CHAPTER 15
ONE OF ANNA’S OBJECTS in coming back to Russia had been to see her son; she understood from letters she had received that Sergey had been told she was dead, and that terrible deception weighed heavily on her heart. From the day she left the moon the thought of it had never ceased to agitate her. And as she got nearer to Petersburg, the delight and importance of this meeting grew ever greater in her imagination. When Vronsky spied her sitting in quiet counsel with Android Karenina, it was this dream she was speaking of, talking endlessly of Sergey and cuing Memories of the boy day and night. Anna did not even put to herself the question of how to arrange it. It seemed to her natural and simple to see her son when she should be in the same town with him. But on her arrival in Petersburg she was suddenly made distinctly aware of her present position in society-not only her relations with Vronsky, but her possession of one of the few remaining Class Ills on the city streets-and she grasped the fact that to arrange this meeting was no easy matter. To go straight to the house, where she might meet Alexei Alexandrovich, that she felt she had no right to do.
But to get a glimpse of her son out walking, finding out where and when he went out, was not enough for her; she had so looked forward to this meeting, she had so much she must say to him, she so longed to embrace him, to kiss him.
She decided that the next day, Seryozha’s birthday, she would go straight to her husband’s house and at any cost see her son and overturn the hideous deception with which they were encompassing the unhappy child.
As her plan formed itself in her mind, she went to a toy shop, bought toys; and then crept into Vronsky’s private chambres d’armory, while he slept soundly, and carefully removed what she felt were the items necessary for the excursion. She thought over a plan of action. She would go early in the morning at eight o’clock, when Alexei Alexandrovich would be certain not to be up. She carefully explained her intentions to Android Karenina, who instantly and completely understood her desires.
The next day, at eight o’clock in the morning, a woman climbed from a hired sledge outside the home of Alexei Karenin and rang at the front entrance.
“Some lady,” grunted the Karenins’ stoic, old mécanicien, Kapitonitch, who, not yet dressed, in his dumpy, grey undercoat, peeped out of the window to see a lady in a veil standing close up to the door. Kapitonitch opened the door and was astonished to see the figure of his old mistress, Anna Karenina, covered in her familiar traveling cloak and veil.
Kapitonitch stood perfectly still, a statue of a man with his hand upon the doorknob-for how could he open it? He remembered Anna’s kindness, and he wished for nothing greater than to allow her entrance to what had been her home; but it was Kapitonitch who had buried the poor store clerk in a rutted ditch behind the house.
“Whom do you want?” he asked, affecting a voice as hard as tempered steel.
From behind her veil, Anna, apparently not hearing his words, made no answer.
At the same moment, in the gardens behind the house, the real Anna Karenina-for of course it was Android Karenina standing still and wordless at the front door behind Anna’s veil-the real Anna overleaped the high electrified fence and landed with a bone-rattling thud beside the fountain. Uneasily holding one of Vronsky’s prized regimental smokers before her, she advanced in her stocking feet toward the rear door of the great house that once, a lifetime ago, had been her own. Step after careful step she advanced, not daring to glance up at the bedroom windows, and instead noticing, a few feet from the back door, a kind of rickety outbuilding she did not recognize.
The large metal door of this shed hung slightly open, glinting in the daylight, and Anna’s curiosity overcame her.
At the front door, noticing the embarrassment of the unknown lady, Kapitonitch went out to her, opened the second door for her, and asked her what she wanted.
Again the woman said nothing.
“His honor’s not up yet,” said Kapitonitch, looking at her attentively. Then, hearing a loud, sharp shriek from the rear of the house-the distressed call of a captured bird? the strangled cry of a woman?-he wheeled sharply about.
Anna hid herself behind the shed, out of which she had rapidly retreated, in horror of what lay inside. Dear God, she thought, jamming her thick fox-fur muff into her mouth to muffle the ragged sound of her breathing.
Dear merciful God.
Inside the shed she had seen a long, wooden worktable, lined with human faces. Some were displayed in velvet cases, some scattered haphazardly in a gruesome clutter; faces high-cheeked and fleshy and beadyeyed; whole faces and faces in various states of ghoulish disassembly: here a mouth, there the broad expanse of a forehead, there a pair of eyeballs rolling in a wooden box; half a cheek, the skin peeled back to reveal the tangle of red-black muscle beneath.
Still reeling from the stomach-turning awfulness of such a sight, Anna gave the lock of the house’s rear door a single silenced blast-charge, slipped quietly inside, and stood with her eyes wide, breathing deeply. She had not anticipated that the absolutely unchanged hall of the house where she had lived for nine years would so greatly affect her. Memories sweet and painful rose one after another in her heart, and for a moment she forgot what she was here for.
Android Karenina, at the doorstep, her duty discharged, bowed to Kapitonitch and turned to depart; but the old mécanacien, still believing this to be his old mistress, felt a pang of grief that this kind woman, however to blame, should leave without seeing her son. “Stop,” he cried. “Wait a moment.”
There was something in the immediate way she obeyed his order…
“Spin in a circle,” Kapitonitch ordered, squinting with suspicion as the woman did so immediately. “Put your hands in the air. Wiggle your fingers.” At each command, the woman demonstrated automatic-that is, robotic-obedience.
“I can’t believe it,” he said. “Android Karenina?”
“Turn around. Slowly” said the real Anna, from where she now stood, directly behind Kapitonitch, the smoker still drawn and leveled shakily at his head. But as he turned, Kapitonitch drew a weapon of his own: a small, metallic hand cannon, as long again as the length of his arm, and aimed directly at her head.
Of course the mécanicien of this household is armed, thought Anna. Of course.
“Oh, Madame Karenina,” said Kapitonitch sadly, and unlike Anna’s, his hand did not shake.
For a long moment they stared at each other, weapons drawn. On the stoop Android Karenina, her veil now drawn back, regarded the scene in terrified silence, her eyebank fluttering double-time as she calculated her odds of disarming Kapitonitch without harm to her mistress. Anna offered a silent prayer that, if she were fated to die here, Providence would allow her to see her dear son once more before it was all over.
But it was not Providence that saved her, it was human kindness; so often, one comes dressed in the clothing of the other. “I cannot shoot you, Madame Karenina. Please come in, your Excellency,” he said to her.
She tried to say something, but her voice refused to utter any sound; with a guilty and imploring glance at the old man she went with light, swift steps up the stairs. Bent over, and his galoshes catching on the steps, Kapitonitch ran after her, imploring in an urgent whisper that she not tarry.
Anna mounted the familiar staircase, not understanding what the old man was saying.
“This way, to the left, if you please. Excuse its not being tidy. Your husband’s in the old parlor now,” the mécanicien said, panting. “Excuse me, wait a little, your Excellency; I’ll just see,” he said, and overtaking her, he opened the high door and disappeared behind it. Anna stood still, waiting. “He’s only just awake,” Kapitonitch reported, coming out.