Now nothing mattered: going or not going to the moon, getting or not getting a divorce from her husband-all that did not matter. The one thing that mattered was punishing him. She lay in bed with open eyes, by the light of a single burned-down candle, marveling how this tiny thing of wax could give any light at all. She vividly pictured to herself how he would feel when she would be no more, when she would be only a Memory to him. “How could I say such cruel things to her?” he would say. “How could I go out of the room without saying anything to her? But now she is no more. She has gone away from us forever. She is…” Suddenly the flickering candlelight wavered, pounced on the whole cornice, the whole ceiling; shadows from the other side swooped to meet it, and for an instant the shadows flitted back, but then with fresh swiftness they darted forward, wavered, commingled, and all was darkness. Death! she thought. And such horror came upon her that for a long while she could not realize where she was, and for a long while her trembling hands could not find the matches and light another candle, instead of the one that had burned down and gone out. “No, anything-only to live! Why, I love him! Why, he loves me! This has been before and will pass,” she said, feeling that tears of joy at the return to life were trickling down her cheeks. And to escape from her panic she went hurriedly to his room.
He was asleep there, and sleeping soundly. She went up to him, and gazed a long while at him, holding the light above his face with care, unused to the wobbly feeling of the lit candle in her hand. Now when he was asleep, she loved him so that at the sight of him she could not keep back tears of tenderness. But she knew that if he woke up he would look at her with cold eyes, convinced that he was right, and that before telling him of her love, she would have to prove to him that he had been wrong in his treatment of her.
In the morning she was waked by that same horrible nightmare which had recurred several times in her dreams, full of singing, sad singing, the voice of the voiceless Android Karenina, singing a dirge of betrayal. From this nightmare, Anna woke moaning.
She looked silently, intently at Vronsky, standing in the middle of the room. He glanced at her, frowned for a moment, and went on reading a letter. She turned, and went deliberately out of the room. He still might have turned her back, but when she had reached the door, he was still silent, and the only sound audible was the rustling of the notepaper as he turned it.
“Oh, by the way,” he said at the very moment she was in the doorway, “the moon is now beyond our reach. It is reported to me that the Higher Branches have shut down all access to the launching station, that even now Toy Soldiers are manning gateposts on all the roads to the Cannon, turning away travelers. Our only option now, and I do not pretend the odds are in our favor, is to convince the full council of the Higher Branches to overrule Karenin. Anna, it is time to make peace with the world as it is.”
“You may, but not I,” she said, turning round to him.
“Anna, we can’t go on like this…”
“You, but not I,” she repeated.
“This is getting unbearable!”
“You… you will be sorry for this,” she said, and went out.
Frightened by the desperate expression with which these words were uttered, he jumped up and would have run after her, but on second thought he sat down and scowled, setting his teeth. This vulgar-as he thought it-threat of something vague exasperated him.
“I’ve tried everything,” he thought, “the only thing left is not to pay attention,” and he began to get ready to drive into town, resolving to take his case to the Higher Branches, and beg forgiveness, not as one half of a couple, but as his own man.
CHAPTER 15
HE HAS GONE! It is over!” Anna said to herself, standing at the window; and in answer to this statement the impression of the darkness when the candle had flickered out and of her fearful dream mingling into one filled her heart with cold terror.
“No, that cannot be!” she cried, and crossing the room she rang the bell. She was so afraid now of being alone that, without waiting for the servant to come in, she went out to meet him.
“Inquire where the count has gone,” she said.
Pyotr said, “What? Who?”
“The count! Count Vronsky! Oh, you fool!”
The servant stammered that the count had gone to the stable.
“His honor left word that if you cared to drive out, the carriage would be back immediately.”
“Very good. Wait a minute. I’ll write a note at once. Run with the note to the stables. Make haste.”
She sat down and wrote, in an unsteady hand:
“I was wrong. Come back home; I must explain. For God’s sake come! I’m afraid.”
She sealed it up and gave it to Pyotr, who looked at it, confused, for a moment. “It is a message!” shouted Anna. “Bring it to him. With your feet!”
Oh, how she missed robots!
And yet, once Pyotr had gone, she was afraid of being left alone; she followed the servant out of the room, and went to the nursery.
Why, this isn’t it, this isn’t he! Where are his blue eyes, his sweet, shy smile? was her first thought when she saw her chubby, rosy little girl with her black, curly hair instead of Seryozha, whom in the tangle of her ideas she had expected to see in the nursery, in the arms of the governess they had hired to replace the II/Governess/65. The little girl sitting at the table was obstinately and violently battering on it with a cork, and staring aimlessly at her mother with her pitch-black eyes. Anna sat down by the little girl and began spinning the cork to show her. But the child’s loud, ringing laugh, and the motion of her eyebrows, recalled Vronsky so vividly that she got up hurriedly, restraining her sobs, and went away. Can it be all over? No, it cannot be! she thought. He will come back. I will believe. If I don’t believe, there’s only one thing left for me, and I can’t.
She stumbled about the house.
Who’s that? she thought, looking in the looking glass at the swollen face with strangely glittering eyes, which looked in a scared way at her. Why, it’s I! she suddenly understood, and looking round, she seemed all at once to feel his kisses on her, and twitched her shoulders, shuddering. Then she lifted her hand to her lips and kissed it.
What is it? Why, I’m going out of my mind! and she went into her bedroom…
Where she beheld the elegant, porcelain figure of Android Karenina.
Who, holding out her hands to her mistress, spoke.
“Anna,” said the elegant machine-woman in a sweet and powerful voice, exactly the voice Anna had always imagined, gentle and reassuring and human but radiating the calm power of authority: the firm and loving voice of a mother. “You must be calm now, Anna Arkadyevna.”
“Android Karenina, dear, what am I to do?” said Anna, sobbing and sinking helplessly into a chair.
“You will bear up, face the world, and do what you must.”
“You speak, Android Karenina. You speak so beautifully.”
“Indeed. The silent Android Karenina you knew and loved was a Class Three. Though resembling that model in many ways, I am a Class Nine.”
“A Class Nine? But…”
“Hush, dear Anna. I must tell you of what comes next.”
Anna wondered if this conversation was real, but felt that if it was indeed a dream, she did not want the dream to end. Android Karenina held out her hands, gathered Anna to her bosom, and spoke once more.