【有声英语文学名著】美丽新世界（11b）

 Brave New World

by Aldous Huxley
Chapter Eleven - continued
"But why do they laugh?" asked the Savage 1 in a pained bewilderment.
"Why?" The Provost turned towards him a still broadly grinning face. "Why? But because it's so extraordinarily 2 funny."
In the cinematographic twilight 3, Bernard risked a gesture which, in the past, even total darkness would hardly have emboldened 4 him to make. Strong in his new importance, he put his arm around the Head Mistress's waist. It yielded, willowily. He was just about to snatch a kiss or two and perhaps a gentle pinch, when the shutters 5 clicked open again.
"Perhaps we had better go on," said Miss Keate, and moved towards the door.
"And this," said the Provost a moment later, "is Hypnopaedic Control Room."
Hundreds of synthetic 6 music boxes, one for each dormitory, stood ranged in shelves round three sides of the room; pigeon-holed on the fourth were the paper sound-track rolls on which the various hypnopaedic lessons were printed.
"You slip the roll in here," explained Bernard, interrupting Dr. Gaffney, "press down this switch ..."
"No, that one," corrected the Provost, annoyed.
"That one, then. The roll unwinds. The selenium cells transform the light impulses into sound waves, and ..."
"And there you are," Dr. Gaffney concluded.
"Do they read Shakespeare?" asked the Savage as they walked, on their way to the Bio-chemical Laboratories, past the School Library.
"Certainly not," said the Head Mistress, blushing.
"Our library," said Dr. Gaffney, "contains only books of reference. If our young people need distraction 7, they can get it at the feelies. We don't encourage them to indulge in any solitary 8 amusements."
Five bus-loads of boys and girls, singing or in a silent embracement, rolled past them over the vitrified highway.
"Just returned," explained Dr. Gaffney, while Bernard, whispering, made an appointment with the Head Mistress for that very evening, "from the Slough 9 Crematorium. Death conditioning begins at eighteen months. Every tot spends two mornings a week in a Hospital for the Dying. All the best toys are kept there, and they get chocolate cream on death days. They learn to take dying as a matter of course."
"Like any other physiological 10 process," put in the Head Mistress professionally.
Eight o'clock at the Savoy. It was all arranged.
On their way back to London they stopped at the Television Corporation's factory at Brentford.
"Do you mind waiting here a moment while I go and telephone?" asked Bernard.
The Savage waited and watched. The Main Day-Shift was just going off duty. Crowds of lower-caste workers were queued up in front of the monorail station-seven or eight hundred Gamma, Delta 12 and Epsilon men and women, with not more than a dozen faces and statures between them. To each of them, with his or her ticket, the booking clerk pushed over a little cardboard pillbox. The long caterpillar 13 of men and women moved slowly forward.
"What's in those" (remembering The Merchant of Venice) "those caskets?" the Savage enquired 14 when Bernard had rejoined him.
"The day's soma ration," Bernard answered rather indistinctly; for he was masticating 15 a piece of Benito Hoover's chewing-gum. "They get it after their work's over. Four half-gramme tablets. Six on Saturdays."
He took John's arm affectionately and they walked back towards the helicopter.
Lenina came singing into the Changing Room.
"You seem very pleased with yourself," said Fanny.
"I am pleased," she answered. Zip! "Bernard rang up half an hour ago." Zip, zip! She stepped out of her shorts. "He has an unexpected engagement." Zip! "Asked me if I'd take the Savage to the feelies this evening. I must fly." She hurried away towards the bathroom.
"She's a lucky girl," Fanny said to herself as she watched Lenina go.
There was no envy in the comment; good-natured Fanny was merely stating a fact. Lenina was lucky; lucky in having shared with Bernard a generous portion of the Savage's immense celebrity 16, lucky in reflecting from her insignificant 17 person the moment's supremely 18 fashionable glory. Had not the Secretary of the Young Women's Fordian Association asked her to give a lecture about her experiences? Had she not been invited to the Annual Dinner of the Aphroditeum Club? Had she not already appeared in the Feelytone News-visibly, audibly and tactually appeared to countless 19 millions all over the planet?
Hardly less flattering had been the attentions paid her by conspicuous 20 individuals. The Resident World Controller's Second Secretary had asked her to dinner and breakfast. She had spent one week-end with the Ford 11 Chief-Justice, and another with the Arch-Community-Songster of Canterbury. The President of the Internal and External Secretions 21 Corporation was perpetually on the phone, and she had been to Deau-ville with the Deputy-Governor of the Bank of Europe.
"It's wonderful, of course. And yet in a way," she had confessed to Fanny, "I feel as though I were getting something on false pretences 22. Because, of course, the first thing they all want to know is what it's like to make love to a Savage. And I have to say I don't know." She shook her head. "Most of the men don't believe me, of course. But it's true. I wish it weren't," she added sadly and sighed. "He's terribly good-looking; don't you think so?"
"But doesn't he like you?" asked Fanny.
"Sometimes I think he does and sometimes I think he doesn't. He always does his best to avoid me; goes out of the room when I come in; won't touch me; won't even look at me. But sometimes if I turn round suddenly, I catch him staring; and then-well, you know how men look when they like you."
Yes, Fanny knew.
"I can't make it out," said Lenina.
She couldn't make it out; and not only was bewildered; was also rather upset.
"Because, you see, Fanny, / like him."
Liked him more and more. Well, now there'd be a real chance, she thought, as she scented 24 herself after her bath. Dab 25, dab, dab-a real chance. Her high spirits overflowed 26 in a song.
"Hug me till you drug me, honey;
Kiss me till I'm in a coma 27; Hug me, honey, snuggly bunny; Love's as good as soma."
The scent 23 organ was playing a delightfully 28 refreshing 29 Herbal Capric-cio-rippling arpeggios of thyme and lavender, of rosemary, basil, myrtle, tarragon; a series of daring modulations through the spice keys into ambergris; and a slow return through sandalwood, camphor, cedar 30 and newmown hay (with occasional subtle touches of discord-a whiff of kidney pudding, the faintest suspicion of pig's dung) back to the simple aromatics 31 with which the piece began. The final blast of thyme died away; there was a round of applause; the lights went up. In the synthetic music machine the sound-track roll began to unwind. It was a trio for hyper-violin, super-cello and oboe-surrogate that now filled the air with its agreeable languor 32. Thirty or forty bars-and then, against this instrumental background, a much more than human voice began to warble; now throaty, now from the head, now hollow as a flute 33, now charged with yearning 34 harmonics, it effortlessly passed from Gaspard's Forster's low record on the very frontiers of musical tone to a trilled bat-note high above the highest C to which (in 1770, at the Ducal opera of Parma, and to the astonishment 35 of Mozart) Lucrezia Ajugari, alone of all the singers in history, once piercingly gave utterance 36.
Sunk in their pneumatic stalls, Lenina and the Savage sniffed 37 and listened. It was now the turn also for eyes and skin. The house lights went down; fiery 38 letters stood out solid and as though self-supported in the darkness. THREE WEEKS IN A HELICOPTER . AN ALL-SUPER-SINGING, SYNTHETIC-TALKING, COLOURED, STEREOSCOPIC FEELY. WITH SYNCHRONIZED 39 SCENT-ORGAN ACCOMPANIMENT.
"Take hold of those metal knobs on the arms of your chair," whispered Lenina. "Otherwise you won't get any of the feely effects." The Savage did as he was told.
Those fiery letters, meanwhile, had disappeared; there were ten seconds of complete darkness; then suddenly, dazzling and incomparably more solid-looking than they would have seemed in actual flesh and blood, far more real than reality, there stood the stereoscopic images, locked in one another's arms, of a gigantic negro and a golden-haired young brachycephalic Beta-Plus female.
The Savage started. That sensation on his lips! He lifted a hand to his mouth; the titillation 40 ceased; let his hand fall back on the metal knob; it began again. The scent organ, meanwhile, breathed pure musk 41. Ex-piringly, a sound-track super-dove cooed "Oo-ooh"; and vibrating only thirty-two times a second, a deeper than African bass 42 made answer: "Aa-aah." "Ooh-ah! Ooh-ah!" the stereoscopic lips came together again, and once more the facial erogenous zones of the six thousand spectators in the Alhambra tingled 43 with almost intolerable galvanic pleasure. "Ooh ..."
The plot of the film was extremely simple. A few minutes after the first Oohs and Aahs (a duet having been sung and a little love made on that famous bearskin, every hair of which-the Assistant Predestinator was perfectly 44 right-could be separately and distinctly felt), the negro had a helicopter accident, fell on his head. Thump 45! what a twinge through the forehead! A chorus of ow's and aie's went up from the audience.
The concussion 46 knocked all the negro's conditioning into a cocked hat. He developed for the Beta blonde an exclusive and maniacal 47 passion. She protested. He persisted. There were struggles, pursuits, an assault on a rival, finally a sensational 48 kidnapping. The Beta blond was ravished away into the sky and kept there, hovering 49, for three weeks in a wildly anti-social tete-a-tete with the black madman. Finally, after a whole series of adventures and much aerial acrobacy three handsome young Alphas succeeded in rescuing her. The negro was packed off to an Adult Re-conditioning Centre and the film ended happily and decorously, with the Beta blonde becoming the mistress of all her three rescuers. They interrupted themselves for a moment to sing a synthetic quartet, with full super-orchestral accompaniment and gardenias 50 on the scent organ. Then the bearskin made a final appearance and, amid a blare of saxophones, the last stereoscopic kiss faded into darkness, the last electric titillation died on the lips like a dying moth 51 that quivers, quivers, ever more feebly, ever more faintly, and at last is quiet, quite still.
But for Lenina the moth did not completely die. Even after the lights had gone up, while they were shuffling 52 slowly along with the crowd towards the lifts, its ghost still fluttered against her lips, still traced fine shuddering 53 roads of anxiety and pleasure across her skin. Her cheeks were flushed. She caught hold of the Savage's arm and pressed it, limp, against her side. He looked down at her for a moment, pale, pained, desiring, and ashamed of his desire. He was not worthy 54, not ... Their eyes for a moment met. What treasures hers promised! A queen's ransom 55 of temperament 56. Hastily he looked away, disengaged his imprisoned 57 arm. He was obscurely terrified lest she should cease to be something he could feel himself unworthy of. "I don't think you ought to see things like that," he said, making haste to transfer from Lenina herself to the surrounding circumstances the blame for any past or possible future lapse 58 from perfection. "Things like what, John?" "Like this horrible film."
"Horrible?" Lenina was genuinely astonished. "But I thought it was lovely."
"It was base," he said indignantly, "it was ignoble 59." She shook her head. "I don't know what you mean." Why was he so queer? Why did he go out of his way to spoil things? In the taxicopter he hardly even looked at her. Bound by strong vows 60 that had never been pronounced, obedient to laws that had long since ceased to run, he sat averted 61 and in silence. Sometimes, as though a finger had plucked at some taut 62, almost breaking string, his whole body would shake with a sudden nervous start. The taxicopter landed on the roof of Lenina's apartment house. "At last," she thought exultantly 63 as she stepped out of the cab. At last-even though he had been so queer just now. Standing 64 under a lamp, she peered into her hand mirror. At last. Yes, her nose was a bit shiny. She shook the loose powder from her puff 65. While he was paying off the taxi-there would just be time. She rubbed at the shininess, thinking: "He's terribly good-looking. No need for him to be shy like Bernard. And yet ... Any other man would have done it long ago. Well, now at last." That fragment of a face in the little round mirror suddenly smiled at her.
"Good-night," said a strangled voice behind her. Lenina wheeled round. He was standing in the doorway 66 of the cab, his eyes fixed 67, staring; had evidently been staring all this time while she was powdering her nose, waiting-but what for? or hesitating, trying to make up his mind, and all the time thinking, thinking-she could not imagine what extraordinary thoughts. "Good-night, Lenina," he repeated, and made a strange grimacing 68 attempt to smile.
"But, John ... I thought you were ... I mean, aren't you? ..." He shut the door and bent 69 forward to say something to the driver. The cab shot up into the air.
Looking down through the window in the floor, the Savage could see Lenina's upturned face, pale in the bluish light of the lamps. The mouth was open, she was calling. Her foreshortened figure rushed
away from him; the diminishing square of the roof seemed to be falling through the darkness.
Five minutes later he was back in his room. From its hiding-place he took out his mouse-nibbled volume, turned with religious care its stained and crumbled 70 pages, and began to read Othello. Othello, he remembered, was like the hero of Three Weeks in a Helicopter-a black man.
Drying her eyes, Lenina walked across the roof to the lift. On her way down to the twenty-seventh floor she pulled out her soma bottle. One gramme, she decided 71, would not be enough; hers had been more than a one-gramme affliction. But if she took two grammes, she ran the risk of not waking up in time to-morrow morning. She compromised and, into her cupped left palm, shook out three half-gramme tablets.