Chapter 5 Chapter Four
The elevator was full of people from Alpha's bottle changing room.As soon as Lenina entered, several people greeted her with nods and smiles.The girl was very popular and had slept with almost every one of them now and then.
These are lovely lads, she thought as she answered their greeting.Charming lad!Still, she wished George Ezel's ears weren't so big (maybe he'd had a little extra thyroxine at 328?), and when she saw Benito Hoover, she couldn't help but think of him Excessive body hair after undressing.
She turned her eyes, displeased at the thought of Benito's curly black fur, and in a corner saw Bernard Marx's lean body and sad face.
"Bernard!" She took a step closer to him, "I was looking for you just now." Her crisp voice overwhelmed the hum of the elevator.Others turned to look at them curiously. "I want to talk to you about our plans to go to New Mexico." Out of the corner of her eye she saw Benito Hoover's mouth open in surprise, and it upset her. "It didn't occur to him that I didn't ask him out again!" she thought to herself.Then she let go, more enthusiastically than ever: "I'd love to be with you for a week in June," she went on. (Anyway, Fanny should be pleased that she was publicly showing her infidelity to Henry, even if it was to Bernard.) "That's right," said Lenina, beaming her sweetest smile to him, "If you still want me."
Bernard's pale face was flushed. "Why are you blushing?" She was a little baffled and surprised, but she was also moved by the compliment her charm attracted.
"How about the two of us find another place to talk?" He stammered, his expression terribly unnatural.
"As if I'd said something frightening," thought Lenina, "and he wouldn't have been angrier if I had made a dirty joke—like asking who his mother was or something."
"I mean, in front of so many people..." He was too flustered to speak.
Lenina smiled calmly and without malice. "How funny you are!" she said, and she really did find him funny. "Would you give me a week's notice, please?" She changed her tone. Take off, eh? Or from Hampstead?"
Before Berna could answer, the elevator had already stopped.
"Here comes the roof!" cried a shrill voice.
The elevator man was monkey-like, small, and wore the black jackets that half-idiot Epsilonians wear.
"The roof is here!"
He slammed the door open, startled by the warmth and brightness of the afternoon sun. "Oh, here's the roof!" he said again, in a rapturous tone, as if jolted out of his stupor, "the roof is here."
He looked up at the faces of his guests and smiled, expectant admiration, like a dog.The guests walked into the sunshine talking and laughing.The elevator man watched them.
"Is it going to the roof?" He repeated doubtfully.
A bell rang, and the voice of a loudspeaker from the ceiling of the elevator issued an order, soft but commanding.
"Down!" said the voice, "down. Eighteenth floor. Down, down. Eighteenth floor. Down..."
The elevatorman slammed the door shut, pressed a button, and immediately the elevator dropped into the humming darkness of the stairwell, the darkness to which he was accustomed.
The roof is warm and bright.Helicopters buzzed, flying so sleepily on summer afternoons.Five or six miles away the rocket-plane was speeding across the clear sky, and though invisible, its deeper rumble seemed to caress the soft air.Bernard Marx took a deep breath, looked up at the sky, then at the blue horizon around him, and finally saw Lenina's face.
"How beautiful!" His voice trembled a little.
She smiled understandingly at him with the deepest sympathy. "There's nothing better than Obstacle Golf," she answered cheerfully. "Now I'm flying, Bernard, and Henry will be annoyed at keeping him waiting. Just let me know when you've got a date." She Waving his hands, he walked across the flat and wide roof towards the hangar.Bernard stood looking at the flash of departing white socks; at her tanned knees straightening, bending, straightening, bending; Corduroy shorts.There was a pained look on his face.
"I'd say she's beautiful," cried a voice behind him cheerfully.
Startled, Bernard looked back.Benito Hoover was looking down at him with his plump, rosy face and smiling--a genuine smile, obviously.Benito was known for his gentleness, and it was said that he probably never had to use soma in his life.Bad intentions, bad tempers, things that would make other people have to take vacations never worked on him.Reality is always sunny in front of Benito.
"And spirits. How spirits!" Then he changed his tune, "but I said," he went on, "you do look sad, and what you need is a gram of soma," he put his right hand into his pocket, He took out a small bottle, "Just swallow a small tablet, and ten kinds of troubles will disappear...but I say!"
Bernard had turned abruptly and hurried away.
Benito stared at him for a moment. "What the hell is going on with this guy?" He shook his head in bewilderment, deciding that the story about the poor guy's blood surrogate with too much alcohol was true. "Affected the head, I suppose."
He let go of the soma bottle, took out a pack of sex hormone chewing gum, stuffed a piece into his mouth, and walked slowly towards the hangar while wondering.
Henry Foster had pushed his plane out of the hangar, and was waiting in the cockpit when Lenina arrived.
"Four minutes late," was all he said.She got on the plane and sat down next to him.Henry started the engine and the helicopter's propeller was in gear.The plane shoots vertically into the sky.As soon as Henry accelerated, the propeller screamed, and the roar changed from a hornet to a wasp, and from a wasp to a mosquito.The speedometer indicated they were ascending at about two kilometers per minute.London suddenly shrunk beneath them.Within seconds the gigantic flat-roofed buildings are like geometric mushrooms, rising above the green of the parks and gardens.One of them, a smaller, thin-stemmed mushroom, taller and longer, lifted into the air a shiny disc of concrete that represented the Charing T Street Building.
Above their heads are huge fluffy clouds, like the vague carcasses of several mythical warriors hanging in the blue sky, towering above their heads.A bright red bug suddenly buzzed and fell from a wrestler's body.
"That's the red rocket," Henry said, "just flew in from New York." He looked at his watch, "seven minutes late," he added, shaking his head, "these transatlantic flights - they're late, it's embarrassing gone."
As soon as he let go of the accelerator under his feet, the roar of the propellers above his head dropped an octave and a half, from bumblebees to wasps, bees, scarabs, and stag beetles.The upward sprint of the plane slowed, and after a while they hung motionless in the air.Henry pushed a lever, and with a click, the propeller in front of them started spinning.It was very slow at first, then gradually became faster, and finally there was a round light mist in front of my eyes, and the high-speed wind that was hovering and flying was screaming more and more sharply.Henry's eyes were fixed on the speed dial, and seeing that the pointer pointed to 1200, he let go of the ascending propeller.The aircraft has enough forward momentum to maintain flight on the wings.
Lenina looked down through the floor window between her legs.They were flying over the six miles of parkland that separated central London from the first satellite suburb.Shrinking crowds on the greens look like maggots.There are countless barking puppies shining in the woods, like a forest.Near the Shepherd's Bush, two thousand pairs of betas were playing tennis mixed doubles.The main road from Notting Hill to Wilschden is lined with the No. 5 escalator pitch.A Delta Gymnastics show and Society song is underway at Ealing Field.
"What an ugly color khaki is." Lenina expresses the class prejudice she acquired from sleep education.
Near the seven-and-a-half hectares of the Henslow Sensational Films Studio, a team of laborers in black khaki uniforms are busy reglazing the West Parkway.A cauldron opened just as they flew by, and a blinding glare of molten glass billowed down the road.The asbestos rollers rolled back and forth, and a white mist evaporated behind the insulated sprinkler.
The TV factory in Blemford is like a small town.
"They must be changing shifts," said Lenina.
Gamma girls in pale green and half-idiots in black swarmed the door like aphids and ants, some queuing up to board the monorail.Walking around in the crowd is the color of mulberry.The helicopter on the roof of the main building was either ascending or descending, creating a busy scene.
"To tell the truth," said Lenina, "it's a good thing I'm not a gamma."
Ten minutes later they were in Stockbridge, playing their first round of obstacle golf.
Bernard hurried across the roof with his eyes mostly on the ground, and if he happened to see anyone, he immediately and quietly avoided them.He seemed to be being hunted by the enemy, but he didn't want to see the pursuers, because he was afraid that their appearance would be more terrifying than expected.This made himself even more guilty and helplessly lonely.
"That dreadful Benito Hoover!" But the man's good intentions made his situation worse.People with good intentions acted in exactly the same way as people with bad intentions, and even Lenina made him suffer.He remembered those timid and hesitant weeks, when he had hoped, longed, had the courage to ask her, and then despaired.Will he have the courage to face the humiliation of being dismissively rejected?But if she actually agreed, how ecstatic would he be!Well, she'd made it clear to him now, but he still had a hard time—that she'd decided that afternoon was best spent playing obstacle golf, and had run off with Henry Foster.She was actually amused by his reluctance to talk about their most private affairs in public.In short, he was troubled, because she behaved like a healthy, moral English girl, with no other unique differences.
He opened his hangar and called in two loitering Delta entourages to push his plane onto the roof.The hangar managers were the same Bokanovskyized twins, identically small, dark, and hideous.Bernard gave the order sharply, haughtily, even menacingly, like a man not quite sure of his own superiority.Bernard had a very painful experience dealing with people of lower castes, for whatever the reason, Bernard was no better than the average gamma.Rumors about the alcohol in his blood substitutes were probably true, because accidents happen.He was eight centimeters shorter than the standard Alpha, and his body was correspondingly much thinner.His contact with members of the lower ranks always reminded him painfully of this physical defect of his own. "I am me and wish I wasn't there." His self-awareness was intense and painful.He couldn't help feeling insulted every time he found himself looking straight at (rather than looking down at) a Delta's face.Will that guy treat me with the respect my caste deserves?That question made him restless day and night, but not without reason.Because Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons have been conditioned to a certain extent, and they always link the superiority of social status with their size.In fact, the bias in favor of big men was prevalent due to sleep education, so the women he courted laughed at him and the men at his level played tricks on him.All kinds of ridicule made him feel like an outsider.Since he considers himself an outsider, he acts like an outsider, which deepens the prejudice against him, intensifies the contempt and hostility caused by his physical defects, which in turn deepens his sense of outsider and loneliness.A chronic fear of being slighted led him to avoid his peers and gave him a strong sense of self-esteem in dealing with subordinates.How he envied Henry Foster and Benito Hoover!Those people who want an Epsilon to obey don't need to yell and take their status for granted, they're at home in the caste system, they're at their ease, they're not self-aware, they're ignorant of the superiority and comfort of their surroundings. Turn a blind eye.
It seemed to him that the two attendants were reluctant and slow as they pushed his plane up onto the roof.
"Come on!" Bernard said angrily.A follower glanced at him.Was it a brute contempt he perceived in those blank gray eyes? "Come on!" he shouted louder, with an unpleasant dryness in his voice.
He got on the plane, and a minute later he was heading south over the river.
Several publicity bureaus and the School of Emotional Engineering are housed in a sixty-story building on Fleet Street.The basement and lower floors of that building are dominated by London's three major newspapers, The Hourly Broadcasting (a newspaper for the upper castes), the pale green Gamma Magazine, and the khaki, all-monosyllabic, Del The printing plant and offices of the Tower Mirror newspaper.On the top are the Television Propaganda Bureau, the Sensory Film Bureau, and the Synthetic Sound and Music Bureau—a total of twenty-two floors.Above that are research labs and softly-carpeted rooms—a place where tape writers and synthesizer composers scrutinize.The top eighteen floors are entirely occupied by the School of Emotional Engineering.
Berner landed on the roof of the Propaganda Building and disembarked.
"Call Mr. Helmholtz Watson down below," he ordered Gamma, the concierge, "and inform him that Bernard Marx is waiting on the roof."
He sat down and lit a cigarette.
Mr. Helmholtz Watson was writing when the call came.
"Tell him I'll come right away," he said, hung up the phone, then turned to the secretary and said, "I'll leave my things to you to pack." He ignored her bright smile and continued to do business Speaking in a calm tone, he stood up at the same time, and quickly came to the door.
Mr. Helmholtz Watson was a solidly built man, deep chested, broad shouldered, and tall, but quick in his movements, with a quick, springy gait.His neck was like a solid column, supporting a beautifully contoured head.With his dark curly hair and sharp-edged features, he was indeed strikingly handsome.As his secretary tirelessly repeated: every centimeter is an alpha plus.He is a lecturer in the Writing Department of the School of Emotional Engineering by profession, and he is also engaged in educational activities in his spare time. He is an on-the-job emotional engineer.He writes regularly for Radio Hourly, scripts sensual films, and has mastered the art of writing slogans and sleep-education jingles.
"Competent," his superiors said of him, "maybe," at which point they shook their heads and lowered their voices meaningfully, "too competent."
Yep, a little overcompetent, they're not wrong.Intellectual excess had the same effect on Helmholtz Watson as physical deficiency had on Bernard Marx.Too little frame and too little muscle alienated Bernard and his mates.The estrangement, which by all prevailing standards was too much for the soul, increased the estrangement between him and them.And it was his overcompetence that made Helmholtz painfully aware of himself and his loneliness.The feeling they both share is loneliness.But the handicapped Bernard had felt the pangs of loneliness all his life; Helmholtz Watson's awareness of being too bright and different from those around him was recent.This escalator handball champion, this indefatigable lover (it is said that he had had six hundred and forty different girls in less than four years), this venerable committee member, and a good communicator only recently suddenly understood a truth: Games, women, and society were second-rate things to him.Actually (and fundamentally) he was interested in another question.what is the problem?That was what Bernard had come to discuss with him—or, rather, to hear him talk again, because it was always Helmholtz who was talking.
As soon as Helmholtz stepped out of the elevator, he was blocked by three attractive girls-they had just stepped out of the synth propaganda bureau.
"Oh, Helmholtz, my dear, you must come over to the old heath at supper time and have a picnic with us," they begged, clung to him.
He shook his head and squeezed his way out of the girls. "No, no."
"We don't invite any other men."
But even such an appealing promise didn't sway Helmholtz. "No," he still said, "I have something to do." After finishing speaking, he walked away.The girls followed him, not giving up the chase until Helmholtz boarded Berner's plane and slammed the door shut.They were not without complaints about him.
"These women!" said Helmholtz, as the plane lifted into the sky. "These women," he said, shaking his head and frowning, "are too much to bear!" I wish I could have so many girls and so few troubles like Helmholtz.A desperate need to boast about himself suddenly seized him. "I'm taking Lenina to New Mexico," he said with an effort of indifference.
"Really?" Helmholtz replied without interest, and after a pause he went on, "I turned down all the committee meetings and all the girls for the first week or two. It's hard to imagine the scene. But it's worth it. The result is..." He hesitated. "Anyway, they're very strange, very strange."
Physiological deficits may create a psychological overburden, and that process seems to work in reverse.Psychological overburden can also deliberately isolate itself for its own purposes, thereby creating conscious blindness and deafness, artificially producing ascetic impotence.
The rest of the short flight was spent in silence.They came to Bernard's room, and after stretching out comfortably on the air-cushioned sofa, Helmholtz began talking again.
Speak slowly. "Have you ever had that feeling," he asked, "that there's something inside of you that's been waiting for you to give it a chance. Some kind of excess energy, energy that you won't use—you know , it’s like all the water is flowing into a waterfall, and it’s not impinging on the turbine, have you ever felt that?” He looked at Berner suspiciously.
"You mean how people might feel if the circumstances were different?"
Helmholtz shook his head. "Not quite. I'm thinking of a strange feeling I get sometimes, a feeling that I have something important to say, and that I have the strength to say it—but I don't know what the important thing is, and the power makes me No. If it could be described in any other way... or written in some other way..." He stopped suddenly at this point. "You see," he said at last, "I still Good at talking—what I say can make you jump up, almost like sitting on the tip of a needle. My words seem so new, so sharp, although they are all obvious truths in sleep education. But that doesn't seem to be enough. It’s not enough to have good words, but good meaning.”
"But what you say is good, Helmholtz."
"Oh, it's all right when it works," Helmholtz shrugged, "but my words don't work very well. To a certain extent my words don't matter. I think what I can do is Much more important. Yes, things that I want to do more urgently and strongly. But what is it? I mean: what is more important? How can you be so desperate to write something that someone asks you to write? Wake up? Words are like X-rays, they penetrate everything when used properly. You are penetrated as soon as you read it. That is one of the things I try to teach my students—how to write to get to the bottom of the wood. What's the point of penetrating "Fen Song" or writing articles about the latest improvement of scented instruments! Moreover, when writing those things, can your words really penetrate into wood? Can it really be like the most intense X-ray? Can you write meaningless things? Does it make sense? That's what I mean in the end. I've tried again and again..."
"Be quiet!" Bernard suddenly pointed out a warning, and the two listened. "I believe there is someone at the door," he whispered.
Helmholtz stood up, tiptoed across the room, and flung the door open.Of course no one.
"I'm sorry," Bernard said, embarrassed, self-conscious, embarrassed, "I'm probably mentally overburdened. When people doubt you, you suspect others."
He wiped his eyes with his hands and sighed, his voice sad, and he was justifying himself. "If only you knew the stress I've been under lately." He was on the verge of tears, a spring of self-pity welling up, "If only you knew!"
Helmholtz Watson listened with a certain uneasiness. "Poor little Bernard!" he thought, feeling ashamed for his friend, and wishing Bernard would show more self-respect.
Notes:
Notes: