Disc 3 Alternate Thursdays were Bernard's Solidarity Service days. After an early dinner at the Aphroditeum, to which helmholtz had recently been elected under rule two he took leave of his friend and hailing a taxi on the roof told the man to fly to the fordson community singery the machine rose a couple of hundred metres then headed eastwards and as it turned there before bernard's eyes gigantically beautiful was the singery flood-lighted
its three hundred and twenty metres of white carrara surrogate gleamed with a snowy incandescence over ludgate hill at each of the four corners of its helicopter platform an immense tee shone crimson against the night and from the mouths of twenty-four vast golden trumpets rumbled a solemn synthetic music damn i'm late bernard said to himself as he first caught sight of big henry the singery clerk
And sure enough, as he was paying off his cab, Big Henry sounded the hour. Ford! sang out an immense bass voice from all the golden trumpets. Ford! Ford!
ford nine times bernard ran for the lift the great auditorium for ford's day celebration and other massed community sings was at the bottom of the building above it a hundred to each floor were the seven thousand rooms used by solidarity groups for their fortnight services bernard dropped down to floor thirty-three hurried along the corridor stood hesitating for a moment outside room three thousand two hundred and ten then having wound himself up opened the door and walked in
thank ford he was not the last three chairs of the twelve arranged round the circular table were still unoccupied he slipped into the nearest of them as inconspicuously as he could and prepared to frown at the yet later comers whenever they should arrive turning towards him what were you playing this afternoon the girl on his left inquired obstacle or electromagnetic
bernard looked at her thought it was morgana rothschild and blushingly had to admit that he had been playing neither morgana stared at him with astonishment there was an awkward silence Then, pointedly, she turned away and addressed herself to the more sporting man on her left. A good beginning for a solidarity service, thought Bernard miserably.
and foresaw for himself yet another failure to achieve atonement. If only he had given himself time to look round, instead of scuttling for the nearest chair. He could have sat between Fifi Bradlaugh and Joanna Diesel.
instead of which he had gone and blindly planted himself next to morgana morgana ford those black eyebrows of hers that eyebrow rather for they met above the nose ford and on his right was clara detterding true clara's eyebrows didn't meet but she was really too pneumatic whereas fifi and joanna were absolutely right plump blonde not too large
and it was that great lout, Tom Kawaguchi, who now took the seat between them. The last arrival was Sarojini Engels. You're late, said the president of the group severely. Don't let it happen again! Sarajini apologised and slid into her place between Jim Bokonofsky and Herbert Bakunin. The group was now complete. The solidarity circle perfect and without flaw. Man, woman, man, in a ring of endless alternation round the table. Twelve of them ready to be made one.
waiting to come together to be fused, to lose their twelve separate identities in a larger being. The president stood up, made the sign of the tea. and, switching on the synthetic music, let loose the soft, indefatigable beating of drums and a choir of instruments.
near wind and super string that plangently repeated and repeated the brief and unescapably haunting melody of the first solidarity hymn again again and it was not the ear that heard the pulsing rhythm it was the midriff the wail and clang of those recurring harmonies haunted not the mind but the yearning bowels of compassion The President made another sign of the tea and sat down. The service had begun. The dedicated Soma tablets were placed in the centre of the table.
The loving cup of strawberry ice cream soma was passed from hand to hand, and with the formula, I drink to my annihilation, twelve times quaffed. Then, to the accompaniment of the synthetic orchestra, the first solidarity hymn was sung. Ford We Are Twelve O make us one, like drops within the social river. O make us now together run, as swiftly as thy shining fliver.
Twelve yearning stanzas, and then the loving cup was passed a second time. I drink to the greater being, was now the formula. All drank. tirelessly the music played the drums beat the crying and clashing of the harmonies were an obsession in the melted bowel the second solidarity hymn was sung come greater being social friend annihilating twelve in one we long to die for when we end our larger life has but began again twelve stanzas
by this time the soma had begun to work eyes shone cheeks were flushed the inner light of universal benevolence broke out on every face in happy friendly smiles even bernard felt himself a little melted when morgana rothstrahl turned and beamed at him he did his best to beam back but the eyebrow the black two-in-one
Alas, it was still there. He couldn't ignore it, couldn't, however hard he tried. The melting hadn't gone far enough. Perhaps if he had been sitting between Fifi and Joanna— for the third time the loving cup went round i drink to the imminence of his coming said morgana rothschild whose turn it happened to be to initiate the circular rite. Her tone was loud, exultant. She drank and passed the cup to Bernard. I drink to the imminence of his coming.
he repeated with a sincere attempt to feel that the coming was imminent but the eyebrow continued to haunt him and the coming so far as he was concerned was horribly remote he drank and handed the cup to Clara Detting. It'll be a failure again, he said to himself. I know it will. But he went on doing his best to beam. The loving cup had made its circuit. Lifting his hand, The president gave a signal. The chorus broke out into the third solidarity hymn. Feel how the greater being comes.
Rejoice, and in rejoicings die. Melt in the music of the drums, for I am you, and you are I. As verse succeeded verse, the voices thrilled with an ever intenser excitement. The sense of the coming's imminence was like an electric tension in the air. The president switched off the music, and with the final note of the final stanza, there was absolute silence.
the silence of stretched expectancy quivering and creeping with a galvanic life the president reached out his hand And suddenly a voice, a deep, strong voice, more musical than any merely human voice, richer, warmer, more vibrant with love and yearning and compassion, a wonderful, mysterious, supernatural voice, spoke from above their heads very slowly. Oh, Ford! Ford! Ford! It said diminishingly, and on a descending scale, a sensation of warmth.
radiated thrillingly out from the solar plexus to every extremity of the bodies of those who listened tears came into their eyes their hearts their bowels seemed to move within them as though with an independent life forward they were melting forward dissolved dissolved then in another tone suddenly startlingly listen trumpeted the voice listen They listened, after a pause, sunk to a whisper, but a whisper somehow more penetrating than the loudest cry. The feet of the greater being!
it went on and repeated the words the feet of the greater being the whisper almost expired the feet of the greater being are on the stairs. And once more there was silence. and the expectancy momentarily relaxed was stretched again tauter tauter almost to the tearing point the feet of the greater being oh they heard them they heard them coming softly down the stairs coming nearer and nearer down the invisible stairs the feet of the greater being
And suddenly the tearing point was reached, her eyes staring, her lips parted, Morgana Rothschild sprang to her feet. I hear him! she cried. I hear him! "'He's coming!' shouted Seregini Engels. "'Yes! He's coming! I hear him!' Fifi Bradlaugh and Tom Kabaguchi rose simultaneously to their feet. "'Oh! Oh! Oh!' Joanna inarticulately testified. He's coming! yelled Jim Bokanofsky.
The president leaned forward and with a touch released a delirium of cymbals and blown brass, a fever of tom-tomming. Oh, he's coming! screamed Clara Detedink. and it was as though she were having her throat cut. Feeling that it was time for him to do something, Bernard also jumped up and shouted, I hear him! He's coming! But it wasn't true.
he heard nothing and for him nobody was coming nobody in spite of the music in spite of the mounting excitement but he waved his arms he shouted with the best of them And when the others began to jig and stamp and shuffle, he also jigged and shuffled. Round they went.
A circular procession of dancers, each with hands on the hips of the dancer proceeding, round and round, shouting in unison, stamping to the rhythm of the music with their feet, beating it, beating it out with hands on the buttocks in front. Twelve pairs of hands beating as one, as one. Twelve buttocks slabbily resounding. Twelve as one.
Twelve as one. I hear him. I hear him coming. The music quickened. Faster beat the feet. Faster, faster fell the rhythmic hands. And all at once a great synthetic bass boomed. the words which announced the approaching atonement and final consummation of solidarity the coming of the twelve in one the incarnation of the greater being Oh, gee. Oh, gee. it sang, while the Tom-Toms continued to beat their feverish tattoo. Orgy! Porgy! Ford and fun! Kiss the girls and make them one!
Boys at one with girls at peace. Orgy porgy gives release. orgy porgy the dancers caught up the liturgical refrain orgy porgy ford and fun kiss the girls And as they sang, the lights began slowly to fade, to fade, and at the same time to grow warmer, richer, redder, until at last they were dancing in the crimson twilight of an embryo store.
Orgy! Porgy! In their blood-coloured and fetal darkness, the dancers continued for a while to circulate, to beat and beat out the indefatigable rhythm. Orgy! Porgy!
then the circle wavered broke fell in partial disintegration on the ring of couches which surrounded circle enclosing circle the table and its planetary chairs orgy tenderly the deep voice crooned and cooed in the red twilight it was as though some enormous negro dove were hovering benevolently over the now prone or supine dances they were standing on the roof big henry had just sung eleven the night was calm and warm wasn't it wonderful
said fifi bradlaugh wasn't it simply wonderful she looked at bernard with an expression of rapture but of rapture in which there was no trace of agitation or excitement, for to be excited is still to be unsatisfied. Hers was the calm ecstasy of achieved consummation.
the peace not of mere vacant satiety and nothingness but of balanced life of energies at rest and in equilibrium a rich and living peace for the solidarity service had given as well as taken drawn off only to replenish she was full she was made perfect she was still more than merely herself Don't you think it was wonderful? she insisted, looking into Bernard's face with those supernaturally shining eyes. Yes, I thought it was wonderful.
He lied and looked away. The sight of her transfigured face was at once an accusation and an ironical reminder of his own separateness. he was as miserably isolated now as he had been when the service began more isolated by reason of his unreplenished emptiness his dead satiety separate and unatoned while the others were being fused into the greater being alone even in morgana's embrace much more alone indeed more hopelessly himself
than he had ever been in his life before. He had emerged from that crimson twilight into the common electric glare, with a self-consciousness intensified to the pitch of agony. He was... Utterly miserable. And perhaps, her shining eyes accused him, perhaps it was his own fault. Quite wonderful, he repeated. But the only thing he could think of... was Morgana's eyebrow. Chapter 6 Odd, odd, odd.
was Lenin's verdict on Bernard Marx. So odd, indeed, that in the course of the succeeding weeks she had wondered more than once whether she shouldn't change her mind about the New Mexico holiday and go instead to the North Pole with Benito Hoover. the trouble was that she knew the north pole had been there with george edsel only last summer and what was more found it pretty grim nothing to do
and the hotel too hopelessly old-fashioned. No television laid on in the bedrooms, no scent organ, only the most putrid synthetic music, and not more than twenty-five escalator squash courts for over two hundred guests.
no decidedly she couldn't face the north pole again added to which she had only been to america once before and even then how inadequately a cheap weekend in new york had it been with jean-jacques habibula or bokanovsky jones she couldn't remember anyhow it was of absolutely no importance the prospect of flying west again and for a whole week
was very inviting. Moreover, for at least three days of that week, they would be in the savage reservation. Not more than half a dozen people in the whole centre had ever been inside a savage reservation.
As an Alpha Plus psychologist, Bernard was one of the few men she knew entitled to a permit. For Lenina, the opportunity was unique. And yet... so unique also was bernard's oddness that she had hesitated to take it had actually thought of risking the poll again with funny old benito at least benito was normal whereas bernard
alcohol in his blood surrogate was fanny's explanation of every eccentricity but henry with whom one evening when they were in bed together lenina had rather anxiously discussed her new lover Henry had compared poor Bernard to a rhinoceros. You can't teach a rhinoceros tricks, he had explained in his brief and vigorous style. Some men are almost rhinoceroses. They don't respond properly to conditioning, poor devils.
"'Bernard's one of them. Luckily for him, he's pretty good at his job, otherwise the director would never have kept him. However,' he added consolingly, "'I think he's pretty harmless.' "'Pretty harmless, perhaps.' but also pretty disquieting that mania to start with for doing things in private which meant in practice not doing anything at all for what was there that one could do in private apart of course from going to bed
But one couldn't do that all the time. Yes, what was there? Precious little. The first afternoon they went out together was particularly fine. Lenina had suggested a swim at Torquay Country Club.
followed by dinner at the oxford union but bernard thought that there would be too much of a crowd then what about a round of electromagnetic gulf at st andrew's but again no bernard considered that electromagnetic gulf was a waste of time then what's time for asked lenina in some astonishment apparently for going walks in the lake district
"'for that was what he now proposed. "'Land on the top of Skiddor, "'and walk for a couple of hours in the heather. "'Alone with you, Lenina.' "'But, Bernard, we shall be alone all night.' bernard blushed and looked away i meant alone for talking he mumbled talking but what about walking and talking that seemed a very odd way of spending an afternoon
In the end, she persuaded him, much against his will, to fly over to Amsterdam to see the semi-demi-finals of the Women's Heavyweight Wrestling Championship. Oh, in a crowd, he grumbled, as usual. he remained obstinately gloomy the whole afternoon wouldn't talk to leninous friends of whom they met dozens in the ice cream soma bar between the wrestling bouts and in spite of his misery
absolutely refused to take the half-gram raspberry sundae which he pressed upon him. I'd rather be myself, he said, myself and Nasty, not somebody else, however jolly. a gram in time saves nine said lenina producing a bright treasure of sleep-taught wisdom bernard pushed away the prophet glass impatiently now don't lose your temper she said Remember, one cubic centimetre cures ten gloomy sentiments. Oh, for Ford's sake, be quiet! he shouted. Lenina shrugged her shoulders.
a gram is always better than a dam she concluded with dignity and drank the sundae herself on their way back across the channel bernard insisted on stopping his propeller and hovering on his helicopter screws within a hundred feet of the waves the weather had taken a change for the worse a south-westerly wind had sprung up the sky was cloudy look he commanded But it's horrible, said Lenina, shrinking back from the window.
She was appalled by the rushing emptiness of the night, by the black foam-flecked water heaving beneath them, by the pale face of the moon so haggard and distracted among the hastening clouds. Let's turn on the radio quick. She reached for the dialing knob on the dashboard and turned it at random. "'Skies are blue inside of you,' sang sixteen tremoloing falsettos. "'The weather's always!' Then a hiccup.
and silence. Bernard had switched off the current. I want to look at the sea in peace, he said. One can't even look with that beastly noise going on.
but it's lovely and i don't want to look but i do he insisted it makes me feel as though he hesitated searching for words with which to express himself as though i were more of me if you see what i mean more on my own not so completely a part of something else not just a cell in the social body doesn't it make you feel like that lenina but lenina was crying
horrible it's horrible she kept repeating and how can you talk like that about not wanting to be part of the social body after all everyone works for everyone else "'We can't do without anyone. Even Epsilons—' "'Yes, I know,' said Bernard derisively. "'Even Epsilons are useful. So am I, and I damn well wish I weren't.' Lenina was shocked by his blasphemy. Bernard, she protested in a voice of amazed distress, how can you? In a different key, how...
Can I? he repeated meditatively. No, the real problem is, how is it that I can't? Or rather, because, after all, I know quite well why I can't. What would it be like if I could, if I were free, not enslaved by my conditioning? But, Bernard, you're saying the most awful things. Don't you wish you were free, Lenina? I don't know what you mean. I am free. Free to have the most wonderful time. Everybody's happy nowadays.
He laughed. Yes, everybody's happy nowadays. We begin giving the children that at five. But wouldn't you like to be free to be happy in some other way, Lenina? "'In your own way, for example, not in everybody else's way.' "'I don't know what you mean,' she repeated, then turning to him. "'Oh, do let's go back, Bernard,' she besought. "'I do so hate it here.' Don't you like being with me? But of course, Bernard, it's this horrible place. I thought we'd be more...
More together here with nothing but the sea and moon. More together than in that crowd, or even in my rooms. Don't you understand that? I don't understand anything. she said with decision, determined to reserve her incomprehension intact. nothing least of all she continued in another tone why you don't take soma when you have these dreadful ideas of yours you'd forget all about them and instead of feeling miserable you'd be jolly so
"'Jolly!' she repeated, and smiled, for all the puzzled anxiety in her eyes, with what was meant to be an inviting and voluptuous cajolery. He looked at her in silence. his face unresponsive and very grave, looked at her intently. After a few seconds, Lenina's eyes flinched away. She uttered a nervous little laugh, tried to think of something to say, and couldn't.
the silence prolonged itself when bernard spoke at last it was in a small tired voice all right then he said we'll go back and stepping hard on the accelerator he sent the machine rocketing up into the sky at four thousand he started his propeller They flew in silence for a minute or two, then suddenly Bernard began to laugh. Rather oddly, Lennon thought, but still it was laughter. Feeling better? she ventured to ask.
for answer he lifted one hand from the controls and slipping his arm round her began to fondle her breasts thank ford she said to herself he is all right again half an hour later They were back in his rooms. Bernard swallowed four tablets of Soma at a gulp, turned on the radio and television, and began to undress. Well?
Lenina inquired with significant archness when they met next afternoon on the roof. Did you think it was fun yesterday? Bernard nodded. They climbed into the plane. A little jolt and they were off. "'Everyone says I'm awfully pneumatic,' said Lenina, reflectively, patting her own legs. "'Awfully.' But there was an expression of pain in Bernard's eyes. "'Like meat,' he was thinking.
She looked up with a certain anxiety. But you don't think I'm too plump, do you? He shook his head, like so much meat. You think I'm all right? Another nod. in every way perfect he said aloud and inwardly she thinks of herself that way she doesn't mind being meat Lenin smiled triumphantly, but her satisfaction was premature. All the same, he went on after a little pause, I still rather wish it had all ended differently. Differently?
were there other endings i didn't want it to end with our going to bed he specified lenina was astonished not at once not the first day But then what? He began to talk a lot of incomprehensible and dangerous nonsense. Lenina did her best to stop the ears of her mind.
but every now and then a phrase would insist on becoming audible to try the effect of arresting my impulses she heard him say the words seemed to touch a spring in her mind never put off till to-morrow the fun you can have to-day she said gravely two hundred repetitions twice a week from fourteen to sixteen and a half was all his comment that mad
Bad talk rambled on. I want to know what passion is, she heard him saying. I want to feel something strongly. When the individual feels, the community reels, Lenina pronounced. Well, why shouldn't it reel a bit? Bernard! But Bernard remained unabashed. Adults, intellectually enduring working hours, he went on, infants where feeling and desire are concerned.
Our Ford loved infants. Ignoring the interruption, it suddenly struck me the other day, continued Bernard, that it might be possible to be an adult all the time. I don't understand. Lenina's tone was firm. I know you don't, and that's why we went to bed together yesterday, like infants, instead of being adults and waiting. But it was fun, Lenina insisted.
wasn't it oh the greatest fun he answered but in a voice so mournful with an expression so profoundly miserable that lenina felt all her triumph suddenly evaporate perhaps he had found her too plump after all i told you so was all that fanny said when lenina came and made her confidences it's the alcohol they put in his surrogate
all the same lennon insisted i do like him he has such awfully nice hands and the way he moves his shoulders that's very attractive she sighed but i wish he weren't so odd halting for a moment outside the door of the director's room bernard drew a deep breath and squared his shoulders bracing himself to meet the dislike and disapproval which he was certain of finding within he knocked and entered a permit for you to initial director he said as airily as possible
and laid the paper on the writing-table. The director glanced at him sirely. But the stamp of the World Controller's Office was at the head of the paper, and the signature of Mustapha Mond, bold and black, across the bottom.
everything was perfectly in order the director had no choice he penciled his initials two small pale letters abject at the feet of mustapha and was about to return the paper without a word of comment or genial ford speed when his eye was caught by something written in the body of the permit for the new mexican reservation he said, and his tone, the face he lifted to Bernard, expressed a kind of agitated astonishment. Surprised by his surprise, Bernard nodded. There was a silence.
The director leaned back in his chair, frowning. "'How long ago was it?' he said, speaking more to himself than to Bernard. "'Twenty years, I suppose, nearer twenty-five.' i must have been your age he sighed and shook his head bernard felt extremely uncomfortable a man so conventional so scrupulously correct as the director and to commit so gross a solecism it made him want to hide his face to run out of the room
not that he himself saw anything intrinsically objectionable in people talking about the remote past that was one of those hypnopedic prejudices he had so he imagined completely got rid of what made him feel shy was the knowledge that the director disapproved disapproved and yet had been betrayed into doing the forbidden thing under what inward compulsion through his discomfort
Bernard eagerly listened. I have the same idea as you, the director was saying. Wanted to have a look at the savages. Got a permit for New Mexico and went there for my summer holiday.
With the girl I was having at the moment, she was a beta minus, and I think—he shut his eyes—I think she had yellow hair. Anyhow, she was pneumatic, but— particularly pneumatic i remember that well we went there and we looked at the savages and we rode about on horses and all that and then it was almost the last day of my leave then
Well, she got lost. We'd gone riding up one of those revolting mountains, and it was horribly hot and oppressive, and after lunch we went to sleep. Or at least I did. She must have gone for a walk alone. At any rate, when I woke up, she wasn't there, and the most frightful thunderstorm I've ever seen was just bursting on us, and it poured...
and roared and flashed, and the horses broke loose and ran away, and I fell down trying to catch them and hurt my knee so I could hardly walk. Still I searched and shouted and searched, but there was no sign of her. Then I thought she must have gone back to the rest-house by herself, so I crawled down into the valley by the way we had come. My knee was agonisingly painful, and I had lost my soma. It took me hours.
I didn't get back to the rest-house till after midnight, and she wasn't there, she wasn't there, the director repeated. There was a silence. Well, he resumed at last. The next day there was a search, but we couldn't find her. She must have fallen into a gully somewhere, or been eaten by a mountain lion. Ford knows. Anyhow, it was horrible.
It upset me very much at the time, more than it ought to have done, I dare say, because after all it's the sort of accident that might have happened to anyone, and of course the social body persists, although the component cells may change. but this sleep-talk consolation did not seem to be very effective shaking his head i actually dream about it sometimes the director went on in a low voice dream of being woken up by that
Peel of thunder and finding her gone. Dream of searching and searching for her under the trees. He lapsed into the silence of reminiscence. You must have had a terrible shock. said Bernard, almost enviously. At the sound of his voice, the director started into a guilty realisation of where he was, shot a glance at Bernard, and averted his eyes, blushed darkly.
looked at him again with sudden suspicion and angrily on his dignity don't imagine he said that i'd had any indecorous relation with the girl nothing emotional nothing long drawn it was all perfectly healthy and normal He handed Bernard the permit. I really don't know why I bored you with this trivial anecdote. Furious with himself for having given away a discreditable secret, he vented his rage on Bernard.
the look in his eyes was now frankly malignant and i should like to take this opportunity mr marks he went on of saying that i'm not at all pleased with the reports i receive of your behaviour outside working hours You may say that this is not my business, but it is. I have the good name of the centre to think of. My workers must be above suspicion, particularly those of the highest castes.
Alphas are so conditioned that they do not have to be infantile in their emotional behaviour, but that is all the more reason for their making a special effort to conform. It is their duty to be infantile, even against their inclination. And so, Mr. Marks, I give you fair warning. The director's voice vibrated.
with an indignation that had now become wholly righteous and impersonal was the expression of the disapproval of society itself. If ever I hear again of any lapse from a proper standard of infantile decor... I shall ask for your transference to a sub-centre, preferably to Iceland. Good morning. And swiveling round in his chair, he picked up his pen and began to write.
that'll teach him he said to himself but he was mistaken for bernard left the room with a swagger exulting as he banged the door behind him in the thought that he stood alone embattled against the order of things elated by the intoxicating consciousness of his individual significance and importance even the thought of persecution left him undismayed was rather tonic, then depressing. He felt strong enough to meet and overcome affliction, strong enough to face even Iceland.
and this confidence was the greater for his not for a moment really believing that he would be called upon to face anything at all people simply weren't transferred for things like that iceland was just a threat a most stimulating and life-giving threat walking along the corridor he actually whistled heroic was the account he gave that evening of his interview with the d h c whereupon it concluded
I simply told him to go to the bottomless past and marched out of the room, and that was that. He looked at Helmholtz Watson expectantly, awaiting his due reward of sympathy, encouragement. admiration but no word came helmholtz sat silent staring at the floor he liked bernard He was grateful to him for being the only man of his acquaintance with whom he could talk about the subjects he felt to be important. Nevertheless, there were things in Bernard which he hated.
boasting, for example, and the outbursts of an abject self-pity with which it alternated, and his deplorable habit of being bold after the event, and full in absence of the most extraordinary presence of mind. He hated these things just because he liked Bernard. The seconds passed. Helmholtz continued to stare at the floor. And suddenly Bernard blushed and turned away.
the journey was quite uneventful the blue pacific rocket was two and a half minutes early at new orleans lost four minutes in a tornado over texas but flew into a favourable air current at longitude ninety five west and was able to land at Santa Fe less than forty seconds behind schedule time. Forty seconds on a six-and-a-half-hour flight? Not so bad, Lennon had conceded. They slept that night at Santa Fe.
the hotel was excellent incomparably better for example than that horrible aurora bora palace in which lenin had suffered so much the previous summer liquid air Television, vibro-vacuum massage, radio, boiling caffeine solution, hot contraceptives and eight different kinds of scent were laid on in every bedroom.
the synthetic music plant was working as they entered the hall and left nothing to be desired a notice in the lift announced that there were sixty escalator squash racket courts in the hotel and that obstacle and electromagnetic golf could both be played in the park but it sounds simply too lovely cried lenina i almost wish we could stay here sixty escalator squash courts
There won't be any in the reservation, Bernard warned her. I'm no scent, no television, no hot water even. If you feel you can't stand it, stay here till I come back. Lennon was quite offended. Of course I can stand it. I only said it was lovely here because, well, because progress is lovely, isn't it? Five hundred repetitions once a week from thirteen to seventeen.
said Bernard wearily, as though to himself. What did you say? I said that progress was lovely. That's why you mustn't come to the reservation unless you really want to. But I do want to. Very well, then. said bernard and it was almost a threat their permit required the signature of the warden of the reservation at whose office next morning they duly presented themselves an epsilon plus negro porter took in Bernard's card, and they were admitted almost immediately.
the warden was a blond and brachycephalic alpha minus short red moon-faced and broad-shouldered with a loud booming voice very well adapted to the utterance of hypnopedic wisdom He was a mine of irrelevant information and unasked for good advice. Once started, he went on and on, boomingly.
560,000 square kilometers divided into four distinct sub-reservations, each surrounded by a high-tension wire fence. At this moment, and for no apparent reason, bernard suddenly remembered that he had left the eau de cologne tap in his bathroom wide open and running supplied with current from the grand canyon hydroelectric station cost me a fortune by the time i get back
With his mind's eye, Bernard saw the needle on the scent-meter creeping round and round, ant-like, indefatigably. Quickly, telephone to Helmholtz Watson. upwards of 5,000 kilometres of fencing at 60,000 volts. You don't say so, said Lenina politely.
not knowing in the least what the warden had said but taking her cue from his dramatic pause when the warden started booming she had inconspicuously swallowed half a gram of soma with the result that she could now sit serenely not listening thinking of nothing at all but with her large blue eyes fixed on the warden's face in an expression of rapt attention
To touch the fence is instant death, pronounced the warden solemnly. There is no escape from a savage reservation. The word escape was suggestive. perhaps said bernard half rising we ought to think of going the little black needle was scurrying an insect nibbling through time eating into his money No escape, repeated the warden, waving him back into his chair, and, as the permit was not yet countersigned, Bernard had no choice but to obey. Those who were born in the reservation...
"'And remember, my dear young lady,' he added, leering obscenely at Lenina and speaking in an improper whisper, Remember that in the reservation, children still are born, yes, actually born, revolting as that may seem. He hoped that this reference to a shameful subject would make Lennon a blush, but she only smiled with simulated intelligence and said, You don't say so.
Disappointed, the warden began again. Those, I repeat, who are born in the reservation are destined to die there. Destined to die. a deciliter of eau de cologne every minute six litres an hour perhaps bernard tried again we ought leaning forward the director tapped the table with his forefinger You ask me how many people live in the reservation, and I reply, triumphantly, I reply that we do not know. We can only guess. You...
Don't say. My dear young lady, I do say so. Six times twenty-four. No, it would be nearer six times thirty-six. Bernard was pale and trembling with impatience. But... Inexorably, the booming continued. About sixty thousand Indians and half-breeds. Absolute savages. Our inspectors occasionally visit. Otherwise, no communication whatever with the civilized world. Still preserve their repulsive habits and customs. Marriage, if you know what that is, my dear young lady, family.
no conditioning, monstrous superstitions, Christianity and totemism and ancestor worship, extinct languages such as Zuni and Spanish and Athapascan. Pumers, porcupines, and other ferocious animals, infectious diseases, priests, venomous lizards. You don't say so. They got away at last. Bernard dashed to the telephone, quick, quick, but it took him nearly three minutes to get on to Helmholtz Watson. We might be among the savages already, he complained, damned incompetence.
heather graham suggested lenina he refused preferring his anger and at last thank ford he was through and yes it was helmholtz helmholtz to whom he explained what had happened and who promised to go round at once at once and turn off the tap yes at once but took this opportunity to tell him what the DHC had said in public yesterday evening. What? He's looking out for someone to take my place?
Bernard's voice was agonised. So it's actually decided? Did he mention Iceland? You say he did? Ford! Iceland! He hung up the receiver and turned back to Lenina. His face was pale, his expression utterly dejected. What's the matter? she asked. The matter? He dropped heavily into a chair. I'm going to be sent to Iceland.
often in the past he had wondered what it would be like to be subjected somerless and with nothing but his own inward resources to rely on to some great trial some pain some persecution he had even longed for affliction As recently as a week ago, in the director's office, he had imagined himself courageously resisting, stoically accepting suffering without a word. The director's threats had actually elated him, made him feel larger than life.
but that as he now realized was because he had not taken the threats quite seriously he had not believed that when it came to the point the d h c would ever do anything now that it looked as though the threats were really to be fulfilled bernard was appalled of that imagined stoicism that theoretical courage not a trace was left
he raged against himself what a fool against the director how unfair not to give him that other chance that other chance which he now had no doubt at all he had always intended to take Iceland! Iceland! Lenina shook her head. Was and will make me ill, she quoted. I take a gram and only am.
in the end she persuaded him to swallow four tablets of soma five minutes later roots and fruits were abolished the flower of the present rosily blossomed a message from the porter announced that at the warden's orders a reservation guard had come round with a plane and was waiting on the roof of the hotel they went up at once
an octoroon in gamma-green uniform saluted and proceeded to recite the morning's programme a bird's-eye view of ten or a dozen of the principal pueblos then a landing for lunch in the valley of malpas The rest-house was comfortable there, and up at the Pueblo the savages would probably be celebrating their summer festival. It would be the best place to spend the night. They took their seats in the plane and set off.
Ten minutes later, they were crossing the frontier that separated civilization from savagery. uphill and down across the deserts of salt or sand through forests into the violet depth of canyons over crag and peak and table-top mesa The fence marched on and on, irresistibly the straight line, the geometrical symbol of triumphant human purpose.
and at its foot here and there a mosaic of white bones a still unrotted carcass dark on the tawny ground mark the place where deer or steer puma or porcupine or coyote or the greedy turkey buzzards down by the whiff of carrion and fulminated as though by a poetic justice, had come too close to the destroying wires.
They never learn, said the green uniformed pilot, pointing down at the skeletons on the ground below them. And they never will learn, he added, and laughed, as though he had somehow scored a personal triumph over the electrocuted...
animals bernard also laughed after two grams of soma the joke seemed for some reason good laughed and then almost immediately dropped off to sleep and sleeping was carried over taos and tesuki over nambi and picoris and pohaki over sia and cochiti over laguna and acoma and the enchanted mesa over and cibola and ojo caliente and woke at last to find the machine standing on the ground
Lenin carrying the suitcases into a small square house, and the gamma-green octoroon talking incomprehensibly with a young Indian. "'Mile pass,' explained the pilot, as Bernard stepped out. This is the rest-house, and there's a dance this afternoon at the Pueblo. He'll take you there, he pointed to the sullen young savage. Funny, I expect, he grinned. Everything they do is funny.
and with that he climbed into the plane and started up the engines back to-morrow and remember he added reassuringly to lenina they're perfectly tame savages won't do you any harm They've got enough experience of gas bombs to know they mustn't play any tricks. Still laughing, he threw the helicopter screws into gear, accelerated, and was gone.
CHAPTER VII The mesa was like a ship becalmed in a strait of lion-coloured dust. The channel wound between precipitous banks, and slanting from one wall to the other across the valley ran a streak of green the river and its fields on the prow of that stone ship in the centre of the strait and seemingly a part of it a shaped and geometrical outcrop of the naked rock stood the pueblo of malpese block above block each story smaller than the one below
the tall houses rose like stepped and amputated pyramids into the blue sky. At their feet lay a straggle of low buildings, a crisscross of walls, and on three sides the precipices fell sheer into the plain.
a few columns of smoke mounted perpendicularly into the windless air and were lost queer said lenina very queer it was her ordinary word of condemnation i don't like it and i don't like that man she pointed to the indian guide who had been appointed to take them up to the pueblo her feeling was evidently reciprocated The very back of the man, as he walked along before them, was hostile, sullenly contemptuous. Besides, she lowered her voice, he smells. Bernard did not attempt to deny it.
they walked on suddenly it was as though the whole air had come alive and were pulsing pulsing with the indefatigable movement of blood up there in malpais the drums were being beaten Their feet fell in with the rhythm of that mysterious heart. They quickened their pace. Their path led them to the foot of the precipice.
The sides of the great Mesa ship towered over them three hundred feet to the gunwale. I wish we could have brought the plane, said Lenina, looking up resentfully at the blank impending rock face. I hate walking. And you feel so small when you're on the ground at the bottom of a hill. They walked along for some way in the shadow of the mesa, rounded a projection, and there, in a water-worn ravine, was the way up the companion ladder.
They climbed. It was a very steep path that zigzagged from side to side of the gully. Sometimes the pulsing of the drums was all but inaudible. At others, they seemed to be beating only just round the corner. When they were halfway up, an eagle flew past so close to them that the wind of his wings blew chill on their faces.
in a crevice of the rock lay a pile of bones it was all oppressively queer and the indians smelt stronger and stronger they emerged at last from the ravine into the full sunlight the top of the mesa was a flat deck of stone. Like the charing tea tower, was Lenina's comment. But she was not allowed to enjoy her discovery of this reassuring resemblance for long. A padding of soft feet made them turn round.
naked from throat to navel their dark brown bodies painted with white lines like asphalt tennis courts leniner was later to explain their faces inhuman with daubings of scarlet black and ochre two indians came running along the path their black hair was braided with fox fur and red flannel cloaks of turkey feathers fluttered from their shoulders huge feather diadems exploded gaudily round their heads
with every step they took came the clink and rattle of their silver bracelets their heavy necklaces of bone and turquoise beads they came on without a word running quietly in their deerskin moccasins One of them was holding a feather brush. The other carried in either hand what looked at a distance like three or four pieces of thick rope. One of the ropes writhed uneasily, and suddenly Lenina saw that they were snakes.
the men came nearer and nearer their dark eyes looked at her but without giving any sign of recognition any smallest sign that they had seen her or were aware of her existence the writhing snake hung limp again with the rest the men passed i don't like it said lenina i don't like it she liked even less what awaited her at the entrance to the pueblo
where their guide had left them while he went inside for instructions the dirt to start with the piles of rubbish the dust the dogs the flies her face wrinkled up into a grimace of disgust She held her handkerchief to her nose. But how can they live like this? She broke out in a voice of indignant incredulity. It wasn't possible. Bernard shrugged his shoulders philosophically.
anyhow he said they've been doing it for at least five or six thousand years so i suppose they must be used to it by now but cleanliness is next to fraudliness she insisted Yes, and civilization is sterilization, Bernard went on, concluding on a tone of irony the second hypnopedic lesson in elementary hygiene.
"'But these people have never heard of our ford, "'and they aren't civilised, so there's no point in—' "'Oh!' she gripped his arm. "'Look!' An almost naked Indian was very slowly climbing down the ladder from the first floor terrace of a neighbouring house, rung after rung, with the tremulous caution of extreme old age. His face was profoundly wrinkled and black, like a mask of obsidian. The toothless mouth had fallen in.
At the corners of the lips and on each side of the chin, a few long bristles gleamed almost white against the dark skin. The long, unbraided hair hung down in grey wisps round his face. His body was bent and emaciated to the bone, almost fleshless. Very slowly he came down, pausing at each rung before he ventured another step. "'What's the matter with him?' whispered Lenina.
Her eyes were wide with horror and amazement. He's old, that's all, Bernard answered as carelessly as he could. He too was startled, but he made an effort to seem unmoved. Old? she repeated. But the director's old. Lots of people are old. They're not like that. That's because we don't allow them to be like that.
We preserve them from diseases. We keep their internal secretions artificially balanced at a youthful equilibrium. We don't permit their magnesium-calcium ratio to fall below what it was at thirty. We give them transfusions of young blood. We keep their metabolism permanently stimulated. So of course they don't look like that. Partly, he added, because most of them die long before they reach this old creature's age.
Youth almost unimpaired till sixty, and then crack the end. But Lenina was not listening. She was watching the old man. Slowly, slowly, he came down. His feet... Touch the ground. He turned. In their deep-sunken orbits, his eyes were still extraordinarily bright. They looked at her for a long moment, expressionlessly, without surprise, as though she had not been there at all.
then slowly with bent back the old man hobbled past them and was gone but it's terrible lennon whispered it's awful we ought not have come here She felt in her pocket for her soma, only to discover that by some unprecedented oversight she had left the bottle down at the rest-house. Bernard's pockets were also empty. Lenina was left to face the horrors of Malpace unaided. They came crowding in on her, thick and fast.
The spectacle of two young women giving the breast to their babies made her blush and turn away her face. She had never seen anything so indecent in her life. And what made it worse was that, instead of tactfully ignoring it, Bernard proceeded to make open comments on this revoltingly viviparous scene. Ashamed.
now that the effects of the soma had worn off of the weakness he had displayed that morning in the hotel he went out of his way to show himself strong and unorthodox what a wonderfully intimate relationship he said, deliberately outrageous, and what an intensity of feeling it must generate. I often think one must have missed something in not having had a mother, and perhaps you've missed something in not being a mother, Lenina.
imagine yourself sitting there with a little baby of your own bernard how can you the passage of an old woman with ophthalmia and a disease of the skin distracted her from her indignation let's go away she begged i don't like it but at this moment their guide came back and beckoning them to follow led the way down the narrow street between the houses they rounded a corner
a dead dog was lying on a rubbish heap a woman with a goiter was looking for lice in the hair of a small girl their guide halted at the foot of a ladder raised his hand perpendicularly then darted it horizontally forward they did what he mutely commanded climbed the ladder and walked through the doorway to which it gave access into a long narrow room rather dark and smelling of smoke and cooked grease and long worn long unwashed clothes
At the further end of the room was another doorway, through which came a shaft of sunlight and the noise, very loud and close, of the drums. They stepped across the threshold and found themselves on a wide terrace. below them shut in by the tall houses was the village square crowded with indians bright blankets and feathers in black hair and the glint of turquoise and dark skin shining with heat
Lenina put her handkerchief to her nose again. In the open space at the centre of the square were two circular platforms of masonry and trampled clay. The roofs, it was evident, of underground chambers. for in the centre of each platform was an open hatchway with a ladder emerging from the lower darkness a sound of subterranean flute-playing came up and was almost lost in the steady remorseless persistence of the drums
Lenina liked the drums. Shutting her eyes, she abandoned herself to their soft, repeated thunder, allowed it to invade her consciousness more and more completely, till at last there was nothing left in the world but that one deep... pulse of sound. It reminded her reassuringly of the synthetic noises made at Solidarity Services and Ford's Day celebrations. Orgy-porgy, she whispered to herself.
The drums beat out just the same rhythms. There was a sudden startling burst of singing, hundreds of male voices crying out fiercely in a harsh metallic unison. A few long notes... and silence the thunderous silence of the drums then shrill in a neighing treble the women's answer Then again the drums, and once more the men's deep, savage affirmation of their manhood. Queer, yes, the place was queer.
so was the music so were the clothes and the goiters and the skin diseases and the old people but the performance itself there seemed to be nothing specially queer about that It reminds me of a lower caste community sing, she told Bernard. But a little later it was reminding her a good deal less of that innocuous function.
for suddenly there had swarmed up from those round chambers underground a ghastly troop of monsters hideously masked or painted out of all semblance of humanity they had tramped out a strange limping dance round the square round and again round, singing as they went round and round, each time a little faster, and the drums had changed and quickened their rhythm.
so that it became like the pulsing of fever in the ears, and the crowd had begun to sing with the dancers, louder and louder, and first one woman had shrieked, and then another and another, as though they were being killed, and then suddenly the leader of the dancers
The dancers broke out of the line, ran to a big wooden chest, which was standing at one end of the square, raised the lid, and pulled out a pair of black snakes. A great yell went up from the crowd, and all the other dancers ran towards him without stretch. hands. He tossed the snakes to the first comers, then dipped back into the chest for more, more and more, black snakes and brown and mottled. He flung them out, and then the dance began again on a different rhythm. Round and round they went.
with their snakes, snakily, with a soft, undulating movement at the knees and hips, round and round. Then the leader gave a signal, and one after another all the snakes were flung down in the middle of the square. An old man came up from under underground and sprinkled them with cornmeal and from the other hatchway came a woman and sprinkled them with water from a black jar then the old man lifted his hand and startlingly terrifyingly there was
Absolute silence. The drums stop beating. Life seemed to have come to an end. The old man pointed towards the two hatchways that gave entrance to the lower world, and slowly, raised by invisible hands from below, there emerged from the one a painted image of an eagle, from the other... that of a man, naked and nailed to a cross. They hung there, seemingly self-sustained, as though watching. The old man clapped his hands.
Naked, but for a white cotton breechcloth, a boy of about eighteen stepped out of the crowd and stood before him, his hands crossed over his chest, his head bowed. The old man made the sign of the cross over him and turned away. Slowly, the boy began to walk round the writhing heap of snakes.
He had completed the first circuit, and was halfway through the second, when from among the dancers a tall man wearing the mask of a coyote and holding in his hand a whip of plaited leather advanced towards him. The boy moved on as though unaware of the other's existence.