Relations with the society of the place-foreign and Russian-were equally out of the question owing to the irregularity of their position. The inspection of the various panoramas, of Earth’s blue-green magnificence or the starry sprawl of distant galaxies, had not for Vronsky, a Russian and a sensible man, the immense significance Englishmen are able to attach to that pursuit.
And just as the hungry stomach eagerly accepts every object it can get, hoping to find nourishment in it, Vronsky quite unconsciously clutched first at politics, then at new books, and then at pictures. He began to understand the semi-mystical art of painting with groznium-based pigments, how the artist could push the little pools of color around the canvas with subtle flicks of the brush, how the individual droplets would attract each other, creating luminous patterns as singular as fingerprints or snowflakes. Vronsky concentrated on these studies; with this technique he began to paint Anna’s portrait in her boots and helmet, and the portrait seemed to him, and to everyone who saw it, extremely successful.
CHAPTER 6
THE OLD, NEGLECTED MODULE they had leased, with its lofty, hard-textile ceilings and off-white, dimly lit passageways, with its slow-sequencing, Earth-scenery monitor frames, its manual door locks and gloomy reception rooms-this base did much, by its very appearance after they had moved into it, to confirm in Vronsky the agreeable illusion that he was not so much a Russian country gentleman, a retired army officer, as an enlightened, bohemian “moon man” and patron of the arts, who had renounced his past, his connections, and his planet for the sake of the woman he loved.
“Here we live, and know nothing of what’s going on,” Vronsky said to Golenishtchev as he came to see him one morning. “Have you seen Mihailov’s picture?” he said, pointing to Lupo’s monitor, where was displayed a communiqué from a Russian friend that he had received that morning, and pointing to an article on a Russian artist living in the very same colony and just finishing a picture which had long been talked about. “Couldn’t we ask him to paint a portrait of Anna Arkadyevna?” said Vronsky.
“Why mine?” Anna interjected. “After yours I don’t want another portrait. Better have one of Annie” (so she called her baby girl). She glanced with a smile through the glass porthole into the nursery, where the child was giggling delightedly at the clownish tumbling of a I/HurdlyGurdly/2.
“I have met Mihailov, you know,” Golenishtchev said. “But he’s a queer fish. He did not migrate to the moon entirely of his own volition, if my meaning is quite clear.” It was not, of course, and in answer to Vronsky’s curious expression Golenishtchev leaned forward, in exactly that conspiratorial fashion with which people in possession of secrets signal that they wish to be pressured into revealing them.
“I understand that many years ago he professed rather an extreme view on the Robot Question. Took the line that the extent of evolution of any given machine should be up to its owner, and its owner alone.”
“Yes, well,” Anna began, gesturing proudly to her own beloved-companion, preparing to defend that position, or at least argue its merits.
“But this Mihailov took the idea to a rather bizarre conclusion, publishing his opinion that robots were, in many ways, the equals of human beings-and that junkering a Class III was therefore tantamount to murdering a human being.” Vronsky raised his eyebrows, and Golenishtchev went on. “It is even said that he put these rather extreme opinions into practice, and…,” Golenishtchev made a pretense of blushing before continuing, “and fell in love with his wife’s Class III, and would have married it. The point is, one way or another he found it necessary to decamp for the charming lunar colony where now we find him.”
Golenishtchev settled happily back into his chair, evidently quite pleased with his own skills as raconteur, while Anna sat silent, absently stroking Android Karenina’s hand. Were Mihailov’s views so wrong? Was not her beloved-companion twice the woman-twice the person-twice the… whatever one might call it-than most of the people Anna had known?
“I tell you what,” said Anna finally. “Let’s go and see him!”
CHAPTER 7
THE ARTIST MIHAILOV was, as always, at work when the greeting signal of Count Vronsky and Golenishtchev sounded in his studio. He walked rapidly to the door, and in spite of his annoyance at the interruption, he was struck by the soft light that Android Karenina was shedding on Anna’s figure as she stood in the shade of the entrance listening to Golenishtchev, who was eagerly telling her something, while she evidently wanted to look round at the artist and his work.
They spoke but Mihailov only noticed every fifth word; he was examining in his mind’s eye that subtle nimbus of luminescence the robot imparted to her mistress. So he readily agreed to paint a portrait of Anna, and on the day he fixed, he came and began the work.
In another man’s house, and especially in Vronsky’s module, Mihailov was quite a different man from what he was in his studio. He behaved with hostile courtesy, as though he were afraid of coming closer to people he did not respect. He called Vronsky “Your Excellency,” and notwithstanding Anna’s and Vronsky’s invitations, he would never stay for dinner, nor come except for the sittings. Anna was even more friendly to him than to other people, and was very grateful for her portrait. Vronsky was more than cordial with him, and was obviously interested to know the artist’s opinion of his picture. Mihailov met Vronsky’s talk about his painting with stubborn silence, and he was as stubbornly silent when he was shown Vronsky’s picture. He was unmistakably bored by Golenishtchev’s transparent attempts to goad him into conversation on the Robot Question, and he did not attempt to oppose him.
From the fifth sitting the portrait impressed everyone, especially Vronsky, not only by its resemblance, but by its characteristic beauty. It was strange how Mihailov could have discovered just her characteristic beauty. “One needs to know and love her as I have loved her to discover the very sweetest expression of her soul,” Vronsky murmured to Lupo, who rumbled softly in his lap; though in truth it was only from this portrait that he had himself learned this sweetest expression of her soul. But the expression was so true that he, and others too, fancied they had long known it.
To Anna, what was remarkable was Mihailov’s decision to include Android Karenina in the painting, a decision not in keeping with traditions of portraiture, but one which seemed to her entirely fitting and appropriate.