Chapter 8
LEVIN HAD BEEN MARRIED three months. He was happy, but not at all in the way he had expected to be. At every step he found his former dreams disappointed, and new, unexpected surprises of happiness. He was happy; but on entering upon family life he saw at every step that it was utterly different from what he had imagined. At every step he experienced what a man would experience who, after admiring the smooth, happy course of a meteor around a planetoid, should be given an opportunity to climb aboard that meteor. He saw that it was not all sitting still, floating smoothly; that one had to think too, not for an instant forgetting where one was floating; and that there was atmospheric pressure around one, and that one must endeavor somehow to steer one’s meteor; and that his unaccustomed hands would be sore; and that it was only to look at it that was easy; but that doing it, though very delightful, was very difficult, and very likely fatal.
As a bachelor, when he had watched other people’s married life, seen the petty cares, the squabbles, the jealousy, he had only smiled contemptuously in his heart. In his future married life there could be, he was convinced, nothing of that sort; even the external forms, indeed, he fancied, must be utterly unlike the life of others in everything. And all of a sudden, instead of his life with his wife being made on an individual pattern, it was, on the contrary, entirely made up of the pettiest details, which he had so despised before, but which now, by no will of his own, had gained an extraordinary importance that could not be denied. Although Levin believed himself to have the most exact conceptions of domestic life, unconsciously, like all men, he pictured domestic life as the happiest enjoyment of love, with nothing to hinder and no petty cares to distract. He ought, as he conceived the position, to do his work, and to find repose from it in the happiness of love. She ought to be beloved, and nothing more. But, like all men, he forgot that she too would want work. And he was surprised that she, his poetic, exquisite Kitty, could not merely busy herself about the Class Is and the furniture, about mattresses for visitors, about a tray, about the II/Cook/6 and the dinner, and so on.
Now her trivial cares and anxieties jarred upon him several times. But he saw that this was essential for her. And, loving her as he did, though he jeered at these domestic pursuits, he could not help admiring them. He jeered at the way in which she arranged the furniture they had brought from Moscow; rearranged their room; placed the Galena Box carefully on a certain shelf, then the next day reconsidered and moved it to another shelf; saw after a Surcease nook for the new II/Maid/467, a wedding gift from Levin’s parents; ordered dinner of the old II/Cook/6; came into collision with his ancient mécanicienne, Agafea Mihalovna, taking from her the charge of the Is and IIs.
He did not know the great sense of change Kitty was experiencing; she, who at home had sometimes wanted some favorite dish, or sweets, without the possibility of getting either, now could order what she liked, riding on a tandem I/Bicycle/44 with her darling Tatiana to the store to buy pounds of sweets, spend as much money as she liked, and order any puddings she pleased.
This care for domestic details in Kitty, so opposed to Levin’s ideal of exalted happiness, was at first one of the disappointments; and this sweet care of her household, the aim of which he did not understand, but could not help loving, was one of the new happy surprises.
Another disappointment and happy surprise came in their quarrels. Levin could never have conceived that between him and his wife any relations could arise other than tender, respectful, and loving ones, and all at once in the very early days they quarreled, so that she said he did not care for her, that he cared for no one but himself, burst into tears, and wrung her arms.
This first quarrel arose from Levin’s having gone with Socrates to a nearby farmhouse, having heard from a fellow landowner that another of the mysterious, gigantic, wormlike koschei had been spotted in that corner of the countryside. Going to investigate, Levin did not find the beast-machine itself, but paused for some time to contemplate what he found instead: a thick pool of expectorated ochre-yellow goo, along with the skeleton of a man with all the flesh neatly stripped off the bone.
He and Socrates passed a happy hour recreating the struggle, carefully measuring each scuff mark in the soil with a precision triangulator from the Class Ill’s beard. Ultimately they determined that this mechanical monster had to have been larger by a third than the one they had fended off, with the help of Grisha’s I/Flashpop/4, the previous season.
Socrates ran his usual analysis, but to Levin the only conclusion possible was that these UnConSciya koschei (were they UnConSciya?) were growing—but why? And how?
Flush with the usual pleasure he took in scientific investigation and discovery, Levin started off toward home; but as they drove, one happiness shifted to another, and soon his thoughts turned to Kitty, to her love, to his own happiness. The nearer he drew to home, the warmer was his tenderness for her. He ran into the room with the same feeling, with an even stronger feeling than he had had when he reached the Shcherbatskys’ house to make his offer. And suddenly he was met by a lowering expression he had never seen in her. He would have kissed her; she pushed him away.
“What is it?”
“You’ve been enjoying yourself,” she began, and he saw Tatiana standing behind her, glowing an accusatory cadmium yellow, her slender arms crossed. Kitty tried to be calm and spiteful, but as soon as she opened her mouth, a stream of reproach, of senseless jealousy, of all that had been torturing her during that half hour which she had spent sitting motionless at the window, burst from her. He felt now that he was not simply close to her, but that he did not know where he ended and she began. He felt this from the agonizing sensation of division that he experienced at that instant. He was offended for the first instant. “Enjoying myself!” he exclaimed. “I have literally been crouched in goo-thickened mud, examining mutilated human remains!”
“It’s true, Madame,” Socrates added, presenting as evidence a handful of the thick, yellow gunk, which dropped grossly through his endeffectors. Kitty and Tatiana drew back in disgusted unison from this repulsive offering.
Levin felt that he could not be offended by his dear Kitty, that she was himself. He felt as a man feels when, having suddenly received a violent blow from behind, he turns round, angry and eager to avenge himself, to look for his antagonist, and finds that it is he himself who has accidentally struck himself, that there is no one to be angry with, and that he must put up with and try to soothe the pain.
Before he could conceive of how to do so, the scene of marital discord was interrupted by the mechanized tritone of the I/Doorchime/3. A moment later the II/Footman/C(c)43 led in a handsomely uniformed pair of visitors, each with a rosy-fresh complexion, a neat, blond haircut and trim mustache, and slim black boots: Toy Soldiers.
“Good afternoon,” said the first of the men, speaking with every drop of the great respect and politeness due the master of Pokrovskoe and his new bride. The other man stood with arms crossed and his hat at a slightly insouciant angle on his blond head, saying nothing, a smile frozen on his face. His careful gaze was locked on Socrates and Tatiana.
“We are representatives of the Ministry of Robotics and State Administration,” continued the first man, speaking in a polished but rushed manner, as if from a prepared text. “We have come today to collect your Class III companion robots, in compliance with the nationwide order for compulsory circuitry adjustment. You were each granted an extension in respect of your nuptials. And may we add our congratulations, on behalf of the Ministry, on that blessed event.”
The other soldier uncrossed his arms and spoke curtly, gesturing roughly at the two companion robots. “These are the machines to be taken?”
Tatiana took a sidelong, slippered step toward Kitty, and the two locked arms and stood upright, like dancers preparing to launch into a partnered minuet.
“But no!” Kitty announced suddenly, with a wide-eyed, innocent expression. “They cannot go!”
Levin drew breath to speak, intending to upbraid his wife for indulging in such childish defiance of authority. Gazing upon her, however, arm in arm with her beloved-companion, he was softened by the distress evident on her face. What is more, he felt in his heart—especially when his intelligent eyes saw the concern evident in the flickering eyebank and nervous twitching of his own loyal Class III—that Kitty was absolutely correct in her defiance.
For how could they?
“Gentlemen, I beg that you pardon my wife the rashness of her young age and tenderhearted spirit. Naturally we shall comply and submit these machines for the necessary adjustments. But I wonder if you, in your official capacity, might first perform a service for a local landowner.”
Speaking rapidly, directing his words primarily to the first Toy Soldier, the one who seemed to him to have the friendliest nature, Levin explained what he and Socrates had observed at the old farmhouse: the skeleton stripped of flesh; the signs of struggle; the puddle of viscous ochre goo. He told them, too, of his own encounter with the gigantic, wormlike koschei outside Ergushovo. “Could you not, as long as your official business has brought you to this province, ride out to these spots I have mentioned and investigate? The threat of such unusual and deadly monsters is a cause of deep distress, as you can imagine, to myself and my household.”
But the Toy Soldier to whom Levin directed his appeal scratched his head and squinted, seemingly entirely uninterested in the bizarre creatures Levin spoke of. “That is indeed a most alarming tale,” he said softly, “but it does not, alas, have to do with us and our business.” Levin glanced from the corner of his eye at Socrates, and saw that he had brought one end-effector up to gently touch Tatiana where her torso unit met her lower portion—a touchingly human gesture. “Sir, we have precise instructions from the Ministry.”
Levin was inwardly cursing the seeming singlemindedness of the soldiers when the other one, who had been standing mute with arms crossed, seeming not to pay attention, held up an open palm. “This wormlike machine,” he said, “did it emit a sound—like a sort of ticking, a tikka tikka tikka sound?”
Levin nodded his assent, at which the Toy Soldier sighed and spoke in a whisper to his companion. As they turned on their slim black boots and walked back toward the door, the first of the soldiers glanced amiably over his shoulder at Levin, and said in a casual tone, “We shall return shortly, and complete our previously announced business here. We have no desire to perform our commission by force.”
“No,” said the second soldier, as he pulled the big front door of the manor house behind them. “Not yet.”
Kitty burst into tears, running to her Class III and hiding her face in Tatiana’s thin metal bosom. “I could not bear for her to be taken!” she said through her tears.
“Nor I, my dear,” was Levin’s reply, as he looked gravely out the front window, watching the Toy Soldiers ride off. “Nor I.”
“And what will they do with them? I mean, really do?”
“I don’t know, Kitty.”
“Madame?” interjected Tatiana anxiously, as Levin and Kitty embraced.
“Sir?” echoed Socrates.
“Yes, yes, beloved-companions,” Levin said. “You are quite right. Now we must leave Pokrovskoe. And fast.”