Bye. Disc 5 Chapter 11 After the scene in the fertilizing room, all upper-caste london was wild to see this delicious creature who had fallen on his knees before the director of hatcheries and conditioning or rather the ex-director for the poor man had resigned immediately afterwards and never set foot inside the centre again had flopped down and called him the joke was almost too good to be true my father linda on the contrary cut no ice nobody had the smallest desire to see linda
to say one was a mother that was past a joke it was an obscenity moreover she wasn't a real savage she had been hatched out of a bottle and conditioned like any one else so couldn't have really quaint ideas finally and this was by far the strongest reason for people's not wanting to see poor linda there was her appearance fat having lost her youth with bad teeth and a blotched complexion, and that figure, Ford, you simply couldn't look at her without feeling sick, yes, positively sick.
so the best people were quite determined not to see linda and linda for her part had no desire to see them the return to civilization was for her the return to soma was the possibility of lying in bed and taking holiday after holiday without ever having to come back. to a headache or a fit of vomiting without ever being made to feel as you always felt after Peotl, as though you'd done something so shamefully antisocial that you could never hold up your head again.
soma played none of these unpleasant tricks the holiday it gave was perfect and if the morning after was disagreeable it was so not intrinsically but only by comparison with the joys of the holiday the remedy was to make the holiday continuous greedily she clamoured for ever larger ever more frequent doses Dr. Shaw at first demurred, then let her have what she wanted. She took as much as twenty grams a day. Which will finish her off in a month or two, the doctor confided to Bernard.
one day the respiratory centre will be paralysed no more breathing finished and a good thing too in the end john was forced to give in linda got her soma thenceforward she remained in her little room on the thirty-seventh floor of bernard's apartment house in bed with the radio and television always on and the patchouli tap just dripping
and the soma tablets within reach of her hand there she remained and yet wasn't there at all was all the time away infinitely far away on holiday on holiday in some other world where the music of the radio was a labyrinth of sonorous colours a sliding palpitating labyrinth that led by what beautifully inevitable windings, to a bright centre of absolute conviction, where the dancing images of the television box were the performers in some indescribably delicious all-singing feely.
where the dripping patchouli was more than scent was the sun was a million saxophones was poppet making love only much more so incomparably more and without end no we can't rejuvenate but i'm very glad Dr. Shaw had concluded, to have had this opportunity to see an example of senility in a human being. Thank you so much for calling me in. He shook Bernard warmly by the hand.
It was John, then, that they were after. And, as it was only through Bernard, his accredited guardian, that John could be seen, Bernard now found himself for the first time in his life treated not merely normally, but as a person of outstanding importance there was no more talk of the alcohol in his blood surrogate no gibes at his personal appearance henry foster went out of his way to be friendly
Benito Hoover made him a present of six packets of sex hormone chewing gum. The assistant predestinator came and cadged almost abjectly for an invitation to one of Bernard's evening parties. As for the women... bernard had only to hint at the possibility of an invitation and he could have whichever of them he liked bernard's asked me to meet the savage next wednesday fanny announced triumphantly
i'm so glad said lenina and now you must admit that you were wrong about bernard don't you think he's really rather sweet fanny nodded and i must say she said i was quite gravely surprised the chief bottler the director of predestination three deputy assistant fertilizer generals the Professor of Feelys in the College of Emotional Engineering, the Dean of the Westminster Community Singery, the Supervisor of Buccanovskification. The list of Bernard's notabilities was interminable.
And I had six girls last week, he confided to Helmholtz Watson. One on Monday, two on Tuesday, two more on Friday, and one on Saturday. And if I'd had the time or the inclination, there were at least a dozen more who were only too anxious. Helmholtz listened to his boastings in a silence so gloomily disapproving that Bernard was offended.
you're envious he said helmholtz shook his head i'm rather sad that's all he answered bernard went off in a huff never he told himself never would he speak to helmholtz again the days passed success went fizzily to bernard's head and in the process completely reconciled him as any good intoxicant should do
to a world which, up till then, he had found very unsatisfactory. Insofar as it recognised him as important, the order of things was good. But, reconciled by his success, he yet refused to forego the privilege of criticising this order for the act of criticising heightened his sense of importance made him feel larger Moreover, he did genuinely believe that there were things to criticize. At the same time, he genuinely liked being a success and having all the girls he wanted.
before those who now for the sake of the savage paid their court to him bernard would parade a carping unorthodoxy he was politely listened to but behind his back people shook their heads that young man will come to a bad end they said prophesying the more confidently in that they themselves would in due course personally see to it that the end was bad
he won't find another savage to help him out a second time they said meanwhile however there was the first savage they were polite and because they were polite bernard felt positively gigantic gigantic and at the same time light with elation lighter than air lighter than air said bernard pointing upwards like a pearl in the sky high high above them the weather department's captive balloon shone rosily in the sunshine the said savage
so ran Bernard's instructions, to be shown civilised life in all its aspects. He was being shown a bird's-eye view of it at present, a bird's-eye view from the platform of the Charing-Tee Tower. The stationmaster and the resident meteorologist were acting as guides, but it was Bernard who did most of the talking. intoxicated he was behaving as though at the very least he were a visiting world controller lighter than air the bombay green rocket dropped out of the sky
The passengers alighted. Eight identical Dravidian twins in Khaki looked out of the eight portholes of the cabin, the stewards. Twelve hundred and fifty kilometres an hour. said the station-master impressively what do you think of that mr savage john thought it was very nice still he said ariel could put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes the savage wrote bernard in his report to mustaphamond shows surprisingly little astonishment at or awe of civilized inventions
This is partly due, no doubt, to the fact that he has heard them talked about by the woman Linda, his M-. Mustapha Mond frowned. does the fool think i am too squeamish to see the word written out at full length partly on his interest being focused on what he calls the soul which he besists in regarding as an entity independent of the physical environment, whereas, as I tried to point out to him—
The controller skipped the next sentences, and was just about to turn the page in search of something more interestingly concrete, when his eye was caught by a series of quite extraordinary phrases. Though I must admit... he read, that I agree with the savage in finding civilized infantility too easy or, as he puts it, not expensive enough.
and I would like to take this opportunity of drawing your fortship's attention to— Mustaphamon's anger gave place almost at once to mirth. The idea of this creature solemnly lecturing him— him about the social order was really too grotesque the man must have gone mad i ought to give him a lesson he said to himself then threw back his head and laughed aloud
for the moment at any rate the lesson would not be given it was a small factory of lighting sets for helicopters a branch of the electrical equipment corporation They were met on the roof itself, for that circular letter of recommendation from the controller was magical in its effects, by the chief technician and the human element manager. They walked downstairs into the factory.
Each process, explained the human element manager, is carried out as far as possible by a single Bokonofsky group, and in effect... 83 almost noseless black brachycephalic deltas were cold-pressing. The 56 four-spindle chucking and turning machines were being manipulated by 56 aquiline and ginger gammas. 107 heat-conditioned Epsilon Senegalese were working in the foundry.
33 Delta females, long-headed, sandy, with narrow pelvises, and all within 20 millimetres of 1 metre 69 centimetres tall, were cutting screws. In the assembling room... The dynamos were being put together by two sets of gamma-plus dwarfs. The two low-work tables faced one another. Between them crawled the conveyor with its load of separate parts. 47 blonde heads were confronted by 47 brown ones, 47 snubs by 47 hooks, 47 receding by 47 prognathus chins.
The completed mechanisms were inspected by 18 identical curly auburn girls in gamma green, Packed in crates by 34 short-legged left-handed male delta minuses and loaded into the waiting trucks and lorries by 63 blue-eyed, flaxen and freckled epsilon semi-morons. Oh, brave new world! By some malice of his memory, the savage found himself repeating Miranda's words. Oh, brave new world that has such people in it!
And I assure you, the human element manager concluded as they left the factory, we hardly ever have any trouble with our workers. We always find— But the savage had suddenly broken away from his companions. and was violently retching behind a clump of laurels, as though the solid earth had been a helicopter in an air pocket. The savage? wrote Bernard, refuses to take Soma and seems much distressed because the woman Linda, his M-dash, remains permanently on holiday.
It is worthy of note that, in spite of his M-dashes senility, and the extreme repulsiveness of her appearance, the savage frequently goes to see her, and appears to be much detached to her. an interesting example of the way in which early conditioning can be made to modify and even run counter to natural impulses, in this case the impulse to recoil from an unpleasant object.
At Eton, they alighted on the roof of the upper school. On the opposite side of the schoolyard, the fifty-two stories of Lupton's Tower gleamed white in the sunshine.
college on their left and on their right the school community singery reared their venerable piles of ferro-concrete and vita-glass in the centre of the quadrangle stood the quaint old chrome steel statue of our ford dr gaffney the provost and miss keate the headmistress received them as they stepped out of the plane do you have many twins here the savage asked rather apprehensively as they set out on their tour of inspection
oh no the provost answered eton is reserved exclusively for upper caste boys and girls one egg one adult it makes education more difficult of course but as they'll be called upon to take responsibilities and deal with unexpected emergencies it can't be helped he sighed bernard meanwhile had taken a strong fancy to Miss Keat. If you're free any Monday, Wednesday or Friday evening, he was saying, jerking his thumb towards the savage, he's curious, you know, Bernard added, quaint.
miss keats smiled and her smile was really charming he thought said thank you would be delighted to come to one of his parties the provost opened a door five minutes in that alpha double plus classroom left john a trifle bewildered what is elementary relativity he whispered to bernard bernard tried to explain then thought better of it
and suggested that they should go to some other classroom from behind a door in the corridor leading to the beta minus geography room a ringing soprano voice called one two three four and then, with a weary impatience, as you were. Althusian Drill, explained the headmistress. Most of our girls are Freemartins, of course. I'm a Freemartin myself. she smiled at bernard but we have about eight hundred unsterilized ones who need constant drilling in the beta minus geography room john learnt that a
Savage Reservation is a place which, owing to unfavourable climatic or geological conditions or poverty of natural resources, had not been worth the expense of civilising. A click. the room was darkened and suddenly on the screen above the master's head there were the penitentes of acama prostrating themselves before our lady and wailing as john had heard them wail confessing their sins before jesus on the cross before the eagle image of Pukong. The young Atonians fairly shouted with laughter.
still wailing the penitentes rose to their feet stripped off their upper garments and with knotted whips began to beat themselves blow after blow redoubled The laughter drowned even the amplified record of their groans. But why do they laugh? asked the savage in a pained bewilderment. Why?
the provost turned towards him a still broadly grinning face why because it's so extraordinarily funny in the cinematographic twilight bernard risked a gesture which in the past even total darkness would hardly have emboldened him to make strong in his new importance he put his arm round the headmistress's waist it yielded
Willowy Lee. He was just about to snatch a kiss or two, and perhaps a gentle pinch, when the shutters clicked open again. Perhaps we had better go on, said Miss Keat, and moved towards the door. And this, said the provost a moment later, is the hypnopedic control room. Hundreds of synthetic music boxes, one for each dormitory, stood ranged in shelves round three sides of the room. Pigeon-holed on the 4th were the paper soundtrack rolls on which the various hypnopedic lessons were printed.
you slip the roll in here explained bernard interrupting dr gaffney press down this switch no that one corrected the provost annoyed that one then The rule unwinds, the selenium cells transform the light impulses into sound waves, and— And there you are, Dr. Gaffney concluded. Do they read Shakespeare?
asked the savage as they walked on their way to the biochemical laboratories past the school library certainly not said the headmistress blushing our library said dr gaffney contains only books of reference if our young people need distraction they can get it at the feelies we don't encourage them to indulge in any solitary amusements Five busloads of boys and girls, singing or in a silent embracement, rolled past them over the vitrified highway. Just returned!
explained dr caffney while bernard whispering made an appointment with the headmistress for that very evening from the slough crematorium death conditioning begins at eighteen months every tot spends two mornings a week at a hospital for the dyeing all the best toys are kept there and they get chocolate cream on death days they learn to take dyeing as a matter of course like any other physiological process put in the headmistress professionally eight o'clock at the savoy it was all arranged
on their way back to london they stopped at the television corporation's factory at brentford do you mind waiting here a moment while i go and telephone asked bernard the savage waited and watched the main day shift was just going off duty crowds of lower caste workers were queued up in front of the monorail station
seven or eight hundred gamma, delta and epsilon men and women, with not more than a dozen faces and statues between them. To each of them, with his or her ticket, the booking clerk pushed over a little cardboard pillbox. The long caterpillar of men and women moved slowly forward. What in those, remembering the merchant of Venice, those caskets?
the savage inquired, when Bernard had rejoined him. "'The Dean is sum a ration,' Bernard answered rather indistinctly, for he was masticating a piece of Benito Hoover's chewing-gum. they get it after their work's over four half-gram tablets six on saturdays he took john's arm affectionately and they walked back towards the helicopter lenina came singing into the changing room you seem very pleased with yourself said fanny i am pleased she answered zip bernard rang up half an hour ago zip zip
She stepped out of her shorts. He has an unexpected engagement. Zip. Ask me if I take the savage to the felis this evening. I must fly. She hurried away towards the bathroom. She's a lucky girl. Fanny said to herself as she watched Lenina go. There was no envy in the comment. Good-natured Fanny was merely stating a fact. Lenina was lucky.
lucky in having shared with bernard a generous portion of the savage's immense celebrity lucky in reflecting from her insignificant person the moment's supremely fashionable glory Had not the secretary of the Young Women's Fordian Association asked her to give her a lecture about her experiences? Had she not been invited to the annual dinner of the Aphroditeum Club? Had she not already appeared in the Feely Tone News?
visibly audibly and tactually appeared to countless millions all over the planet hardly less flattering had been the attentions paid her by conspicuous individuals the resident world comptroller's second secretary had asked her to dinner and breakfast she had spent one weekend with the ford chief justice and another with the arch community songster of canterbury
the president of the internal and external secretions corporation was perpetually on the phone and she had been to deauville with the deputy governor of the bank of europe it was wonderful of course and yet in a way she had confessed to fanny i feel as though i were getting something on false pretenses but of course the first thing they all want to know is what it's like to make love to a savage and i have to say i don't know she shook her head
Most of the men don't believe me, of course. But it's true. I wish it weren't, she added sadly inside. He's terribly good-looking, don't you think so? But doesn't he like you? asked Fanny. Sometimes I think he does, and sometimes I think he doesn't. He always does his best to avoid me, goes out of the room when I come in, won't touch me, won't even look at me. But sometimes, if I turn round suddenly, I catch him staring.
and then well you know how men look when they like you yes fanny knew i can't make it out said lenina she couldn't make it out not only was bewildered but also rather upset because you see fanny i like him liked him more and more well now there'd be a real chance she thought as she scented herself after the bath a real chance her high spirits overflowed in song
hug me till you drug me honey kiss me till i'm in a coma hug me honey struggly bunny love's as good as the scent-organ was playing a delightfully refreshing herbal capriccio rippling arpeggios of thyme and lavender of rosemary basil myrtle tarragon a series of daring modulations through the spice keys into ambergris and a slow return through sandalwood camphor cedar and new-mown hay
with occasional subtle touches of discord, a whiff of kidney pudding, the faintest suspicion of pig's dung, back to the simple aromatics with which the piece began.
the final blast of time died away there was a round of applause the lights went up in the synthetic music machine the soundtrack roll began to unwind it was a trio for hyperviolin supercello and oboe surrogate that now filled the air with its agreeable languor thirty or forty bars and then against this instrumental background a much more than human voice began to warble now throaty now from the head now hollow as a flute now charged with yearning harmonics
effortlessly passed from Gaspard Forster's slow record on the very frontiers of musical tone to a trilled bat-note high above the highest C to which, in 1770, at the Ducal Opera of Palma, and to the astonishment of mozart lucrezia adjugari alone of all the singers in history once piercingly gave utterance sunk in their pneumatic stalls lenina and the savage sniffed and listened it was now the turn also for eyes and skin the house lights went down
fiery letters stood out solid as though self-supported in the darkness three weeks in a helicopter An all-super-singing, synthetic-talking, coloured, stereoscopic feely, with synchronised scent-organ accompaniment. Take hold of those metal knobs on the arms of your chair, whispered Lenina. otherwise you won't get any of the feely effect. The savage did, as he was told. Those fiery letters, meanwhile, had disappeared. There were ten seconds of complete darkness. Then suddenly...
Dazzling and incomparably more solid-looking than they would have been in actual flesh and blood, far more real than reality, there stood the stereoscopic images, locked in one another's arms, of a gigantic negro. and a golden-haired young brachycephalic beta plus female. The savage started. That sensation on his lips. He lifted the hand to his mouth. The titillation ceased.
let his hand fall back on the metal knob it began again the scent-organ meanwhile breathed pure musk expiringly a sound-track super dove cooed and vibrating only 32 times a second a deeper than african bass made answer the stereoscopic lips came together again and once more the facial erogenous zones of the six thousand spectators in the alhambra tingled with almost intolerable galvanic pleasure
The plot of the film was extremely simple. A few minutes after the first oohs and ahs, a duet having been sung and a little love made on that famous bearskin every hair of which the assistant predestinator was perfectly right could be separately and distinctly felt the negro had a helicopter accident fell on his head thump! What a twinge through the forehead. A chorus of owls and eyes went up from the audience. The concussion knocked all the negro's conditioning into a cocked hat.
He developed for the beta blonde an exclusive and maniacal passion. She protested, he persisted. There were struggles, pursuits, an assault on a rival, finally a sensational kidnapping. The Beta Blonde was ravished away into the sky and kept there, hovering for three weeks in a wildly antisocial tete-a-tete with the black madman. Finally, after a whole series of adventures and much aerial acrobacy, three handsome young alphas succeeded in rescuing her.
The Negro was packed off to an adult reconditioning centre, and the film ended happily and decorously, with the beta blonde becoming the mistress of all her three rescuers. they interrupted themselves for a moment to sing a synthetic quartet with full super-orchestral accompaniment and gardenias on the scent organ.
then the bearskin made a final appearance and amid a blare of saxophones the last stereoscopic kiss faded into darkness the last electric titillation died on the lips like a dying moth that quivers quivers ever more feebly ever more faintly and at last is quite quite still but for lenina the moth did not completely die even after the lights had gone up while they were shuffling slowly along with the crowd towards the lifts
its ghost still flattered against her lips still traced fine shuddering roads of anxiety and pleasure across her skin her cheeks were flushed her eyes duly bright her breath came deeply she caught hold of the savage's arm and pressed it limp against her side he looked down at her for a moment pale pained desiring and ashamed of his desire he was not worthy not
their eyes for a moment met what treasures hers promised a queen's ransom of temperament hastily he looked away disengaged his imprisoned arm He was obscurely terrified, lest she should cease to be something he could feel himself unworthy of. I don't think you ought to see things like that, he said. making haste to transfer from Lenina herself to the surrounding circumstances the blame for any past or possible future lapse from perfection. Things like what, John? Like this horrible film.
horrible lenina was genuinely astonished but i thought it was lovely it was base he said indignantly it was ignoble she shook her head i don't know what you mean why was he so queer why did he go out of his way to spoil things in the texicopter he hardly even looked at her bound by strong vows that had never been pronounced obedient to laws that had long since ceased to run he sat averted and in silence sometimes
as though a finger had plucked at some taut, almost breaking string, his whole body would shake with a sudden nervous start. The taxicopter landed on the roof of Lenniner's apartment house. At last, she thought exultantly as she stepped out of the cab. At last, even though he had been so queer just now. Standing under a lamp, she peered into her hand-mirror.
at last yes her nose was a bit shiny she shook the loose powder from her puff while he was paying off the taxi there would be just time she rubbed at the shininess thinking He's terribly good-looking. No need for him to be shy like Bernard. And yet any other man would have done it long ago. Well, now at last. that fragment of a face in the little round mirror suddenly smiled at her good night said a strangled voice behind her lennon a wheeled round
He was standing in the doorway of the cab, his eyes fixed, staring. Had evidently been staring all this time while she was poundering her nose, waiting. But what for? or hesitating trying to make up his mind and all the time thinking thinking she could not imagine what extraordinary thoughts good-night leniner he repeated and made a strange, grimacing attempt to smile. But, John, I thought you were—I mean, aren't you? He shut the door, and bent forward to say something to the driver.
the cab shot up into the air looking down through the window in the floor the savage could see lenina's upturned face pale in the bluish light of the lamps the mouth was open she was calling her foreshortened figure rushed away from him the diminishing square of the roof seemed to be falling through the darkness five minutes later he was back in his room from its hiding place
He took out his mouse-nibbled volume, turned with religious care its stained and crumpled pages, and began to read Othello. Othello, he remembered, was like the hero of three weeks in a helicopter.
a black man drying her eyes lenina walked across the roof to the lift on her way down to the twenty-seventh floor she pulled out her soma bottle one gram she decided would not be enough hers had been more than a one gram affliction but if she took two grams she ran the risk of not waking up in time to-morrow morning she compromised and into her cupped left palm shook out three half-gram tablets chapter 12
bernard had to shout through the locked door the savage would not open but everybody's there waiting for you let them wait came back the muffled voice through the door But you know quite well, John. How difficult it was to sound persuasive at the top of one's voice. I asked them on purpose to meet you. You ought to have asked me first whether I wanted to meet them.
but you always came before john that's precisely why i don't want to come again just to please me bernard bellowingly wheedled won't you come to please me no do you seriously mean it yes despairingly but what shall i do bernard wailed go to hell bawled the exasperated voice from within but the arch-community songster of canterbury is there to-night bernard was almost in tears it was only in zuni that the savage could
adequately express what he felt about the arch-community songster. Ah, nay! he added as an afterthought, and then, with what derisive ferocity, swans they sort say now! and he spat on the ground as Popet might have done. In the end, Bernard had to slink back, diminish, to his rooms, and inform the impatient assembly that the savage would not be appearing that evening.
the news was received with indignation the men were furious at having been tricked into behaving politely with this insignificant fellow with the unsavoury reputation and the heretical opinions the higher their position in the hierarchy the deeper their resentment to play such a joke on me the arch songster kept repeating on me as for the women
they indignantly felt that they had been had on false pretences had by a wretched little man who had had alcohol poured into his bottle by mistake by a creature with a gamma minus physique it was an outrage and they said so more and more loudly the headmistress of eton was particularly scathing lenina alone said nothing pale her blue eyes clouded with an unwonted melancholy she sat in a corner cut off from those who surrounded her by an emotion which they did not share
she had come to the party filled with a strange feeling of anxious exultation in a few minutes she had said to herself as she entered the room i shall be seeing him talking to him telling him for she had come with her mind made up that i like him more than anybody i've ever known and then perhaps he'll say what would he say the blood had rushed to her cheeks
why was he so strange the other night after the feelies so queer and yet i am absolutely sure he really does rather like me i am sure it was at this moment that bernard had made his announcement the savage wasn't coming to the party lenin suddenly felt all the sensations normally experienced at the beginning of a violent passion surrogate treatment a sense of
Dreadful emptiness, a breathless apprehension, a nausea. Her heart seemed to stop beating. Perhaps it's because he doesn't like me, she said to herself. And at once this possibility became an established certainty. John had refused to come because he didn't like her. He didn't like her. It really is a bit too thick.
the headmistress of Eton was saying to the director of crematoria and phosphorus reclamation, when I think that I actually... Yes, came the voice of Fanny Crown. It's absolutely true about the alcohol. Someone I know knew someone who was working at the embryo store at the time. She said to my friend, and my friend said to me, Too bad, too bad.
said henry foster sympathising with the arch community sangster it may interest you to know that our ex-director was on the point of transferring him to iceland pierced by every word that was spoken The tight balloon of Bernard's happy self-confidence was leaking from a thousand wounds. Pale, distraught, abject and agitated, he moved among his guests, stammering incoherent apologies.
assuring them that next time the savage would certainly be there, begging them to sit down and take a carotene sandwich, a slice of vitamin A pate, a glass of champagne surrogate. They duly ate, but ignored him.
drank, and were either rude to his face, or talked to one another about him, loudly and offensively, as though he had not been there. And now, my friends... said the arch-community songster of canterbury in that beautiful ringing voice with which he led the proceedings at ford's day celebrations now my friends i think perhaps the time has come he rose put down his glass brushed from his purple viscous waistcoat the crumbs of a considerable collation and walked towards the door bernard
darted forward to intercept him. Must you really, Archsungster? It's very early still. I'd hoped you would... Yes. What hadn't he hoped? when Lennon confidentially told him that the arch-community songster would accept an invitation if it were sent. He's really rather sweet, you know.
and she had shown bernard the little golden zipper fastening in the form of a tea which the arch songster had given her as a memento of the weekend she had spent at lambeth to meet the arch-community songster of canterbury and mr savage bernard had proclaimed his triumph on every invitation card but the savage had chosen this evening of all evenings to lock himself up in his room to shout honey and even it was lucky that bernard didn't understand zuni
what should have been the crowning moment of bernard's whole career had turned out to be the moment of his greatest humiliation i'd so much hoped he stammeringly repeated looking up at the great dignitary with pleading and distracted eyes my young friend said the arch community songster in a tone of loud and solemn severity there was a general silence let me give you a word of advice he wagged his finger at bernard before it's too late
a word of good advice his voice became sepulchral mend your ways my young friend mend your ways he made the sign of the tea over him and turned away lennaro my dear he called in another tone come with me obediently but unsmiling and wholly insensible of the honour done to her without elation lenina walked after him out of the room the other guests followed at a respectful interval
the last of them slammed the door bernard was all alone punctured utterly deflated he dropped into a chair and covering his face with his hands began to weep a few minutes later however he thought better of it and took four tablets of soma upstairs in his room the savage was reading romeo and juliet lenina and the arch community songster stepped out on to the roof of lambeth palace hurry up my young friend i mean lenina called the arch songster impatiently from the lift gates
Leniner, who had lingered for a moment to look at the moon, dropped her eyes and came hurrying across the roof to rejoin him. A NEW THEORY OF BIOLOGY was the title of the paper which mustapha mond had just finished reading he sat for some time meditatively frowning then picked up his pen and wrote across the title page
The author's mathematical treatment of the conception of purpose is novel and highly ingenious, but heretical, and, so far as the present social order is concerned, dangerous and potentially subversive not to be published he underlined the words the author will be kept under supervision his transference to the marine biological station of st helena may become necessary a pity he thought as he signed his name it was a masterly piece of work
but once you begin admitting explanations in terms of purpose well you didn't know what the result might be it was the sort of idea that might easily decondition the more unsettled minds among the higher castes make them lose their faith in happiness as the sovereign good, and take to believing instead that the goal was somewhere beyond, somewhere outside the present human sphere.
that the purpose of life was not the maintenance of well-being but some intensification and refining of consciousness some enlargement of knowledge which was the controller reflected quite possibly true, but not, in the present circumstances, admissible. He picked up his pen again, and under the words, not to be published, drew a second line, thicker and blacker than the first.
then sighed oh what fun it would be he thought if one didn't have to think about happiness with closed eyes his face shining with rapture john was softly declaiming to vacancy oh she doth teach the torches to burn bright it seems she hangs upon the cheek of night like a rich jewel in an aethiop's ear beauty too rich for use for earth too dear the golden tea lay shining on lenina's bosom sportively the arch community sungster caught hold of it sportively he pulled pulled i think
said Lenin suddenly, breaking a long silence. I'd better take a couple of grams of Soma. Bernard, by this time, was fast asleep and smiling at the private... paradise of his dreams smiling smiling but inexorably every 30 seconds The minute hand of the electric clock above his bed jumped forward with an almost imperceptible click, click, click, click, click. And it was morning.
bernard was back among the miseries of space and time it was in the lowest spirits that he taxed across to his work at the conditioning centre the intoxication of success had evaporated he was soberly his old self and by contrast with the temporary balloon of these last weeks the old self seemed unprecedentedly heavier than the surrounding atmosphere to this
deflated Bernard. The savage showed himself unexpectedly sympathetic. You're more like what you were at Malpace, he said when Bernard had told him his plaintive story. Do you remember when we first talked together? outside the little house. You're like what you were then. Because I'm unhappy again, that's why. Well, I'd rather be unhappy than have the sort of false lying happiness you were having here.
I like that, said Bernard bitterly, when it's you who were the cause of it all, refusing to come to my party and so turning them all against me. He knew that what he was saying was absurd in its injustice.
he admitted inwardly and at last even aloud the truth of all that the savage now said about the worthlessness of friends who could be turned upon so slight a provocation into persecuting enemies but in spite of this knowledge and these admissions in spite of the fact that his friend's support and sympathy were now his only comfort bernard continued perversely to nourish along with his quite genuine affection
a secret grievance against the savage to meditate a campaign of small revenges to be wreaked upon him nourishing a grievance against the arch community songster was useless There was no possibility of being revenged on the chief bottler or the assistant predestinator. As a victim, the savage possessed for Bernard this enormous superiority over the others, that he was accessible.
one of the principal functions of a friend is to suffer in a milder and symbolic form the punishment that we should like but are unable to inflict upon our enemies bernard's other victim friend was helmholtz when discomfited he came and asked once more for the friendship which in his prosperity he had not thought it worth his while to preserve helmholtz gave it
and gave it without a reproach without a comment as though he had forgotten that there had ever been a quarrel touched bernard felt himself at the same time humiliated by this magnanimity a magnanimity the more extraordinary and therefore the more humiliating in that it owed nothing to soma and everything to helmholtz's character it was the helmholtz of daily life who forgot and forgave
not the helmholtz of a half-gram holiday bernard was duly grateful it was an enormous comfort to have his friend again and also duly resentful it will be a pleasure to take some revenge on helmholtz for his generosity at their first meeting after the estrangement bernard poured out the tale of his miseries and accepted consolation
it was not until some days later that he learned to his surprise and with a twinge of shame that he was not the only one who had been in trouble helmholtz had also come into conflict with authority It was over some rhymes, he explained. I was giving my usual course of advanced emotional engineering for third-year students. Twelve lectures, of which the seventh is about rhymes.
on the use of rhymes in moral propaganda and advertisement to be precise i always illustrate my lecture with a lot of technical examples this time i thought i'd given them one i had just written myself pure madness of course but i couldn't resist it he laughed i was curious to see what their reaction would be besides he added more gravely i wanted to do a bit of propaganda I was trying to engineer them into feeling as I'd felt when I wrote the rhymes. Fought! He laughed again. What an—
Outcry there was. The principal had me up and threatened to hand me the immediate sack. I'm a marked man. But what were your rhymes? Bernard asked. They were about being alone.
bernard's eyebrows went up i'll recite them to you if you like and helmholtz began yesterday's committee sticks but a broken drum midnight in the city flutes in a vacuum shut lips sleeping faces every stopped machine the dumb and littered places where crowds have been all silences rejoice weep loudly or low speak but with the voice of whom i do not know absence say of susans absence of egerias arms and respective bosoms lips and ah posteriors slowly form a presence
Whose, and I ask, of what's so absurd an essence that something which is not nevertheless should populate empty night more solidly than that with which we copulate? Why should it seem so? squalidly. Well, I gave them that as an example, and they reported me to the principal. I'm not surprised. said Bernard. It's flatly against all their sleep teaching. Remember, they've had at least a quarter of a million warnings against solitude. I know.
But I thought I'd like to see what the effect would be. Well, you see now. Helmholtz only laughed. I feel, he said after a silence. as though I were just beginning to have something to write about, as though I were beginning to be able to use that power I feel I've got inside me, that extra latent power. Something seems to be coming to me.
in spite of all his troubles he seemed bernard thought profoundly happy helmholtz and the savage took to one another at once so cordially indeed that bernard felt a sharp pang of jealousy in all these weeks he had never come to so close an intimacy with the savage as helmholtz immediately achieved watching them listening to their talk
He found himself sometimes resentfully wishing that he had never brought them together. He was ashamed of his jealousy, and ultimately made efforts of will and took Soma to keep himself from feeling it. But the efforts were not very successful, and between the Soma holidays there were of necessity intervals. The odious sentiment kept on returning.
At his third meeting with the savage, Helmholtz recited his rhymes on solitude. What do you think of them? he asked when he had done. The savage shook his head. Listen to this! was his answer and unlocking the drawer in which he kept his mouse-eaten book he opened and read let the bird of loudest lay on the sole arabian tree herald sad and
Trumpet be. Helmholtz listened with a growing excitement. At Soul Arabian Tree he started. At Thou Shrieking Harbinger he smiled with sudden pleasure. At every fowl of tyrant wing the blood rushed up into his cheeks but at defunctive music he turned pale and trembled with an unprecedented emotion the savage read on
property was thus appalled that the self was not the same single nature's double name neither two nor one was called reason in itself confounded saw division grow together orgy porgy said bernard interrupting the reading with a loud unpleasant laugh it's just a solidarity service hymn he was revenging himself and his two friends for liking one another more than they liked him in the course of their next two or three meetings he frequently repeated this little act of vengeance it was simple
and, since both Helmholtz and the savage were dreadfully pained by the shattering and defilement of a favourite poetic crystal, extremely effective. In the end, Helmholtz threatened to kick him out of the room if he dared to interrupt again. And yet, strangely enough, the next interruption, the most disgraceful of all, came from Helmholtz himself.
The savage was reading Romeo and Juliet aloud, reading, for all the time he was seeing himself as Romeo and Lenin as Juliet, with an intense and quivering passion. helmholtz had listened to the scene of the lover's first meeting with a puzzled interest the scene in the orchard had delighted him with its poetry but the sentiments expressed had made him smile
Getting into such a state about having a girl, it seemed rather ridiculous. But taken detail by verbal detail, what a superb piece of emotional engineering! That old fellow, he said, he makes our best propaganda technicians look absolutely silly. The savage smiled triumphantly and resumed his reading. All went tolerably well until, in the last scene of the third act, Capulet and Lady Capulet began to bully Juliet to marry Paris.
helmholtz had been restless throughout the entire scene but when pathetically mined by the savage juliet cried out is there no pity sitting in the clouds that sees into the bottom of my grief oh sweet my mother cast me not away delay this marriage for a month a week or if you do not make the bridal bed in that dim monument where tibble lies when juliet said this helmholtz broke out in an explosion of uncontrollable guffawing the mother and father
grotesque obscenity, forcing the daughter to have someone she didn't want, and the idiotic girl not saying that she was having someone else whom, for the moment at any rate, she preferred.
in its smutty absurdity the situation was irresistibly comical he had managed with a heroic effort to hold down the mounting pressure of his hilarity but sweet mother in the savage's tremulous tone of anguish, and the reference to Tybalt lying dead but evidently uncremated and wasting his phosphorus on a dim monument were too much for him.
he laughed and laughed till the tears streamed down his face quenchlessly laughed while pale with a sense of outrage the savage looked at him over the top of his book and then as the laughter still continued
closed it indignantly, got up, and with the gesture of one who removes his pearl from before the swine, locked it away in its drawer. And yet— said helmholtz having recovered breath enough to apologise he had mollified the savage into listening to his explanations i know quite well that one needs ridiculous mad situations like that one can't write really well about anything else
Why was that fellow such a marvellous propaganda technician? Because he had so many insane, excruciating things to get excited about. You've got to be hurt and upset, otherwise you can't think of the really good... Penetrating X-ray-ish phrases. But fathers and mothers? He shook his head. You can't expect me to keep a straight face about fathers and mothers.
And who's going to get excited about a boy having a girl, or not having her? The savage winced, but Helmholtz, who was staring pensively at the floor, saw nothing. No, he concluded with a sigh. It won't do. We need some other kind of madness and violence. But what? What? Where can one find it? He was silent. "'then, shaking his head, "'I don't know,' he said at last, "'I don't know.'" Chapter 13
Henry Foster loomed up through the twilight of the embryo store. Like to come to Ophelia this evening? Lenina shook her head without speaking. Going out with someone else? It— interested him to know which of his friends was being had by which other. Is it Benito? he questioned. She shook her head again. Henry detected the weariness in those purple eyes.
the pallor beneath that glaze of lupus, the sadness at the corners of the unsmiling crimson mouth. "'You're not feeling ill, are you?' he asked, a trifle anxiously. afraid that she might be suffering from one of the few remaining infectious diseases yet once more lenina shook her head anyhow you ought to go and see the doctor said henry a doctor a day keeps the jim jams away
he added heartily, driving home his hypnopedic adage with a clap on the shoulder. Perhaps you need a pregnancy substitute, he suggested, or else an extra-strong VPS treatment. Sometimes, you know, the standard passion surrogate isn't quite— oh for fort's sake said lenina breaking her stubborn silence shut up and she turned back to her neglected embryos a v p s treatment indeed she would have laughed if she hadn't been on the point of crying
as though she hadn't got enough VP of her own. She sighed profoundly as she refilled her syringe. John, she murmured to herself. John. Then... I ford, she wondered, have I given this one its sleeping sickness injection, or haven't I? She simply couldn't remember. In the end, she decided not to run the risk of letting it have a second dose, and moved down the line to the next bottle.
Twenty-two years, eight months, and four days from that moment, a promising young alpha-minus administrator at Mwanza Mwanza was to die of trypanosomiasis. The first case for over half a century. Sighing, Lenina went on with her work. an hour later in the changing-room fanny was energetically protesting but it's absurd to let yourself get into a state like this simply absurd she repeated and what about a man one man
But he's the one I want, as though there weren't millions of other men in the world. But I don't want them. But how can you know till you've tried? I have tried. But how many? asked Fanny, shrugging her shoulders contemptuously. One? Two? Dozens? But, shaking her head, it wasn't any good, she added. "'Well, you must persevere,' said Fanny sententiously. But it was obvious that her confidence in her own prescriptions had been shaken. "'Nothing can be achieved without perseverance.'
But meanwhile, don't think of him. I can't help it. Take Soma, then. I do. Well, go on. But in the intervals I still like him. I shall always like him.
well if that's the case said fanny with decision why don't you just go and take him whether he wants it or no but if you knew how terribly queer he was all the more reason for taking a firm line it's all very well to say that don't stand any nonsense act fanny's voice was a trumpet she might have been a ywfa lecturer giving an evening talk to adolescent beta minuses
Yes, act, at once. Do it now. I'd be scared, said Lenina. Well, you've only got to take half a gram of soma first, and now I'm going to have my bath. She marched off. trailing her towel.