disc six the bell rang and the savage who was impatiently hoping that helmholtz would come that afternoon for having at last made up his mind to talk to Helmholtz about Lenina, he could not bear to postpone his confidences a moment longer, jumped up and ran to the door. Oh, he had a premonition it was you, Helmholtz, he shouted as he opened. on the threshold in a white acetate satin sailor suit and with a round white cap rakishly tilted over her left ear stood lenina oh said the savage
as though someone had struck him a heavy blow. Half a gram had been enough to make Lenina forget her fears and her embarrassments. Hello, John, she said, smiling, and walked past him into the room.
automatically he closed the door and followed her lenina sat down there was a long silence you don't seem very glad to see me john she said at last not glad the savage looked at her reproachfully then suddenly fell on his knees before her and taking lennon's hand reverently kissed it not glad oh if only you knew he whispered
and venturing to raise his eyes to her face. Admired Lenina, he went on, indeed the top of admiration, worth what's dearest in the world. She smiled at him with a luscious tenderness. oh you so perfect she was leaning towards him with parted lips so perfect so peerless are created nearer and nearer of every creature's best still nearer The savage suddenly scrambled to his feet. "'That's why,' he said, speaking with averted face,
I wanted to do something first. I mean, to show you I was worthy of you. Not that I could ever really be that. But at any rate, to show I wasn't absolutely unworthy. I wanted to do something. why should you think it necessary lenina began but left the sentence unfinished there was a note of irritation in her voice when one has leant forward nearer and nearer with parted lips only to find oneself quite suddenly as a clumsy oaf scrambles to his feet, leaning towards nothing at all. Well...
There is a reason, even with half a gram of soma circulating in one's bloodstream, a genuine reason for annoyance. At my old pace, the savage was incoherently mumbling, You had to bring her the skin of a mountain lion. I mean, when you wanted to marry someone, or else a wolf. There aren't any lions in England. Lenin almost snapped. And even if there were...
the savage added with a sudden contemptuous resentment. People would kill them out of helicopters, I suppose, with poison gas or something. I wouldn't do that, Lenina. He squared his shoulders. He ventured to look at her.
and was met with a stare of annoyed incomprehension confused i'll do anything he went on more and more incoherently anything you tell me there be some sports are painful you know but their labour delight in them sets off that's what i feel i mean i'd sweep the floor if you wanted but we've got vacuum cleaners here said lenina in bewilderment It isn't necessary. No, of course it isn't necessary. But some kinds of baseness are nobly undergone. I'd like to undergo something nobly. Don't you see?
But if there are vacuum cleaners, that's not the point. And epsilon semi-morons to work them, she went on. Well, really, why? Why? But for you, for you, just to show that I... And what on earth vacuum cleaners have got to do with lions? To show how much... Or lions being glad to see me. She was getting more and more exasperated. how much i love you lenina he brought out almost desperately an emblem of the inner tide of startled elation the blood rushed up into lenina's cheeks do you mean it john
But I hadn't meant to say so, cried the savage, clasping his hands in a kind of agony. Not until... Listen, Lennon, in Malpace people get married. Get what?
the irritation had begun to creep back into her voice what was he talking about now for always they make a promise to live together for always what a horrible idea lenina was genuinely shocked outliving beauties outward with a mind that doth renew swifter than blood decays what it's like that in shakespeare too if thou dost break her virgin knot before all sanctimonious ceremonies may with full and holy rite for fort's sake dron talk sense
I can't understand a word you're saying. First it's vacuum cleaners, then it's knots. You're driving me crazy. She jumped up, and, as though afraid that he might run away from her physically, as well as with his mind, caught him by the wrist answer me this question do you really like me or don't you there was a moment's silence then in a very low voice i love you more than anything in the world he said then why on earth didn't you say so she cried
and so intense was her exasperation that she drove her sharp nails into the skin of his wrist instead of driveling away about knots and vacuum cleaners and lions and making me miserable for weeks and weeks she released his hand and flung it angrily away from her if i didn't like you so much she said i'd be furious with you and suddenly her arms were round his neck
He felt her lips soft against his own, so deliciously soft, so warm and electric, that inevitably he found himself thinking of the embraces in three weeks in a helicopter. Ooh, the stereoscopic blonde, and ah! The more than real Blackamoor. Horror, horror, horror! He tried to disengage himself, but Lenina tightened her embrace. Why didn't you say so? She whispered, drawing back her face to look at him. Her eyes were... tenderly reproachful the murkiest dan the most opportune place
The voice of conscience thundered poetically. The strongest suggestion our worse a genius can shall never melt mine honour into lust. Never, never, he resolved. you silly boy she was saying i wanted you so much and if you wanted me too why didn't you but He began protesting, and as she immediately untwined her arms as she stepped away from him, he thought for a moment that she had taken his unspoken hint.
But when she unbuckled her white patent cartridge belt and hung it carefully over the back of a chair, he began to suspect that he had been mistaken. "'Lenina,' he repeated apprehensively, she put her hand to her neck and gave a long vertical pull her white sailor's blouse was ripped to the hem suspicion condensed into a too too solid certainty What are you doing? Zip. Zip. Her answer was wordless. She stepped out of her bell-bottom trousers. Her zippy camminics were a pale shell pink.
the arch community songster's golden tea dangled at her breast for those milk paps that through the window-bars bore at men's eyes The singing, thundering, magical words made her seem doubly dangerous, doubly alluring. Soft, soft, but how... piercing boring and drilling into reason tunnelling through resolution the strongest oaths are straw to the fire i the blood be more abstemious or else zip
The rounded pinkness fell apart like a neatly divided apple, a wriggle of the arms, a lifting first of the right foot, then the left. The zippy kameniks were lying lifeless and as though deflated on the floor. still wearing her shoes and socks and her rakishly tilted round white cap she advanced towards him darling darling if only you'd said so before she held out her arms. But instead of also saying, Darling, and holding out his arms,
The savage retreated in terror, flapping his hands at her, as though he were trying to scare away some intruding and dangerous animal. Four backward steps, and he was brought to bay against the wall. Sweet!
"'said Lenina, and laying her hands on his shoulders, "'pressed herself against him. "'Put your arms round me,' she commanded. "'Hug me till you drug me, honey.' she too had poetry at her command knew words that sang and were spells and beat drums kiss me she closed her eyes she let her voice sink to a sleepy murmur
Kiss me till I'm in a coma. Hug me, honey, snugly. The savage caught her by the wrists, tore her hand from his shoulders, thrust her roughly away at arm's length. Oh, you're hurting me, you're... Oh! she was suddenly silent terror had made her forget the pain opening her eyes she had seen his face no not his face a ferocious stranger's pale distorted twitching with some insane inexplicable fury Aghast! But what is it, John? she whispered.
he did not answer but only stared into her face with those mad eyes the hands that held her wrists were trembling he breathed deeply and irregularly faint almost to imperceptibility but Appalling, she suddenly heard the grinding of his teeth. What is it? she almost screamed. And, as though awakened by her cry, he caught her by the shoulders and shook her. Whore! he shouted. Whore!
impudent strumpet oh don't don't she protested in a voice made grotesquely tremulous by his shaking whore please damned whore A gram is better, she began. The savage pushed her away with such force that she staggered and fell. Go, he shouted, standing over her menacingly. Get out of my sight or I'll kill you. He clenched his fists. Lenina raised her arms, covered her face. No, please don't, John. Hurry up, quick!
one arm still raised and following his every movement with a terrified eye she scrambled to her feet and still crouching still covering her head made a dash for the bathroom the noise of that prodigious slap by which her departure was accelerated was like a pistol shot oh lenina bounded forward safely locked into the bathroom she had leisure to take stock of her injuries
standing with her back to the mirror she twisted her head looking over her left shoulder she could see the imprint of an open hand standing out distinct and crimson on the pearly flesh gingerly She rubbed the wounded spot. Outside, in the other room, the savage was striding up and down, marching, marching to the drums and music of magical words. The wren goes to it, and the small gilded fly does lecher in my sight. Maddeningly they rumbled in his ears.
the fit shoe nor the soiled horse goes to it with a more riotous appetite down from the waist they are centres though women all above but to the girdle do the gods inherit beneath is all the fiends. There's hell, there's darkness, there is the sulfurous pit, burning, scalding, stench, consumption, fie, fie, fie, par, fa! Give me an ounce of civet good apothecary to sweeten my imagination. John! ventured a small, ingratiating voice from the bathroom. John!
o thou weed who art so lovely fair and smelt so sweet that the sense aches at thee was this most goodly book made to write whore upon "'Heaven stops the nose at it!' But her perfume still hung about him. His jacket was white with the powder that had scented her velvety body. Impudent strumpet! Impudent strumpet! Impudent strumpet! The inexorable rhythm beat itself out. Impudent! John, do you think I might have my clothes?
he picked up the bell-bottomed trousers the blouse the zippy kameniks open he ordered kicking the door no i won't the voice was frightened and defiant Well, how do you expect me to give them to you? Push them through the ventilator over the door. He did what she suggested.
and returned to his uneasy pacing of the room impudent strumpet impudent strumpet the devil luxury with his fat rump and potato finger john he would not answer fat rump and potato finger john what is it he asked gruffly i wonder if you mind giving me my malthusian belt lenina sat listening to the footsteps in the other room wondering, as she listened, how long he was likely to go tramping up and down like that, whether she would have to wait until he left the flat.
or if it would be safe after allowing his madness a reasonable time to subside to open the bathroom door and make a dash for it she was interrupted in the midst of these uneasy speculations by the sound of the telephone bell ringing in the other room. Abruptly, the tramping ceased. She heard the voice of the savage, parleying with silence. Hello? Yes? if i do not usurp myself i am yes didn't you hear me say so mr savage speaking what who's ill of course it interests me
But is it serious? Is she really bad? I'll go at once. Not in her rooms anymore. Where has she been taken? Oh, my God! What's the address? Three Park Lane, is that it? Three? Thanks. Lenina heard the click of the replaced receiver, then hurrying steps. A door slammed. There was silence.
was he really gone with an infinity of precautions she opened the door a quarter of an inch peeped through the crack was encouraged by the view of emptiness opened a little further and put her whole head out finally tiptoed into the room stood for a few seconds with strongly beating heart listening listening then darted to the front door opened slipped through slammed ran
It was not until she was in the lift, and actually dropping down the well, that she began to feel herself secure. Chapter 14 the park lane hospital for the dying was a sixty-storey tower of primrose tiles as the savage stepped out of his taxicopter a convoy of gaily-coloured aerial hearses rose whirring from the roof and darted away across the park westward bound for the slough crematorium
At the lift gates, the presiding porter gave him the information he required, and he dropped down to Ward 81, a galloping senility ward, the porter explained, on the 17th floor.
it was a large room bright with sunshine and yellow paint and containing twenty beds all occupied linda was dying in company in company and with all the modern conveniences the air was continuously alive with gay synthetic melodies at the foot of every bed confronting its moribund occupant was a television box television was left on a running tap from morning till night
every quarter of an hour the prevailing perfume of the room was automatically changed we try explained the nurse who had taken charge of the savage at the door We try to create a thoroughly pleasant atmosphere here, something between a first-class hotel and a feely palace, if you take my meaning. Where is she? asked the savage, ignoring these polite explanations.
the nurse was offended you are in a hurry she said is there any hope he asked you mean of her not dying he nodded no of course there isn't when somebody is sent here there's no startled by the expression of distress on his pale face she suddenly broke off why whatever's the matter she asked she was not accustomed to this kind of thing in visitors
Not that there were many visitors, anyhow, or any reason why there should have been many visitors. You're not feeling ill, are you? He shook his head. She's my mother. he said in a scarcely audible voice the nurse glanced at him with startled horrified eyes then quickly looked away from throat to temple she was all one hot blush take me to her said the savage making an effort to speak in an ordinary tone still blushing she led the way down the ward faces still fresh and unwithered
for senility galloped so hard that it had no time to age the cheeks only the heart and brain turned as they passed their progress was followed by the blank incurious eyes of second infancy the savage shuddered as he looked linda was lying in the last of the long rows of beds next to the wall propped up on pillows
she was watching the semi-finals of the South American Riemann Surface Tennis Championship, which were being played in silent and diminished reproduction on the screen of the television box at the foot of the bed.
hither and thither across the square of illumined glass the little figures noiselessly darted like fish in an aquarium the silent but agitated inhabitants of another world linda looked on vaguely and uncomprehendingly smiling her pale bloated face wore an expression of imbecile happiness every now and then her eyelids closed and for a few seconds she seemed to be dozing then with a little start she would wake up again
wake up to the aquarium antics of the tennis champions to the supervox wurlitzer rihanna rendering of hug me till you drug me honey to the warm draught of verbena that came blowing through the ventilator above her head would wake to these things or rather to a dream of which these things transformed and embellished by the soma in her blood were the marvellous constituents
and smile once more her broken and discoloured smile of infantile contentment. Well, I must go, said the nurse. I've got my batch of children coming. Besides, there's number three, she pointed up the ward. Might go off any minute now. Well, make yourself comfortable. She walked briskly away. The savage sat down beside the bed. Linda, he whispered. taking her hand at the sound of her name she turned her vague eyes brightened with recognition she squeezed his hand she smiled her lips moved then
Quite suddenly, her head fell forward. She was asleep. He sat watching her. seeking through the tired flesh seeking and finding that young bright face which had stooped over his childhood in malpace remembering and he closed his eyes her voice her movements all the events of their life together strapped a cock g to bambury tea how beautiful her singing had been
and those childish rhymes how magically strange and mysterious a b c vitamin d the fat's in the liver the cod's in the sea he felt the hot tears welling up behind his eyelids as he recalled the words and linda's voice as she repeated them and then the reading lessons the tot is in the pot The cat is on the mat, and the elementary instructions for beta workers in the embryo store. And the long evenings by the fire, or in summertime, on the roof of the little house.
when she told him those stories about the other place outside the reservation that beautiful beautiful other place whose memory as of a heaven a paradise of goodness and loveliness he still kept whole and intact undefiled by contact with the reality of this real london these actual civilized men and women a sudden noise of shrill voices made him open his eyes and after hastily brushing away the tears look round
what seemed an interminable stream of identical eight-year-old male twins was pouring into the room twin after twin twin after twin they came a nightmare Their faces, their repeated faces, for there was only one between the lot of them, puggishly stared, all nostrils and pale, goggling eyes. Their uniform was khaki, all their mouths hung open.
squealing and chattering they entered in a moment it seemed the ward was maggoty with them they swarmed between the beds clambered over crawled under peeped into the television boxes made faces at the patients linda astonished and rather alarmed them a group stood clustered at the foot of her bed staring with the frightened and stupid curiosity of animals suddenly confronted by the unknown
They spoke in low, scared voices. Whatever is the matter with her? Why is she so fat? They had never seen a face like hers before, had never seen a face that was not youthful and taut-skinned. a body that had ceased to be slim and upright all these moribund sexagenarians had the appearance of childish girls at forty-four linda seemed by contrast
"'a monster of flaccid and distorted senility. "'Isn't she awful?' came the whispered comments. "'Look at her teeth!' suddenly from under the bed a pug-faced twin popped up between john's chair and the wall and began peering into linda's sleeping face i say he began but his sentence ended prematurely in a squeal
the savage had seized him by the collar lifted him clear over the chair and with a smart box on the ears sent him howling away his yells brought the head nurse hurrying to the rescue what have you been doing to him she demanded fiercely i won't have you striking the children well then keep them away from this bad the savage's voice was trembling with indignation what are these filthy little brats doing here at all it's disgraceful
disgraceful but what do you mean they are being death conditioned and i tell you she warned him truculently if i have any more of your interference with their conditioning i'll send for the porters and have you thrown out the savage rose to his feet and took a couple of steps towards her his movements and the expression on his face were so menacing that the nurse fell back in terror with a great effort he checked himself and without speaking
turned away and sat down again by the bed reassured but with a dignity that was a trifle shrill and uncertain i've warned you said the nurse so mind still she led the two inquisitive twins away and made them join in the game of hunt the zipper which had been organised by one of her colleagues at the other end of the room run along now and have your cup of caffeine solution dear
she said to the other nurse the exercise of authority restored her confidence made her feel better now children she called linda had stirred uneasily had opened her eyes for a moment looked vaguely around and then once more dropped off to sleep sitting beside her the savage tried hard to recapture his mood of a few minutes before a b c vitamin d he repeated to himself as though the words were a spell that would restore the dead past to life but the spell was ineffective
Obstinately, the beautiful memories refused to rise. There was only a hateful resurrection of jealousies and ugliness and miseries.
with the blood trickling down from his cut shoulder and linda hideously asleep and the flies buzzing round the spilt mescal on the floor beside the bed and the boys calling those names as she passed no no he shut his eyes he shook his head in strenuous denial of these memories a b c vitamin d He tried to think of those times when he sat on her knees, and she put her arms about him and sang over and over again, rocking him, rocking him to sleep. a b c vitamin d vitamin d vitamin d
The Supervox Wurlitzeriana had risen to a sobbing crescendo, and suddenly the verbena gave place in the scent-circulating system to an intense patchouli. Linda stirred.
woke up stared for a few seconds bewilderedly at the semi-finalist then lifting her face sniffed once or twice at the newly perfumed air and suddenly smiled a smile of childish ecstasy paupay she murmured and closed her eyes oh i do so like it i do she sighed and let herself sink back into the pillows but linda the savage spoke imploringly don't you know me he had tried so hard had done his very best Why wouldn't she allow him to forget?
he squeezed her limp hand almost with violence as though he would force her to come back from this dream of ignoble pleasures from these base and hateful memories back into the present back into reality appalling present, the awful reality, but sublime, but significant, but desperately important precisely because of the imminence of that which made them so fearful. Don't you know me, Linder?
He felt the faint answering pressure of her hand. The tears started into his eyes. He bent over her and kissed her. Her lips moved. she whispered again and it was as though he had a pailful of orgy thrown in his face anger suddenly boiled up in him Bulked for the second time, the passion of his grief had found another outlet, was transformed into a passion of agonised rage. "'But I'm John!' he shouted. "'I'm John!'
and in his furious misery he actually caught her by the shoulder and shook her. Linda's eyes fluttered open. She saw him, knew him. John! but situated the real face the real and violent hands in an imaginary world
among the inward and private equivalents of patchouli and the superwurlitzer, among the transfigured memories and the strangely transposed sensations that constituted the universe of her dream. She knew him for John, her son, but fancied him an intruder into that paradisal malpace where she had been spending her soma holiday with poppet he was angry because she liked poppet
He was shaking her because Popet was there in the bed, as though there were something wrong, as though all civilized people didn't do the same. Everyone belongs to... her voice suddenly died into an almost inaudible breathless croaking her mouth fell open she made a desperate effort to fill her lungs with air
but it was as though she had forgotten how to breathe she tried to cry out but no sound came only the terror of her staring eyes revealed what she was suffering Her hands went to her throat, then clawed at the air, the air she could no longer breathe, the air that for her had ceased to exist. The savage was on his feet, bent over her. What is it, Lender? What is it? His voice was imploring. It was as though he were begging to be reassured.
the look she gave him was charged with an unspeakable terror with terror and it seemed to him reproach she tried to raise herself in bed but fell back on the pillows her face was Horribly distorted, her lips blew. The savage turned and ran up the wall. Quick! Quick! he shouted. Quick! Standing in the centre of a ring of zipper-hunting twins, the head nurse looked round.
The first moment's astonishment gave place almost instantly to disapproval. Don't shout! Think of the little ones, she said, frowning. You might decondition, but what are you doing?
he had broken through the ring be careful a child was yelling quick quick he caught her by the sleeve dragged her after him quick something's happened i've killed her by the time they were back at the end of the ward linda was dead the savage stood for a moment in frozen silence then fell on his knees beside the bed and covering his face with his hands sobbed uncontrollably the nurse stood irresolute looking now at the kneeling figure by the bed the scandalous exhibition and now
poor children, at the twins who had stopped their hunting of the zipper and were staring from the other end of the ward, staring with all their eyes and nostrils at the shocking scene that was being enacted around bed twenty. Should she speak to him? try to bring him back to a sense of decency remind him of where he was of what fatal mischief he might do to these poor innocents undoing all their wholesome death-conditioning with this disgusting outcry
as though death were something terrible, as though anyone mattered as much as all that. It might give them the most disastrous ideas about the subject, might upset them into reacting in the entirely wrong, the utterly antisocial way. She stepped forward. She touched him on the shoulder. "'Can't you behave?' she said in a low, angry voice. But, looking round, she saw that half a dozen twins were already on their feet and advancing down the ward.
The circle was disintegrating. In another moment, no, the risk was too great. The whole group might be put back six or seven months in its conditioning. She hurried back. towards her menaced charges. Now, who wants a chocolate eclair? she asked in a loud, cheerful tone. Me! yelled the entire Bukhanovsky group in chorus. Bed 20.
was completely forgotten oh god god god the savage kept repeating to himself in the chaos of grief and remorse that filled his mind it was the one articulate word god he whispered it aloud god whatever is he saying said a voice very near distinct and shrill through the warblings of the super wurlitzer the savage violently started and uncovering his face looked round five khaki twins
each with the stump of a long eclair in his right hand, and their identical faces, variously smeared with liquid chocolate, were standing in a row, puggily goggling at him. They met his eyes and simultaneously grinned.
one of them pointed with his eclair butt is she dead he asked the savage stared at them for a moment in silence then in silence he rose to his feet in silence slowly walked towards the door is she dead repeated the inquisitive twin trotting at his side the savage looked down at him and still without speaking pushed him away. The twin fell on the floor and at once began to howl. The savage did not even look round.
chapter fifteen the menial staff of the park lane hospital for the dying consisted of one hundred and sixty-two deltas divided into two bokanovsky groups of eighty-four red-headed female and 78 dark dolicocephalic male twins, respectively. At six, when their working day was over, the two groups assembled in the vestibule of the hospital.
and were served by the deputy sub-bursar with their soma ration from the lift the savage stepped out into the midst of them but his mind was elsewhere with death with his grief and his remorse mechanically without consciousness of what he was doing he began to shoulder his way through the crowd who are you pushing where do you think you're going high low from a multitude of separate throats
only two voices squeaked or growled repeated indefinitely as though by a train of mirrors two faces one a hairless and freckled moon haloed in orange the other a thin beaked bird mask stubbly with two days beard turned angrily towards him their words and in his ribs the sharp nudging of elbows broke through his unawareness he woke once more to external reality
looked round him knew what he saw knew it with a sinking sense of horror and disgust for the recurrent delirium of his days and nights the nightmare of swarming indistinguishable sameness Twins, twins! Like maggots they had swarmed defilingly over the mystery of Linda's death. Maggots again, but larger, full-grown, they now crawled across his grief and his repentance.
he halted and with bewildered and horrified eyes stared round him at the khaki mob in the midst of which overtopping it by a full head he stood how many goodly creatures are there here The singing words mocked him derisively. How beauteous mankind is, O brave new world! Summer distribution! shouted a loud voice. In good order, please!
Hurry up there! A door had been opened, a table and chair carried into the vestibule. The voice was that of a jaunty young alpha, who had entered carrying a black iron cash-box. A murmur of satisfaction went up from the expectant twins. They forgot all about the savage. Their attention was now focused on the black cash-box, which the young man had placed on the table, and was now in process of unlocking.
the lid was lifted said all the hundred and sixty-two simultaneously as though they were looking at fireworks the young man took out a handful of tiny pill-boxes now he said peremptorily step forward please one at a time and no shoving one at a time with no shoving the twins step forward first two males then a female then another male then three females then the savage stood looking on o brave new world o brave new world in his mind the singing words seemed to change their tone
they had mocked him through his misery and remorse mocked him with how hideous a note of cynical derision fiendishly laughing they had insisted on the low squalor the nauseous ugliness of the nightmare now Suddenly they trumpeted a call to arms. Oh, brave new world! miranda was proclaiming the possibility of loveliness the possibility of transforming even the nightmare into something fine and noble oh brave new world it was a challenge a command
No shoving there now, shouted the deputy sub-bursar in a fury. He slammed down the lid of his cash-box. I shall stop the distribution unless I have good behaviour. the deltas muttered jostled one another a little and then were still the threat had been effective deprivation of soma appalling thought that's better said the young man and reopened his cash-box. Linda had been a slave. Linda had died. Others should live in freedom, and the world be made beautiful. A reparation, a duty.
and suddenly it was luminously clear to the savage what he must do it was as though a shutter had been opened a curtain drawn back now said the deputy subversa another cocky female stepped forward stop called the savage in a loud and ringing voice stop pushed his way to the table the deltas stared at him with astonishment said the deputy salbersa below his breath it's the savage he felt scared listen i beg you cried the savage earnestly lend me your ears
He had never spoken in public before, and found it very difficult to express what he wanted to say. Don't take that horrible stuff! It's poison! It's poison! I say, Mr Savage, said the deputy subversor, smiling propitiatingly, would you mind letting me poison to the soul as well as body? Yes, but let me get on with my distribution, won't you? There's a good fellow.
with the cautious tenderness of one who strokes a notoriously vicious animal he patted the savage's arm just let me-never cried the savage but look here old man Throw it all away! That's horrible poison! The words, Throw it all away, pierced through the enfolding layers of incomprehension to the quick of the Delta's consciousness.
an angry murmur went up from the crowd i come to bring you freedom said the savage turning back towards the twins i come the deputy sub-bursar heard no more he had slipped out of the vestibule and was looking up a number in the telephone book. Not in his own rooms, Bernard summed up, not in mine, not in yours, not at the Aphroditeum, not at the centre or the college, where...
Can he have got to? Helmholtz shrugged his shoulders. They had come back from their work, expecting to find the savage waiting for them at one or other of their usual meeting places, and there was no sign of the fellow. which was annoying as they had meant to nip across to bieritz in helmholtz's four-seater sporticopter they'd be late for dinner if he didn't come soon we'll give him five more minutes said helmholtz if he doesn't turn up by then
The ringing of the telephone bell interrupted him. He picked up the receiver. Hello, speaking? Then, after a long interval of listening, Ford in Fliver, he swore. I'll come at once. What is it? Bernard asked. A fellow I know at the Park Lane Hospital, said Helmholtz. The savage is there. Seems to have gone mad. Anyhow, it's urgent. Will you come with me? Together they hurried along the corridor to the lifts. But do you like being slaves? the savage was saying as they entered the hospital.
his face was flushed his eyes bright with ardour and indignation do you like being babies yes babies newling and puking He added, exasperated by their bestial stupidity, into throwing insults at those he had come to save. The insults bounced off their carapace of thick stupidity. They stared at him with a blank expression of dull and sullen resentment in their eyes. Yes! Puking! he fairly shouted.
grief and remorse compassion and duty all were forgotten now and as it were absorbed into an intense overpowering hatred of these less than human monsters "'Don't you want to be free and men? Don't you even understand what manhood and freedom are?' Rage was making him fluent. The words came easily in a rush. "'Don't you?' he repeated. But got no one to answer his question. Very well, then, he went on grimly. I'll teach you. I'll make you be free whether you want to or not.
and pushing open a window that looked on to the inner court of the hospital he began to throw the little pill-boxes of soma tablets in handfuls out into the area for a moment the khaki mob was silent petrified at the spectacle of this wanton sacrilege with amazement and horror he's mad whispered bernard staring with wide-open eyes they'll kill him
A great shout suddenly went up from the mob. A wave of movement drove it menacingly towards the savage. Ford help him, said Bernard, and averted his eyes. Ford helps those who help themselves. And with a laugh, actually a laugh of exultation, Helmholtz Watson pushed his way through the crowd. Free! Free! the savage shouted. and with one hand continued to throw the soma into the area, while with the other he punched the indistinguishable faces of his assailants. Free!
And suddenly there was Helmholtz at his side. Good old Helmholtz! Also punching. Men at last! and in the interval also throwing the poison out by handfuls through the open window. Yes, men! Men! And there was no more poison left. He picked up the cash box, showed them its black emptiness. You're free! Howling, the Deltas charged with redoubled fury.
hesitant on the fringes of the battle they had done for said bernard and urged by a sudden impulse ran forward to help them then thought better of it and halted then ashamed stepped forward again then again thought better of it, and was standing in an agony of humiliated indecision.
thinking that they might be killed if he didn't help them, and that he might be killed if he did, when, forward be praised, goggle-eyed and swine-snouted in their gas-masks, in ran the police. Bernard dashed to meet them. He waved his arms, and it was action. He was doing something. He shouted, Help! several times, more and more loudly, so as to give himself the illusion of helping. Help! Help! Help! The policeman.
pushed him out of the way, and got on with their work. Three men with spraying machines buckled to their shoulders, pumped thick clouds of Soma vapour into the air. Two more were busy round the portable synthetic music box. carrying water pistols charged with a powerful anaesthetic four others had pushed their way into the crowd and were methodically laying out squirt by squirt the more ferocious of the fighters quick quick yelled bernard
They'll be killed if you don't hurry. They'll... Oh! Annoyed by his chatter, one of the policemen had given him a shot from his water pistol. bernard stood for a second or two wambling unsteadily on legs that seemed to have lost their bones their tendons their muscles to have become mere sticks of jelly and at last not even jelly water he tumbled in a heap on the floor suddenly from out of the synthetic music box a voice began to speak the voice of reason the voice of good feeling
The soundtrack roll was unwinding itself in synthetic anti-riot speech number two, medium strength. Straight from the depths of a non-existent heart, my friends.
my friends said the voice so pathetically with a note of such infinitely tender reproach that behind their gas-masks even the policeman's eyes were momentarily dimmed with tears is the meaning of this why aren't you all being happy and good together happy and good the voice repeated at peace at peace it trembled sank into a whisper and momentarily expired oh i do want you to be happy it began with a yearning earnestness i do so want you to be good please please be good and two minutes later
the voice and the soma vapor had produced their effect in tears the deltas were kissing and hugging one another half a dozen twins at a time in a comprehensive embrace even helmholtz and the savage were almost crying a fresh supply of pill-boxes was brought in from the bursary a new distribution was hastily made and to the sound of the voices richly affectionate
baritone valedictions the twins dispersed blubbering as though their hearts would break good-bye my dearest dearest friends ford keep you good bye my dearest dearest friends ford keep you good bye my dearest dearest when the last of the deltas had gone The policeman switched off the current. The angelic voice fell silent. Will you come quietly, asked the sergeant, or must we anaesthetise? He pointed his water pistol menacingly.
oh we'll come quietly the savage answered dabbing alternately a cut lip a scratched neck and a bitten left hand still keeping his handkerchief to his bleeding nose helmholtz nodded in confirmation awake and having recovered the use of his legs bernard had chosen this moment to move as inconspicuously as he could towards the door oi you there called the sergeant
and a swine-mask policeman hurried across the room and laid a hand on the young man's shoulder bernard turned with an expression of indignant innocence escaping he hadn't dreamed of such a thing though what on earth you would want me for he said to the sergeant i really can't imagine you're a friend of the prisoner's aren't you well said bernard and hesitated no he really couldn't deny it
Why shouldn't I be? he asked. Come on then, said the sergeant, and led the way towards the door and the waiting police car. chapter sixteen the room into which the three were ushered was the controller's study his ford ship will be down in a moment the gamma butler left them to themselves helmholtz laughed aloud it's it's more like a caffeine solution party than a trial he said and let himself fall into the most luxurious of the pneumatic armchairs cheer up bernard he added
catching sight of his friend's green unhappy face but bernard would not be cheered without answering without even looking at helmholtz he went and sat down on the most uncomfortable chair in the room carefully chosen in the obscure hope of somehow deprecating the wrath of the higher powers the savage meanwhile wandered restlessly round the room
peering with a vague superficial inquisitiveness at the books in the shelves at the soundtrack rolls and the reading-machine bobbins in their numbered pigeon-holes on the table under the window lay a massive volume
bound in limp black leather surrogate and stamped with large golden tees he picked it up and opened it my life and work by our ford the book had been published at detroit by the society for the propagation of fordian knowledge idly he turned the pages read a sentence here a paragraph there
and had just come to the conclusion that the book didn't interest him when the door opened and the resident world controller for western europe walked briskly into the room mustapha mond shook hands with all three of them but it was to the savage that he addressed himself so you don't much like civilization mr savage he said the savage looked at him
He had been prepared to lie, to bluster, to remain sullenly unresponsive. But, reassured by the good-humoured intelligence of the controller's face, he decided to tell the truth, straightforwardly.
no he shook his head bernard started and looked horrified what would the controller think to be labelled as the friend of a man who said he didn't like civilisation said it openly and of all people to the controller it was terrible but john he began a look from mustapha mond reduced him to an abject silence of course the savage went on to admit there are some very nice things all that music in the air for instance
sometimes a thousand twangling instruments will hum about my ears and sometimes voices the savage's face lit up with a sudden pleasure have you read it too he asked I thought nobody knew about that book here in England. Almost nobody. I'm one of the very few. It's prohibited, you see. But as I make the laws here, I can also break them.
with impunity mr marks he added turning to bernard which i'm afraid you can't do bernard sank into a yet more hopeless misery but why is it prohibited asked the savage in the excitement of meeting a man who had read shakespeare he had momentarily forgotten everything else the controller shrugged his shoulders Because it's old. That's the chief reason. We haven't any use for old things here. Even when they're beautiful? Particularly when they're beautiful. Beauty's attractive.
And we don't want people to be attracted by old things. We want them to like the new ones. But the new ones are so stupid and horrible. Those plays where there's nothing but helicopters flying about and you feel the people kissing. He made a grimace. Goats and monkeys.
only in othello's words could he find an adequate vehicle for his contempt and hatred nice tame animals anyhow the controller murmured parenthetically why don't you let them see othello instead i've told you it's old besides they couldn't understand it yes that was true he remembered how helmholtz had laughed at romey and juliet well then he said after a pause
something new that's like othello and that they could understand that's what we've all been wanting to write said helmholtz breaking a long silence and it's what you never will write said the controller because if it were really like othello nobody could understand it however new it might be and if it were new it couldn't possibly be like othello why not yes why not
helmholtz repeated he too was forgetting the unpleasant realities of the situation green with anxiety and apprehension only bernard remembered them the others ignored him why not Because our world is not the same as Othello's world. You can't make flivers without steel, and you can't make tragedies without social instability. The world's stable now. People are happy.
They get what they want, and they never want what they can't get. They're well off, they're safe, they're never ill, they're not afraid of death, they're blissfully ignorant of passion and old age. They're plagued with no mothers or fathers. They've got no wives or children or lovers to feel strongly about. They're so conditioned that they practically can't help behaving as they ought to behave.
And if anything goes wrong, there's Soma, which you go and chuck out of the window in the name of liberty, Mr. Savage. Liberty! He laughed, expecting Deltas to know what liberty is, and now expecting them to understand Othello. Oh, my good boy. The savage was silent for a little. all the same he insisted obstinately othello's good othello's better than those feelies of course it is the controller agreed
but that's the price we have to pay for stability. You've got to choose between happiness and what people used to call high art. We've sacrificed the high art. We have the feelers and the scent organ instead. But they don't mean anything. They mean themselves. They mean a lot of agreeable sensations to the audience. But they're... they're told by an idiot. The controller laughed.
you're not being very polite to your friend mr watson one of our most distinguished emotional engineers but he's right said helmholtz gloomily Because it is idiotic, writing when there's nothing to say. Precisely. But that requires the most enormous ingenuity. You're making flivers out of the absolute minimum of steel. works of art out of practically nothing but pure sensation the savage shook his head it all seems to me quite horrible of course it does
Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt.
"'Happiness is never grand.' "'I suppose not,' said the savage after a silence. "'But need it be quite so bad as those twins?' he passed his hand over his eyes as though he were trying to wipe away the remembered image of those long rows of identical midgets at the assembling tables those queued up Twin herds at the entrance to the Brentford monorail station, those human maggots swarming around Linda's bed of death, the endlessly repeated face of his assailants.
He looked at his bandaged left hand and shuddered. Horrible! But how useful! I see you don't like our Kokonofsky groups. But I assure you, they're the foundation on which everything else is built. They're the gyroscope that stabilizes the rocket plane of state on its unswerving course. The deep voice thrillingly vibrated. The gesticulating hand implied all space and the onrush of the irresistible machine. Mustafa Mann's oratory was almost up to synthetic standards.
I was wondering, said the savage, why you had them at all, seeing that you can get whatever you want out of those bottles. Why don't you make everybody an alpha double plus while you're about it? Mustafa Mond laughed. Because we have no wish to have our throats cut, he answered. We believe in happiness and stability. A society of alphas couldn't fail to be unstable and miserable. Imagine a factory staffed by alphas.
that is to say, by separate and unrelated individuals of good heredity and conditions so as to be capable, within limits, of making a free choice and assuming responsibilities. Imagine it, he repeated. The savage tried to imagine it, not very successfully. It's an absurdity. An alpha-decanted, alpha-conditioned man would go mad if he had to do epsilon-semi-moron work. go mad, or start smashing things up. Alphas can be completely socialised, but only on condition that you make them do alpha work.
Only an epsilon can be expected to make epsilon sacrifices, for the good reason that for him they aren't sacrifices. They're the line of least resistance. His conditioning has laid down rails along which he's got to run. He can't help himself. He's foredoomed. Even after decanting, he's still inside a bottle, an invisible bottle of infantile and embryonic fixations. Each one of us, of course, the controller meditatively continued.
goes through life inside a bottle. But if we happen to be alphas, our bottles are, relatively speaking, enormous. We should suffer acutely if we were confined in a narrower space. You cannot pour upper-caste champagne surrogate into lower-caste bottles. It's obvious, theoretically. but it has also been proved in actual practice. The result of the Cyprus experiment was convincing. What was that? asked the savage. Mustapha Mond smiled.
Well, you can call it an experiment in re-bottling, if you like. It began in AF-473. The Controllers had the island of Cyprus cleared of all its existing inhabitants and recolonized with a specially prepared batch of 22,000 alphas. All agricultural and industrial equipment was handed over to them, and they were left to manage their own affairs. The results exactly fulfilled all the theoretical predictions.
The land wasn't properly worked. There were strikes in all the factories. The laws were set at naught. Orders disobeyed. All the people detailed for a spell of low-grade work were perpetually intriguing for high-grade jobs, and all the people with high-grade jobs were counter-intriguing at all costs to stay where they were.
Within six years, they were having a first-class civil war. When 19 out of the 22,000 had been killed, The survivors unanimously petitioned the world controllers to resume the government of the island, which they did, and that was the end of the only society of alphas that the world has ever seen. The savage sighed profoundly. The optimum population, said Mustapha Mond, is modelled on the iceberg, eight-ninths below the waterline, one-ninth.
Above. And they're happy below the water-line? Happier than above it? Happier than your friend here, for example, he pointed. In spite of that awful work— awful they don't find it so on the contrary they like it it's light it's childishly simple no strain on the mind or the muscles seven and a half hours of mild unexhausting labour and then the soma ration and games and unrestricted copulation
and the feelies. What more can they ask for? True, he added, they might ask for shorter hours, and of course we could give them shorter hours. Technically, it would be perfectly simple to reduce all lower-cost working hours to three or four a day. But would they be any the happier for that? No, they wouldn't.
The experiment was tried more than a century and a half ago. The whole of Ireland was put on to the four-hour day. What was the result? Unrest and a large increase in the consumption of Soma. That was all. Those three and a half hours of extra leisure were so far from being a source of happiness that people felt constrained to take a holiday from them. The Inventions Office is stuffed with plans for labour-saving processes.
Thousands of them! Mustapha Mond made a lavish gesture. And why don't we put them into execution? For the sake of the labourers! It would be sheer cruelty to afflict them with excessive leisure. It's the same with agriculture. We could synthesize every morsel of food if we wanted to, but we don't. we prefer to keep a third of the population on the land for their own sakes because it takes longer to get food out of the land than out of a factory besides we have our stability to think of
We don't want to change. Every change is a menace to stability. That's another reason why we're so chery of applying new inventions. Every discovery in pure science is potentially subversive. Even science must sometimes be treated as a possible enemy. Yes, even science. End of disc six.