Chapter 9
GOING OVER IN HIS memory the conversations that had taken place during and after dinner, Alexei Alexandrovich returned to his solitary sub-basement laboratory in the Moscow Tower. Darya Alexandrovna’s words about forgiveness had aroused in him a queer pity, but from the Face it had earned nothing but contempt. Indeed, the Face continually recalled to him the phrase of that stupid, good-natured Turovtsin—“Acted like a man, he did! Called him out and blasted him!” Everyone had apparently shared this feeling, though from politeness they had not expressed it.
AND YOU—YOU WITH SUCH POWER . . .
“But the matter is settled, it’s useless thinking about it,” Alexei Alexandrovich replied bitterly. He sat down at his desk, tried to turn his energies to the monumental task ahead of him: the long logistical effort of identifying the Class Ills, of gathering them up, of implementing the necessary changes in appearance, in circuitry . . .
IN LOYALTY. . .
“Two communiqués,” said a II/Porter/7e62, buzzing into the room. “Beg pardon, excellency, two communiqués . . . two . . .”
Alexei Alexandrovich impatiently ordered them transferred to his desk-mounted monitor; the first was the announcement of Stremov’s appointment to the very post Karenin had coveted, as overseer of the final phase of the Project. Alexei Alexandrovich trembled in his seat.
YOU CANNOT ALLOW
“I know.”
NOT NOW
“I know!” Stremov could not be allowed to take over the Project, he would ruin everything . . . but his colleagues in the Higher Branches had spoken.
If Karenin could not undo the appointment . . .
YOU MUST UNDO STREMOV.
Alexei Alexandrovich stabbed the monitor into silence, and flushing a little, got up and began to pace up and down the room shouting “Quos vult perdere dementat!” He was furious that he had not received the post, that he had been conspicuously passed over; and it was incomprehensible, amazing to him that they did not see that the wordy phrasemonger Stremov was the last man fit for it.
THEY WILL PAY
THEY WILL PAY
WE WILL MAKE CERTAIN THAT THEY PAY.
“This will be something else in the same line,” Alexei Alexandrovich said bitterly, cuing the second communiqué. It was from his wife.
SHE
SHE WHO TORMENTS YOU
SHE—
Alexei blocked out the voice of the Face as Anna’s tearful, pained eyes swam into view. “I am dying; I beg, I implore you to come. I shall die easier with your forgiveness,” said the tinny image of Anna Karenina.
He smiled contemptuously, and flicked his finger to stop this communiqué as well, but then paused, and he watched it again, growing tearful himself. “I am dying; I beg, I implore you to come. I shall—”
THIS IS A TRICK AND A FRAUD. THERE IS NO DECEIT SHE WOULD STOP AT.
“She is near her confinement,” Alexei Alexandrovich replied, trying idiotically to have a reasoned and rational conversation with the rageful Face. “Perhaps it is the confinement . . . what would be the aim of a trick?
TO LEGITIMIZE THE CHILD, TO COMPROMISE YOU, TO PREVENT A DIVORCE.
“But something was said in it . . .” He cued the communiqué again—“I am dying; I beg, I implore you to come. I shall die easier with your forgiveness”—and suddenly the plain meaning of what was said in it struck him.
“And if it is true?” he said aloud, and the Face laughed, sneeringly.
TRUE? TRUE THAT SHE SUFFERS? TRUE THAT SHE MAY DIE? THEN GOOD! ONLY A SHAME THAT HER DEATH SHOULD COME OTHERWISE THAN AT YOUR HANDS.
“If it is true that in the moment of agony and nearness to death she is genuinely penitent, and I, taking it for a trick, refuse to go? That would not only be cruel, and everyone would blame me, but it would be stupid on my part.”
“Call a coach,” he said to the II/Porter/7e62.
NO—NO, YOU CAN’T—YOU MUST STAY HERE—YOU MUST COMPLETE THE PROJECT . . . STOP STREMOV . . . REGAIN CONTROL CONTROL CONTROL CONTROL
But when the II/Coachman/47-T returned, Alexei Alexandrovich said, “I am going to Petersburg.”
* * *
And all the long way back to Petersburg, Karenin’s mind was hushed and still; not a further whisper did he hear from the Face. When he arrived, a II/Porter/44 opened the door before Alexei Alexandrovich rang; still the Face was silent.
“How is she?” he demanded.
“Very ill, sir.”
“Ill?” said Alexei Alexandrovich, and he went into the hall.
On the hat stand there was a silver regimental overcoat. Alexei Alexandrovich noticed it and asked:
“Who is here?”
“The doctor, the midwife, and Count Vronsky.”
Alexei Alexandrovich paused at the steps, expecting at any moment to be brought up short by the angry roar of the Face, but he heard nothing. He went into the inner rooms.
In the drawing room there was no one; at the sound of his steps there came out of her boudoir a scared and tired looking doctor with his II/Prognosis/64. “Thank God you’ve come! She keeps on about you and nothing but you,” said the man.
Alexei Alexandrovich went into her boudoir.
At the table, sitting sideways in a low chair, was Vronsky, his face hidden in his hands, weeping; at his feet was Lupo, his wolf-like Class III, who at the sight of Alexei Alexandrovich reared back on his haunches and growled warningly. Seeing the husband, Vronsky was so overwhelmed that he sat down again, drawing his head down to his shoulders, as if he wanted to disappear; but he made an effort over himself, got up, and said:
“She is frozen.”
“Frozen? What can that mean?”
“It comes and goes. In some moments she snaps out of it, and is entirely herself, seeming to have no recollection of what has just occurred. Then it begins again: her hair stands on end, her back arches, her eyes roll back into her head, and she is locked into that strange posture. The doctors say they have no idea, that they have seen nothing like it before.”
Vronsky stopped for a moment, and then stammered what was hardest for him to say to the husband: “But as for me, I have seen it. . . .” He trailed off, unable to speak aloud to Alexei Alexandrovich the intimate circumstance in which he had previously seen Anna enter this bizarre altered state.
“I am entirely in your power,” he said instead. “Only let me be here. . . .”
At those words, “Only let me be here,” Karenin’s mind exploded in light and noise, as if a bomb had been detonated in the depths of his cerebral cortex.
“LET ME BE HERE! LET ME BE HERE!”
The Face shouted through Karenin’s mouth, angry and incredulous, and it was then that the struggle began, a struggle between Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin’s true human heart and his hateful mechanical Face, which is to say, between Karenin and himself; a struggle to be fought inside his brain, the crevices and folds of gray matter contested like the rugged hills of a battlefield; a struggle for the soul of a man, and for the future of a nation.
HE WOULD HAVE YOUR FORGIVENESS! YOUR LOVE!
Silence, Karenin thought.
HE STANDS BEFORE YOU WEEPING, AND YOU BID ME BE SILENT!
Be silent!
NO! NEVER! NO! YOU MUST MAKE HIM SUFFER—YOU MUST MAKE THEM ALL SUFFER MUST MUST MUST . . .
And there the battle was nearly lost; indeed, at that moment Karenin even reached out for Vronsky with his mind, even telescoped his oculus toward him, intent for one deadly second on raising him high above the floor of the room and then dashing out his brains. But then from the bedroom came the sound of Anna’s voice saying something.
“She moves!” he cried.
Her voice was lively, eager, with exceedingly distinct intonations. Forgetting in the space of a heartbeat his murderous intentions, Alexei Alexandrovich went into the bedroom, and went up to the bed.
She was lying turned with her face toward him. Her cheeks were flushed crimson, her eyes glittered, her little white hands thrust out from the sleeves of her dressing gown were playing with the quilt, twisting it about. It seemed as though she were not only well and blooming, but in the happiest frame of mind. She was talking rapidly, musically, and with exceptionally correct articulation and expressive intonation.
“Alexei, come here,” Anna began. “I am in a hurry, because I’ve no time, I’ve not long left to live; this is what I wanted to say. Don’t be surprised at me. I’m still the same. . . . But there is another woman in me, I’m afraid of her: she loved that man, and I tried to hate you, and could not forget about her who used to be. I’m not that woman. Now I’m my real self, all myself.”
And then it happened, exactly what Vronsky had warned him of: Anna’s fragile body snapped into a fearful rigidity, her jaw clenched, her eyes rolled back into her head. And then, as he watched, her entire frame lifted six inches above the drenched mattress, oscillating wildly in the air before him. Alexei looked about desperately, but the doctor with his Class II had left the room. It was just him and her—and, he noticed suddenly, Android Karenina, who looked at him with calm directness from where she stood partially concealed in the drapes, as if to say: This shall pass.
And pass it did; in a matter of seconds, Anna’s body relaxed, her color returned, and she fell back into her place atop the bedspread. She continued speaking, mid-sentence, mid-thought even, apparently having no memory or understanding of the frightful spell.
“There is only one thing I want: forgive me, forgive me quite. I’m terrible, but my nurse used to tell me; the holy martyr—what was her name? She was worse. And I’ll go to Rome; there’s a wilderness, and there I shall be no trouble to anyone, only I’ll take Seryozha and the little one. . . . No, you can’t forgive me! I know, it can’t be forgiven! No, no, go away, you’re too good!” She held his hand in one burning hand, while she pushed him away with the other.
Still, the Face was silent; and Alexei Alexandrovich felt, for the first time in many months—no, in many years—that he was master of his own mind. This realization gave him all at once a new happiness he had never known. He knelt down, and laying his head in the curve of her arm, which burned him as with fire through the sleeve, he sobbed like a little child. She put her arm around his head, moved toward him, and with defiant pride lifted up her eyes.
Vronsky had entered the room, and he now came to the side of the bed, and seeing Anna, hid his face in his hands.
“Uncover your face—look at him! He’s a saint,” she said. “Oh! uncover your face, do uncover it!” she said angrily. “Alexei Alexandrovich, do uncover his face! I want to see him.”
Alexei Alexandrovich, never moving a muscle, focused his attention on the other man, and making use of that invisible fog of controlling force, which he had previously used to dominate and threaten, gently tugged Vronsky’s hands away from his face to reveal his timid expression. Just as on the night they had encountered each other in the doorway, the one man was controlling the other without physical power, but with the force of the mind; but now, the control was firm but gentle, like that of a loving father, guiding the hands of his son.
“Now give him your hand,” Anna demanded. “Forgive him.”
Alexei Alexandrovich gave Count Vronsky his hand.
“Thank God, thank God,” Anna said. “Now everything is ready. Now—”
And again she locked, and arched, and her spine grew rigid like a bridge of steel as her body floated several inches above the mattress. For some minutes they stood that way: Vronsky and Karenin with their hands clasped, still and solemn as supplicants at her bedside. Until at last Android Karenina motored over from the window glowing lavender and placed a gentle palm across Anna’s forehead.
Anna recovered from the attack, but immediately fell into a deep sleep.
* * *
On the third day, Anna was continuing to suffer these occasional and inexplicable attacks; the doctor, even with the help of a prototype II/Prognosis/5 that Alexei Alexandrovich requisitioned from the Ministry ofWellness & Recovery, could not discern what was causing the attacks. That day Alexei Alexandrovich went into the boudoir where Vronsky was sitting, and closing the door sat down opposite him.
“Alexei Alexandrovich,” said Vronsky, feeling that a statement of his position was coming, “I can’t speak, I can’t understand. Spare me! However hard it is for you, believe me, it is more terrible for me.”
He would have risen, but Alexei Alexandrovich took him by the hand, and said:
“I beg you to hear me out; it is necessary. I must explain my feelings, the feelings that have guided me and will guide me, so that you may not be in error regarding me. You know I had resolved on a divorce, and had even begun to take proceedings. I won’t conceal from you that in the beginning of this I was in uncertainty, I was in misery; I will confess that I was pursued by a desire to revenge myself on you and on her. I will go so far as to say that a certain part of me wanted . . . more than divorce. Wanted revenge. To cause you pain. To clutch at your insides and squeeze until I felt the blood burst from your brain, and your very lungs burst within you like two bags of rotten refuse.”
Vronsky shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
“However . . . when I got the communiqué, I came here with the same feelings; I will say more, I longed for her death. I wished that I could—never mind. But . . .” He paused, pondering whether to disclose or not to disclose his feeling to him. “But I saw her and forgave her. And the happiness of forgiveness has revealed to me my duty. I forgive completely. I would offer the other cheek, I would give my cloak if my coat were taken. I pray to God only not to take from me the bliss of forgiveness!”
A tear stood in his one human eye, and the luminous, serene look impressed Vronsky.
“This is my position: you can trample me in the mud, make me the laughingstock of the world, but I will not abandon her, and I will never utter a word of reproach to you,” Alexei Alexandrovich went on. “My duty is clearly marked for me; I ought to be with her, and I will be. If she wishes to see you, I will let you know, but now I suppose it would be better for you to go away.”
He got up, and sobs cut short his words. Vronsky too was getting up, and in a stooping, not yet erect posture, looked up at him from under his brows. He did not understand Alexei Alexandrovich’s feeling, but he felt that it was something higher and even unattainable for him with his view of life.
The Face was silent, but not vanquished. It dwelled in hidden chambers, biding its time, analyzing opportunities. Waiting.