“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.
CHAPTER 5
IT 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 i
n 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.
CHAPTER 6
EVERYONE 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.
At first Levin, in answer to Kitty’s question of how he could have seen her last year in the carriage, told her how he had been coming home from the smeltworks along the highroad and had met her.
* * *
Over time the evening’s conversation turned from cold robotics to warm human passions. Turovtsin, another of the party, as a means of drawing attention away from the Robot Question, about which he knew nothing, mentioned an acquaintance involved in an intrigue.
“You heard, perhaps, about Pryatchnikov?” said this Turovtsin, warmed up by the champagne he had drunk. “Vasya Pryatchnikov,” he said, with a good-natured smile on his damp, red lips, addressing himself principally to the most important guest, Alexei Alexandrovich, “they told me today he fought a duel with Kvitsky at Tver, and has killed him.”
Just as it always seems that one bruises oneself on a sore place, so Stepan Arkadyich felt now that the conversation would by ill luck fall every moment on Alexei Alexandrovich’s sore spot. Small Stiva, as attuned as his master to conversational nuance, brought himself up short in his round of bustling, flashing with alarm at Oblonsky. Together they would have contrived to pull the brother-in-law away, but Alexei Alexandrovich himself inquired, smiling neutrally from behind his mask:
“What did Pryatchnikov fight about?”
“His wife. Acted like a man, he did! Called him out and blasted him!”
“Ah!” said Alexei Alexandrovich indifferently, and lifting his eyebrows, he went into the drawing room, and the rest of the party resumed their conversation.
“How glad I am you have come,” Dolly Oblonsky, Stiva’s wife, said to Karenin with a frightened smile, meeting him in the outer drawing room. “I must talk to you. Let’s sit here.”
“Sit sit,” echoed her Class III, Dolichka. “Oh do, sit.”
Alexei Alexandrovich, with the same expression of indifference given him by his lifted eyebrows, sat down beside Darya Alexandrovna, and smiled affectedly.
“It’s fortunate,” he said, “especially as I was meaning to ask you to excuse me, and to be taking leave. I have to start tomorrow.”
Darya Alexandrovna was firmly convinced of Anna’s innocence, and she felt herself growing pale and her lips quivering with anger at this frigid, unfeeling man, wreathed by the eldritch gleam of his silvery half-face, who was so calmly intending to ruin her innocent friend.
“Alexei Alexandrovich,” she said, with desperate resolution looking him in the face, “I asked you earlier about Anna, but you made me no answer. How is she?”
“She is, I believe, quite well, Darya Alexandrovna,” replied Alexei Alexandrovich, not looking at her.
“Alexei Alexandrovich, forgive me, I have no right . . . but I love Anna as a sister, and esteem her; I beg, I beseech you to tell me what is wrong between you? What fault do you find with her?”
Alexei Alexandrovich frowned, and almost closing his eyes, dropped his head, and was at once confronted by the caustic hissing of the Face.
HOW DARE SHE
“Quiet! Please!” he cried aloud, and balled a fist against his forehead; Dolly stared back at him tremulously.
“I presume that your husband has told you the grounds on which I consider it necessary to change my attitude toward Anna Arkadyevna?” he said, not looking her in the face.
“I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it, I can’t believe it!” Dolly said, clasping her bony hands before her with a vigorous gesture. She rose quickly, and laid her hand on Alexei Alexandrovich’s sleeve. “We shall be disturbed here. Come this way, please.”
HOW DARE SHE began the Face again, but Dolly’s agitation had an effect on Alexei Alexandrovich. He got up and followed her to the schoolroom. They sat down to a table covered with an old sheet of acetate, cut in slits by I/Penknife/4s; at such “writing tables” did children play at the old game, a mere amusement since the time of the Tsars, of “learning one’s letters.”
“I don’t, I don’t believe it!” Dolly began, trying to catch his glance, which avoided her.
“One cannot disbelieve facts, Darya Alexandrovna,” he said, with an emphasis on the word “facts.”
“But what has she done?” said Darya Alexandrovna. “What precisely has she done?”
“She has forsaken her duty, and deceived her husband. That’s what she has done,” said he.
“No, no, it can’t be! No, for God’s sake, you are mistaken,” said Dolly, putting her hands to her temples and closing her eyes.
Alexei Alexandrovich smiled coldly, with his lips alone, meaning to signify to her and to himself the firmness of his conviction; but this hot defense, though it could not shake him, reopened his wound. He began to speak with greater heat.
“It is extremely difficult to be mistaken when a wife herself informs her husband of the fact—informs him that eight years of her life, and a son, all that’s a mistake, and that she wants to begin life again,” he said angrily, with a snort.
“Anna and sin—I cannot connect them, I cannot believe it!”
“Darya Alexandrovna,” he said, now looking straight into Dolly’s kindly, troubled face, and feeling that his tongue was being loosened in spite of himself, “I would give a great deal for doubt to be still possible. When I doubted, I was miserable, but it was better than now. When I doubted, I had hope; but now there is no hope, and still I doubt of everything. I am in such doubt of everything that I even hate my son, and sometimes do not believe he is my son. I am very unhappy.”
He had no need to say that. Darya Alexandrovna had seen that as soon as he glanced into her face; and she felt sorr
y for him, and her faith in the innocence of her friend began to totter.
Karenin’s inner voice for once was silent, and he was glad for that—he could bear, he thought, this woman’s childish pity, but not the ruthless disdain of the Face.
“Oh, this is awful, awful! But can it be true that you are resolved on a divorce?”
“I am resolved on extreme measures. There is nothing else for me to do.”
“Nothing else to do, nothing else to do . . . ,” Dolly echoed, with tears in her eyes.
“Nothing else? Nothing?” came the third echo, this from Dolichka, parroting her mistress in sad, mechanical tones.
OH BUT THERE IS SOMETHING, came the brutal dead whisper of the Face.
OH BUT THERE IS.
DIVORCE HER? YOU MUST Kl—
“No! It is enough!!” said Karenin, with a force shocking to Dolly. “I shall divorce her, and that is all!”
“No, it is awful! She will be no one’s wife, she will be lost!”
“What can I do?” said Alexei Alexandrovich, raising his shoulders and his eyebrows. “I am very grateful for your sympathy, but I must be going,” he said, getting up.
“No, wait a minute. You must not ruin her. Wait a little; I will tell you about myself. I was married, and my husband deceived me; in anger and jealousy, I would have thrown away everything, I would myself. . . But I came to myself again; and who did it? Anna saved me. And here I am living on. The children are growing up, my husband has come back to his family, and feels his fault, is growing purer, better, and I live on. . . . I have forgiven it, and you ought to forgive!”
Alexei Alexandrovich heard her, but her words had no effect on him now. All the hatred of that day when he had resolved on a divorce had sprung up again in his soul. He shook himself, and said in a shrill, loud voice:
“Forgive I cannot, and do not wish to, and I regard it as wrong. You must understand that divorce is not the worst I can do to her, but the best she might hope for. I have done everything for this woman, and she has trodden it all in the mud to which she is akin. I am not a spiteful man, I have never hated anyone, but I hate her with my whole soul, and I cannot even forgive her, because I hate her too much for all the wrong she has done me!”
Leo Tolstoy & Ben Winters Page 27
