A second emotion bomb ignited, this time beneath a young peasant woman with her head wrapped in colorful scarves-like the elderly relative, she collapsed in her place, her insides instantly emulsified.
The triumphant and praiseful sound of the choir grew ever stronger, and joy and mystery swelled in the bosoms of Levin and his bride, amplifying the danger for all present. The officiants prayed, as they always do, for peace from on high and for salvation; for the long life of the Higher Branches they prayed; and for the servants of God, Konstantin and Ekaterina, now pledging their troth. The closer the liturgy drew to the fateful moment, when Kitty and Levin would together enter the mysterious country of matrimonial connection, the more palpable was the bubbling admixture of dread and joy in their respective hearts; and with every upswell of that queer emotional tide, more of the quiet, precise bombs went off, each one more brutally effective than the last. Kitty and Levin stared into each other’s eyes, lost in tender feeling and contemplation of their intertwined fates, as the grim toll of their love grew every second.
“Vouchsafe to them love made perfect, peace and help, O Lord, we beseech Thee,” came the voice of the head deacon. Levin heard the words, and they impressed him.
“How did they guess that it is help, just help that one wants?” he whispered to Socrates, who stood faithfully at his elbow.
“Help!” cried Princess Shcherbatskaya. “My Lord, help!” Her sister, Kitty’s aunt, had suddenly jerked in her seat, twisted her body unnaturally, and tumbled forward into the princess’s lap. Levin and Kitty wheeled around from the altar, at last to behold the bedlam unfolding around them: a horror becoming worse every moment, as dread-joy bombs went off like celebratory I/Flashpop/4s at a child’s birthday party. Kitty screamed, her hands clutching at the side of her face in horror, as another explosion-no longer silent, indeed, louder than a sky full of thunder-shattered the electronically programmed window, sending shards of Savior-emblazoned glass raining down.
The first decisive action to stem the tide of violence came from the two beloved-companion robots. In a single smooth gambol, Tatiana tackled her mistress to the ground and arched backward into a bridge to protect her from the hail of glass. Socrates, plucking a well-worn physiometer from the tangle of tools in his beard, waded into the crowd to begin triage, and Levin could only rush to keep up.
“Why does it continue?” Kitty shouted to Levin, as he and his faithful machine-man surveyed the damage and tended to the wailing wounded. “If this is an emotion bombing”-for such was the only logical conclusion-“and if the bombs are fed by our joy at entering the blessed state of marriage, then why have they not stopped, now that our happiness is entirely subsumed?” Tatiana, meanwhile, with fluttering phalangeals deflected a fresh rain of glass and splintered wood.
Levin smiled despite himself. What a woman! How clever she is, to make such an astute analysis amid such dreadful circumstances. “Oh, God,” he said in sudden horror. “It’s me. I am happy! Heavenly Father, forgive me, but I am happy! I look at her, and even in such straits I cannot help it: I love her, and I feel joy!”
As if in grim confirmation of Levin’s realization, at the moment he uttered the word “joy” a blast rattled the back of the hall.
He looked about him in horror, marveling at the power of his love, trying and failing to squelch its power in his breast; and then Kitty lunged at him, her gown of lush white and lace billowing out behind her, clawing feverishly at his eyes and pulling viciously at his beard. Levin, shocked, covered his head against the onslaught, and, in that wild, pained instant, he was so surprised at her assault that his love for Kitty transformed into its opposite.
“Stop it,” he shouted at his beloved. “For God’s sake, stop! Are you insane?”
He grasped her wrists to cease the onslaught; she collapsed, spent, against his chest, weeping. Socrates looked up, beeping questioningly in the sudden hush that followed.
For as Konstantin Dmitrich’s joy waned, so had the attack. The emotion bombs were silenced and the devastated church grew silent and terribly still, but for the moaning and weeping of the wounded.
“She is a very capable woman,” said Socrates, admiringly.
“To be sure, old friend,” Levin agreed, stroking her hair. “As capable and intelligent as she is-”
Boom! A rafter cracked above the apse, and a displaced I/Lumiére/7 hurtled down from above.
“Master, let us remove you from this place.”
Twenty minutes later, outside the rubble of the church, the surviving officiant concluded the ceremony in a melancholy spirit. Kitty and Levin stood with laced hands, bruised and tearful, but unwilling-in the ancient Russian spirit-to let the terrorists of UnConSciya ruin their sacred day of union.
And so the old priest turned to the bridal pair and began: “Eternal God, who joinest together in love those who were separate,” he said in a sad, piping voice, as voices wailed in the background, “who hast ordained the union of holy wedlock that cannot be set asunder, Thou who didst bless Isaac and Rebecca and their descendants, according to Thy Holy Covenant; bless Thy servants, Konstantin and Ekaterina, leading them in the path of all good works. For gracious and merciful art Thou, our Lord, and glory be to Thee, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, now and ever shall be.”
Even as the ancient words were intoned, within the church the ragged and helpless victims awaited the inevitable arrival of a Caretaker with his troupe of 77s, who always arrived in the aftermath of such horrors. They wept for their injuries, for the continued plague of UnConSciya upon society; and they wept bitterly that their Class Ills had not been there to protect them, and were not there now to lend them support and comfort.
The violent disorder of his wedding day could not help but have its effect on Konstantin Dmitrich’s romantic ideas about marriage, and the life he was now to lead. Levin felt more and more that all his ideas of marriage, all his dreams of how he would order his life, were mere childishness, and that it was something he had not understood hitherto, and now understood less than ever, though it was being performed upon him. The lump in his throat rose higher and higher; tears that would not be checked came into his eyes.
After supper, the same night, the young people left for the country.
CHAPTER 4
VRONSKY AND ANNA had been traveling for three months together on the surface of the moon. They had visited the Mare Tranquillitatis and the famous canals of St. Catherine, and had just arrived at a hotel, part of the small farside colony where they meant to stay some time.
A Moonie, one of the weird, wiry Class IIs with bulbous glowing head units employed in nearly all man-serving positions on the moon’s surface, stood with his hands in the full curve of his silver outercoating, giving some frigid reply to a gentleman in a coarse engineer’s jumpsuit who had stopped him. Catching the sound of footsteps coming from the other side of the entry toward the staircase, the Moonie swiveled his big, bright ball of a head and, seeing the Russian count, who had taken their best rooms, with a bow informed him that a communiqué had been received: the business about the module he and his companion planned to rent had all been arranged.
“Ah! I’m glad to hear it,” said Vronsky. “Is madame at home or not?”
“Madame… went out for walk… but returned now,” answered the Class II in the distinctive stop-start manner of the Moonie.