Android Karenina by Ben H. Winters Read Free Book Online Page B

cried Stiva to both of them, as Small Stiva twittered with alarm at the other robot’s wild display of lights.
    But Levin could not sit down. He walked with his firm tread twiceup and down the little cage of a room, blinked his eyelids so that his tears might not fall, and only then sat down to the table.
    “You must understand,” he said, “it’s not love.”
    “Not
merely
love,”
Socrates echoed in a high-pitched burble.
    “I’ve been in love, but it’s not that. It’s not my feeling, but a sort of force outside me has taken possession of me.”
    “A force, a force, a powerful force!”
    “I went away, you see, because I made up my mind that it could never be, you understand, as a happiness that does not come on earth; but I’ve struggled with myself, I see there’s no living without it. And it must be settled.”
    “It must, it must, it must be settled now!”
blared Socrates.
    “What did you go away for?” inquired Oblonsky, but Levin charged on: “Ah, the thoughts that come crowding on one! The questions one must ask oneself!” Socrates now was pacing at furious speed around the dining table, beeping and whirring and whistling in a paroxysm of agitation. “You can’t imagine what you’ve done for me by what you said. I’m so happy that I’ve become positively hateful; I’ve forgotten everything. I heard today that my brother Nikolai . . . you know, he’s here . . . he’s ill. . . . I had even forgotten him. But what’s awful . . . Here, you’ve been married, you know the feeling. . . .” Socrates was now turning, twisting rapidly in place, his eyebank a wild xanthic blur, but Levin hardly noticed. “It’s awful that we—old—with a past . . . not of love, but of sins . . . are brought all at once so near to a creature pure and innocent; it’s loathsome—”
    “Loathsome! Loathsome!”
    “And that’s why one can’t help feeling oneself unworthy.”
    “Unworthy! Unworthy! Unworthy!”
Socrates bleated, and then there was a loud grinding noise and a small hiss of steam, as Socrates overheated, and went to unintentional Surcease.

CHAPTER 9
    L EVIN CURSED, REVIVIFIED HIS beloved-companion, and emptied his glass. The two old friends sat in silence for a time, waiting for Socrates’ circuits to realign. Tea cups clinked elsewhere in the restaurant; a I/Samovar/1(8) burbled in the kitchen; a Class I
lumière
flickered to life automatically just as the gathering twilight demanded it; off in the distance on the streets outside was the tromp of 77s, the sharp hoot of their Caretaker.
    “There’s one other thing I ought to tell you,” said Stepan Arkadyich while they waited. “Do you know Vronsky?”
    “No, I don’t. Why do you ask?”
    “Give us another bottle,” Stepan Arkadyich directed the II/Server/888 who was filling up their glasses, motoring round them just when he was not wanted. “And then turn off your sensors, will you?” Not needing to watch to make sure the white-jacketed Class II complied, since the Iron Laws demanded obedience to a human’s every order, Stepan Arkadyich freely turned back to Levin to share his secret.
    “Why you ought to know Vronsky is that he’s one of your rivals.”
    “Who’s Vronsky?” said Levin, and his face was suddenly transformed from the look of childlike ecstasy which Oblonsky had just been admiring to an angry and unpleasant expression.
    “Vronsky is one of the sons of Count Kirill Ivanovitch Vronsky, and one of the finest specimens of the gilded youth of Petersburg. I made his acquaintance in Tver when I was there on official business, and he came there for the levy of recruits. Fearfully rich, handsome, great connections, a hero of the Border Wars, and authorized to carry a hot-whip and a pairof smokers on his belt. And with all that a very nice, good-natured fellow. But he’s more than simply a good-natured fellow, as I’ve found out here—he’s a cultivated man, too, and very intelligent; he’s a man who’ll make his