Android Karenina - By Count Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy & Ben H. Winters & Leo Tolstoy Page 0,27

such strange lightness.

“Very charming,” said the countess.

That was just what her son was thinking. Vronsky’s eyes followed her till her graceful figure was out of sight, and then the smile remained on his face. Vronsky saw out of the window how this remarkable woman went up to her brother, put her arm in his, and began telling him something eagerly, obviously something that had nothing to do with him, Vronsky, and at that he felt annoyed.

“Well, Mamma, are you perfectly well?” he said, and gave his mother his arm. But just as they were getting out of the carriage, a small fleet of Class II/StationMaster/44s buzzed officiously past, their alarm lights flashing an urgent red. Obviously something unusual had happened. The crowd who had left the Grav were running back again.

A cold feeling crept over Vronsky, as he caught a whiff of some terrible burning rising off the tracks.

“What? . . . What? . . . Where? . . . Burned? . . . Crushed! was heard among the crowd. Stepan Arkadyich, with his sister on his arm, turned back. They too looked scared, and stopped at the carriage door to avoid the crowd. Vronsky interposed himself between Madame Karenina and the platform edge, instinctively desiring to block from her vision whatever gruesome scene lay on the magnet bed below.

It was a battered corpse, evidently first fallen on the magnet bed then crushed by the rushing force of the oncoming Grav. The rumor making its way rapidly through the agitated crowd said the dead man had been a stowaway, riding the Grav without a ticket, when he was discovered by a troop of 77s. The heavy-booted machine-men had brought the anonymous rider to their Caretaker, who had demanded his name and occupation. The stowaway had refused to answer and the gold-uniformed Caretaker had dutifully declared him a Janus, a hateful enemy of Mother Russia, and ordered him thrown in front of an arriving Grav.

But Vronsky, who knew that such stories were often mere concoctions to shield the public from some unpalatable truth, retained an agitated feeling about this accident. He averted his eyes from the wrapped, smoldering corpse as the 77s with their strong pipe-like arms tossed it unceremoniously into the back of a carriage.

Before Vronsky and Oblonsky came back, the ladies had heard the tale from other onlookers. Oblonsky was evidently upset. He frowned and seemed ready to cry.

“Ah, how awful! Ah, Anna, if you had seen it! Ah, how awful!” he said.

Madame Karenina walked with her brother, Small Stiva and Android Karenina walking a few paces behind. Anna was lost in thought: twice in the last half hour, a disturbing feeling had passed through her, a penumbra of creeping dread radiating from some unknown origin. This feeling had first occurred when the station rattled with that reverberating BOOM and again when she glanced at the platform edge—and seen, despite Count Vronsky’s efforts to block her view, the hooded corpse lifted without ceremony from the magnet bed.

Madame Karenina seated herself in his carriage, and Stepan Arkadyich saw with surprise that her lips were quivering, and she was with difficulty restraining her tears.

“What is it, Anna?” he asked, when they had driven a few hundred yards.

“This death, it touches me somehow,” she said. “I cannot understand it.”

“What nonsense!” said Stepan Arkadyich, his genial nature reasserting itself against the mess and unpleasantness of death. “Our 77s have discovered a traitor, and acted swiftly and appropriately! Bravo, and praise God for our tireless protectors! You’ve come, that’s the chief thing. You can’t conceive how I’m resting my hopes on you.”

“Have you known Vronsky long?” she asked, trying to match her brother’s easy calm. She glanced at Android Karenina, who bathed her in reassuring silence and a gentle lavender glow. Unusual for a Class III robot, Android Karenina never spoke, only buttressed by her constant reassuring presence Anna’s natural feeling of dignity and reserve.

“Yes,” Stiva answered cheerily. “You know we’re hoping he will marry Kitty.”

“Yes?” said Anna softly. “Come now, let us talk of you,” she added, tossing her head as though she would physically shake off something superfluous oppressing her. “Let us talk of your affairs. I got your letter, and here I am.”

“Yes, all my hopes are in you,” said Stepan Arkadyich.

“Well, tell me all about it.”

CHAPTER 16

THOUGH SHE HAD SENT word the day before to her husband that it was nothing to her whether his sister came or not, Darya Alexandrovna Oblonskaya had made everything ready for her arrival, and