Prince Alexander Dmitrievich Shcherbatsky, Kitty and Dolly’s father
The Princess Shcherbatskaya, Kitty and Dolly’s mother and La Scherbatskaya, the Princess’s Class III
Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky, a war hero and Lupo, Vronsky’s Class III
Countess Vronsky, Vronsky’s mother and Tunisia, the Countess’s Class III
Elizaveta Fyodorovna Tverskaya (Betsy), Vronsky’s cousin and a friend of Anna
and Darling Girl, Betsy’s Class III
Marya Nikolaevna, Nikolai Levin’s companion
Madame Stahl, a society woman and prominent xenotheologist
Varenka, a poor girl attached to Madame Stahl
Yashvin, Count Vronsky’s friend and fellow officer
Vassenka Veslovsky, a gentleman of society
VENGEANCE IS MINE;
I SHALL REPAY.
PART ONE: A CRACK IN THE SKY
CHAPTER 1
FUNCTIONING ROBOTS are all alike; every malfunctioning robot malfunctions in its own way.
Everything was in confusion in the Oblonskys’ house. The wife had discovered that the husband was carrying on an intrigue with the French girl who had been a mécanicienne in their family, charged with the maintenance of the household’s Class I and II robots. Stunned and horrified by such a discovery, the wife had announced to her husband that she could not go on living in the same house with him. This position of affairs had now lasted three days, and not only the husband and wife themselves, but all the robots in the household were terribly affected by it. The Class IIIs were keenly aware of their respective masters’ discomfort, and the Class IIs sensed in their rudimentary fashion that there was no logic in their being agglomerated together, and that any stray decoms, junkering in a shed at the Vladivostok R. P. F., had more in common with one another than they, the servomechanisms in the household of the Oblonskys.