Leo Tolstoy - Android Karenina

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.