Chapter 13
FROM THE MOMENT when Alexei Alexandrovich understood that all that was expected of him was to leave his wife in peace, without burdening her with his presence, and that his wife herself desired this, he felt the madness that simmered like a kind of fever in the back of his brain begin to burn hotter and hotter—exactly what the Face had hoped for. Let Alexei be weak . . . let him grant forgiveness . . . let the woman and her mustachioed brigand live and go free. . . . In time, the Face knew, their continuing existence would be a sharp nettle to torture Alexei’s already anguished mind past the point of no return.
Alexei did not know himself what he wanted now. It was only when Anna had left his house, and the II/Porter/7e62 asked whether he desired the full table setting, though he would be dining alone, that for the first time he clearly comprehended his position, and was appalled by it. Most difficult of all in this position was the fact that he could not in any way connect and reconcile his past with what was now. It was not the past when he had lived happily with his wife that troubled him. The transition from that past to a knowledge of his wife’s unfaithfulness he had lived through miserably already; that state was painful, but he could understand it. If his wife had then, on declaring to him her unfaithfulness, left him, he would have been wounded, unhappy, but he would not have been in the hopeless position—incomprehensible to himself—in which he felt himself now. He could not now reconcile his immediate past, his tenderness, his love for his sick wife, and for the other man’s child with what was now the case; for in return for all this he now found himself alone.
PUT TO SHAME. A LAUGHINGSTOCK. NEEDED BY NO ONE. DESPISED BY ALL.
“Yes,” responded Karenin, pacing the empty rooms of his home.
NOT I THOUGH.
I SHALL NEVER ABANDON YOU.
His confidence buttressed by the supportive exhortations of the Face, Alexei was able to preserve an appearance of composure, and even of indifference. Answering inquiries about the disposition of Anna Arkadyevna’s rooms and belongings, he exercised immense self-control to appear like a man in whose eyes what had occurred was neither unforeseen nor out of the ordinary course of events, and he attained his aim: no one could have detected in him signs of despair.
On the second day after her departure, Alexei Alexandrovich was paid a visit by a shop clerk, to whom he had previously sent word that his wife’s outstanding bills should be sent to her directly.
“Excuse me, your Excellency, for venturing to trouble you. But she is on the moon, where collections efforts are exceedingly difficult.”
Alexei began in his cold and formal way to explain that whatever planet or planetoid his wife cared to live upon was not his concern. But he trailed off, midway through his sentence, his head cocked slightly to the side, listening to an unheard admonition.
HOW DARE HE?
Yes, thought Alexei Karenin. Yes.
“You come to me today in search of money, the money owed to you by Anna Arkadyevna. You come and speak as if you do not know of our situation.”
“Of course, that is, I do know,” the shopkeeper stammered. “I do know of the situation to which you refer.”
“Yes,” Alexei began, and the human portion of his face twisted into a sneer, while his voice changed, emerging unnaturally with the timbre of nails rattling in an empty can: “BUT DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?”
“I . . . I—yes, your Excellency,” the man stammered helplessly, stepping backward slowly as he spoke. “And normally of course before troubling you I would send my Class III. Funny little robot called Wholesale. But, sir, of course he’s been sent for adjustment.”
Alexei Alexandrovich threw his head back and pondered, as it seemed to the clerk, and all at once, turning round, he sat down calmly at the table.
“I am sorry for bothering you. Perhaps it is best that I go. Sir? Sir?”
Letting his head sink into his hands, Karenin sat for a long while in that position, several times attempted to speak and stopped short. Then, at last, he looked up, stared directly at the man, and his ocular device clicked slowly forward.
* * *
When it was done—when the shopkeeper’s windpipe had been shattered like the neck of a wine bottle, when his eyes popped out of his head like overripe fruit, when what had been the man’s body lay in a ragged mass on the floor, one hand still clutching Anna’s overdue bill—Alexei Alexandrovich allowed a small smile to creep into the corner of his mouth.
“You may consider it paid, sir,” he said to the corpse as he stepped over it and returned to his bedchamber.
But, alone again, Alexei Alexandrovich recognized that he had not the strength to keep up the line of firmness and composure any longer. He gave orders for the carriage that was awaiting him to be taken back, and for no one to be admitted, and he did not go down to dinner.
He felt that he could not turn aside from himself the hatred of men, because that hatred did not come from his being bad (in that case he could have tried to be better), but from his being shamefully and repulsively unhappy. He knew that for this, for the very fact that his heart was torn with grief, they would be merciless to him. He felt that men would crush him as dogs strangle a torn dog yelping with pain—if he did not crush them first. He knew that his sole means of security against people was to hide his wounds from them, and instinctively he tried to do this for two days, but now he felt incapable of keeping up the unequal struggle.
SHE MADE YOU THE FOOL, ALEXEI.
Tomorrow he would appear before his colleagues in the Ministry; accompanied by a regiment of Toy Soldiers, loyal to him and him alone, he would appear before them to deliver a decisive announcement.
SHE ABANDONED YOU, AND THE WORLD HOWLED WITH LAUGHTER.
He would announce to them his new thinking on the topic of the grand Project, of which he was the supervisor; for his plans on that topic had somewhat . . . evolved.
NOW SHE MUST SUFFER.
AND THE WORLD ALONG WITH HER.
He threw back his head and emitted a long, horrid noise, beginning as a laugh that was a cold parody of laughter, and trailing off into a hideous, sobbing moan of despair. His despair was even intensified by the consciousness that he was utterly alone in his sorrow. In all Petersburg there was not a human being to whom he could express what he was feeling, who would feel for him, not as a high official, not as a member of society, but simply as a suffering man; indeed he had not such a one in the whole world.
THE WORLD MUST SUFFER ALONG WITH HER.
The so-called beloved-companions, now that they had all been gathered up, would not have their circuits adjusted and then be returned to their owners.
They would never be returned at all.
ONLY ONE FRIEND, ALEXEI.
ONLY ME.