Chapter 4
IT WAS NOT TRUE, as the wagging tongues at Princess Betsy’s would have it, that the members of the Higher Branches, those who had ascended to the highest ranks of service in the Ministry, had eschewed Class III companion robots. In fact their experiments, experiments hidden from most of the world, had been quietly advancing the art of robotic engineering, so much so that a new generation of Class IIIs had been born, as yet unknown to the public.
Alexei Alexandrovich’s Class III, for example, was his Face. That cold sheath of metal that covered the right front portion of his skull, which people (including his wife) assumed existed for purely cosmetic reasons, was in fact a servomechanism of the most advanced technological achievement, with which he communed directly, using not his voice but the synapses of his brain. It was a Thinking Machine, quite literally, for Alexei Alexandrovich did not rely upon his Class III to pour him tea or carry his suitcases, but rather to help him reason out those problems that confronted him in his work—that is to say, the most crucial questions of Russian life.
Lately, though, Alexei Alexandrovich’s Face had been evolving to better serve its master, exactly as all Class IIIs were designed to do; its counsel had begun to extend, for example, past professional considerations into personal issues as well. So, though Alexei Alexandrovich had seen nothing striking or improper in the fact that his wife was sitting with Vronsky at a table apart, in eager conversation with him about something, his Face disagreed, and suggested to him in the carriage on the way home that there was something in the relationship that was striking and improper, and for that reason it seemed to him too to be improper. He made up his mind that he must speak of it to his wife.
On reaching home Alexei Alexandrovich went to his study, as he usually did, seated himself in his low chair, activated a chitator relating to tank-tread construction at the place where he had paused it, and listened till one o’clock, just as he usually did. At his usual time he got up and made his toilet for the night. Anna Arkadyevna had not yet come in. With a book under his arm he went upstairs. But this evening, instead of his usual thoughts and meditations upon official details, his thoughts were absorbed by his wife and something disagreeable connected with her. Contrary to his usual habit, he did not get into bed, but fell to walking up and down the rooms with his hands clasped behind his back. He could not go to bed, feeling that it was absolutely needful for him first to think thoroughly over the position that had just arisen.
When Alexei Alexandrovich had made up his mind that he must talk to his wife about it, it had seemed a very easy and simple matter. But now, when he began to think over the question that had just presented itself, it seemed to him very complicated and difficult.
I am not jealous, of course, he thought.
OH?
This was the Face. Its voice appeared in Alexei Alexandrovich’s mind, as clear and strong as if he were in conversation with another man, though no one could hear it but he.
No. Jealousy according to my notions is an insult to one’s wife, and one ought to have confidence in one’s wife.
AND YOU HAVE NO SUCH LACK OF CONFIDENCE. The Face’s tone was decidedly neutral, implying no opinion.
“Yes,” Alexei Alexandrovich replied aloud. “For though my conviction that jealousy is a shameful feeling and that one ought to feel confidence has not broken down—I feel that I was standing face to face—”
AS IT WERE.
“Yes, very clever, face to face, as it were, with something illogical and irrational, and I do not know what is to be done.”
INDEED. FOR YOU STAND FACE TO FACE WITH LIFE, WITH THE POSSIBILITY OFYOUR WIFE’S LOVING SOMEONE OTHER THAN YOU, AND THIS FEELS IRRATIONAL AND INCOMPREHENSIBLE.
Alexei Alexandrovich silently contemplated this position, and the Face remained silent as well. All his life he had lived and worked in official spheres having to do with the reflection of life. And every time he had stumbled against life itself he had shrunk away from it. Now he experienced a feeling akin to that of a man who, while calmly crossing a precipice by a bridge, should suddenly discover that the bridge is broken, and that there is a chasm below. That chasm was life itself, the bridge that artificial life in which Alexei Alexandrovich had lived. His focus had been on his work, on the innovations in technology and weaponry, in physiolography and transportation—those innovations so crucial to his beloved country’s continued advancement, to protect her from her enemies.
Now, for the first time, the question presented itself to him of the possibility of his wife’s loving someone else, and he was horrified at it.
He did not undress, but walked up and down with his regular tread over the resounding parquet of the dining room, where one lumiére shone bright, over the carpet of the dark drawing room, in which the light was reflected on the big new portrait of himself hanging over the sofa, and across her boudoir, where two lumiéres glowed, lighting up the portraits of her parents and woman friends, and the pretty knickknacks of her table, that he knew so well. He walked across her boudoir to the bedroom door, and turned back again. At each turn in his walk, especially at the parquet of the lighted dining room, he halted and announced to his Face, “Yes, this I must decide and put a stop to; I must express my view of it and my decision.”
BUT EXPRESS WHAT? WHAT DECISION? the Face asked innocently, and Alexei Alexandrovich had no ready reply.
“But after all,” Alexei added,” what has occurred? Nothing!”
NOTHING?
He hesitated. “Yes. Nothing. She was talking a long while with him. But what of that? Surely women in society can talk to whom they please. And then, jealousy means lowering both myself and her.”
For some reason Alexei remembered at this moment Sarkovich, the underling from his department who had made impertinent overtures to Anna. Alexei had not been jealous, for then, as now, he had considered the emotion beneath him. He next recalled, with a twinge of unease, how he had later found the man out to be a Janus. Or, rather, the Face—having performed unbidden the relevant set of analyses—had discovered that the man was a spy for UnConSciya, Alexei Alexandrovich had announced the finding, and Sarkovich had been appropriately punished.
For some reason this led Alexei Alexandrovich’s restless mind to a more recent recollection—the encounter at the Grav station with Vronsky and his incessantly barking Class III. He had been thinking how much he wished the animal would be quiet, had even been saying to himself: Quiet. Quiet! And then, echoing through the chambers of his mind came the Face repeating the same word: QUIET!
And the next moment the irritating canine Class III had been lying on the floor of the Grav station, quivering and stricken.
Now, shaking these reflections away, postponing their analysis for another time, he entered the dining room of his house and said aloud, “Yes, I must decide and put a stop to it, and express my view of it. . . .”
DECIDE HOW? HOW MUST WE DECIDE?
But Alexei’s thoughts, like his body, went round a complete circle, without coming upon anything new. He noticed this, rubbed his forehead, and sat down in Anna’s boudoir.
And the worst of it all, he thought, is that just now, at the very moment when my great work is approaching completion—he was thinking of the long-term project for Class III improvement, a project of which the Face represented but the first phase—when I stand in need of all my mental peace and all my energies, just now this stupid worry should fall foul of me. But what’s to be done? I’m not one of those men who submit to uneasiness and worry without having the force of character to face them.
HERE IS WHAT YOU MUST DO, pronounced the Face in a calming, even fatherly tone. YOU MUST THINK IT OVER, COME TO A DECISION, AND PUT IT OUT OF YOUR MIND.
There was the sound of a carriage driving up to the front door. Alexei Alexandrovich halted in the middle of the room.