Android Karenina

“Yes,” he said, going up to her resolutely. “Neither you nor I have looked on our relations as a passing amusement, and now our fate is sealed. It is absolutely necessary to put an end”-he looked round as he spoke-“to the deception in which we are living.”

“Put an end? How put an end, Alexei?” she said softly.

She was calmer now, and Android Karenina was glowing with an intense but not unpleasant violet, lending a romantic backlight to her mistress’s tender expression.

“Leave your husband and make our life one.”

“It is one as it is,” she answered, scarcely audibly.

“Yes, but altogether, altogether.”

“But how, Alexei, tell me how?” she said in melancholy mockery at the hopelessness of her own position. “Is there any way out of such a position? Am I not the wife of my husband?”

“There is a way out of every position. We must take our line,” he said. “Anything’s better than the position in which you’re living. Of course, I see how you torture yourself over everything-the world and your son and your husband.”

“Oh, not over my husband,” she said, with a quiet smile. “I don’t know him, I don’t think of him. He doesn’t exist.”

“You’re not speaking sincerely. I know you. You worry about him too.”

“Oh, he doesn’t even know,” she said, and suddenly a hot flush came over her face; her cheeks, her brow, her neck crimsoned, and tears of shame came into her eyes. “But we won’t talk of him.”

CHAPTER 12

VRONSKY HAD SEVERAL TIMES ALREADY, though not so resolutely as now, tried to bring her to consider their position, and every time he had been confronted by the same superficiality and triviality with which she met his appeal now. It was as though there were something in this that she could not or would not face, as though the moment she began to speak of this, she, the real A

“Whether he knows or not,” said Vronsky, in his usual quiet and resolute tone, “that’s nothing to do with us. We ca

“What’s to be done, according to you?” she asked with the same frivolous irony. She who had so feared he would take her condition too lightly was now vexed with him for deducing from it the necessity of taking some step.

“Tell him everything, and leave him.”

“Very well, let us suppose I do that,” she said. “Do you know what the result of that would be? I can tell you it all beforehand,” and a wicked light gleamed in her eyes, which had been so soft a minute before. “‘Eh, you love another man, and have entered into criminal intrigues with him?’” (Mimicking her husband’s singular appearance, she covered one side of her face with the flat of her hand). “‘I warned you of the results in the religious, the civil, and the domestic relation. You have not listened to me. Now I ca

It was then she sensed that Vronsky was not listening, and saw that his eyes were fixed on some spot behind her head.

“The swirling…,” he said in a low voice, as if hypnotized, and A

“What?”

“The fountain… the swirling…” he repeated, and then with sudden force shouted, “Jump!”

A

Vronsky gripped her with all his strength, bracing his feet against the wall of the fountain, resisting with all his strength the violent force, ten times stronger than gravity, that was drawing A

“What… what is…,” A

His fingers slipping a little, Vronsky cursed. “Hold on, A

“Let me go,” said A

“What?”

“What good is living,” she said, louder now, “if our life is to be under my husband’s control? Let me go!” She directed this last command to Android Karenina, who by virtue of the Iron Laws could not disobey; she turned her faceplate apologetically to Vronsky and released her grasp.

“But, A

“And what, run away?”

“And why not run away?” he shouted desperately. “I don’t see how we can keep on like this. And not for my sake-I see that you suffer!”

A fierce wind blew from the terrible depths of the demonic spiral; one of A

“A

“Yes,” she muttered, almost talking to herself. “Run away, become your mistress, and complete the ruin of…”

And she would have said “my son,” but she could not utter those words-whether because she could not bear to, or because the force on her body was squeezing the very air from her lungs, Vronsky could not say.

A

It was then that Android Karenina broke the Iron Law of obedience.

Dismissing the earlier command to let go, she grabbed A