Chapter 3
OBLONSKY 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.
Well, lean pretend as well, thought Levin. He quickly took the offered hand, and pressed it warmly. “I’m very, very glad,” he said.
“Do you know, he has never met Anna?” Stepan Arkadyich said to Vronsky. “And I want above everything to take him to see her. Let us go, Levin!”
“Really?” said Vronsky, turning back to the other men, who were busily scouring the cabinets for a set of the old-fashioned wooden dice. “She will be very glad to see you.”