CHAPTER 8

THE STREETS WERE STILL EMPTY the next morning, when Levin went to the house of the Shcherbatskys. The visitors’ doors were closed and everyone was asleep. He walked back, went into his room again, and ordered coffee from the II/Samovar/1(8). Levin tried to drink coffee and put some roll in his mouth, but his mouth was quite at a loss what to do with the roll. Instead he put on his coat and went out again for a walk. It was nine o’clock when he reached the Shcherbatskys’ steps the second time. In the house they were only just up, and he watched as the II/Cook/89 motored off toward the market. He had to get through at least two hours more.

All that night and morning Levin lived perfectly unconsciously, and felt perfectly lifted out of the conditions of material life. He had eaten nothing for a whole day, had not slept for two nights, had spent several hours undressed in the frozen air, and felt not simply fresher and stronger than ever, but utterly independent of his body; he moved without muscular effort, and felt as if he could do anything. He was convinced he could fly upward or lift the corner of the house, if need be. He spent the remainder of the time in the street, incessantly looking at his wrist-borne I/Hourprotector/8 and gazing about him.

And what he saw then, he never saw again after. The children, especially going to school, the bluish doves flying down from the roofs to the pavement, and the little loaves covered with flour, thrust out by an unseen hand, touched him. Those loaves, those doves, and those two boys were not earthly creatures. It all happened at the same time: a boy ran toward a dove and glanced smiling at Levin; the dove, with a whir of her wings, darted away, flashing in the sun amid grains of snow that quivered in the air, while from a little window there came a smell of fresh-baked bread, and the loaves were put out. All of this together was so extraordinarily nice that Levin laughed and cried with delight. Going a long way round by Gazetny Place and Kislovka, he went back again to the hotel, and putting the Hourprotector before him, he sat down to wait for twelve o’clock. In the next room they were talking about some new sort of Ministry policy being spoken of, something about a registry—was that what they said, registry?—of Class III robots, some sort of improvement project . . . none of it mattered. Not to Levin. He could hardly believe that these men did not realize that the dial of the Hourprotector was approaching twelve.

At last the hour was at hand. Levin went out onto the steps, and hired a sledge; the II/Coachman/47-T knew the Shcherbatskys’ house, and drew up at the entrance with a curve of his flexible effector and a hearty, resonant “Ho!” The Shcherbatskys’ household Class IIs, Levin knew, were not programmed for emotional sensitivity, but it was obvious to Levin that the II/Porter/42 certainly knew all about everything—there was something so cheery in the red glow of its faceplate, something positively mischievous in the way it intoned:

“Enter, sir . . . enter, sir . . .”

As soon as he entered, swift, swift, light steps sounded on the parquet, and his bliss, his life, himself—what was best in himself, what he had so long sought and longed for—was quickly, so quickly approaching him. She did not walk, but seemed, by some unseen force, to float to him, Tatiana trailing behind her with a tinkling snippet of Chopin playing from her Third Bay. But he could hardly hear the gentle strains, indeed hardly noticed the Class III, for he saw nothing but his darling’s clear and truthful eyes, frightened by the same bliss of love that flooded his heart. Those eyes were shining nearer and nearer, blinding him with their light of love. She stopped still close to him, touching him. Her hands rose and dropped onto his shoulders.

She had done all she could—she had run up to him and given herself up entirely, shy and happy. He put his arms round her and pressed his lips to her mouth that sought his kiss.

She too had not slept all night, and had been expecting him all the morning.

Her mother and father had consented without demurring, and were happy in her happiness. She had been waiting for him. She wanted to be the first to tell him her happiness and his. “Let us go to Mamma!” she said, taking him by the hand. For a long while he could say nothing, not so much because he was afraid of desecrating the loftiness of his emotion by a word, as that every time he tried to say something, instead of words he felt that tears of happiness were welling up. He took her hand and kissed it.

“Can it be true?” Levin said at last in a choked voice, straightening up. “I can’t believe you love me, dear!”

She smiled at that “dear,” and at the timidity with which he glanced at her.

“Yes!” she said significantly, deliberately. “I am so happy!”

And then Socrates motored into the room, and Levin was startled, for the first time realizing that in his clouded, joyous state he had left his beloved-companion behind at the hotel. He blushed and lowered his head, and his embarrassment and shame were only compounded when Socrates explained what had befallen him on the way.

“I was detained by a man some sort of man some sort of man, a man with a mustache a man a man,” Socrates intoned in an agitated rush, his eyebank flickering wildly. “He said he was from the Ministry, from Enforcement.”

“A Caretaker?” Levin began, taken aback; he had never seen his oft-agitated Class III quite so agitated as this.

“Not a Caretaker. No IIs with him. His uniform was of a kind I did not recognize. He took my information, and then then then then . . .”

“Socrates?” Levin said again, his confusion deepening into anxiety and fear.

“He said unaccompanied Class Ills will be no longer allowed to pass unescorted.”

“What?!”

Levin was startled by such a report, but Kitty, in her childish and charming innocence, was merely affronted. “Well, who was this man with his little mustache, to talk such foolishness!” she tittered, and Tatiana nodded, though hesitantly—for she understood, as only another android could, the depth of cold mechanical terror reflected in Socrates’ eyebank.

The prince and princess then entered, and in half an hour the man with the mustache was entirely forgotten, and the wedding planning had begun.