Android Karenina

CHAPTER 11

THE RAIN DID NOT last long, and by the time Vronsky arrived at the Karenins’ the sun had peeped out again, the roofs of the summer villas and the old lime trees in the gardens on both sides of the principal streets sparkled with wet brilliance, and from the twigs came a pleasant drip and from the roofs rushing streams of water. He thought no more of the shower spoiling the match ground, but was rejoicing now that-thanks to the rain-he would be sure to find her at home and alone, as he knew that Alexei Alexandrovich had not moved from Petersburg.

Hoping to find her alone, Vronsky alighted, as he always did, to avoid attracting attention, before crossing the bridge, and walked to the house. He did not go up the steps to the street door, but went into the court.

“Has your master come?” he asked a mécanicien, who was irritatedly tinkering with a maltuned II/Topiary/42-9.

“No, sir. The mistress is at home. But will you please go to the front door; there are II/Footmen/74s there,” the mécanicien answered. “They’ll open the door.”

“No, I’ll go in from the garden.”

And feeling satisfied that she was alone, and wanting to take her by surprise, since he had not promised to be there today, and she would certainly not expect him to come before the match, he walked, with one hand on the handle of his hot-whip, and stepping cautiously over the sandy path bordered with flowers to the terrace that looked out upon the garden. Vronsky forgot now all that he had thought on the way of the hardships and difficulties of their position. He thought of nothing but that he would see her directly, not in imagination, but living, all of her, as she was in reality.

A

But, just as he was about to make a step to come nearer to her, A

“What’s the matter? You are ill?” he said to her in French, going up to her. He would have run to her, but remembering that there might be spectators, he looked round toward the balcony door, and reddened a little, as he always reddened, feeling that he had to be afraid and be on his guard.

“No, I’m quite well,” she said, getting up and pressing his outstretched hand tightly. “I did not expect… thee. What in God’s name are you wearing?”

“Mercy! What cold hands!” he said, and quickly he explained the undersuit and the need for his vital signs to be monitored in the hours preceding the Cull.

“You startled me,” she said. “I’m alone, and expecting Seryozha. He’s out for a walk; they’ll come in from this side.”

But, in spite of her efforts to be calm, her lips were quivering.

“Forgive me for coming, but I couldn’t pass the day without seeing you,” he went on, speaking in French, as he always did to avoid using the stiff Russian plural form, so impossibly frigid between them, and the dangerously intimate singular.

“Forgive you? I’m so glad!”

“But you’re ill or worried,” he went on, not letting go her hands and bending over her. “What were you thinking of?”

“Always the same thing,” she said, with a smile, and back in the stable the engineer muttered a curse in English, watching the various needles of his box shoot up into the red.

A

Tell him or not tell him? she thought, looking into his quiet, affectionate eyes. He is so happy, so absorbed in his upcoming Cull that he won’t understand as he ought, he won’t understand all the gravity of this fact to us.

“But you haven’t told me what you were thinking of when I came in,” he said, interrupting his narrative. “Please tell me!”

She did not answer, and, bowing her head a little, she looked inquiringly at him from under her brows, her eyes shining under their long lashes. Her hand shook as it played with a leaf she had picked. He saw it, and his face expressed that utter subjection, that slavish devotion, which had done so much to win her; the needles on the Englishman’s Class I registered the calming effect of adoration on his bloodstream.

“I see something has happened. Do you suppose I can be at peace, knowing you have a trouble I am not sharing? Tell me, for God’s sake,” he repeated imploringly.

Abruptly A

“Yes,” A

“For God’s sake!” he repeated, circling the fountain and taking her hand.

“Shall I tell you?”

“Yes, yes, yes…”

But A

As Android Karenina enacted this dumb show, the leaf in A

“Yes, he realizes all the gravity of it,” A

But A