Android Karenina (35 page)

He traveled then to Moscow, where he was to oversee the final adjustments to the improved Class III model that he had created—what he now with some audacity called the Class IV As he worked in his sub-basement laboratory, double-checking the precision sighting mechanism embedded in the steely blue eyes of his masterpiece, he heard the loud tones of Stepan Arkadyich’s voice. Stepan Arkadyich was disputing with Karenin’s II/Footman/74, and insisting on being announced.

Alexei Alexandrovich thought to bar the visitor, or hide the Class IV from sight, as his own security protocol dictated, and as he could do with a single button push. But he impulsively decided instead to give his ridiculous brother-in-law a treat, and let the thing remain in view.

LET HIM ENTER. LET HIM SEE WHAT RUSSIA IS TRULY CAPABLE OF
.

“Come in!” he said aloud, collecting his papers, and putting them in the blotting paper.

“There, you see, you’re talking nonsense, and he’s here!” responded Stepan Arkadyich’s voice, addressing the Footman, which had refused to let him in; and taking off his coat as he went, Oblonsky walked into the room. “Well, I’m awfully glad I’ve found you! So I hope while you are in Moscow, you will come and dine with us. . . .” Stepan Arkadyich began
cheerfully, before stopping short and gasping.

“What . . . Alexei Alexandrovich, what is that?”

“Surely even in the Department of Toys and Misc., it is being discussed that the Higher Branches are planning, at long last, a new iteration of robot. Stepan Arkadyich Oblonsky, meet the Class IV”

“But. . . but. . . ,” Oblonsky stammered, staring openmouthed while Small Stiva scuttled backward whirring with alarm. Karenin smiled, drinking in their discomfort. “But what will you do with them?”

OH SO MANY THINGS

SO MANY THINGS

OH

But Alexei merely raised his eyebrow. “Our world is ever-changing, Stepan Arkadyich,” he said mildly. “Our beloved-companions must change, too.

“Now. As to your kind inquiry, no—I cannot come to dinner,” Alexei Alexandrovich continued, standing and not asking his visitor to sit down. “I can’t dine at your house, because the terms of the relationship which have existed between us must cease.”

“How? How do you mean? What for?” said Stepan Arkadyich, still nervously eyeing the Class IV that stood staring back at him from the corner.

“Because I am beginning an action for divorce against your sister, my wife. I ought to have—”

But before Alexei Alexandrovich had time to finish his sentence, Stepan Arkadyich was behaving not at all as he had expected. He groaned and sank into an armchair.

“No, Alexei Alexandrovich! What are you saying?” cried Oblonsky, and his suffering was apparent in his face. “Did you hear this?” he said to Small Stiva.

“Heard it, yes, but cannot believe it!”

Alexei Alexandrovich sat down, feeling that his words had not had the effect he anticipated, and that it would be unavoidable for him to
explain his position, and that, whatever explanations he might make, his relations with his brother-in-law would remain unchanged. He wished his visitor would go and leave him be, leave him to put the last touches on his beautiful machine.

“Yes, I am brought to the painful necessity of seeking a divorce,” he said.

“I will say one thing, Alexei Alexandrovich,” said Stepan Arkadyich. “I know you for an excellent, upright man; I know Anna—excuse me, I can’t change my opinion of her—for a good, an excellent woman; and so, excuse me, I cannot believe it. There is some misunderstanding.”

“Oh, if it were merely a misunderstanding!”

“Pardon, I understand,” interposed Stepan Arkadyich. “But of course . . . one thing: you must not act in haste. You must not, you must not act in haste!”

“I am not acting in haste,” Alexei Alexandrovich said coldly, “but one cannot ask advice of anyone in such a matter. I have quite made up my mind.”

“This is awful!” said Stepan Arkadyich. “I would do one thing, Alexei Alexandrovich. I beseech you, do it!” he said. “No action has yet been taken, if I understand rightly. Before you take advice, see my wife, talk to her. She loves Anna like a sister, she loves you, and she’s a wonderful woman. For God’s sake, talk to her! Do me that favor, I beseech you! Do this, come and see my wife.”

“Well, we look at the matter differently,” said Alexei Alexandrovich coldly. “However, we won’t discuss it.”

“No, but why shouldn’t you come today to dine, anyway? My wife’s expecting you. Please, do come. And, above all, talk it over with her. She’s a wonderful woman. For God’s sake, on my knees, I implore you!”

“If you so much wish it, I will come,” said Alexei Alexandrovich, sighing.

“Believe me, I appreciate it, and I hope you won’t regret it,” answered Stepan Arkadyich, smiling. “Come, Small Stiva,” he said. Then, putting
on his coat as he went, he cast one last nervous glance at the Class IV, patted Alexei Alexandrovich’s II/Footman/74 on the head, chuckled, and went out.

Alexei stood, shaking his head with irritation. He thought the word
engage
, and the eyes of the Class IV glowed to life. He thought the word
reduce
, and in the next instant the chair on which Stiva had perched burst into flames and burned quickly away to ash.

OH SO MANY THINGS
said the Face, and Karenin’s mind echoed with terrible, cackling laughter.

I
T WAS PAST FIVE
, and several guests had already arrived at the Oblonskys’ for dinner, before the host himself got home. He went in together with the intellectuals, Sergey Ivanovitch Koznishev and Pestsov, two men respected for their education and erudition, and widely known for their strong opinions on the Robot Question. Koznishev and Pestsov respected each other, but were in complete and hopeless disagreement upon almost every fine point of the subject, for each had his own special shade of opinion. Both men were leading exponents of what was known broadly as the Advancement Theory, holding that servomechanisms must and should grow in their intelligence and abilities. Koznishev believed that this process should be carefully overseen by the appropriate branches of the Ministry at each step, in order that robot capabilities remained carefully understood and contained. Koznishev considered himself an acolyte of the Jewish scholar Abraham Ber Ozimov, a rye merchant turned machine theorist from Petrovichi whose theories had inspired the Iron Laws, anticipating the need to safeguard against any future “rebellion of the machines.” Pestsov dismissed this idea of mechanical revolt
as a fairy tale, the sort ofthing used to scare children into obeying their II/Governess/7s. He argued that the gadgetmen should go wherever their experimentation led them, and that their charges should be allowed to socialize more freely with each other, and with humankind. In this way, said Pestsov and his supporters, they could learn and grow in a natural and organic process.

Since no difference is less easily overcome than the difference of opinion about semi-abstract questions, the two intellectuals never agreed in any opinion, and had long, indeed, been accustomed to jeer without anger, each at the other’s incorrigible aberrations.

In the drawing room there were already sitting Prince Alexander Dmitrievich Shcherbatsky, Turovtsin, Kitty, and the stiff figure of Karenin, his telescoping oculus scanning the room.

Oblonsky worked his sociable magic on the assemblage in the drawing room, beginning them in innocuous but spirited conversation, and then, in the dining room he was met by Konstantin Levin and the familiar, angular figure of Socrates.

“I’m not late?”

“Of course we’re late. We were invited for half past seven, and at present the exact
—”

“You can never help being late!” said Stepan Arkadyich, taking Levin’s arm and wagging a merry finger at Socrates.

“Have you a lot of people? Who’s here?” asked Levin, unable to help blushing, as his beloved-companion took his cap and carefully knocked the snow off it.

“All our own set. Kitty’s here. Come along, I’ll introduce you to Karenin.”

Stepan Arkadyich was well aware that to meet Karenin, a man of the Higher Branches, was sure to be felt as a flattering distinction, and so treated his best friends to this honor. But at that instant Konstantin Levin was not in a condition to feel all the gratification of making such an acquaintance. He had not seen Kitty since that memorable evening
when he met Vronsky, not counting, that is, the moment when he had had a glimpse of her on the highroad, in her luminescent semiconscious state as she emerged from suspended animation. He had known at the bottom of his heart that he would see her here today. But now, when he heard that she was here, he was suddenly conscious of such delight, and at the same time of such dread, that his breath failed him and he could not utter what he wanted to say.

“Oh, please, introduce me to Karenin,” Levin brought out with an effort, and with a desperately determined step he walked into the drawing room and beheld her. And as he walked, Socrates, walking one step behind, said precisely what he was thinking, anxiously whispering the words into the nape of his neck, just above the level of thought:
“What is she like, what is she like? Like what she used to be, or like what she was in the carriage? What if Darya Alexandrovna told the truth? Why shouldn’t it be the truth?”

She was not the same as she used to be, nor was she as she had been in the carriage; she was quite different.

She was scared, shy, shame-faced, and still more charming from it. She saw him the very instant he walked into the room. She had been expecting him. She was delighted, and so confused at her own delight that there was a moment, the moment when he went up to her sister and glanced again at her, when she, and he, and Dolly, who saw it all, thought she would break down and would begin to cry. She crimsoned, turned white, crimsoned again, and grew faint, waiting with quivering lips for him to come to her. Tatiana, her once-ignored, now-beloved Class III, sat beside her, gently massaging her knee. Levin went up to them, bowed, and held out his hand without speaking. Except for the slight quiver of her lips and the moisture in her eyes that made them brighter, her smile was almost calm as she said:

“How long it is since we’ve seen each other!” and with desperate determination she pressed his hand with her cold hand. Socrates bowed low to the charming Tatiana, who burbled coquettishly in return.

“You’ve not seen me, but I’ve seen you,” said Levin, with a radiant smile of happiness. “I saw you when you were driving from the railway station to Ergushovo: you were only just emerging from suspended animation, and what a lovely picture you did make.”

“When?” she asked, wondering.

“You were driving to Ergushovo,” said Levin, feeling as if he would sob with the rapture that was flooding his heart. He glanced with teary eyes at Socrates, as if to say:
How dared I associate a thought of anything not innocent with this touching creature?
Socrates’ eyebank flashed in warm understanding.

When it was time to be seated for dinner, quite without attracting notice, Stepan Arkadyich put Levin and Kitty side by side.

“Oh, you may as well sit there,” he said to Levin.

The dinner was as choice as the china, of which Stepan Arkadyich was a connoisseur. The
soupe Marie-Louise
was a splendid success; the tiny pies eaten with it melted in the mouth and were irreproachable. Small Stiva, acting the role of waiter in a charming little white cravat, did his duty with the dishes and wines unobtrusively, quietly, and swiftly. On the material side the dinner was a success; it was no less so on the immaterial. The conversation, at times general and at times between individuals, never paused, and toward the end the company was so lively that the men rose from the table without stopping speaking.

Only Karenin remained cold and distant, listening with evident displeasure to the heated talk of the two intellectuals as they endlessly presented their varying opinions on the Robot Question.

He remained silent, however, even when Koznishev turned the question to him directly. “It is only under the guidance of those such as our honored guest,” he said, offering Karenin a respectfully deep bow of the head, “that our Class IIs and Ills have evolved even to the extraordinary levels at which they presently function. Why, just look at them! Serving tureens of soup and balancing heavy drink trays!” He paused to gesture to Small Stiva, who did a happy little twirl, playing to the
spotlight. “But what a future they may hold . . .”

But Alexei Alexandrovich scowled and said nothing; the intellectuals grew silent, and looked away.

E
VERYONE TOOK PART
in the conversation except Kitty and Levin. At first there rose to Levin’s mind what he had to say on the Robot Question. He thought of his recent foray deep into the bowels of his mine, swinging an axe alongside his clever and industrious Pitbots; how he had come to admire them, like one admires a fellow man, though they were technically but Class IIs. But these ideas, once of such importance in his eyes, seemed to come into his brain as in a dream, and had now not the slightest interest for him. It even struck him as strange that they should be so eager to talk of what was of no use to anyone. Kitty, too, should, one would have supposed, have been interested when the subject turned to the supreme value of Class Ills to women, as a means of relieving them from the drudgery of household labor. How often she had mused on just this subject, how Class Ills were more than mere chore-doers, how they offered bosom companionships—how useful Tatiana had been to her as emotional support in her long and painful days aboard theVenutian orbiter.

But it did not interest her at all. She and Levin had a conversation of their own, yet not a conversation, but some sort of mysterious communication, which brought them every moment nearer, and stirred in both a sense of glad terror before the unknown into which they were entering.