Chapter 8 Chapter VII
The top of the cliff is like a boat moored quietly by the bay of Shizihuang.The canyon meanders in the steep valley bank, and the cliffs in the valley gradually dwindle, revealing a green area-that is the river and its fields.On the bow of the stone ship in the middle of the strait, a smooth and neat cliff protrudes in a geometric shape. The Malpais Indian Village is there, as if it is a part of the stone ship.The tall houses stretched straight up to the blue sky one by one, the higher they got, the smaller they got, like a pyramid with its horns cut off step by step.Underfoot are the criss-cross walls of scattered low houses.The cliffs fall straight down to the plain from three sides.There was no wind, and a few wisps of cooking smoke rose straight up and disappeared.
"It's weird here," said Lenina. "It's weird." It was her usual expression of condemnation. "I don't like that person, and I don't like that person either." She pointed to the man who was appointed to take them to the Indian village said the guide.Her feelings were clearly confirmed.Those who went before them carried hostility and sullen contempt even from their backs.
"And," she said, lowering her voice, "he stinks."
Bernard had no intention of objecting.They go on.
Suddenly the whole air seemed to come alive, to throb, to beat with an unbroken pulse—and up there, Malpais, someone was beating a drum.They quickened their pace to the beat of the mysterious heartbeat, and came to the bottom of the cliff along the path.The cliffs of the huge stone original ship towered over their heads, and the ship's side was 300 meters high from the ground.
"I really wish I could bring the plane here," Lenina said angrily, looking up at the steep cliff. "I hate walking. Walking on the ground under a high mountain makes people feel small."
They walked a part of the way in the shadow of the stone plateau, rounded a tor, and a path in the water-soaked canyon led to the "ship officer's ladder."They began to climb the mountain.The mountain road is steep and turns around on both sides of the valley.The pulsating drumbeat is sometimes almost inaudible, and sometimes it seems to be able to be seen around the corner.
When they climbed to the middle of the mountain, a goshawk flew close to each other, and a gust of cold wind was blown by its wings, blowing on their faces.There is a pile of hideous and terrifying bones in the crevices of the rocks.Everything is amazingly strange.The smell of Indians was getting stronger.At last they came out of the canyon and into the sunlight.The top of Shiyuan is a flat "deck".
"It's the same as the Charing T Street Building." Lenina commented.But she didn't have much chance to appreciate this comforting discovery, and the sound of soft footsteps made them turn around.Two Indians came running up.Both were naked from throat to navel, with white marks painted on their dark brown bodies (like a tennis court paved with asphalt, Lenina later explained), and their faces were painted with scarlet, black and tan, and they were already inhuman.Their black hair was braided in fox fur and red flannel, turkey feathers flapped over their shoulders, and huge crests of plumes spread brightly over their heads.Silver bracelets, bone necklaces and turquoise beads jingle with every movement.Two men ran forward in moccasin boots without a sound.One of them held a feather duster in his hand, and the other grabbed three or four things that looked like thick ropes from a distance, and one of them twisted uncomfortably.Lenina suddenly realized that it was a snake.
As the two moved closer, their dark eyes caught sight of her without the slightest expression of recognition, seeing or awareness of her presence.The writhing snake drooped lazily, like any other snake.The two walked away.
"I don't like it," said Lenina, "I don't like it."
The guide left them both there to take instructions.Things that she didn't like even more were waiting for her at the gate of Shiyuan, first of all, garbage dumps, dust, dogs and flies.Her face scrunched up in disgust, and she covered her mouth with her handkerchief.
"How can they live like this?" she cried angrily, unbelievable. (Too outrageous.)
Bernard shrugged philosophically. "But after all, that's how they've lived in the past five or six thousand years, so I guess they're used to it by now."
"But 'cleanliness is next door to Ford'," she insisted.
"Yes, 'civilized hygiene is disinfection and sterilization'." Bernard continued, and he repeated the second lesson of hygiene basics in sleep education in a sarcastic tone, "but these people have never heard of our Ford It is not civilized and hygienic, so it is useless to say this..."
"Ah!" She grabbed his arm. "Look."
An almost naked Indian was descending very slowly down the second-floor stairs of a nearby house--a very old man, cautiously, trembling down step by step.His face was dark and deeply lined, like an obsidian mask.The toothless mouth was sunken, and there were a few long beards at the corners of the mouth and the sides of the chin, which were lined by black skin, shining almost white.His unbraided hair hung down his face in strands of off-white.He was stooped, bony, and barely fleshy.He descended the stairs very slowly, pausing on the rungs at each risky step.
"What's the matter with him?" whispered Lenina, her eyes wide with terror and surprise.
"He's just old," Bernard replied as nonchalantly as he could.He too was shocked, but tried to look unmoved.
"Old?" she repeated, "but the director is also old, and many people are old, but they don't look like that."
"That's because we don't let them be like that. We give them health care, don't let them get sick, artificially maintain their endocrine, make the endocrine balance, like young people. We don't let their magnesium calcium ratio drop to thirty years old Next. We infuse them with young blood to keep their metabolisms active forever so they don't grow old. And," he went on, "most of the people here die before they reach the old man's age. It was. Young, almost unscathed, and then, suddenly, it was over."
But Lenina no longer listened to him.She was looking at the old man.The old man walked down very slowly, put his foot on the ground, and turned around.His sunken eyes were exceptionally bright, and he looked at her expressionlessly for a long time, not surprised, as if she wasn't there at all, and then he slowly stooped past them and staggered away up.
"But it's terrible," Lenina murmured, "it's terrible. We shouldn't have come." She reached into her pocket for the soma, only to find that she had left the bottle of soma at the hotel through a carelessness she had never done before. inside.Bernard's pocket was also empty.
Lenina is left alone to face the horrors of Malpais, and horrors do follow.She turned her face away in embarrassment as two young women nursed their babies.She had never seen anything so obscene in her life.To make matters worse, Berner, instead of tactfully dismissing the disgusting viviparous scene, made a public comment.The effect of the soma had worn off, and he was ashamed of his weakness at the hotel that morning, so he was uncharacteristically strong and unorthodox.
"What a wonderful intimacy," he said, embarrassingly, "and what depths of affection it inspires! I've often thought of what we might lose by not being a mother, and what you've lost by not being a mother." Maybe something is missing. Lenina, imagine yourself sitting there feeding your own baby..."
"Berner! How can you do this?" A passing elderly woman with conjunctivitis and skin disease distracted her righteous indignation by attracting her attention.
"Let's go," she begged him, "I don't like it here."
But by this time their guide had returned.He beckoned them to follow and led them down the narrow street between the houses and around a corner.A dead dog lay on a rubbish heap, and a woman with a wart was picking lice out of a little girl's hair.The guide stopped next to a ladder, swung his hand vertically, and then swung horizontally.They followed his wordless instructions—climbed up the ladder, passed through the door the ladder led to, and entered a long narrow room.The room was rather dark and smelt of smoke, greasy and old laundry.At the other end of the room was another door, through which the sunlight and the sound of drums came in.The drums were loud and close.
They crossed the threshold and found themselves on a broad terrace, below which lay the Indian's Square, crowded with people and surrounded on all sides by tall buildings.Bright felt, feathers in black hair, turquoise glitter, dark skin that shone with heat.Lenina put her handkerchief to her nose again.There are two circular platforms in the open space in the middle of the square, which are made of stone and rammed soil. They are obviously the roof of the basement, because there is a stairway in the middle of each platform, and a staircase is still erected underneath. , into the darkness.There was the sound of a flute coming from the ground, but it disappeared into the continuous and cruel drumming.
Lenina liked the sound of the drums.She closed her eyes and let herself be swayed by the soft and repeated thunder, letting it invade her consciousness more and more completely, until at last there was nothing in the world but that single deep pulsating sound.The sound reminded her comfortingly of the synthesized music of the Unity Prayers and Forte Day celebrations. "Joyful and dripping," she said quietly.The drum beats the same rhythm.
There was a sudden outburst of astonishing singing—hundreds of male throats screaming furiously, a piercing metallic chorus from all mouths: a few long notes, silence—the silence after thunderous drum beats.Then came the woman's answer, singing the highest note, as shrill as a horse neighing.Then came the drums again.Once again the men savagely affirm their manliness with deep voices.
Weird, yes.The location is strange, the music is strange, the clothes, tumors, skin diseases and old people are all strange.But that performance didn't seem particularly weird.
"It reminds me of the community chorus of the lower castes," she told Berner.
But after a while, the chorus reminded her of something other than its innocuous effect, for a horde of hideous demons suddenly appeared from the circular basement.They wore horrible masks, painted inhuman faces, and danced a strange lame dance around the square.They sang and danced, dancing and singing round and round, round and round, faster and faster.The drum beat changed, the tempo quickened, and it sounded like the pulse of a fever.The people around also sang along, and the voice became louder and louder.One woman started screaming, and then another screamed, as if someone was going to kill them.Then the lead dancer left the line, ran to a big wooden cabinet at the end of the square, opened the lid, and caught two black snakes.People shouted loudly, and the other dancers all stretched out their hands and ran towards him.The man threw the snake at the first group of people who came running, and then reached into the cabinet to catch it.More and more black snakes, yellow snakes and flower snakes were thrown out.The dance resumes with another rhythm.People grabbed the snake and jumped around, knees and waists twisting softly like snakes.Then the lead dancer gave a signal, and people threw snakes one after another into the center of the square.An old man came out of the basement and sprinkled cornflakes on the snake.Another woman emerged from another cellar and poured a black pitcher of water over the snake.Then the old man raised his hands.There was a startling, unexpected, absolute silence.The drums stopped, and life seemed to stop.The old man pointed with his finger to two openings leading to the underworld, at this time a painted eagle appeared from one opening, as if lifted by an invisible hand; Portrait of a naked man on a cross.The two paintings hang there, as if supported by their own strength, looking at the crowd.The old man clapped his hands, and a young man of about eighteen stepped out of the crowd.He was completely naked except for a white cotton cloth on his waist.The young man folded his hands in front of his chest, bowed his head and stood in front of the old man.The old man made the sign of the cross over his head and turned away.The boy circled slowly around the writhing mass of snakes.After the first round, the second round was only halfway through, and a person walked out of the dancing crowd.The tall man, wearing a coyote mask, walked up to the young man with a whip made of leather straps in his hand.The young man continued to circle around, as if he didn't know the existence of the man.The coyote raised his whip and waited for a long time. With one violent movement and a whistling sound, the whip lashed loudly on the flesh.The young man shook his body, but made no sound, and continued to turn around with the same slow and steady pace.The coyote whipped again, and then again, and the crowd gasped at first, then let out a muffled groan.The boy kept going.One circle, two circles, three circles, he walked around the circle four times, bleeding.Five laps, six laps.Lenina suddenly covered her face with her hands and sobbed. "Oh, tell them to stop beating, stop beating!" she begged.But the whip whipped mercilessly, whip after whip, seven times.The young man staggered suddenly, but he still didn't make a sound, he just fell down.The old man leaned over him and dipped a long white feather down his back and held it up for people to see, bright red.Then it swayed three times on the pile of snakes.A few drops of blood fell down.The drums suddenly beat nervously and hastily, and the people shouted.The dancers rushed forward, grabbed the snake and ran out of the square.Men, women, and children all followed, and all ran away in a swarm.After a while, the Gongfu Square was empty, only the young man was still lying on the place where he fell, motionless.Three old women came out of a room, lifted him up with some effort, and led him into the room.In the empty Indian village, only the painted eagle and the man on the cross kept watch for a while.Then, too, as if they had seen enough, they sank slowly into the basement and into the underworld, out of sight.
Lenina was still sobbing. "It's horrible," she repeated over and over.All Bernard's consolations were in vain. "It's terrible, that blood!" she shuddered. "Oh, I wish I had my soma with me."
There were footsteps in the inner room.
Lenina did not move, but sat with her hands over her face and did not look.Bernard turned around.
Coming to the terrace now was a young man in Indian dress, with braided fair hair, pale blue eyes, and bronzed skin that was originally white.
"Hello, good day," said the stranger, in sound but peculiar English, "you're civilized people, aren't you? From over there, out of the reservation, aren't you?"
"Are you..." Bernard was taken aback and spoke.
The lad sighed and shook his head. "A most unfortunate gentleman," he said, pointing to the blood in the middle of the square. "See that wretched place?" he asked, shaking with excitement.
"It's better to be soma than to be troubled," said Lenina mechanically, still covering her face. "I wish I had my soma with me."
"I should have gone there," continued the young man. "Why didn't they sacrifice me? I could walk ten circles, twelve circles, fifteen circles. Paloteva only walked seven circles. They could get twice as much blood from me," he waved his arms in an exaggerated gesture, then let them down in disappointment, "but they won't let me go. They don't like me because of the color of my skin, They've always been like this, always." The young man's eyes filled with tears, he felt embarrassed and turned away.
Surprise made Lenina forget that she had lost soma.She let go of her hand and looked at the young man for the first time. "You mean you want to be whipped?"
The young man still kept his body away, but made a gesture to express his affirmation. "For the sake of the village, for praying for rain, for the growth of crops, for the joy of Bodhisattva and Jesus, and to show that I can endure pain without crying or screaming, I want to be whipped." His voice suddenly changed to a new one. Resonating, he puffed out his chest, raised his chin proudly and challengingly, "To show that I am a man... ah!" He gasped, opened his mouth, and stopped talking.For the first time in his life he saw a girl with a face that wasn't chocolate or dog-skinned; with auburn hair that was always curly;Lenina smiled at him.What a handsome lad, she thought, with a really nice body.Blood welled up on the young man's face. He lowered his head and raised it after a while, only to find that she was still smiling at him.He was so excited that he turned his head away and pretended to focus on something across the square.
A few questions from Bernard distracted him.He asked who is he?Where did it come from?Why are you here?When did you come?The young man fixed his eyes on Bernard's face (he was anxious to see the girl's smile, but could hardly look at her), and explained his situation.On the reservation, Linda (his mother, Lenina was ashamed to hear the word mother) and he were outsiders.Linda had come from "over there" with a man long ago, before he was born.That man is his father. (Berner pricks up his ears.) Linda was walking north alone in the mountains over there and fell under a cliff and hurt her head. (“Go ahead, go ahead,” said Bernard passionately.) Some hunters from Malpais found her and took her back to the village.Linda never saw that man, his father, again.The man's name was Tomakin (yes, the director's name was Tomakin).He must have flown away and gone back to that other place without her--a cruel, inhuman wretch.
"Therefore I was born in Malpais," he concluded, "in Malpais." He shook his head.
That hut near the village is filthy!
A clearing full of dust and rubbish separated the hut from the village, and two hungry dogs sniffed shamelessly among the rubbish in front of the hut.They go into the house.The room stank and the buzzing of flies was loud.
"Linda," called the young man.
"Here we are." A hoarse female voice replied.
They wait.There are leftovers in several bowls on the ground, maybe there are leftovers from several meals.
The door opened.A very stocky blond Indian woman stepped through the threshold and stood there with her mouth open, staring at the two strangers in disbelief.Lenina noticed with disgust that she had lost two of her front teeth, and that the remaining ones were of the same color... She got goosebumps.Worse than the old man just now.So fat, those lines on his face, that flabby flesh, those wrinkles, those lilac bumps on his sagging cheeks, those bloodshot eyes and the red bloodshot on his nose.The neck—the neck, the felt over the head—was ragged and dirty.And the huge breasts and protruding belly under the brown pocket-like blouse, and the waist, ah, much worse than that old man, much worse!Suddenly the poor woman ran towards them with outstretched hands, babbling in her mouth - Ford!Ford!The man actually hugged her tightly, on her breasts and belly, and kissed her.It was so disgusting, she was going to vomit if it went on like this.The man was spitting and kissing her, and he was very smelly, and he had obviously never had a bath.And that smell, almost identical to what goes into Delta and Epsilon bottles (no, it can't be true about Berner), must be alcohol.She broke free as fast as she could and dodged.
In front of her was a dirty face distorted from crying.The old woman was crying.
"Oh, dear, dear." The words were choked with sobs and gushed, "If only you knew how happy I am, I haven't seen a civilized face in so many years, yes, I haven't seen a civilized face. Civilized clothes. I thought I'd never see real rayon clothes again." She twisted Lenina's shirt sleeves with her fingers, her fingernails were black. "And these lovely viscose velveteen shorts! You know what? , my dears, I still have my old clothes—the ones I wore, and put them in a box for you to see later, though they are all torn. And the lovely white leather belt—though I must say Your Moroccan green belt is better." She began to cry again, "I reckon John told you I've suffered a lot, and I don't have any soma, except the occasional drink that Pope brings. Pope A lad I know. But it's very bad after drinking it, mezcal is like that. Drinking tequila is disgusting, and it creates a terrible feeling, and the next day is even more humiliating. I feel very humiliating Just think about it, me, a beta, having a baby, put yourself in your shoes." (Just mentioning that, Lenina was terrified.) "Though I could swear it wasn't my fault, because I Still don't know how it happened. I did all the Malthusian fucks, always in order, one, two, three, four, I swear. But it still happens, of course, there is no abortion here Center. By the way, is the crowd center still in Chelsea?" she asked, and Lenina nodded. "Is there still floodlighting on Tuesday and Friday?" Lenina nodded again. "That lovely glass building!" Poor Linda raised her face and closed her eyes, ecstatically imagining the splendid scene in her memory. "And the night scene on the river." The old woman whispered, with big tears slowly seeping from her closed eyelids, "fly back from Stock Podge at night, take a hot bath, come once Vacuum vibration massage... hey!" She took a deep breath, shook her head, opened her eyes again, sniffed once or twice with her nose, blew her nose with her fingers, and wiped it on the front of her blouse. "Ah, I'm sorry." She saw Lenina's subconscious disgust expression, and said, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done this, but what would you do if you didn't have a handkerchief? I remember how angry I was when I was so dirty. Everything wasn't sterilized. When they first brought me here, I had a horrible cut on my head. You can't imagine what they put on it. Dirt, only filth. 'Civilization is sanitization,' I'm old Tell them, even jingle to them, 'Strep horse turn right, to the T of Bamboli, what are you doing by the T? Look at the nice restrooms.' Seems like they're all dolls. But Of course they wouldn't understand. How could they understand? Seems like I got used to it eventually. Besides, there's no hot water pipe, how can it be clean? Look at these clothes. This kind of ugly wool is always wearable, not like rayon And if it is broken, you have to mend it. But I am a beta, and I work in the insemination room. No one has taught me to do this kind of work. It is not my job. Besides, repairing it was a mistake at that time. Throw away the holes and buy new ones. Isn't it true that 'the more you sew the poorer you are'? It's anti-social to mend, but it's different here. It's like living with lunatics. What they do Everything is crazy." Looking around, she saw that John and Bernard had left her, walking around in the dust and garbage outside the house, she still lowered her voice, and quietly leaned on her waist. Coming over, Lenina stiffened and backed away.The stench of the old woman, enough to poison the embryo, blew the hairs on Lenina's cheeks. "Like," she said hoarsely, "the way they get along with men and women here. It's madness, absolute madness. Everyone belongs to each other—do they? Do they?" She tugged. Lenina's sleeve pressed.Lenina turned her head to one side, nodded, exhaled (she had just held her breath), and managed to take a breath of relatively unpolluted air. "Well, people don't belong to more than one person here. If you accept men as a rule, people will say that you are bad and anti-social, and they will hate you and look down on you. Once a large number of women came to me to make a fuss I had a fight because their men came to see me. Huh, why can't they come to see me? Then, they rushed at me... no, it was terrible! I can't tell you." Linda covered her face with her hands , trembling. "Women here are pretty damned, they're crazy, crazy and cruel. Of course they don't understand Malthusian fucks, culture bottles, changing bottles, and stuff like that, so they're always having babies, like dogs. It's unbearable. Think Come to think of it, I actually... oh, Ford, Ford, Ford! But John is a great comfort to me. I don't know what I'd have done without him. Even though he often There's a man... and it's sad, even as a baby he... Once, he even tried to kill poor Wee Hooshwa—maybe Pope?—because I used to sleep with him (John was a bit older then, though.) I never could get him to understand that's what civilized people do. I think madness is contagious. Anyway, John seems to have caught madness from the Indians, of course, Because he spends a lot of time with them, although they treat him badly and don't let him do things that other boys can do. It's a good thing, because it makes it easier for me to set conditions for him , you don't know how difficult that is. There's so much I don't know. I'm not obligated to know that. I mean, the kid asks you how helicopters fly, what the world is made of— —Look, if you were a Beta who has been working in the insemination room, how would you answer? What words can you answer?"
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