Outside, in the garden, it was playtime. Naked in the warm June sunshine, six or seven hundred little boys and girls were running with shrill yells over the lawns, or playing ball games, or squatting silently in twos and threes among the flowering shrubs. The roses were in bloom, two nightingales soliloquized in the boskage, a cuckoo was just going out of tune among the lime trees. The air was drowsy with the murmur of bees and helicopters.
The Director and his students stood for a short time watching a game of Centrifugal Bumble-puppy. Twenty children were grouped in a circle round a chrome steel tower. A ball thrown up so as to land on the platform at the top of the tower rolled down into the interior, fell on a rapidly revolving disk, was hurled through one or other of the numerous apertures pierced in the cylindrical casing, and had to be caught.
“Strange,” mused the Director, as they turned away, “strange to think that even in Our Ford's day most games were played without more apparatus than a ball or two and a few sticks and perhaps a bit of netting. Imagine the folly of allowing people to play elaborate games which do nothing whatever to increase consumption. It's madness. Nowadays the Controllers won't approve of any new game unless it can be shown that it requires at least as much apparatus as the most complicated of existing games.” He interrupted himself.
“That's a charming little group,” he said, pointing.
In a little grassy bay between tall clumps of Mediterranean heather, two children, a little boy of about seven and a little girl who might have been a year older, were playing, very gravely and with all the focussed attention of scientists intent on a labour of discovery, a rudimentary sexual game.
“Charming, charming!” the D.H.C. repeated sentimentally.
“Charming,” the boys politely agreed. But their smile was rather patronizing. They had put aside similar childish amusements too recently to be able to watch them now without a touch of contempt. Charming? but it was just a pair of kids fooling about; that was all. Just kids.
“I always think,” the Director was continuing in the same rather maudlin tone, when he was interrupted by a loud boo-hooing.
From a neighbouring shrubbery emerged a nurse, leading by the hand a small boy, who howled as he went. An anxious-looking little girl trotted at her heels.
“What's the matter?” asked the Director.
The nurse shrugged her shoulders. “Nothing much,” she answered. “It's just that this little boy seems rather reluctant to join in the ordinary erotic play. I'd noticed it once or twice before. And now again to-day. He started yelling just now…”
“Honestly,” put in the anxious-looking little girl, “I didn't mean to hurt him or anything. Honestly.”
“Of course you didn't, dear,” said the nurse reassuringly. “And so,” she went on, turning back to the Director, “I'm taking him in to see the Assistant Superintendent of Psychology. Just to see if anything's at all abnormal.”
“Quite right,” said the Director. “Take him in. You stay here, little girl,” he added, as the nurse moved away with her still howling charge. “What's your name?”
“Polly Trotsky.”
“And a very good name too,” said the Director. “Run away now and see if you can find some other little boy to play with.”
The child scampered off into the bushes and was lost to sight.
“Exquisite little creature!” said the Director, looking after her. Then, turning to his students, “What I'm going to tell you now,” he said, “may sound incredible. But then, when you're not accustomed to history, most facts about the past do sound incredible.”
He let out the amazing truth. For a very long period before the time of Our Ford, and even for some generations afterwards, erotic play between children had been regarded as abnormal (there was a roar of laughter); and not only abnormal, actually immoral (no!): and had therefore been rigorously suppressed.
A look of astonished incredulity appeared on the faces of his listeners. Poor little kids not allowed to amuse themselves? They could not believe it.
“Even adolescents,” the D.H.C. was saying, “even adolescents like yourselves…”
“Not possible!”
“Barring a little surreptitious auto-erotism and homosexuality—absolutely nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“In most cases, till they were over twenty years old.”
“Twenty years old?” echoed the students in a chorus of loud disbelief.
“Twenty,” the Director repeated. “I told you that you'd find it incredible.”
“But what happened?” they asked. “What were the results?”
“The results were terrible.” A deep resonant voice broke startlingly into the dialogue.
They looked around. On the fringe of the little group stood a stranger—a man of middle height, black-haired, with a hooked nose, full red lips, eyes very piercing and dark. “Terrible,” he repeated.
The D.H.C. had at that moment sat down on one of the steel and rubber benches conveniently scattered through the gardens; but at the sight of the stranger, he sprang to his feet and darted forward, his hand outstretched, smiling with all his teeth, effusive.
“Controller! What an unexpected pleasure! Boys, what are you thinking of? This is the Controller; this is his fordship, Mustapha Mond.”
In the four thousand rooms of the Centre the four thousand electric clocks simultaneously struck four. Discarnate voices called from the trumpet mouths.
“Main Day-shift off duty. Second Day-shift take over. Main Day-shift off…”
In the lift, on their way up to the changing rooms, Henry Foster and the Assistant Director of Predestination rather pointedly turned their backs on Bernard Marx from the Psychology Bureau: averted themselves from that unsavoury reputation.
The faint hum and rattle of machinery still stirred the crimson air in the Embryo Store. Shifts might come and go, one lupus-coloured face give place to another; majestically and for ever the conveyors crept forward with their load of future men and women.
Lenina Crowne walked briskly towards the door.
His fordship Mustapha Mond! The eyes of the saluting students almost popped out of their heads. Mustapha Mond! The Resident Controller for Western Europe! One of the Ten World Controllers. One of the Ten…and he sat down on the bench with the D.H.C, he was going to stay, to stay, yes, and actually talk to them…straight from the horse's mouth. Straight from the mouth of Ford himself.
Two shrimp-brown children emerged from a neighbouring shrubbery, stared at them for a moment with large, astonished eyes, then returned to their amusements among the leaves.
“You all remember,” said the Controller, in his strong deep voice, “you all remember, I suppose, that beautiful and inspired saying of Our Ford's: History is bunk. History,” he repeated slowly, “is bunk.”
He waved his hand; and it was as though, with an invisible feather wisk, he had brushed away a little dust, and the dust was Harappa, was Ur of the Chaldees; some spider-webs, and they were Thebes and Babylon and Cnossos and Mycenae. Whisk. Whisk—and where was Odysseus, where was Job, where were Jupiter and Gotama and Jesus? Whisk—and those specks of antique dirt called Athens and Rome, Jerusalem and the Middle Kingdom—all were gone. Whisk—the place where Italy had been was empty. Whisk, the cathedrals; whisk, whisk, King Lear and the Thoughts of Pascal. Whisk, Passion; whisk, Requiem; whisk, Symphony; whisk…
“Going to the Feelies this evening, Henry?” enquired the Assistant Predestinator. “I hear the new one at the Alhambra is first-rate. There's a love scene on a bearskin rug; they say it's marvellous. Every hair of the bear reproduced. The most amazing tactual effects.”
“That's why you're taught no history,” the Controller was saying. “But now the time has come…”
The D.H.C. looked at him nervously. There were those strange rumours of old forbidden books hidden in a safe in the Controller's study. Bibles, poetry—Ford knew what.
Mustapha Mond intercepted his anxious glance and the corners of his red lips twitched ironically.
“It's all right, Director,” he said in a tone of faint derision, “I won't corrupt them.”
The D.H.C. was overwhelmed with confusion.
Those who feel themselves despised do well to look despising. The smile on Bernard Marx's face was contemptuous. Every hair on the bear indeed!
“I shall make a point of going,” said Henry Foster.
Mustapha Mond leaned forward, shook a finger at them. “Just try to realize it,” he said, and his voice sent a strange thrill quivering along their diaphragms. “Try to realize what it was like to have a viviparous mother.”
That smutty word again. But none of them dreamed, this time, of smiling.
“Try to imagine what ‘living with one's family’ meant.”
They tried; but obviously without the smallest success.
“And do you know what a ‘home’ was?”
They shook their heads.
*
From her dim crimson cellar Lenina Crowne shot up seventeen stories, turned to the right as she stepped out of the lift, walked down a long corridor and, opening the door marked GIRLS' DRESSING-ROOM, plunged into a deafening chaos of arms and bosoms and underclothing. Torrents of hot water were splashing into or gurgling out of a hundred baths. Rumbling and hissing, eighty vibro-vacuum massage machines were simultaneously kneading and sucking the firm and sun-burnt flesh of eighty superb female specimens. Every one was talking at the top of her voice. A Synthetic Music machine was warbling out a super-cornet solo.
“Hullo, Fanny,” said Lenina to the young woman who had the pegs and locker next to hers.
Fanny worked in the Bottling Room, and her surname was also Crowne. But as the two thousand million inhabitants of the plant had only ten thousand names between them, the coincidence was not particularly surprising.
Lenina pulled at her zippers—downwards on the jacket, downwards with a double-handed gesture at the two that held trousers, downwards again to loosen her undergarment. Still wearing her shoes and stockings, she walked off towards the bathrooms.
Home, home—a few small rooms, stiflingly over-inhabited by a man, by a periodically teeming woman, by a rabble of boys and girls of all ages. No air, no space; an understerilized prison; darkness, disease, and smells.
(The Controller's evocation was so vivid that one of the boys, more sensitive than the rest, turned pale at the mere description and was on the point of being sick.)
Lenina got out of the bath, toweled herself dry, took hold of a long flexible tube plugged into the wall, presented the nozzle to her breast, as though she meant to commit suicide, pressed down the trigger. A blast of warmed air dusted her with the finest talcum powder. Eight different scents and eau-de-Cologne were laid on in little taps over the wash-basin. She turned on the third from the left, dabbed herself with chypre and, carrying her shoes and stockings in her hand, went out to see if one of the vibro-vacuum machines were free.
And home was as squalid psychically as physically. Psychically, it was a rabbit hole, a midden, hot with the frictions of tightly packed life, reeking with emotion. What suffocating intimacies, what dangerous, insane, obscene relationships between the members of the family group! Maniacally, the mother brooded over her children (her children)…brooded over them like a cat over its kittens; but a cat that could talk, a cat that could say, “My baby, my baby,” over and over again. “My baby, and oh, oh, at my breast, the little hands, the hunger, and that unspeakable agonizing pleasure! Till at last my baby sleeps, my baby sleeps with a bubble of white milk at the corner of his mouth. My little baby sleeps…”
“Yes,” said Mustapha Mond, nodding his head, “you may well shudder.”
“Who are you going out with to-night?” Lenina asked, returning from the vibro-vac like a pearl illuminated from within, pinkly glowing.
“Nobody.”
Lenina raised her eyebrows in astonishment.
“I've been feeling rather out of sorts lately,” Fanny explained. “Dr. Wells advised me to have a Pregnancy Substitute.”
“But, my dear, you're only nineteen. The first Pregnancy Substitute isn't compulsory till twenty-one.”
“I know, dear. But some people are better if they begin earlier. Dr. Wells told me that brunettes with wide pelvises, like me, ought to have their first Pregnancy Substitute at seventeen. So I'm really two years late, not two years early.” She opened the door of her locker and pointed to the row of boxes and labelled phials on the upper shelf.
“SYRUP OF CORPUS LUTEUM,” Lenina read the names aloud. “OVARIN, GUARANTEED FRESH: NOT TO BE USED AFTER AUGUST 1ST, A.F. 632. MAMMARY GLAND EXTRACT: TO BE TAKEN THREE TIMES DAILY, BEFORE MEALS, WITH A LITTLE WATER. PLACENTIN: 5cc TO BE INJECTED INTRAVENALLY EVERY THIRD DAY…Ugh!” Lenina shuddered. “How I loathe intravenals, don't you?”
“Yes. But when they do one good…” Fanny was a particularly sensible girl.
Our Ford—or Our Freud, as, for some inscrutable reason, he chose to call himself whenever he spoke of psychological matters—Our Freud had been the first to reveal the appalling dangers of family life. The world was full of fathers—was therefore full of misery; full of mothers—therefore of every kind of perversion from sadism to chastity; full of brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts—full of madness and suicide.
“And yet, among the savages of Samoa, in certain islands off the coast of New Guinea…”
The tropical sunshine lay like warm honey on the naked bodies of children tumbling promiscuously among the hibiscus blossoms. Home was in any one of twenty palm-thatched houses. In the Trobriands conception was the work of ancestral ghosts; nobody had ever heard of a father.
“Extremes,” said the Controller, “meet. For the good reason that they were made to meet.”
“Dr. Wells says that a three months' Pregnancy Substitute now will make all the difference to my health for the next three or four years.”
“Well, I hope he's right,” said Lenina. “But, Fanny, do you really mean to say that for the next three months you're not supposed to…”
“Oh no, dear. Only for a week or two, that's all. I shall spend the evening at the Club playing Musical Bridge. I suppose you're going out?”
Lenina nodded.
“Who with?”
“Henry Foster.”
“Again?” Fanny's kind, rather moon-like face took on an incongruous expression of pained and disapproving astonishment. “Do you mean to tell me you're still going out with Henry Foster?”
Mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters. But there were also husbands, wives, lovers. There were also monogamy and romance.
“Though you probably don't know what those are,” said Mustapha Mond.
They shook their heads.
Family, monogamy, romance. Everywhere exclusiveness, everywhere a focussing of interest, a narrow channelling of impulse and energy.
“But every one belongs to every one else,” he concluded, citing the hypnopaedic proverb.
The students nodded, emphatically agreeing with a statement which upwards of sixty-two thousand repetitions in the dark had made them accept, not merely as true, but as axiomatic, self-evident, utterly indisputable.
“But after all,” Lenina was protesting, “it's only about four months now since I've been having Henry.”
“Only four months! I like that. And what's more,” Fanny went on, pointing an accusing finger, “there's been nobody else except Henry all that time. Has there?”
Lenina blushed scarlet; but her eyes, the tone of her voice remained defiant. “No, there hasn't been any one else,” she answered almost truculently. “And I jolly well don't see why there should have been.”
“Oh, she jolly well doesn't see why there should have been,” Fanny repeated, as though to an invisible listener behind Lenina's left shoulder. Then, with a sudden change of tone, “But seriously,” she said, “I really do think you ought to be careful. It's such horribly bad form to go on and on like this with one man. At forty, or thirty-five, it wouldn't be so bad. But at your age, Lenina! No, it really won't do. And you know how strongly the D.H.C. objects to anything intense or long-drawn. Four months of Henry Foster, without having another man—why, he'd be furious if he knew…”
*
“Think of water under pressure in a pipe.” They thought of it. “I pierce it once,” said the Controller. “What a jet!”
He pierced it twenty times. There were twenty piddling little fountains.
“My baby. My baby…!”
“Mother!” The madness is infectious.
“My love, my one and only, precious, precious…”
Mother, monogamy, romance. High spurts the fountain; fierce and foamy the wild jet. The urge has but a single outlet. My love, my baby. No wonder these poor pre-moderns were mad and wicked and miserable. Their world didn't allow them to take things easily, didn't allow them to be sane, virtuous, happy. What with mothers and lovers, what with the prohibitions they were not conditioned to obey, what with the temptations and the lonely remorses, what with all the diseases and the endless isolating pain, what with the uncertainties and the poverty—they were forced to feel strongly. And feeling strongly (and strongly, what was more, in solitude, in hopelessly individual isolation), how could they be stable?
“Of course there's no need to give him up. Have somebody else from time to time, that's all. He has other girls, doesn't he?”
Lenina admitted it.
“Of course he does. Trust Henry Foster to be the perfect gentleman—always correct. And then there's the Director to think of. You know what a stickler…”
Nodding, “He patted me on the behind this afternoon,” said Lenina.
“There, you see!” Fanny was triumphant. “That shows what he stands for. The strictest conventionality.”
“Stability,” said the Controller, “stability. No civilization without social stability. No social stability without individual stability.” His voice was a trumpet. Listening, they felt larger, warmer.
The machine turns, turns and must keep on turning—for ever. It is death if it stands still. A thousand millions scrabbled the crust of the earth. The wheels began to turn. In a hundred and fifty years there were two thousand millions. Stop all the wheels. In a hundred and fifty weeks there are once more only a thousand millions; a thousand thousand thousand men and women have starved to death.
Wheels must turn steadily, but cannot turn untended. There must be men to tend them, men as steady as the wheels upon their axles, sane men, obedient men, stable in contentment.
Crying: My baby, my mother, my only, only love; groaning: My sin, my terrible God; screaming with pain, muttering with fever, bemoaning old age and poverty—how can they tend the wheels? And if they cannot tend the wheels…The corpses of a thousand thousand thousand men and women would be hard to bury or burn.
“And after all,” Fanny's tone was coaxing, “it's not as though there were anything painful or disagreeable about having one or two men besides Henry. And seeing that you ought to be a little more promiscuous…”
“Stability,” insisted the Controller, “stability. The primal and the ultimate need. Stability. Hence all this.”
With a wave of his hand he indicated the gardens, the huge building of the Conditioning Centre, the naked children furtive in the undergrowth or running across the lawns.
Lenina shook her head. “Somehow,” she mused, “I hadn't been feeling very keen on promiscuity lately. There are times when one doesn't. Haven't you found that too, Fanny?”
Fanny nodded her sympathy and understanding. “But one's got to make the effort,” she said, sententiously, “one's got to play the game. After all, every one belongs to every one else.”
“Yes, every one belongs to every one else,” Lenina repeated slowly and, sighing, was silent for a moment; then, taking Fanny's hand, gave it a little squeeze. “You're quite right, Fanny. As usual. I'll make the effort.”
*
Impulse arrested spills over, and the flood is feeling, the flood is passion, the flood is even madness: it depends on the force of the current, the height and strength of the barrier. The unchecked stream flows smoothly down its appointed channels into a calm well-being. The embryo is hungry; day in, day out, the blood-surrogate pump unceasingly turns its eight hundred revolutions a minute. The decanted infant howls; at once a nurse appears with a bottle of external secretion. Feeling lurks in that interval of time between desire and its consummation. Shorten that interval, break down all those old unnecessary barriers.
“Fortunate boys!” said the Controller. “No pains have been spared to make your lives emotionally easy—to preserve you, so far as that is possible, from having emotions at all.”
“Ford's in his flivver,” murmured the D.H.C. “All's well with the world.”
“Lenina Crowne?” said Henry Foster, echoing the Assistant Predestinator's question as he zipped up his trousers. “Oh, she's a splendid girl. Wonderfully pneumatic. I'm surprised you haven't had her.”
“I can't think how it is I haven't,” said the Assistant Predestinator. “I certainly will. At the first opportunity.”
From his place on the opposite side of the changing-room aisle, Bernard Marx overheard what they were saying and turned pale.
“And to tell the truth,” said Lenina, “I'm beginning to get just a tiny bit bored with nothing but Henry every day.” She pulled on her left stocking. “Do you know Bernard Marx?” she asked in a tone whose excessive casualness was evidently forced.
Fanny looked startled. “You don't mean to say…?”
“Why not? Bernard's an Alpha Plus. Besides, he asked me to go to one of the Savage Reservations with him. I've always wanted to see a Savage Reservation.”
“But his reputation?”
“What do I care about his reputation?”
“They say he doesn't like Obstacle Golf.”
“They say, they say,” mocked Lenina.
“And then he spends most of his time by himself—alone.” There was horror in Fanny's voice.
“Well, he won't be alone when he's with me. And anyhow, why are people so beastly to him? I think he's rather sweet.” She smiled to herself; how absurdly shy he had been! Frightened almost—as though she were a World Controller and he a Gamma-Minus machine minder.
“Consider your own lives,” said Mustapha Mond. “Has any of you ever encountered an insurmountable obstacle?”
The question was answered by a negative silence.
“Has any of you been compelled to live through a long time-interval between the consciousness of a desire and its fufilment?”
“Well,” began one of the boys, and hesitated.
“Speak up,” said the D.H.C. “Don't keep his fordship waiting.”
“I once had to wait nearly four weeks before a girl I wanted would let me have her.”
“And you felt a strong emotion in consequence?”
“Horrible!”
“Horrible; precisely,” said the Controller. “Our ancestors were so stupid and short-sighted that when the first reformers came along and offered to deliver them from those horrible emotions, they wouldn't have anything to do with them.”
“Talking about her as though she were a bit of meat.” Bernard ground his teeth. “Have her here, have her there.” Like mutton. Degrading her to so much mutton. She said she'd think it over, she said she'd give me an answer this week. Oh, Ford, Ford, Ford.” He would have liked to go up to them and hit them in the face—hard, again and again.
“Yes, I really do advise you to try her,” Henry Foster was saying.
*
“Take Ectogenesis. Pfitzner and Kawaguchi had got the whole technique worked out. But would the Governments look at it? No. There was something called Christianity. Women were forced to go on being viviparous.”
“He's so ugly!” said Fanny.
“But I rather like his looks.”
“And then so small.” Fanny made a grimace; smallness was so horribly and typically low-caste.
“I think that's rather sweet,” said Lenina. “One feels one would like to pet him. You know. Like a cat.”
Fanny was shocked. “They say somebody made a mistake when he was still in the bottle—thought he was a Gamma and put alcohol into his blood-surrogate. That's why he's so stunted.”
“What nonsense!” Lenina was indignant.
“Sleep teaching was actually prohibited in England. There was something called liberalism. Parliament, if you know what that was, passed a law against it. The records survive. Speeches about liberty of the subject. Liberty to be inefficient and miserable. Freedom to be a round peg in a square hole.”
“But, my dear chap, you're welcome, I assure you. You're welcome.” Henry Foster patted the Assistant Predestinator on the shoulder. “Every one belongs to every one else, after all.”
One hundred repetitions three nights a week for four years, thought Bernard Marx, who was a specialist on hypnopaedia. Sixty-two thousand four hundred repetitions make one truth. Idiots!
“Or the Caste System. Constantly proposed, constantly rejected. There was something called democracy. As though men were more than physico-chemically equal.”
*
“Well, all I can say is that I'm going to accept his invitation.”
Bernard hated them, hated them. But they were two, they were large, they were strong.
“The Nine Years' War began in A.F. 141.”
“Not even if it were true about the alcohol in his blood-surrogate.”
“Phosgene, chloropicrin, ethyl iodoacetate, diphenylcyanarsine, trichlormethyl, chloroformate, dichlorethyl sulphide. Not to mention hydrocyanic acid.”
“Which I simply don't believe,” Lenina concluded.
“The noise of fourteen thousand aeroplanes advancing in open order. But in the Kurfurstendamm and the Eighth Arrondissement, the explosion of the anthrax bombs is hardly louder than the popping of a paper bag.”
“Because I do want to see a Savage Reservation.”
CH3C6H2 (NO2)3+Hg(CNO)2=well, what? An enormous hole in the ground, a pile of masonry, some bits of flesh and mucus, a foot, with the boot still on it, flying through the air and landing, flop, in the middle of the geraniums—the scarlet ones; such a splendid show that summer!
“You're hopeless, Lenina, I give you up.”
“The Russian technique for infecting water supplies was particularly ingenious.”
Back turned to back, Fanny and Lenina continued their changing in silence.
“The Nine Years' War, the great Economic Collapse. There was a choice between World Control and destruction. Between stability and…”
“Fanny Crowne's a nice girl too,” said the Assistant Predestinator.
In the nurseries, the Elementary Class Consciousness lesson was over, the voices were adapting future demand to future industrial supply. “I do love flying,” they whispered, “I do love flying, I do love having new clothes, I do love…”
“Liberalism, of course, was dead of anthrax, but all the same you couldn't do things by force.”
“Not nearly so pneumatic as Lenina. Oh, not nearly.”
“But old clothes are beastly,” continued the untiring whisper. “We always throw away old clothes. Ending is better than mending, ending is better than mending, ending is better…”
“Government's an affair of sitting, not hitting. You rule with the brains and the buttocks, never with the fists. For example, there was the conscription of consumption.”
“There, I'm ready,” said Lenina, but Fanny remained speechless and averted. “Let's make peace, Fanny darling.”
“Every man, woman and child compelled to consume so much a year. In the interests of industry. The sole result…”
“Ending is better than mending. The more stitches, the less riches; the more stitches…”
*
“One of these days,” said Fanny, with dismal emphasis, “you'll get into trouble.”
“Conscientious objection on an enormous scale. Anything not to consume. Back to nature.”
“I do love flying. I do love flying.”
“Back to culture. Yes, actually to culture. You can't consume much if you sit still and read books.”
“Do I look all right?” Lenina asked. Her jacket was made of bottle-green acetate cloth with green viscose fur at the cuffs and collar.
“Eight hundred Simple Lifers were mowed down by machine guns at Golders Green.”
“Ending is better than mending, ending is better than mending.”
Green corduroy shorts and white viscose-woollen stockings turned down below the knee.
“Then came the famous British Museum Massacre. Two thousand culture fans gassed with dichlorethyl sulphide.”
A green-and-white jockey cap shaded Lenina's eyes; her shoes were bright green and highly polished.
“In the end,” said Mustapha Mond, “the Controllers realized that force was no good. The slower but infinitely surer methods of ectogenesis, neo-Pavlovian conditioning and hypnopaedia…”
*
And round her waist she wore a silver-mounted green morocco-surrogate cartridge belt, bulging (for Lenina was not a freemartin) with the regulation supply of contraceptives.
“The discoveries of Pfitzner and Kawaguchi were at last made use of. An intensive propaganda against viviparous reproduction…”
“Perfect!” cried Fanny enthusiastically. She could never resist Lenina's charm for long. “And what a perfectly sweet Malthusian belt!”
“Accompanied by a campaign against the Past; by the closing of museums, the blowing up of historical monuments (luckily most of them had already been destroyed during the Nine Years' War); by the suppression of all books published before A.F. 150.”
“I simply must get one like it,” said Fanny.
“There were some things called the pyramids, for example.
“My old black-patent bandolier…”
“And a man called Shakespeare. You've never heard of them, of course.”
“It's an absolute disgrace—that bandolier of mine.”
“Such are the advantages of a really scientific education.”
“The more stitches the less riches; the more stitches the less…”
“The introduction of Our Ford's first T-Model…”
“I've had it nearly three months.”
*
“Chosen as the opening date of the new era.”
“Ending is better than mending; ending is better…”
“There was a thing, as I've said before, called Christianity.”
“Ending is better than mending.”
“The ethics and philosophy of under-consumption…”
“I love new clothes, I love new clothes, I love…”
“So essential when there was under-production; but in an age of machines and the fixation of nitrogen—positively a crime against society.”
“Henry Foster gave it me.”
“All crosses had their tops cut and became T's. There was also a thing called God.”
“It's real morocco-surrogate.”
“We have the World State now. And Ford's Day celebrations, and Community Sings, and Solidarity Services.”
“Ford, how I hate them!” Bernard Marx was thinking.
“There was a thing called Heaven; but all the same they used to drink enormous quantities of alcohol.”
“Like meat, like so much meat.”
*
“There was a thing called the soul and a thing called immortality.”
“Do ask Henry where he got it.”
“But they used to take morphia and cocaine.”
“And what makes it worse, she thinks of herself as meat.”
“Two thousand pharmacologists and biochemists were subsidized in A. F. 178.”
“He does look glum,” said the Assistant Predestinator, pointing at Bernard Marx.
“Six years later it was being produced commercially. The perfect drug.”
“Let's bait him.”
“Euphoric, narcotic, pleasantly hallucinant.”
“Glum, Marx, glum.” The clap on the shoulder made him start, look up. It was that brute Henry Foster. “What you need is a gramme of soma.”
“All the advantages of Christianity and alcohol; none of their defects.”
“Ford, I should like to kill him!” But all he did was to say, “No, thank you,” and fend off the proffered tube of tablets.
“Take a holiday from reality whenever you like, and come back without so much as a headache or a mythology.”
*
“Take it,” insisted Henry Foster, “take it.”
“Stability was practically assured.”
“One cubic centimetre cures ten gloomy sentiments,” said the Assistant Predestinator citing a piece of homely hypnopaedic wisdom.
“It only remained to conquer old age.”
“Damn you, damn you!” shouted Bernard Marx.
“Hoity-toity.”
“Gonadal hormones, transfusion of young blood, magnesium salts…”
“And do remember that a gramme is better than a damn.” They went out, laughing.
“All the physiological stigmata of old age have been abolished. And along with them, of course…”
“Don't forget to ask him about that Malthusian belt,” said Fanny.
“Along with them all the old man's mental peculiarities. Characters remain constant throughout a whole lifetime.”
“…two rounds of Obstacle Golf to get through before dark. I must fly.”
“Work, play—at sixty our powers and tastes are what they were at seventeen. Old men in the bad old days used to renounce, retire, take to religion, spend their time reading, thinking—thinking!”
*
“Idiots, swine!” Bernard Marx was saying to himself, as he walked down the corridor to the lift.
“Now—such is progress—the old men work, the old men copulate, the old men have no time, no leisure from pleasure, not a moment to sit down and think—or if ever by some unlucky chance such a crevice of time should yawn in the solid substance of their distractions, there is always soma, delicious soma, half a gramme for a half-holiday, a gramme for a week-end, two grammes for a trip to the gorgeous East, three for a dark eternity on the moon; returning whence they find themselves on the other side of the crevice, safe on the solid ground of daily labour and distraction, scampering from feely to feely, from girl to pneumatic girl, from Electromagnetic Golf Course to…”
“Go away, little girl,” shouted the D.H.C. angrily. “Go away, little boy! Can't you see that his fordship's busy? Go and do your erotic play somewhere else.”
“Poor little children,” said the Controller.
Slowly, majestically, with a faint humming of machinery, the Conveyors moved forward, thirty-three centimters an hour. In the red darkness glinted innumerable rubies.
大樓外面,花園里,正是孩子們的玩耍時間。六七百個小男孩和小女孩,在六月溫暖的陽光下,光著身子,尖叫著在草地上跑來跑去,或者在玩球,或者三三兩兩靜靜地蹲在花叢中。玫瑰花正在盛開,兩只夜鶯在灌木叢中自鳴自唱著,一只布谷鳥正在酸橙樹上走調(diào)地唱著??諝庵袕浡鄯浜瓦h(yuǎn)處直升機(jī)發(fā)出的嗡嗡聲,令人昏昏欲睡。
主任和學(xué)生們站了一小會兒,看他們玩“狗狗離心碰碰球”游戲。二十個孩子圍成一圈,中間是一座鍍鉻鋼架塔。一個球給拋上去,落到塔頂?shù)钠脚_上,滾入塔的內(nèi)部,一直滾到一個快速旋轉(zhuǎn)的盤子上,然后,從圓柱形的塔身上的無數(shù)小洞中的一個給甩出來,孩子們必須得抓住球才行。
他們走開時,主任自言自語般地說:“真奇怪,想想吧,即使在福帝那個年代,大多數(shù)游戲都不需要什么復(fù)雜的設(shè)施就能玩,至多需要一兩個球和幾根棍子,或許還有一塊網(wǎng)子,這多奇怪呀。想想這有多么愚蠢吧,允許人們玩那么繁瑣復(fù)雜的游戲,卻根本增加不了消費(fèi)。簡直是發(fā)瘋?,F(xiàn)在,控制官不會批準(zhǔn)任何新的游戲了,除非能夠證明,游戲至少需要使用和現(xiàn)存最復(fù)雜的游戲差不多的設(shè)施。”他說著又岔開了話題。
“那兩個孩子可真討人喜歡。”他說,指點(diǎn)著。
在兩叢高大的地中海石楠之間,兩個孩子,一個七歲左右的小男孩和一個大概比他大一歲的女孩正在玩最初級的性游戲,他倆表情嚴(yán)肅,聚精會神,好像科學(xué)家正在專注地進(jìn)行某項(xiàng)科學(xué)研究似的。
“討人喜歡,真討人喜歡!”中心主任動情地重復(fù)了一遍。
“討人喜歡。”男孩子們禮貌地應(yīng)和著。但是,他們的微笑頗有些居高臨下的意味。他們自己不久前剛剛放棄了這類幼稚的游戲,所以,當(dāng)看到別的孩子在玩,他們不可能不帶幾分鄙夷。有什么討人喜歡的?只不過是兩個孩子在鬧著玩,僅此而已,就是小兒科罷了。
“我總是想啊……”主任的話里還帶著剛才的那種感傷語氣,突然,一陣嘈雜的哭鬧聲打斷了他的思路。
一個護(hù)士從附近的灌木叢里走出來,拉著一個小男孩的手,小男孩邊走邊哇哇大哭。一個神色焦急的小女孩一路小跑著跟在護(hù)士后面。
“怎么回事?”主任問。
護(hù)士聳了聳肩膀。“也沒什么大不了的,”她回答,“就是這個小男孩好像不太愿意加入那種常規(guī)的性游戲。我以前就注意到了一兩次。今天又發(fā)現(xiàn)了。他剛才還開始哭叫了……”
“說實(shí)話,”一臉焦急的小女孩說,“我并沒有想傷害他或怎么樣,真的。”
“你當(dāng)然不會傷害他了,親愛的。”護(hù)士安慰她。“那么,”她轉(zhuǎn)向主任,接著說,“我現(xiàn)在帶他去看看心理總監(jiān)助理,看看是不是哪里不太正常。”
“你做得很對,”主任說,“快帶他去吧。小姑娘,你留下。”他等護(hù)士帶著仍然在哭鬧的男孩兒走了之后,對小女孩說,“你叫什么名字???”
“波莉·托洛茨基。”
“名字也挺好聽。”主任說,“趕快過去吧,看看能不能另外找個小男孩一塊玩兒。”
小女孩一下子就跑進(jìn)灌木叢,沒影兒了。
“可愛的小家伙!”主任看著她的背影說。然后,他轉(zhuǎn)向?qū)W生們。“我現(xiàn)在要跟你們講的,”他說,“可能聽起來匪夷所思。但是,當(dāng)你們不熟悉歷史的時候,過去的大多事實(shí)確實(shí)令人難以置信。”
他講出了令人震驚的真相。在福帝誕生之前很久的時候,甚至在福帝誕生之后的很多年里,人們認(rèn)為孩子們之間的性游戲是不正常的(爆發(fā)出一陣哄堂大笑),不僅不正常,而且是不道德的(不會吧!),因此,要受到嚴(yán)厲的壓制。
他的聽眾們臉上現(xiàn)出既震驚又覺得不可思議的表情。居然都不讓可憐的小孩們自娛自樂?他們簡直不能相信。
“即使是青少年,”主任還在說著,“即使是跟你們一般大的青少年……”
“不可能吧!”
“除了一丁點(diǎn)偷偷摸摸的自慰行為和同性間的娛樂,其他什么都沒有。”
“什么都沒有?”
“在大多數(shù)情況下,是的,直到他們二十歲之后。”
“二十歲?”學(xué)生們異口同聲地大聲問道,一臉質(zhì)疑。
“二十歲。”主任重復(fù)了一遍,“我都告訴你們了嘛,你們一定會覺得難以置信的。”
“那以后發(fā)生了什么事?”他們問,“這么做的結(jié)果是什么?”
“結(jié)果很糟糕。”一個低沉響亮的聲音突然插入了他們的對話。
他們扭頭去看。在他們這一小群人的旁邊站著一個不認(rèn)識的人,他中等個子,一頭黑發(fā),長著鷹鉤鼻、飽滿紅潤的嘴唇和銳利深邃的眼睛。“很糟糕。”他又說了一遍。
中心主任這時已經(jīng)坐到了一個鋼架橡膠凳子上,這些凳子就散放在花園各處,非常方便。主任一看到這個陌生人,馬上跳了起來,疾步上前,兩只手向前伸著,整張臉都堆滿了笑容,露出滿口牙齒。
“控制官!真令人驚喜呀!孩子們,你們還在想什么呢?這是控制官啊,穆斯塔法·蒙德福下(1)。”
中心的四千個房間里,四千座電子鐘同時敲響了四點(diǎn)鐘。喇叭口里傳出了合成的聲音:
“主白班下班,第二班換班。主白班下班……”
在人們上樓去更衣室的電梯上,亨利·福斯特和命運(yùn)預(yù)定中心的主任助理轉(zhuǎn)過身去,非常不客氣地背對著心理局的伯納德·馬克斯——避開那個名聲不佳的人。
胚胎庫里,機(jī)器輕弱的嗡嗡聲和咔嗒聲依然攪動著那里暗紅色的空氣。換班的人也許會來來去去,一張猶如患紅斑狼瘡的臉也許會替代另一張,但是,傳送帶依然將莊嚴(yán)地緩慢前行,滿載著未來的男男女女。
列寧娜·克朗步履輕快地走向房門。
是穆斯塔法·蒙德福下!學(xué)生們敬著禮,眼睛幾乎都從腦袋上蹦出來了。穆斯塔法·蒙德!西歐的常駐控制官!十個世界控制官之一,十個之一……他和中心主任一起坐在凳子上,他要停留一會兒,停留一會兒,是的,他居然開始跟他們講話……直接來自大人物之口啊,直接來自福下之口啊。
兩個皮膚曬成紅棕色的孩子從附近的一個灌木叢中鉆出來,張著大大的眼睛,吃驚地盯了他們一會兒,之后又回到樹葉中間,繼續(xù)他們的游戲。
“你們都記得,”控制官以他低沉有力的嗓音說,“你們都記得吧,我們福帝那句金玉良言:歷史就是廢話。歷史,”他緩緩地重復(fù)了一遍,“就是廢話。”
他揮了揮手,好像在用一把看不見的羽毛撣子輕輕地拂去幾粒灰塵,而那些灰塵就是哈拉巴(2),是迦勒底的烏爾城(3);又像輕輕撣掉了幾絲蜘蛛網(wǎng),它們就是底比斯、巴比倫、卡諾索斯和邁錫尼(4)。拂啊,撣啊,哪里還有奧德修斯(5)?約伯(6)又在哪里?朱庇特(7)、喬達(dá)摩(8)和耶穌呢?拂啊,撣啊,那些叫作雅典和羅馬、叫作耶路撒冷和中央帝國的星星點(diǎn)點(diǎn)的古代微塵都消散了;拂啊,撣啊,曾經(jīng)叫意大利的那個地方變得空曠;拂啊,撣啊,大教堂消失了;拂啊,撣啊,李爾王和帕斯卡(9)的思想消失了;拂啊,撣啊,激情沒有了;拂啊,撣啊,安魂曲沒有了;拂啊,撣啊,交響樂沒有了;拂啊,撣啊……
“亨利,晚上去看感官電影嗎?”命運(yùn)預(yù)定中心的主任助理問道,“我聽說阿罕布拉(10)那里放的新電影超級棒。有一場在熊皮地毯上的性愛戲,據(jù)說非常美妙。熊身上的每根毛發(fā)都栩栩如生。最驚人的技術(shù)效果。”
“這就是沒有教你們歷史的原因,”控制官在說,“但現(xiàn)在,是時候了……”
孵化與條件訓(xùn)練中心主任緊張地看著控制官。有一些奇怪的流言蜚語,說控制官書房的保險柜里藏著古代的禁書。圣經(jīng)啊,詩歌啊,都有些什么,福帝才曉得。
穆斯塔法·蒙德注意到了主任憂慮的眼神,他紅潤的唇角略帶嘲諷地輕輕上揚(yáng)。
“別擔(dān)心,主任,”他語含譏諷地說,“我不會教壞他們的。”
中心主任頓時慌亂得不知所措。
那些覺得自己被鄙視的人通常都會做出一副鄙視他人的姿態(tài)。伯納德·馬克斯臉上的微笑就頗有幾分輕蔑。熊身上的每根毛發(fā),真是的!
“我會專門記著去看看的。”亨利·福斯特說。
穆斯塔法·蒙德身子前傾,向他們搖著一根手指。“試著想象一下,”他說,他的聲音徑直穿透他們的橫膈膜,讓他們產(chǎn)生一陣奇怪的震顫,“試著想象,如果有一個懷胎生了你們的母親,那會是什么樣的情景。”
又是那個臟詞,但是,這一次,他們連做夢都想不到要笑了。
“試著想象‘和自己的家庭生活在一起’是什么樣。”
他們努力試著,但是,很明顯,沒有絲毫的成功。
“你們知道什么是‘家庭’嗎?”
他們搖搖頭。
*
列寧娜從她暗紅色的房間里走出來,乘上電梯,很快上升了十七層,她出電梯向右拐,沿著一條長長的走廊走過去,打開一扇寫著“女更衣室”的門。她一下子就步入了一個喧鬧的世界,亂糟糟的,滿眼望去,全都是胳膊、胸脯和內(nèi)衣褲。熱水嘩嘩地濺入成百個浴盆,又汩汩地流淌而出。八十臺振動真空按摩機(jī)同時在工作,隆隆隆,嘶嘶嘶,在八十個堪稱完美的女性身體上揉捏著,吮吸著,這些肉體都非常結(jié)實(shí),給太陽曬成了棕色。每個人都在尖著嗓子大聲說話。合成音樂機(jī)里正在悠揚(yáng)地播放著一支超級短號獨(dú)奏曲。
“嗨,范妮。”列寧娜對旁邊的那個年輕女孩說,她們兩個人的掛衣架和儲物柜緊挨著。
范妮在裝瓶室工作,她也姓克朗。但是,考慮到全球二十億個居民一共只有一萬個姓氏,那么這個巧合其實(shí)也沒有什么好驚喜的。
列寧娜唰地拉開上衣的拉鏈,雙手并用地拉下了長褲的兩條拉鏈,又一直向下松開了內(nèi)衣褲。她還穿著鞋子和襪子,就徑直走向洗浴間。
家,家——幾個小房間,里面擠著一個男人,一個定期懷上孩子的女人,和一群吵吵鬧鬧、大大小小的男孩女孩,壓抑得讓人透不過氣來。沒有空氣,沒有空間,簡直就是一個消毒不徹底的監(jiān)獄,充斥著黑暗、疾病和臭味。
(控制官的講述太生動了,在聽到這番描述之后,一個比較敏感的男孩子的臉頓時變得煞白,幾乎要嘔吐了。)
列寧娜走出洗浴間,用毛巾擦干身體,抓住嵌進(jìn)墻壁的一根長長的軟管,把管口對準(zhǔn)胸脯,好像要自殺的樣子,摁下了開關(guān)。一陣熱風(fēng)噴涌而出,在她身上撒上了一層細(xì)細(xì)的爽身粉。洗臉池上方有八個龍頭,提供八種不同氣味的香水和古龍水,她擰開從左數(shù)的第三個,在身上涂抹了一點(diǎn)西普香水(11)。然后,她拎著鞋子和襪子走出去,想看看有沒有振動真空按摩機(jī)閑著。
家是骯臟的,這種骯臟不僅指外部,還包括心理層面。從心理上說,家就是一個兔子窩,一個大垃圾堆,因?yàn)閾頂D,人們的身體互相摩擦碰撞,加上總是涌動著情感,這個家變得熱烘烘的。多么令人窒息的親密!家庭成員之間的關(guān)系是多么危險、瘋狂而淫穢!媽媽發(fā)瘋般地看護(hù)著自己的孩子們(她的孩子)……就像老貓看護(hù)著幼崽兒,但這是一只會說話的貓,會說“我的寶貝,我的寶貝”的貓,她一次又一次地說:“我的寶貝,哦,在我的胸前,這些小手兒,看他餓成什么了,這難以言傳的感覺,痛苦中的快樂!終于,我的寶貝睡著了,我的寶貝睡著了,嘴角還沾著一滴白色的奶汁。我的小寶貝睡……”
“是的,”穆斯塔法點(diǎn)點(diǎn)頭,“真夠讓你們惡心得打個激靈的。”
“你今天晚上和誰一起出去呀?”列寧娜問,她剛剛做了真空按摩出來,皮膚泛著粉紅色,就像一顆從內(nèi)部被照亮的珍珠一樣。
“不和誰出去了。”
列寧娜的眉毛吃驚地挑了起來。
“我最近身體感到不太自在。”范妮解釋道,“威爾斯醫(yī)生建議我服用一些代孕片呢。”
“可是,親愛的,你才十九啊。代孕片最早也要等到二十一歲才是必須服用的呢。”
“我知道,親愛的,但有些人早點(diǎn)服用更好。威爾斯醫(yī)生告訴我,像我這樣,骨盆寬大、棕色頭發(fā)的人,應(yīng)該到十七歲就第一次服用代孕片。所以,我已經(jīng)晚了兩年,而不是早了兩年。”她打開儲物柜的門,指了指上層隔板上的一排盒子和貼著標(biāo)簽的藥瓶。
“黃體素糖漿,”列寧娜大聲念著那些藥名,“卵巢素,保證新鮮:福特紀(jì)元632年8月1日到期;乳腺提取液:每天三次,飯前服用,以水沖服;胎盤素:每三天注射五毫升……哦!”列寧娜打了個哆嗦,“我多么討厭靜脈注射??!你呢?”
“我一樣。但是,它們對我們有好處……”范妮這個姑娘特別明事理。
我們的福帝,或者說,我們的弗洛伊德,因?yàn)椋慨?dāng)他說起心理學(xué)方面的事情時,出于某種不可知的原因,他總是會這么稱呼他自己。我們的弗洛伊德是第一個揭露家庭生活可怕危險的人。這個世界上充斥著父親,因此才有那么多苦難;充斥著母親,因此才會有施虐狂和貞操狂等種種變態(tài)行為;充斥著兄弟姐妹、叔伯姑姨,因此才會有瘋狂和自殺。
“但是,在薩摩亞的野蠻人中間,在新幾內(nèi)亞海岸外的個別島嶼上……”
熱帶的陽光如同溫暖的蜂蜜,沾在孩子們赤裸的身體上,他們在木槿花叢里打著滾,玩鬧著。他們的家就是棕櫚樹葉覆蓋的那二十座房子中的一座。在特羅布里恩島上,懷孕就好像是古代鬼魂們所做的事情;沒有人聽說過父親。
“這兩種極端情況同時存在,”控制官說,“極端情況同時存在也是應(yīng)該的。”
*
“威爾斯醫(yī)生說服用三個月的代孕片對我以后三四年的健康有好處。”
“嗯,希望他是對的吧。”列寧娜說,“可是,范妮,你真的是說,在以后的三個月里,你都不能……”
“不是的,親愛的,只要一兩個星期,就這樣的。我晚上會待在俱樂部里,玩玩音樂橋牌。你要出去吧?”
列寧娜點(diǎn)點(diǎn)頭。
“和誰呀?”
“亨利·福斯特。”
“還和他?”范妮滿月形的臉上流露出既痛苦又吃驚的表情,似乎有點(diǎn)不滿,這表情與她的善良顯得頗有些不協(xié)調(diào),“你的意思是說,你還在和亨利·福斯特交往嗎?”
爸爸和媽媽,兄弟和姐妹。而且,還有丈夫、妻子、情人。還有一夫一妻制,有浪漫愛情。
“不過,你們很可能不知道那些都是什么意思吧?”穆斯塔法·蒙德說。
他們搖搖頭。
家庭,一夫一妻制,浪漫愛情。每一個都具有排外性,都要集中注意力,都將本能與精力禁錮到一個狹窄的渠道內(nèi)。
“可是,人人彼此相屬。”他總結(jié)道,引用了睡眠教育中的諺語。
學(xué)生們用力點(diǎn)點(diǎn)頭,他們對這個說法再同意不過了,因?yàn)?,他們都曾?jīng)在黑暗中聽到這句話重復(fù)過六萬兩千遍,不僅早就接受了它的真實(shí)性,而且認(rèn)為這句話就像格言一樣不言自明,絲毫不容置疑。
“畢竟,”列寧娜反駁道,“我跟亨利在一起才剛剛四個月。”
“剛剛四個月!我倒喜歡聽你這么說。另外,”范妮接著說,伸出一個指頭對著她,好像在指責(zé)她,“這四個月里,除了亨利,你就沒有跟過其他人嗎?有沒有?”
列寧娜的臉漲得通紅,但她的眼睛和說話的腔調(diào)依然咄咄逼人。“沒有,沒有別人。”她沒好氣地說,“我就不明白為什么非得還要跟別人。”
“哦,她就是不明白為什么非得還要跟別人。”范妮重復(fù)了一遍,好像在對列寧娜左后方一個看不見的聽眾說話,然后,她突然變了語氣,“說真的,我真的認(rèn)為你應(yīng)該謹(jǐn)慎點(diǎn)??偢粋€人在一起太不像話了。如果你四十歲了,或者三十五了,都沒有那么糟糕??墒悄氵@樣的年紀(jì),列寧娜呀,不行的,真的不行。你也知道,孵化與條件訓(xùn)練中心主任是多么反對任何強(qiáng)烈的或長時間的感情糾葛的。四個月,只跟亨利·福斯特一個人,中間沒有任何別的男人,天哪,如果他知道了,非氣瘋了不可……”
“想想水管里受壓之后的水吧。”他們開始考慮。“我以前扎破過水管,”控制官說,“那噴出來的水柱!”
他扎了二十次,二十個小小的噴泉噴涌而出。
“我的寶貝,我的寶貝!”
“媽媽!”瘋狂會傳染。
“我的愛,我的唯一,可愛的,可愛的……”
媽媽,一夫一妻制,愛情。噴泉噴出高高的水柱,猛烈的、泛著水沫的水柱。這股沖動只有一個出口。我的愛,我的寶貝。難怪那些前現(xiàn)代時期的人都那么瘋狂、邪惡、可憐。是他們的世界不讓他們隨遇而安,不讓他們擁有理智、高尚和幸福。正是因?yàn)橛辛藡寢寕兒颓槿藗?,有了各種禁忌,而他們沒有受過條件訓(xùn)練去遵從這些禁忌,正是因?yàn)橛辛四切┱T惑、孤單的悔恨,有了所有那些疾病和無窮無盡的孤獨(dú)的痛苦,有了不安和貧困,他們才被迫產(chǎn)生了強(qiáng)烈的情感。而一旦有了強(qiáng)烈的情感(況且是孤獨(dú)時的強(qiáng)烈情感,在無助的孤立中的強(qiáng)烈情感),他們怎么可能會穩(wěn)定呢?
“你當(dāng)然沒有必要放棄他。隔三岔五地也跟跟別人吧,這就夠了。他應(yīng)該有別的女孩吧?”
列寧娜承認(rèn)了這一點(diǎn)。
“他當(dāng)然會有了。相信我,亨利·福斯特可是正人君子啊,總是做正確的事。再說,你也得考慮考慮主任那里。你知道,他是很堅(jiān)持傳統(tǒng)的。”
列寧娜點(diǎn)點(diǎn)頭。“今天下午他還拍了我的屁股。”她說。
“就是嘛,你看!”范妮很得意,“這就表明了他持什么觀點(diǎn),最嚴(yán)格的傳統(tǒng)啊。”
“穩(wěn)定,”控制官說,“穩(wěn)定。沒有社會穩(wěn)定就不會有文明。沒有個人的穩(wěn)定就不會有社會的穩(wěn)定。”他的聲音就像喇叭聲。聽著他的話,學(xué)生們感覺自己變大、變溫暖了。
機(jī)器在轉(zhuǎn)動,轉(zhuǎn)動,必須不斷地轉(zhuǎn)動,無休無止。如果停止了,死亡就來臨了。十億人曾經(jīng)在地球表面上亂蹬亂跑。輪子開始了轉(zhuǎn)動。在一百五十年里,就有了二十億人。停下所有的輪子,只消一百五十個星期,就會只剩下十億人,其余的那十億個男男女女都餓死了。
輪子必須持續(xù)轉(zhuǎn)動,但是必須得有人看管。必須有人照看,和軸上的輪子一樣穩(wěn)定的人,理智的人,順服的人,滿足于穩(wěn)定的人。
哭喊:我的寶貝,我的媽媽,我的唯一,我的愛。呻吟:我的罪孽,我可怕的上帝。痛苦的哭喊,發(fā)燒般的胡言亂語,哀嘆年老和貧困——這樣的人怎么能夠照看輪子?。咳绻麄冋湛床涣溯喿?hellip;…那么,十億個男男女女的尸體可不是那么好掩埋的,也不是那么好焚化的。
“畢竟,”范妮的語氣像在哄她,“又不是什么痛苦或者難過的事情,就是讓你在亨利之外再多一兩個男人?,F(xiàn)在既然明白了,你應(yīng)該再稍微隨便一點(diǎn)……”
“穩(wěn)定,”控制官強(qiáng)調(diào),“穩(wěn)定,是最基本的也是最終的目的。穩(wěn)定。因此才有了現(xiàn)在的這一切。”
他一揮手,指了指花園、訓(xùn)練中心的大樓、躲在灌木叢里玩樂或者在草地上跑來跑去的裸體孩子們。
列寧娜搖搖頭,沉思著說:“不知道怎么回事,我最近不太想那么隨便了。人有時候就是這樣。范妮,你有沒有過這種感覺?”
范妮點(diǎn)點(diǎn)頭,表示理解和同情。“但是,你得努力調(diào)整啊,”她簡潔地說,“總得要按游戲規(guī)則來。畢竟,人人彼此相屬嘛。”
“是的,人人彼此相屬。”列寧娜緩緩地說,又嘆了口氣,沉默了一會兒。然后,她抓住范妮的手,輕輕捏了一下。“你說得非常對,范妮,跟以往一樣對。我會努力的。”
受到阻礙的本能流溢出來,形成情感的洪水,激情的洪水,甚至瘋狂的洪水。洪水的強(qiáng)度取決于水流的力量以及障礙物的高度和強(qiáng)度。未受阻滯的水流則沿著指定的河道平穩(wěn)流淌,流入平靜的幸福港灣。胚胎餓了,日復(fù)一日,代血漿泵不間斷地轉(zhuǎn)動著,每分鐘八百轉(zhuǎn)。換瓶后的嬰兒哭了,馬上有護(hù)士拿著一瓶外分泌液來了。在欲望與欲望得到滿足之間的間隙里,情感就會悄然產(chǎn)生。盡量縮短這一間隙,打破所有那些古老的、不必要的障礙。
“幸運(yùn)的孩子們!”控制官說,“為了讓你們的生活不受情感的煩擾,真可謂不惜代價,就是為了讓你們,盡可能地讓你們不要產(chǎn)生任何情感。”
“福帝在車?yán)铮?rdquo;中心主任念念有詞,“天下享太平。”
“列寧娜·克朗?”亨利·福斯特說,一邊拉上長褲的拉鏈,一邊回答著命運(yùn)預(yù)定中心主任助理的問話,“哦,她是個超級棒的姑娘。豐滿美妙的胸部。你還沒有和她一起睡過,我太吃驚了。”
“我也想不出為什么到現(xiàn)在還沒有。”命運(yùn)預(yù)定中心主任助理說,“我一定會的,一有機(jī)會就和她睡。”
伯納德·馬克斯在更衣室過道的另一側(cè),無意中聽到了這兩個人的交談,他臉都白了。
“說實(shí)話吧,”列寧娜說,“我開始有點(diǎn)厭倦天天跟亨利一個人了。”她穿上左腳的襪子,“你認(rèn)識伯納德·馬克斯嗎?”她問話的語氣過于隨意,一聽就知道是刻意裝出來的。
范妮看起來吃了一驚。“你不會是說……”
“為什么不呢?伯納德是阿爾法+呢。況且,他還曾經(jīng)邀請我和他一起去一個野蠻人保留地呢。我一直想去野蠻人保留地看看呢。”
“可是,他的名聲?”
“我干嗎要在意他的名聲呢?”
“我聽人說,他不喜歡玩障礙高爾夫。”
“聽人說,聽人說。”列寧娜嘲弄地說。
“并且,他大多數(shù)時間都是一個人待著,獨(dú)自一人。”范妮的聲音里有一絲恐懼。
“他跟我在一起就不是獨(dú)自一人了。為什么人們對他這么刻薄呢?我覺得他挺可愛的。”她自個兒笑了。他當(dāng)時害羞得簡直有點(diǎn)荒唐啊!幾乎都嚇壞了,好像她是世界控制官,而他自己只不過是個看機(jī)器的伽馬-一樣。
“想想你們自己的生活,”穆斯塔法·蒙德說,“你們之中有誰遇到過難以克服的障礙嗎?”
對這個問題的回答是一陣表示否定的沉默。
“你們之中有誰有過某種欲望,忍了很長時間這種欲望才終于得到了滿足?”
“嗯。”一個男孩開了口,又猶豫了。
“大聲說,”中心主任說,“不要讓福下久等。”
“有一次,我等了幾乎四個星期,我想得到的一個女孩才同意和我在一起。”
“你是否因此體驗(yàn)到了強(qiáng)烈的情感?”
“簡直可怕!”
“可怕,說得太對了。”控制官說,“我們的祖先們太愚蠢,太短視了,當(dāng)最初的改革家們提出要把他們從可怕的情感中解脫出來時,他們還不愿意呢。”
“那樣談?wù)撍?,好像她就是一塊肉似的。”伯納德咬了咬牙,“在這里占有她,在那里占有她。就像一塊羊肉,把她降格為羊肉。她說她會考慮的,她說本周就會給我答復(fù)。哦,福帝,福帝,福帝啊。”他真想走上前去,狠狠地揍他們兩個的臉,一拳接一拳地打。
“是啊,我真建議你試試她。”亨利·福斯特正在說。
*
“以體外人工培育為例吧,普菲茨納和川口早就研究出了整套技術(shù),可是政府愿意看一眼嗎?不。有一種叫作基督教的東西。婦女們被迫繼續(xù)懷胎生育。”
“他太丑了!”范妮說。
“我倒挺喜歡他的長相。”
“還太矮小。”范妮做了個鬼臉。長得矮小太可怕了,低級的種姓才會矮小呢。
“我覺得那樣很可愛,”列寧娜說,“他讓人有種想愛撫他的感覺。你知道,就像對一只貓那樣。”
范妮很震驚。“聽人說,他還在瓶子里的時候,有人出了個錯,以為他是伽馬,把酒精倒進(jìn)了他的代血漿,所以他才那么矮呢。”
“一派胡言!”列寧娜憤憤不平。
“在英國,睡眠教育曾經(jīng)被禁止。有一種叫作自由主義的東西呀。議會,不知道你們對這個了解不了解,通過了法律,禁止睡眠教育。那些記錄還保存著呢。關(guān)于臣民之自由的演講。簡直就是無能和可憐的自由,是不合時宜的自由。”
“老兄,不用客氣,我向你保證,不用客氣。”亨利·福斯特拍拍命運(yùn)預(yù)定中心主任助理的肩膀,“畢竟,人人彼此相屬嘛。”
每晚一百遍的重復(fù),每星期三個晚上,連續(xù)四年,伯納德·馬克斯想著,他可是一位睡眠教育專家。六萬兩千四百遍的重復(fù)后,這句話就成了真理。真是白癡!
“或者以種姓制度為例吧,有人不斷地提出建議,卻一次又一次地被拒絕,就因?yàn)橛幸环N叫作民主的東西。好像人們除了生理和化學(xué)方面的平等外,還有別的什么方面也平等似的。”
“好吧,我得說,我打算接受他的邀請。”
伯納德恨他們,恨他們??墒牵麄兪莾蓚€人,而且個子高大,非常強(qiáng)壯。
“九年戰(zhàn)爭開始于福特紀(jì)元141年。”
“即便關(guān)于他的代血漿里添加了酒精的說法是真的,你也不會還要接受吧。”
“氯氧化碳、三氯硝基甲烷、碘乙酸乙酯、二苯代胂氰、三氯甲基、氯甲酸酯、硫代氯乙烷都用上了,更不用說氫氰酸了。”
“不過,我不相信那是真的。”列寧娜最后說。
“一萬四千架飛機(jī)轟鳴著列隊(duì)飛行。但在柏林庫達(dá)姆大街和巴黎第八區(qū),炭疽炸彈爆炸并不比拍破一個紙袋子聲音大多少。”
“因?yàn)槲艺娴南肴タ纯匆靶U人保留地。”
“CH3C6H2(NO2)3+Hg(CNO)2=什么呢?等于地上的一個大窟窿,一堆碎磚瓦礫,幾片殘存的肉和黏膜,一只腳,還穿著靴子呢,從空中飛過,啪嗒,落入天竺葵叢,那種猩紅色的。那年夏天的表演多么耀眼!”
*
“你真是無可救藥了,列寧娜,我不管你了。”
“俄國將水資源感染病毒的技術(shù)真是太巧妙了。”
范妮和列寧娜兩人背對著背,沉默著換完了衣服。
“九年戰(zhàn)爭,經(jīng)濟(jì)上的大崩潰。必須做出選擇,要么是世界性的控制,要么是世界性的毀滅;要么是穩(wěn)定,要么是……”
“范妮·克朗也是個不錯的姑娘。”命運(yùn)預(yù)定中心主任助理說。
在育嬰房里,基礎(chǔ)階級意識課已經(jīng)結(jié)束,那些輕柔的聲音現(xiàn)在要讓未來的需求跟上未來的工業(yè)品供應(yīng)。“我真喜歡坐飛機(jī),”聲音竊竊私語,“我真喜歡坐飛機(jī),我真喜歡買新衣服,我真喜歡……”
“很自然地,在炭疽炸彈爆炸之中,自由主義滅亡了,但是,人們還是不能靠武力做事情。”
“就是胸部遠(yuǎn)不如列寧娜那么豐滿,哦,真是遠(yuǎn)不如。”
“舊衣服真丑陋,”不知疲倦的細(xì)語,“我們總是扔掉舊衣服。扔掉好過修補(bǔ),扔掉好過修補(bǔ),扔掉好過……”
“政府的職責(zé)是坐著管理,而不是去打人。應(yīng)該用腦子和屁股來管理,而不是用拳頭。比如,逼人消費(fèi)這回事。”
*
“好了,我準(zhǔn)備好了。”列寧娜說,但是,范妮還是一言不發(fā),別著個臉。“咱倆和好吧,親愛的范妮。”
“每一個人,男人、女人和孩子一年內(nèi)都被迫消費(fèi)一定的數(shù)量。這是為了工業(yè)發(fā)展的緣故。唯一的結(jié)果就是……”
“扔掉好過修補(bǔ)。補(bǔ)丁越多,人越窮;補(bǔ)丁越多……”
“總有一天,”范妮說,難過地強(qiáng)調(diào),“你會惹上麻煩的。”
“出現(xiàn)了大規(guī)模的反對,非常嚴(yán)肅認(rèn)真的反對。不要消費(fèi)任何東西,要回歸自然。”
“我真喜歡坐飛機(jī)。我真喜歡坐飛機(jī)。”
“回歸文化,是的,實(shí)際上是回歸文化。如果你總是靜靜地坐著讀書,你不會消費(fèi)很多東西的。”
“我看起來還可以嗎?”列寧娜問。她穿的是那種玻璃瓶綠色的人造絲上衣,袖口和領(lǐng)口鑲著綠色的黏膠纖維毛條。
“在倫敦戈?duì)柕滤垢窳?,八百個簡單生活派成員被機(jī)槍掃平了。”
“扔掉好過修補(bǔ)。扔掉好過修補(bǔ)。”
下身穿綠色的燈芯絨短褲,白色的黏膠毛長襪子,襪口在膝蓋下面翻卷過來。
*
“之后,就是著名的大英博物館屠殺。兩千個文化粉絲被硫化二氯甲基氣體毒死。”
一頂綠白相間的騎手帽遮住了列寧娜的眼睛;她的鞋子是翠綠色的,擦得锃亮。
“最終,”穆斯塔法·蒙德說,“控制官們意識到,動用武力是沒什么用處的。然后,開始采用緩慢但卻絕對可靠的技術(shù)——體外人工培育、新巴甫洛夫條件訓(xùn)練法、睡眠教育法……”
她的腰上系了一條鑲著銀邊的綠色代摩洛哥皮的腰帶,因?yàn)槌R?guī)供給的避孕藥放在里面,皮帶稍稍有點(diǎn)隆起(列寧娜不是不孕女)。
“普菲茨納和川口的發(fā)現(xiàn)終于得到了運(yùn)用。一場大規(guī)模的反對懷胎生育的宣傳運(yùn)動……”
“太完美了!”范妮興奮地喊道,她總是難以長時間抵擋列寧娜的魅力,“這條馬爾薩斯腰帶(12)好漂亮?。?rdquo;
“同進(jìn)還有反對過去的運(yùn)動,博物館被關(guān)閉,歷史紀(jì)念物被炸掉(幸運(yùn)的是,大多數(shù)都已經(jīng)在九年戰(zhàn)爭中被毀掉了),所有福特紀(jì)元150年之前出版的書籍被禁。”
*
“我一定要買一條。”范妮說。
“比如,有一種叫作金字塔的東西。”
“我的那條黑漆皮的舊腰帶……”
“還有一個叫作莎士比亞的人。你們肯定從來沒有聽說過吧。”
“簡直太丟人了,我的那條腰帶。”
“這就是真正科學(xué)教育的優(yōu)勢啊。”
“補(bǔ)丁越多,人越窮;補(bǔ)丁越多,人越……”
“福帝第一輛T型車的推出……”
“我都用了快三個月了。”
“被定為新時代的起點(diǎn)。”
“扔掉好過修補(bǔ);扔掉好過……”
“我剛說過,有一種叫作基督教的東西。”
“扔掉好過修補(bǔ)。”
“節(jié)儉消費(fèi)的倫理和哲學(xué)……”
“我喜歡新衣服,我喜歡新衣服,我喜歡……”
“在生產(chǎn)不足的情況下,是非常必要的;但是,在這個機(jī)器和固氮合成氨的時代,節(jié)儉消費(fèi)簡直就是對社會的犯罪啊。”
“亨利·福斯特送給我的。”
“所有的十字架都給去掉了上邊的那部分,成了T字。那時候也有一種叫作上帝的東西。”
“是真正的代摩洛哥皮革。”
“我們現(xiàn)在有了世界國,有福帝日慶?;顒樱猩鐓^(qū)歌曲演唱,有團(tuán)結(jié)祈禱儀式。”
“福帝呀,我恨死他們了!”伯納德·馬克斯心想。
“有一種東西叫作天堂,但是,他們還是經(jīng)常喝酒喝得爛醉如泥。”
“就像肉一樣,就像一塊肉一樣。”
“有一種叫作靈魂的東西,一種叫作永生的東西。”
“一定要問問亨利他是從哪里買到的。”
*
“但他們還是服用嗎啡和可卡因。”
“更糟糕的是,她自己也覺得自己就是塊肉。”
“福特紀(jì)元178年,兩千個藥劑師和生化專家得到資助。”
“他看起來悶悶不樂的。”命運(yùn)預(yù)定中心主任助理指著伯納德·馬克斯說。
“六年后,藥片就投產(chǎn)并進(jìn)入市場了,那種完美的藥片。”
“咱倆逗逗他。”
“令人迷醉,讓人感覺美妙,飄飄欲仙一般美妙。”
“你愁眉苦臉,馬克斯,愁眉苦臉啊。”肩膀上的這一下子讓他嚇了一跳,他抬起頭一看,是那個討厭的亨利·福斯特,“你需要一克唆麻。”
“這藥片兼有基督教和酒精的好處,卻找不到一絲缺點(diǎn)。”
“福帝呀,我真想殺了他!”但他只是說了句:“不了,謝謝。”并用手擋住了對方遞過來的那管藥片。
“讓你隨時遠(yuǎn)離現(xiàn)實(shí),給自己放個假,回來的時候頭痛就沒有了,胡思亂想也沒有了。”
*
“吃一片吧,”亨利·福斯特堅(jiān)持著,“吃了吧。”
“穩(wěn)定幾乎完全得以保障。”
“吃下一小片,煩惱都不見。”命運(yùn)預(yù)定中心主任助理說,引用了一條睡眠中記住的真理。
“要做的就剩下征服老年了。”
“討厭,討厭!”伯納德·馬克斯喊。
“哎喲喂,別那么高傲嘛。”
“性腺荷爾蒙,輸年輕人的血液,鎂鹽……”
“記住,唆麻一片,擺脫苦難哦。”兩個人走了出去,哈哈笑著。
“老年所有的生理衰退現(xiàn)象全都消除了,當(dāng)然,伴隨著的還有……”
“別忘了問他那條馬爾薩斯腰帶的事。”范妮說。
“老年人的精神特征也都消失了。終其一生,人的性格都不再變化。”
*
“……天黑之前還得玩兩局障礙高爾夫,我得趕緊飛走了。”
“工作,玩樂——六十歲的時候,我們的體力和口味與十七歲時沒有什么區(qū)別。在可怕的過去,老年人總是要放棄很多,退休,寄情于宗教,用讀書和思考來消磨時間——哼,思考!”
“白癡,蠢豬!”伯納德·馬克斯自言自語,沿著過道走向電梯。
“現(xiàn)在,這才叫進(jìn)步呢。老年人一樣工作,一樣性交,天天玩樂,沒有時間,沒有片刻工夫坐下來思考。或者,如果由于某種不幸的偶然情況,他們忙碌的娛樂消遣之中出現(xiàn)了空白時間,總是還有唆麻,美妙的唆麻。半克就換來半個假期,一克就等于過了個周末,兩克就足夠到秀麗的東方游歷一番,三克則足以讓他們到月球上昏沉沉地消磨一趟,回來的時候,他們會發(fā)現(xiàn)那段時間空白已經(jīng)順利越過,又回到了日常的工作和消遣,趕著看一場又一場的感官電影,和一個又一個胸部豐滿的姑娘在一起,從一局電磁高爾夫到下一局……”
“走開,小姑娘,”中心主任生氣地喊,“走開,小男孩!你們看不出福下在忙著嗎?去,去別處玩你們的性游戲去。”
“可憐的孩子!”控制官說。
緩慢地,莊嚴(yán)地,伴隨著機(jī)器發(fā)出的輕微嗡嗡聲,傳送帶向前行進(jìn)著,每小時三十三厘米。在暗紅色的房間里,無數(shù)紅寶石微微閃著光。
————————————————————
(1) fordship,模仿lordship(閣下),譯為“福下”。
(2) Harappa,古印度恒河流域文明的中心,位于沙西瓦爾(Sahiwal)西南35公里處,是古印度恒河流域發(fā)現(xiàn)最早的古文明遺址。
(3) Ur of the Chaldees,古希伯來地名,亞伯拉罕的故鄉(xiāng)。
(4) 均為古代文明中心,底比斯是古希臘的城邦之一,后兩者是愛琴海文明的兩個中心。
(5) Odysseus,希臘西部伊薩卡島之王,史詩《奧德賽》主人公。
(6) Job,《圣經(jīng)·約伯記》的中心人物。
(7) Jupiter,古羅馬神話中的眾神之王。
(8) Gotama,指悉達(dá)多·喬達(dá)摩,即釋迦牟尼。
(9) 布萊茲·帕斯卡(Blaise Pascal,1623—1662),法國神學(xué)家、基督教哲學(xué)家、數(shù)學(xué)家、物理學(xué)家、化學(xué)家、音樂家、教育家、氣象學(xué)家。
(10) Alhambra,西班牙南部格林納達(dá)的地名,建有著名的阿罕布拉宮殿。
(11) 一種檀香香精,其首產(chǎn)地為塞浦路斯。
(12) 托馬斯·羅伯特·馬爾薩斯(Thomas Robert Malthus,1766—1834),英國人口學(xué)家、政治經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家,著有《人口學(xué)原理》,其關(guān)于人口增長的悲觀預(yù)測影響深遠(yuǎn)。本書中提到的這種腰帶內(nèi)側(cè)裝有避孕藥,因此作者以此命名。
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