Chapter 9 chapter eight

Outside, among the dust and rubbish (there were four dogs now), Bernard and John walked slowly up and down. "It's hard for me to understand," Bernard said, "and it's hard to reassemble impressions. We seem to live on different planets, in different centuries. There's a mother, and this filth, and God, and aging, and With illness..." He shook his head, "almost unimaginable. I'll never understand it unless you explain it." "Explain what?" "Explain this," he pointed to the Indian village, "that." Pointing to the hut outside the village, "explain all this, your life."

"But what's the explanation for that?" "Explain from the beginning. Explain everything you can recall." "Everything I can recall." John frowned and remained silent for a long time. The weather was hot, and mother and son ate a lot of tortillas and sweet corn.Linda said, "Lie down, boy." Mother and son lay down on the big bed, "Sing." "Goodbye baby Banting, you're about to change the bottle".The singing is getting more and more vague... There was a noise, and John woke up. A man was saying something to Linda, and Linda was laughing.She had pulled the blanket up to her chin, but the man pulled it all back.The man's hair was like two black ropes, and on his arm was a lovely silver armlet set with blue stones.John liked the armlets, but was still afraid.He hid his face in Linda's arms, and Linda held him, and he felt safe.He heard Linda say in words he didn't quite understand: "No, John is here." The man looked at him, then at Linda, and said something softly.Linda said, "No." The man bent over him.The face was large and terrible, and the hair touched the blanket. "No," Linda said again, and he felt her arms tighten. "No, no." But the man grabbed his arm, which hurt him, and he screamed.The man held out his other hand and hugged him.Linda still hugged him and said, "No, no." The man said something angry, very short.Linda's hand suddenly relaxed. "Linda, Linda." He kicked and struggled.But the man carried him to the door, opened it, put him in the middle of another room, and walked away, closing the door behind him.He got up and ran to the door.He tiptoed and could barely reach the huge wooden latch.He lifted the latch and pushed it, but it wouldn't open. "Linda," he yelled.Linda didn't answer.

He remembered a rather gloomy room, with some strange woodwork and many strings, and many women standing around.Linda said it was knitting felt.Linda made him sit in the corner with the other children while she helped the women.He played with the children for a long time.Suddenly people were talking very loudly and a woman was pushing Linda to get out.Linda was crying and walking towards the door.He followed and asked her why those women were angry. "Because I broke something." Then Linda got angry too. "How would I know their goddam knitting?" she said. "Bad savages." He asked her what a savage was.Pope was waiting at the door when they reached their house, and he entered with them.Pope had a big gourd with something like water in it, but instead of water it was something that stinks and burns your mouth and makes you cough.Linda drank a little, and Pope drank a little, and then Linda laughed and talked loudly.Then she and Pope went into the other room... and he went into the room after Pope had gone.Linda was sound asleep in bed, and there was nothing he could do to wake her up.

At that time Pope came frequently, and he said that the thing in the gourd was called mezcal, but Linda said it should be called soma, but it made me sick after drinking it.He hated Pope, and he hated everyone—all the men who came to see Linda.He was playing with the other children one afternoon—it was cold, he remembered, and there was snow on the hills, and when he came back to the house he heard angry shouts from the bedroom.It was a woman's voice, speaking words he could not understand, but he knew they were terrible words.Then, with a sudden bang, something fell to the ground.He heard people running around.Then there was another bang, and then there was a sound like a donkey being whipped, except that the thing being beaten was not as thin as a donkey.Linda screamed. "Oh, don't, don't, don't hit!" she said.He ran in, and there were three women in black blankets, and Linda was on the bed.One woman is holding her by the wrist; another is pressing on her leg to prevent her from kicking; a third is whipping her.One lash, two lashes, three lashes, and Linda screamed with each stroke.He cried and tugged at the side of the woman's blanket. "Please, please," he said.The woman pulled him away with her hands and whipped him again, and Linda screamed again.He grabbed the woman's big brown hand with both hands and bit down with all his might.The woman cried out, broke free, slapped him violently and pushed him to the ground, and whipped him three times while he was lying on the ground.The whip was worse than anything, and he was in pain like fire.The whip whistled again and was drawn down.But this time it was Linda who shouted.

"Why did they hurt you, Linda?" he asked that night.He cried because the red welts on his back still hurt badly, and because people were too brutal and unfair, and because he himself was a child and couldn't resist.Linda was crying too.She is an adult, but she is only one person, and she can't beat the three of them.That's not fair to her either. "Why are they bullying you, Linda?" "I don't know, how would I know?" She couldn't hear her words because she was lying on the bed with her face buried in the pillow. "They said the men were theirs," she went on, as if she wasn't addressing him at all, but someone inside of her.Her speech was so long that he couldn't understand it.Finally she started crying, louder than ever.

"Oh, don't cry, Linda, don't cry." He leaned over, leaned tight, and put his arms around her neck.Linda cried, "Oh, don't touch my shoulder! Oh!" She pushed him away.His head hit the wall. "Little idiot!" she yelled, and she started slapping him.Snapped!Snapped! ... "Linda," he called out, "oh, mother. Stop hitting!" "I'm not your mother. I don't want to be your mother." "But Linda... oh!" She slapped him again. "Turned into a savage," she cried, "baby like a wild animal... If it weren't for you I might have gone to the Inspector, and gone away. But you can't take a baby, it's too shameful. "

Seeing that she was about to hit him again, he raised his arms to cover his face. "Oh, Linda, don't hit me, please don't hit me." "Little bastard!" She pulled his arm down, exposing her face. "Stop beating, Linda." He closed his eyes, waiting for the beating. But she didn't fight.After a while he opened his eyes and saw her looking at him.He forced a smile at her.She suddenly put her arms around him, kissed him, and kissed him again and again. Sometimes Linda would stay up for days, lie in bed sad, or drink what Pope had brought, and then laugh and go to sleep.Sometimes she gets sick.She often forgot to wash and bathe him, and he had nothing to eat but cold corn tortillas.He remembered the fuss she'd made when she first found the critters in his hair.

They were happiest when she told him about "the place." "Any time you want to fly, you can fly, really?" "You can fly anytime you want." She told him about good music coming out of a box, and fun, food, and drink; something on the wall that would light up when pressed ; and pictures, not only to be seen, but also to be heard, touched, and smelled; Green, blue, silver gray.Everyone is very happy there, and no one is sad or angry.Everyone belongs to everyone else.And the boxes from which you can see and hear what's going on on the other side of the world, and the little babies in the clean, cute bottles—everything is so clean, no smell, no filth, people are never alone, They lived happily together, as they did at the summer ball here at Malpais, only much happier, and happier every day, every day... He listened hour after hour.Sometimes when he gets tired of playing with other children, the old people in the village will tell them stories in other languages.Talk about the great reformer of the world; talk about the long-term struggle between the left hand and the right hand, between dry and wet; Father; the twin sons Ahaiyuta and Maselema who talk about war and opportunity; Our Lady.They were all strange stories, which were very pleasant because they were told in another language, which was not very understandable.He used to lie in bed thinking of heaven and London, Our Lady of Atsuma and rows of babies in clean bottles.Jesus flew up, Linda flew up, and the great director of World Incubation Center and Awona Virona.

Many men came to see Linda.The kids started pointing at him.They called Linda a bad woman in that other strange language.They gave her names that he couldn't understand, but understood that they were all bad names.One day they sang a song about her, and sang and sang.He stoned them, and they stoned him.A sharp stone hit his face, bleeding profusely, and he was covered in blood. Linda taught him to read, and she drew some pictures on the wall with a piece of charcoal—an animal sitting, a baby in a bottle, and then some letters.Write: The little boy squats on the bottle, and the little cat sits on the mat.He learns quickly and easily.After he could read all the writing on the wall, Linda opened her big wooden box and pulled out from under those funny little red pants she never wore a thin little book that he used to see. "When you grow up," she said, "you can read." Well, now that he's grown up, he's proud. "I'm afraid you won't think it's a nice book," she said, "but it's the only thing I have," she sighed, "if only you could see those lovely readers! Yes." He read, "Chemical and Bacteriological Conditioning of Embryos," "A Practical Guide for Embryokubeta Personnel."It took him a quarter of an hour just to read the headline.He threw the book on the ground. "Damn, nasty book!" he cried.

The kids still sing that horrible song about Linda.Sometimes they laughed at him for being too shabby.His clothes were torn and Linda didn't know how to mend them.She told him that at that other place, clothes with holes were thrown away and new ones were bought. "Rack, rag!" the children called to him. "But I can read," he thought, "they can't, they don't even know what reading is." When they laughed at him, he tried to read, and it was easy to deal with.He can pretend not to care.So he asked Linda to give him the book again. The more the children sang and poked their fingers, the harder he studied.He quickly read the words very well, even the longest ones.But what does that mean?When he asked Linda, she usually couldn't answer, and even if she could, she couldn't explain clearly.

"What are chemicals?" he asked sometimes. "Oh, like the magnesium salts, like the alcohol that keeps the Deltas and Epsilons lean and backward, like the calcium carbonate that makes the bones, stuff like that." "But how are the chemicals made, Linda? Where do the chemicals come from?" "I don't know. It came out of the bottle. When the bottle was empty they were sent to the drug warehouse. Made by the people in the drug warehouse, I reckon. Or they sent someone to the factory to get it, I think." No idea. I've never done chemistry, I've always worked with embryos." He asked her other questions as well, and Linda never seemed to know.The elders of the Indian Village gave much more accurate answers. "The seeds of people and all living things, the seeds of the sun, the seeds of the earth, and the seeds of the sky are all created by Awo Nawei Luo Na with the mist of reproduction. Now there are four wombs in the world, and he put the seeds in the lowest in the womb. The seed grows..." One day (John later figured out that it must have been shortly after his twelfth birthday) he came home to find a book on the floor of his bedroom that he had never seen before.The book was thick and old-looking; the spine had been eaten away by mice; some of the pages were loose and crumpled.He picked it up and looked at the title page. It was called The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Linda was lying on the bed, sipping the foul-smelling mescal from a glass. "Poppe brought the book," she said, her voice hoarse and hoarse as if it were someone else's. "It's in a chest in the Sanctuary of the Antelope. It's said to have been there for hundreds of years. I guess it's true." Yes, because I saw it was full of nonsense and uncivilized, but it can still be used to train you to read." She took the last sip, put the cup on the ground beside the bed, turned around, and hit one or two Hiccup, fell asleep. He opened the book casually. Those strange words roiled in his mind, like words spoken by rolling thunder; like the beating of a drum at a summer ball—if the drums could mean anything; like a male voice singing the song of corn, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful Makes you want to cry; like old Mitsima's incantations when shaking his feathers, carved walking sticks, and stones and bone objects—Jiatra, Qilu, Xiluokui, Xiluokui, Qiai, Xilu, Hilu, Chito - but better than that spell, because it has more meaning, because it was said for him.Well said, and half-understood, it was a terrifyingly beautiful spell about Linda, about Linda lying there snoring, with the empty glass on the floor by the bed.It's about Linda and Pope, Linda and Pope. He hated Pope more and more.A man can laugh and laugh and still be a villain.An unrepentant, fraudulent, licentious, vicious villain.What exactly does that mean?It made him half understand, but charming, always rumbling in his head.For some reason, he felt as if he had never really hated Pope before; never really hated him, because he had never been able to tell how much he hated him.But now he heard the spells, and they were like drums, like singing, like magic.These spells, and the very strange story that contained them (which he didn't quite know, but which he found very, very wonderful), gave him reason to hate Pope, made his hatred more real, and made Pope even It's more real. One day when he came back from playing, the inner door was open, and he saw them both lying asleep in bed together—snow-white Linda and almost black Pope beside her.Pope had one arm under her neck, the other black hand was on her breast, and one of his long braids was wrapped around her throat like a black snake trying to entangle her.Pope's gourd and a cup lay on the ground beside the bed.Linda is snoring. His heart seemed to disappear, leaving only a hollow.He was hollowed out, empty and cold, sick and dizzy.He steadied himself against the wall. "The unrepentant, the fraudulent, the licentious..." The words repeated in his head, repeated, like drums beating, corn chanting, incantations.He suddenly changed from cold to hot.His blood was running, his cheeks were burning, and the room was spinning dark before him.He gritted his teeth. "I'm going to kill him. I'm going to kill him," he kept saying.Suddenly, more words appeared: The spell spoke for him, the spell interpreted the order, gave it.He retreated to the outside house. "While he was drunk and drowsy..." The meat-cutting knife lay on the ground by the fire.He picked up the knife and tiptoed back to the door. "During his drowsiness and drowsiness, when he was drowsy and drowsy..." He rushed across the room and stabbed him.Ah, blood! — Another stab, and Pope woke up with a start.He raised his hand and stabbed again, but his hand was caught-oh, oh! —was twisted away.He couldn't move, he couldn't escape.Pope's small black eyes stared very closely into his.He turned his head away.Pope suffered two wounds on his left shoulder. "Oh, look at the blood!" Linda was shouting, "Look at the blood!" The sight of blood had never been enough for her.Pope raised his other hand—John thought he was going to hit him, and stiffened for a blow, but the hand just grabbed his chin and turned his face so that he couldn't help it. No longer looking at Pope's face.The two of them stared at each other for a long time, for hours, and hours.Suddenly, he burst into tears—because he couldn't help it.Pope laughed. "Go," he said in another Indian language, "go, brave Ahaiyuta." John fled, and hid his tears in the other room. "You are fifteen years old," said old Mitsima in Indian words, "and now I can teach you how to make dirt." The two squatted by the river and worked together. "First," said Mitsima, picking up a lump of wet mud with both hands, "let's make a small moon." The old man shaped the mud into a round cake, then made the sides of the cake stand up a little, and the moon became a shallow cup. Slowly and clumsily, he imitated the old man's clever movements. "The moon, the cup, and now the snake." Mitsima twisted another piece of soil into a long strip that could be coiled, coiled it into a circle, and pressed it tightly on the mouth of the cup, "and then a snake, Another snake, another snake." Mitsima shaped the sides of the jar round and round.The jar was originally narrow, but now it bulges out, and when it reaches the mouth of the jar, it becomes narrow again.Mitsima squeezed, slapped, wiped, scraped; at last there stood the jug, the kind that Malpais used to see, only creamy white instead of black, and still soft to the touch. .John's jar stands next to Mitsima's jar, a distorted facsimile of Mitsima's jar.He looked at the two jars and couldn't help laughing. "The next one will be better," he said, starting to wet another lump of mud. Kneading, forming, feeling his hands growing more deft and stronger—it gave him uncommon pleasure. "A and B and C, vitamin D;" he sang as he worked, "the fat is in the liver, the cod is in the sea." Mitsima sang too—it was about killing a bear.The two of them worked all day, filling him with intense, intoxicating joy throughout the day. "Next winter," said old Mitsima, "I will teach you how to make a bow." He stood outside the house for a long time.The ceremony inside was finally over, the door opened and people came out.Kurt Road appeared first. He clenched his right hand and stretched out in front of him, as if holding some valuable treasure.Ji Yajimei followed behind, she also squeezed one hand tightly, and stretched out the same.The two of them walked silently, followed by their first cousins, cousins, cousins ​​and all the old people. They walked out of the Indian village, crossed the stone plateau, came to the edge of the cliff, and stood facing the early morning sun.Kurt opened his hand, and a handful of cornmeal was lying in his palm. He breathed out on the cornmeal, muttered a few words, and threw the white powder towards the sun.Kimi Ji Ya does the same.Then Kiya Kimi's father also came forward, raised a prayer staff with feathers, said a long prayer, and then threw the prayer staff out with the cornmeal. "Licheng," Mitsima said loudly, "they are married." "It's done," said Linda, as the people turned, "and all I can say is this: It really does seem like a lot of fuss. In a civilized society, a boy wants a girl just . . . but you Where are you going, John?" John didn't care about her greetings, but just ran, ran, ran, ran to where he could be alone. Li Cheng.Old Mitsima's words were repeated in his mind.Licheng, Licheng... He once loved Ji Yajimei, silently, from a distance, but passionately, desperately and hopelessly.But now it has been "ritually accomplished".He was sixteen at the time. On a full moon day, there are often people in the antelope sanctuary who tell secrets, complete secrets and produce secrets.People go there, go to the antelope sanctuary, go there as children, and come back as adults.Boys were afraid, but longed for, that day finally came.The sun sets and the moon rises.He went with someone else.The black shadows of several men stood at the entrance of the holy cave, and the ladder went down to the depths illuminated by the red light.The leading boys had already begun to climb down.Suddenly a man stepped out, grabbed him by the arm and dragged him out of the line.He broke free and went back into the ranks.This time the man beat him and pulled his hair. "You are not eligible, Bai Mao!" "The cubs of that bitch are not eligible!" Someone said.The boys laughed. "Go away!" the people shouted again because he was still lingering around the crowd, refusing to leave.Someone bent down and picked up a stone and threw it at him. "Go, go, go!" The stones flew like raindrops.He fled into the shadows bleeding.The singing began in the sanctuary illuminated by red lights.The last boy has climbed down the ladder.He is completely alone. He was utterly alone on the bare stony mesas outside the Indian village.The rocks in the moonlight look like bleached skeletons, and the coyotes howl at the moon in the valley below the high cliffs.The place where he was injured was sore and the wound was still bleeding.He sobbed, not because of pain, but because of loneliness.He was cast out alone into a world of skeleton-like rocks and moonlight.He sat down on the edge of the cliff with his back to the moonlight.He looked down at the dark shadow of Shiyuan, at the black shadow of death.All he had to do was take a step forward, a little jump... He stuck his right hand into the moonlight.The wound on the wrist is still oozing blood, dripping every few seconds.One drop, one drop, another drop.Tomorrow, tomorrow, and tomorrow... He has found time, death and God. "Alone, always alone," said the boy. The words had a forlorn echo in Bernard's mind.Lonely, lonely... "I'm lonely too," he couldn't help saying a few words, "terribly lonely." "Are you lonely too?" John looked surprised. "I thought over there...I mean, Linda always said that people over there are never lonely." Bernard blushed coyly. "You see," he muttered, looking away, "I reckon I'm quite different from the people there. If one person changes the bottle it makes a difference..." "Yes, that's right," the boy nodded. "If there's any difference, you're bound to be alone. They're so cruel to people. They shut me out of everything, you know? The other boys were sent up the hills." Overnight—that's when you're going to dream about your sacred animals, you know—and they wouldn't let me go with them, and wouldn't tell me any secrets. But I told myself." He went on, "I didn't eat for five days, and then I went out alone that night and entered the mountain over there." He pointed. Bernard smiled condescendingly. "Did you dream anything?" he asked. The other party nodded. "But I can't tell you what," he whispered after a pause, "once," he went on, "I did something no one else has ever done. On a summer noon, I stretched out my arms Leaning on a rock, like Jesus on the cross." "why?" "I want to know what it's like to be crucified. Hanging there, in the sun..." "But what are you doing for?" "For what? Well..." He hesitated, "Because I feel that since Jesus can bear it, I should also bear it. Besides, if a person does something wrong...not to mention that I am unlucky, that is also a reason." "It seems absurd to treat your misfortune in such a way," Berner said.But after thinking about it again, he felt that it made sense to do so, and it was better than eating soma... "After a while I passed out," said the lad, "and fell to the ground. Did you see where I was hurt?" He brushed the thick yellow hair from his forehead, showing the scar on his right temple. scars.A gray mark. Berner glanced at it, but was startled immediately, and looked aside.His conditioning made him less prone to compassion, but he was very sensitive and squeamish.When mentioning disease and pain, he is not only afraid, but also resists, and even loathes, as if meeting dirt, deformity or aging.He quickly changed the subject. "I wonder if you would like to come back to London with us?" he asked.He took the first step in his battle.He had seen in that little room who the "father" of the savage was, and he had been secretly hatching his strategy ever since. "Would you like to go?" The boy's face lit up. "You really mean that?" "Of course, that is, if I can get approval." "Linda is going too?" "Hmm..." He hesitated, not sure.That nasty thing!No, that can't be done.Unless, unless... It occurred to Bernard that her disgusting look might be a huge asset. "Of course," he cried, replacing his initial hesitation with overzealous enthusiasm. The boy took a deep breath. "To think of it, the dream of my life has come true. Do you remember Miranda's words?" "Who is Miranda?" But the boy obviously didn't hear his question. "Ah, miracle!" he was saying, his eyes glowing, his cheeks flushed brightly, "how beautiful people are here! How beautiful people are!" The flush suddenly deepened.He thought of Lenina, an angel in bottle-green viscose, radiant and plump with youth and skin nourishing creams, always smiling kindly.His voice hesitated. "Ah, wonderful new world!" He started to recite the book, but stopped suddenly.The blood had left his cheeks, and his face was as pale as paper. "Are you married to her?" he asked. "Me what?" "Marry. You know—never part. They say in Indian: never part. Marriage is inseparable." "No, Ford!" Bernard couldn't help laughing. John laughed too, but for another reason--pure pleasure. "Oh, wonderful new world," he repeated, "oh, wonderful new world, with such wonderful characters. Let us go at once." "Your way of speaking is very peculiar sometimes," Bernard stared at the young man in confusion and surprise, "but wait until you actually see the new world, okay?"

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