to herself, at one moment each separately, and then both together. She wished she had already received her Class III, so she could review her past experiences more efficiently, by cuing them in the monitor of her own beloved-companion; instead she was forced to remember in the way of children, with her mind. Still she dwelt with pleasure, with tenderness, on the memories of her relations with Levin. The memories of childhood and of Levin’s friendship with her dead brother gave a special poetic charm to her relations with him. His love for her, of which she felt certain, was flattering and delightful to her; and it was pleasant for her to think of Levin. In her memories of Vronsky there always entered a certain element of awkwardness, though he was in the highest degree well-bred and at ease, as though there were some false note-not in Vronsky, he was very simple and nice, but in herself, while with Levin she felt perfectly simple and clear. But, on the other hand, when she thought of the future with Vronsky, there arose before her a perspective of brilliant happiness; with Levin the future seemed misty.

  She turned up the Galena Box and carried it with her when she went upstairs to dress. Looking into the looking-glass, she noticed with joy that it was one of her good days, and that she was in complete possession of all her forces-she needed this so for what lay before her: she was conscious of external composure and free grace in her movements.

  At half past seven she had only just gone down into the drawing room, when the II/Footman/C(c)43 announced, in its grandiloquent way, “Konstantin Dmitrich Levin.” The princess was still in her room, and the prince had not come in. So it is to be, thought Kitty, and all the blood seemed to rush to her heart. She was horrified at her paleness, as she glanced into the looking-glass. At that moment she knew beyond doubt that he had come early on purpose to find her alone and to make her an offer. And only then for the first time the whole thing presented itself in a new, different aspect; only then she realized that the question did not affect her only-with whom she would be happy, and whom she loved-but that she would have that moment to wound a man whom she liked. And to wound him cruelly. She wished she could render
herself invisible… though of course invisibility was impossible, and indeed experimentation into it was strictly forbidden.

  Konstantin Dmitrich, dear fellow, loved her, was in love with her. But there was no help for it, so it must be, so it would have to be.

  “My God! Shall I myself really have to say it to him? Can I tell him I don’t love him? That will be a lie. What am I to say to him? That I love someone else? No, that’s impossible. I’m going away, I’m going away.”

  She had reached the door when she heard his step. “What have I to be afraid of? I have done nothing wrong. What is to be, will be! I’ll tell the truth. And with him one can’t be ill at ease. Here he is,” she said to herself, seeing his powerful, shy figure, and directly behind him that of his gangling Class III, both of them with their shining eyes fixed on her. She looked straight into his face, as though imploring him to spare her, and gave her hand.

  “It’s not time yet; I think we’re too early,” he said glancing round the empty drawing room. When he saw that his expectations were realized, that there was nothing to prevent him from speaking, his face became gloomy. Socrates continued to stare directly at her, as if his sensors bore into her very soul-as always, she found Levin’s tall, strange-looking companion droid powerfully unsettling.

  “Oh, no,” said Kitty, and sat down at the table.

  “But this was just what I wanted, to find you alone,” he began, not sitting down, and not looking at her, so as not to lose courage.

  “Mamma will be down directly. She was very much tired… Yesterday…”

  She talked on, not knowing what her lips were uttering, and not taking her supplicating and caressing eyes off him. She wished she had brought the Galena Box down from her bedroom, and could feel its machine-lent courage already draining away.

  He glanced at her, and then more pointedly at Socrates, who dutifully sent himself into Surcease.