Leo Tolstoy - Android Karenina

Vronsky shook his head and sighed. “Yes, yes. Though the Grav will be delayed, and Mother will be agitated.”

“Of course,” Stepan Arkadyich agreed. “This is the price we pay for happiness,” he added, parroting one of the popular slogans which together comprised his political opinions.

“By the way, did you make the acquaintance of my friend Levin?” asked Stepan Arkadyich of Count Vronsky, as the station’s normal hum of activity resumed and they waited at the platform’s edge for the Grav to arrive.

“Yes; but he left rather early.”

“He’s a capital fellow,” pursued Oblonsky. “Isn’t he?”

“I don’t know why it is,” responded Vronsky, “in all Moscow people-present company of course excepted,” he put in jestingly, “there’s something uncompromising. They are all on the defensive, lose their tempers, as though they all want to make one feel something…”

“Yes, that’s true, it is so,” said Stepan Arkadyich, laughing good-humoredly.

“Are the tracks cleared? Will the Grav soon be in?” Vronsky asked a II/Station Agent/L26, when the last of the 77s had marched away.

“Grav has signaled,” answered the Class II, a green light glowing affirmatively in the dead center of his faceplate.

The approach of the magnificent Moscow-St. Petersburg High-Speed Antigravitational Massive Transport, was more and more evident by the preparatory bustle in the station, the rush of II/Porter/7e62s, the movement of II/Policeman/R47s, and people meeting the train. Through the frosty vapor could be seen II/GravWorker/X99s in their impregnable groznium outer-sheaths and soft, felt-lined roller wheels crossing the magnetized rails of the curving line.

“No,” said Stepan Arkadyich, who felt a great inclination to tell Vronsky of Levin’s intentions in regard to Kitty. “No, you’ve not got a true impression of Levin. He’s a very nervous man, and is sometimes out of humor, it’s true, and his Class III is an odd duck indeed, but then he is often very nice. He has such a true, honest nature, and a heart of gold. But yesterday there were special reasons,” pursued Stepan Arkadyich, with a meaningful smile, totally oblivious of the genuine sympathy he had felt the day before for his friend, and feeling the same sympathy now, only for Vronsky. “Yes, there were reasons why he could not help being either particularly happy or particularly unhappy.”

Vronsky stood still and asked directly: “How so? Do you mean he made your belle-soeur an offer yesterday?”

This moment of exchanged confidences was interrupted by Lupo, who sat back on his haunches, flattened his ears against his head, and howled. Vronsky looked down at his beloved-companion inquiringly, but in the next moment the rest heard what Lupo had sensed: The gentle pulse of the Grav shooshing forward could be both heard and felt reverberating along the magnet bed.

“Maybe,” said Stepan Arkadyich. “I fancied something of the sort yesterday. Yes, if he went away early, and was out of humor too, it must mean it… He’s been so long in love, and I’m very sorry for him.”

“So that’s it! I should imagine, though, she might reckon on a better match,” said Vronsky, “though I don’t know him, of course,” he added. “Yes, that is a hateful position! That’s why most fellows prefer to have to do with II/Klara/X14s. If you don’t succeed with them it only proves that you’ve not enough cash, but in this case one’s dignity’s at stake. But here’s the Grav.”

Now the platform was quivering, and with visible lines of electric force quivering above the magnet bed, the great hovering massive transport eased magnificently forward into the station, the stern figure of the II/Engineer/L42 covered with frost. Behind the tender, setting the platform more and more slowly swaying, came the luggage van with a dog whining in it. At last the passenger carriages whooshed in, de-oscillating for a full three minutes after the circuits were switched off and the Grav came to a standstill.

A II/GravGuard/FF9 appeared, emitted a high whistle from a slanting slot in his groznium torso, and after him one by one the impatient passengers began to get down: an officer of the Border Regiments, holding himself erect in his silver uniform, and looking severely about him; a nimble little merchant with a Class II suitcase tucked under his arm, smiling gaily; a whistling peasant with a sack over his shoulder.

Vronsky, standing beside Oblonsky, watched the carriages and the passengers, totally oblivious of his mother. What he had just heard about Kitty excited and delighted him. Unconsciously he swelled his chest, and his eyes flashed. He stooped to run his hand through Lupo’s bristling metallic fur. He drew himself erect and stood with his hand on the handle of the hot-whip that curled along his thigh. He felt himself a conqueror.

“Countess Vronskaya is in that compartment,” said the Border Officer, going up to Vronsky.

The officer’s words roused him, and forced him to think of his mother and his approaching meeting with her.

VRONSKY FOLLOWED HIS FELLOW officer to the carriage, and at the door of the compartment he stopped short to make room for a lady getting out, followed by a tall, elegant Class III.

As the woman and her beloved-companion stepped from the carriage, Lupo, uncharacteristically, narrowed his eyes to slits and growled in the back of his throat. Alexei Kirillovich, horrified at the implied insult, gestured sharply to his Class III for silence and then stood back from the door of the compartment to allow the woman and her android to pass. But for a long moment they simply stood in this tableau at the door of the carriage: Vronsky with his head bowed, Lupo back on his haunches, the stranger and her striking robot standing regally in the doorway.

With the insight of a man of the world, it was clear to Vronsky that this woman belonged to the best society. When at last the tableau broke, and she and her Class III exited, and Vronsky was finally getting into the carriage, he felt he must glance at her once more; not because she was very beautiful, not on account of the elegance and modest grace which were apparent in her whole figure, but because in the expression of her charming face, as she passed close by him, there was something peculiarly caressing and soft. As he looked round, she too turned her head. Her shining gray eyes, which looked dark from the thick lashes, rested with friendly attention on his face, as though she were recognizing him, and then promptly turned away to the passing crowd, as though seeking someone. In that brief look Vronsky had time to notice the suppressed eagerness that played over her face, and flitted between the brilliant eyes and the faint smile that curved her red lips. It was as though her nature were so brimming over with something that, against her will, it showed itself now in the flash of her eyes, and now in her smile. Deliberately she shrouded the light in her eyes, but it shone against her will in the faintly perceptible smile. The android, walking a half step behind the woman, glowed a deep and regal indigo, allowing no expression, only accenting all that was remarkable about her mistress as she traveled at her side.

SHE SHROUDED THE LIGHT IN HER EYES, BUT IT SHONE AGAINST HER WILL; THE ANDROID, WALKING BEHIND, GLOWED A REGAL INDIGO

Vronsky stepped into the carriage. His mother, a dried-up old lady with black eyes and ringlets, screwed up her eyes, scanning her son, and smiled slightly with her thin lips. Getting up from the seat and handing her robot a bag, she gave her little wrinkled hand to her son to kiss, and lifting his head from her hand, kissed him on the cheek.