| Autor | Huxley, Aldous, 1894-1963 |
| Pealkiri | Brave new world : a novel / by Aldous Huxley |
| Ilmunud | London : Chatto & Windus, 1932 |
| Link | http://tartu.ester.ee/record=b1826158~S1*est |
| Viide | Huxley, Aldous 1932. Brave New World. London: Chatto & Windus. |
A troop of newly arrived students, very young, pink and callow, follower nervously, rather abjectly, at the Director's heels. (Huxley 1932: 2)
'Just to give you a general idea,' he would explain to them. For of course some sort of general idea they must have, if they were to do their work intelligently - though as little of one, if they were to be good and happy members of society, as possible. For particulars, as every one knows, make for virtue and happiness; generalities are intellectually necessary evils. Not philosophers, but fret-sawyers and stamp collectors compose the backbone of society. (Huxley 1932: X)
'Bokanovsky's Process,' repeated the Director, and the students underlined the words in their little note-books.
One egg, one embryo, one adult - normality. But a bokanovskified egg will bud, will proliferate, will divide. From eight to ninety-six buds, and every bud will grow into a perfectly formed embryo, and very embryo into a full-sized adult. Making ninety-six human beings grow where only one grew before. Progress. (Huxley 1932: 4-5)
'...Bokanovsky's Process is one of the major instruments of social stability!'
Major instruments of social stability.
Standard men and women; in uniform batches. The whole of a small factory staffed witht he product of a single bokanovskified egg. (Huxley 1932: 6)
'Give them a few figures, Mr. Foster,' said the Director, who was tired of talking.
Mr. Foster was only too happy to give them a few figures.
Two hundred and twenty metres long, two hundred wide, ten high. He pointed upwards. Like chicken drinking, the students lifted their eyes towards the distant ceiling. (Huxley 1932: 11)
'Reducing the number of revolutions per minute,' Mr. Foster explained. 'The surrogate goes round slower; therefore passes through the lung at longer intervals; therefore gives the embryo less oxygen. Nothing like xygen-shortage for keeping an embryo below par.' Again he rubbed his hands. (Huxley 1932: 14-15)
'And that,' put in the Director sententiously, 'that is the secret of happiness and virtue - liking what you've got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their unescapable social destiny.' (Huxley 1932: 17)
There was a slience; then, clearing his throat, 'Once upon a time,' the Director began, 'while Our Ford was still on earth, there was a little boy called Reuben Rabinovitch. Reuben was the child of Polish-speaking parents.' The director interrupted himself. 'You know what Polish is, I suppose?'
'A dead language.'
'Like French and German,' added another student, officiously showing off his learning.
'And "parent?"?' questioned the D.H.C:
There was an uneasy silence. Several of the boys blushed. They had not yet learned to draw the significance but often very fine distinction between smut and pure science. One, at last, had the courage to raise a hand.
'Human beings used to be...' he hesitated; the blood rushed to his cheekcs. 'Well, they used to be viviparous.' (Huxley 1932: 25)
He [the doctor], fortunately, understood English, recognized the discourse as that which Shaw had broadcasted the previous evening, realized the significance of what had happened, and sent a letter to the medical press about it.
'The principle of sleep-teaching, or hypnopÆdia, had been discovered.' The D.H.C. made an impressive pause. (Huxley 1932: 27)
Roses and electric shocks, the khaki of Deltas and the whiff of asafoetida - wedded indissolubly before the child can speak. But wordless conditioning is crude and wholesale; cannot bring home the finer distinctions, cannot inculcate the more eomplex courses of behaviour. For that there must be words, but words without reason. In brief, hypnopÆdia. (Huxley 1932: 31)
'Till at last the child's mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the child's mind. And not the child's mind only. The adult's mind too - all his life long. The mind that judges and desires and decides - made up of these suggestions. But all these suggestions are our suggestions!' The Director almost shouted in his triumph. 'Suggestions from the State.' He banged the nearest table. 'It therefore follows...'
A noise made him turn around.
'Oh, Ford!' he said in another tone, 'I've gone and woken the children.' (Huxley 1932: 32)
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 about seven and a little girl who might have been a year older, were playing, very gravely and with all the focussed attentnion 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. (Huxley 1932: 34)
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. (Huxley 1932: 36)
Levina raised her eyebrows in astonishment. (Huxley 1932: 43)
In the lift, on their way up to the changingrooms, 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. (Huxley 1932: 37)
'...I suppose you're going out?'
Lenina nodded.
'Who with?'
'Henry Foster.'
'Again?' Fanny's kind, rather moon-like face ook on an incongruous expression of pained and disapproving astonishment. 'Do you mean to tell me you're still going out with Henry Foster?' (Huxley 1932: 44-45)
'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 sicty-two thousand repetitions in the dark had made them accept, not merely as true, but as axiomatic, self-evident, utterly indisputable. (Huxley 1932: 45)
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. (Huxley 1932: 48)
Fanny nodded her sympathy and understanding. (Huxley 1932: 49)
'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. (Huxley 1932: 51)
'That is,' Lenina gave him her most deliciously significant smile, 'if you still want to have me.'
Bernard's pale face flushed. 'What on earth for?' she wondered, astonished, but at the same time touched by this strange tribute to her power. (Huxley 1932: 68)
She smiled at him with an expression of the most sympathetic understanding. (Huxley 1932: 70)
His [Bernard Marx's] face wore an expression of pain. (Huxley 1932: 70)
With eyes for the most part downcast and, if ever they lighted on a fellow creature, at once and furtively averted, Bernard hastened across the roof. (Huxley 1932: 74)
Well, now she had said it and he was still wretched - wretched that she should have thought it such a perfect afternoon to join Henry Foster, that she should have found him funny for not wantking to talk of their most private affairs in public. Wretched, in a word, because she had behaved as any healthy and virtuous English girl ought to behave and not in some other, abnormal, extraordinary way. (Huxley 1932: 75)
Each time he found himself looking on the level, instead of downward, into a Delta's face, he felt humiliated. Would the creature treat him with the respect due to his caste? The question haunted him. Not without reason. For Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons had been to some extent conditioned to associate corporeal mass with social superiority. Indeed, a faint hypnopaedic prjudice in favour of size was universal. Hence the laughter of the women to whom he had proposals, the practical joking of his equals among the men. The mockery made him feel an outsider; and feeling an outsider he behaved like one, which increased the prejudice against him and intensified the contempt and hostility aroused by his physical defects. Which in turn increased his sense of being aliend and alone. (Huxley 1932: 76)
'Tell him I'm coming at once,' he said and hung up the receiver. Then, turning to his secretary, 'I'll leave you to put my things away,' he went on in the same official and impersonal tone; and ignoring her lustrous smile, got up and walked briskly to the door. (Huxley 1932: 78)
That which had emade Helmholtz so uncomfortable aware of being himself and all alone was too much ability. What the two men shared was the knowledge that they were individuals. (Huxley 1932: 79)
Speaking very slowly, 'Did you ever feel,' he asked, 'as though you had something inside you that was only waiting for you to give it a chance to come out? Some sort of extra power that you aren't using - you know, like all the water that goes down the falls instead of through the turbines?' He looked at Bernard questioningly.
'You mea all the emotions one might be feeling if things were different?' (Huxley 1932: 81)
'All men are physio-chemically equal,' said Henry sententiously. 'Besides, even Epsilons perform indispensable services.' (Huxley 1932: 86)
Bernard looket at her (Ford! it was Morgana Rotschild) and blushingly had to admit that he had been playing neither. Morgana stared at him with astonishment. There was an awkward silence.
Then pointedly she turned and addressed herself to the more sporting man on her left. (Huxley 1932: 92-93)
'But, Bernard, we shall be alone all night.'
Bernard blushed and looked away. 'I meant, alone for talking,' he mumbled.
'Talking? But what about?' Walking and talking - that seemed a very odd way of spending an afternoon. (Huxley 1932: 103)
'For the New Mexican Reservation?' he said, and his tone, the face he lifted to Bernard, expressed a kind agitated astonishment.
Surprised by his surprise, Bernard nodded. There was a silence.
The Director leaned back in his chair, frowning. 'How long ago was it?' he said, speaking more to himself than to Bernard. 'Twenty years, I suppose. Nearer twenty-five. I must have been your age...' He sighed and shook his head. (Huxley 1932: 111)
Furious with himself for having given away a discreditable secret, he vented his rage on Bernard. The look in his eyes was now frankly malignant. 'And I should like to take this opportunity, Mr. Marx,' he went on, 'of saying that I'm not at all pleased with the reports I receive of your behaviour outside working hours. You may say that this is not my business. But it is. My workers must be above suspicion, particularly those of the highest castes. Alphas are so conditioned that they do not have to be infantile in their emotional behaviour. But that is all the more reason for their making a special effort to conform. It is their duty to be infantile, even against their inclination. And so, Mr. Marx, I give you fair warning.' The Director's voice vibrated with an indignation that had now become wholly righteous and impersonal - ws the expression of the disapproval of Society itself. 'If ever I hear again of any lapse from a proper standard of infantile decorum, I shall ask for your transference to a Sub-Centre - preferably to Iceland. Good morning.' And swivelling round in his chair, he picked up his pen and began to write. (Huxley 1932: 113-114)
'You don't say so,' said Lenina poltely, now knowing in the least what the Warden had said, but taking her cue from his dramatic pause. (Huxley 1932: 118)
He hoped that this reference to a shameful subject would make Lenina blush; but she only smiled with simulated intelligence and said, 'You don't say so!' Disappointed, the Warden began again. (Huxley 1932: 119)
'Queer,' said Lenina. 'Very queer.' It was her ordinary word of condemnaion. 'I don't like it. And I don't like that man.' She pointed to the Indian guide who had been appointed to take them up to the pueblo. Her feeling was evidently reciprocated; the very back of the man, as he walked along before them, was hostile, sullenly contemptuous. (Huxley 1932: 124)
She liked even less what awaited her at the entrance to the pueblo, where their guide had left them while he went inside for instructions. The dirt, to start with, the piles of rubbish, the dust, the dogs, the flies. Her face wrinkled up into a grimace of disgust. She held her handkerchief to her nose. (Huxley 1932: 127)
Lenina liked the drums. Shutting her eyes she abandoned herself to their soft repeated thunder, allowerd it to invade her consciousness more and more completely, till at last there was nothing left in the world but that one deep pulse of sound. It reminded her reassuringly of the synthetic noises made at Solidarity Services and Ford's Day celebrations. 'Orgy-porgy,' she whispered to herself. These drums beat out just the same rhythms. (Huxley 1932: 131--)
'...Yes,' and his voice suddenly took on a new resonance, he turned with a proud squaring of the shoulders, a proud, defiant lifting of the chin, 'to show that I'm a man ... Oh!' He gave a fasp and was silent, gaping. He had seen, for the first time in his life, the face of a girl whose cheeks were not the colour of chocolate or dogskin, whose hair was auburn and permanently waved, and whose expression (amazing novelty!) was one of benevolent interest. Lenina was smiling at him; such a nice-looking boy, she was thinking, and a really beautiful body. The blood rushed up into the young man's face; he dropped his eyes, raised them again for a moment only to find her still smiling at him, and was so much overcome that he had to turn away and pretend to be looking very hard at something on the other side of the square. (Huxley 1932: 136)
And she would tell him about the lovely music that came out of ta box, and all the nice games you could play, and the delicious things to eat and drink, and the light that came when you pressed a little thing in the wall, and the pictures that you could hear and feel and smell, as well as see, and another box for making nice smells, and the pink and green and blue and silver houses as high as mountains, and everybody happy and no one ever sad or angry, and every one belonging to every one else, and the boxes where you could see and hear what was happening at the other side of the world, and babies in lovely clean bottles - everything so clean, and no nasty smells, no dirt at all - and people never lonely, but living together and being so jolly and happy, like the summer dances here in Malpais, but much happier, and the happiness being there every dya, every day... (Huxley 1932: 150)
He hated Popé more and more. A man can smile and smile and be a villain. Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain. What did the words exactly mean? He only half knew. (Huxley 1932: 155)
'I know. But that's all the more reason for severity. His intellectual eminence carries with it corresponding moral responsibilitites. The greater a man's talents, the greater his power to lead astray. It is better that one should suffer than that many should be corrupted. Consider the matter dispassionately, Mr. Foster, and you will see that no offence is so heinous as unorthodoxy of behaviour. Murder kills only the individual - and, after all, what is an individual?' With a sweeping gesture he indicated the rows of microscopes, the test-tubes, the incubators. 'We can make a new one with the greatest ease - as many as we like. Unorthodoxy threatens more than the life of a mere individual; it strikes at Society itself.. Yes, at Society itself,' he repeated. (Huxley 1932: 174)
'...By his heretical views on sport and soma, by the scandalus unorthodoxy of his sex-life, by his refusal to obey the teachings of Our Ford and behave out of office hours "like a babe in a bottle"' (here the Director made the sign of the T), 'he has proven himself an enemy of Society, a subverter, ladies and gentlemen, of all Order and Stability, a conspirator against Civilization itself. For this reason I propose to dismiss him, to dismiss him with ignominy from the post he has held in this Centre, I propose forthwith to apply for his transference to a Sub-Centre of the lowest order and, that his punishment may serve the best intrest of Society, as far as possible removed from any important Centre of population. In Iceland he will have small opportunity to lead others astray by his unfordly example.' (Huxley 1932: 176)
Bloated, sagging, and among those firm youthful bodies, those undistorted faces, a strange and terrifying monster of middle-agedness, Linda advanced into the room, coquettishly smiling her broken and discoloured smile, and rolling as she walked, with what was meant to be a voluptuous undulation, her enourmous haunches. (Huxley 1932: 176)
She stood looking at him, her head on one side, still smiling, but with a smile that became progressively, in face of the Director's expression of petrified disgust, less and less self-confident, that wavered and finally went out. 'Don't you remember, Tomakin?' she repeated in a voice that trembled. Her eyes were anxious, agonized. The blotched and sagging face twitched grotesquely into the grimace of extreme grief. 'Tomakin!' She held out herarms. Some one began to titter. (Huxley 1932: 177)
Red in the face, he tried to disengage himself from her embrace. Desperately he clung. 'But I'm Linda, I'm Linda.' The laughter drowned her voice. 'You made me have a baby,' she screamed above the uproar. There was a sudden and appalling hush; eyes floated unconfortably, not knowing where to look. The Director went suddenly pale, stopped struggling and stood, his hands on her wrist, staring down at her, horrified. (Huxley 1932: 177-178)
It was John, then, they were after. And it was only through Bernar, his accredited guardian, that John could be seen, Bernard now found himself, for the first time in his life, treater not merely normally, but as a person of outstanding importance. (Huxley 1932: 183)
Mustapha Mond's anger gave place almost at once to mirth. The idea of this creature solemnly lecturing him - him - about the social order was really too grotesque. The man must have gone mad. 'I ought to give him a lesson,' he said to himself; then threw back his head and laughed aloud. For the moment, at any rate, the lesson would not be given. (Huxley 1932: 187)
'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 ther oom 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. (Huxley 1932: 196)
The Savage started. That sensation on his lips! He lifted a hand to his mouth; the titillation ceased; let his hand fall back on the metal know; it began again. The scent organ, meanwhile, breathed pure musk. Expiringly, a sound-track super-dove cooed 'Oo-ooh'; a vibrating only thirty-two times a second, a deeper than African bass 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 with almost intolerable galvanic pleausre. 'Ooh...' (Huxley 1932: 198
)
But for Lenina the moth did not completely die. Even after the lights had gone up, while they were shuffling slowly along with the crowd towards the lifts, its ghost still fluttered against her lips, still traced fine shuddering roads of anxiety and pleasure across her skin. Her cheeks were flushed, here eyes dewily bright, her breath came deeply. 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, not... Their eyes for a moment met. What treasures hers promised! A queen's ransom of temperament. Hastily he looked away, disengaged his imprisoned arm. he was obscurely terrified lest she should cease to be something he could feel himself unworthy of. (Huxley 1932: 199-200)
In the end Bernard had to slink back, diminished, to his rooms and inform the impatient assembly that the Savage would not be appearing that evening. The news was received with indignaction. The men were furious at having been tricked into behaving politely to this insignificant fellow with the unsavoury reputation and the heretical opinions. The higher their position in the hierarchy, the deeper their resentment. (Huxley 1932: 204)
Pierced by every word that was spoken, the tight balloon of Bernard's happy self-confidence was leaking from a thousand wounds. Pale, distraught, abject and agitated, he moved among his guests, stammering incoherent apologies, assuring them that next time the Savage would certainly be there, begging them to sit down and take a carotine sandwitch, a slice of vitamin A páté, a glass of champagne-surrogate. They duly ate, but ignored him; drank and were either rude to his face or talked to one another about him, loudly and offensively as though he had not been there. (Huxley 1932: 206)
'Lenina, my dear,' he called in another tone. 'Come with me.'
Obediently, but unsmiling and (wholly insensible to the honour done to her) without elation, Lenina walked after him, out of the room. The other guests followed at a respectful interval. The last of them slammed the door. Bernard was all alone. (Huxley 1932: 208)
'A New Theory of Biology' was the title of the paper which Mustapha Mond had just finished reading. He sat for some time, meditatively frowning, then picked up his pen and wrote across the title-page. 'The author's mathematical treatment of the conception of purpose is novel and highly ingenious, but heretical and, so far as the present social order is concerned, dangerous and potentially subversive. Not to be published.' He underlined the words. 'The author will be kept under supervision. His transference to the Marine Biological Station of St. Helena may become necessary.' A pity, he thought, as he signed his name. It was a masterly piece of work. But once you began admitting explanations in terms of purpose - well, you didn't know what the result might be. It was the sort of idea that might easily de-condition the more unsettled minds among the higher castes - make them lose their faith in happiness as the Sovereign Good and take to believing, instead, that the goal was somewhere beyond, somewhere outside the human sphere; that the purpose of life was not the maintenance of well-being, but some intensification and refining of consciousness, some enlargement of knowledge. Which was, the Controller reflected, quite possibly true. But not, in this present circumstance, admissible. He picked up his pen again, and under the words 'Not to be published' drew a second line, thicker and blacker than the first; then sighed. 'What fun it would be,' he thought, 'if one didn't have to think about happiness!' (Huxley 1932: 208-209)
But in spite of this knowledge and these admissions, in spite of the fact that his friend's support and sympathy were now his only comfort, Bernard continued perversely to nourish, along with his quite genuine affection, a secret grievance against the Savage, to meditate a campaign of small revenges to be wreaked upon him. Nourishing a grievance agianst the Arch-COmmunity-Sonsger was useless; there was no possibility of being revenged on the Chief Bottler or the Assistant Predestinator. As a victim, the savage possessed, for Bernard, this enormous superiority over the others: that he was accessible. (Huxley 1932: 211)
'Ow, you're hurting me, you're... oh!' She was suddenly silent. Terror had made her forget the pain. Opening her eyes, she had seen his face - no, not his face, a ferocious stranger's, pale, distorted, twitching with some insane, inexplicable fury. Aghast, 'But what is it, John she whispered. He did not answer, but only stared into her face with those mad eyes. THe henads that held her wrists were trembling. He breathed deeply and irregularly. Faint almost to imperceptibility, but appalling, she suddenly heard the grinding of his teeth. 'What is it?' she almost screamed.
And as though awakened by her cry he caught her by the shoulders and shook her. 'Whore!' he shouted. 'Whore! Impudent strumpet!' (Huxley 1932: 228-229)
One arm still raised, and following his every movement with a terrified eye, she scrambled to her feet and still crouching, still covering her head, made a dash for the bathroom. (Huxley 1932: 229)
The Savage rose to his feet and took a couple of steps towards her. His movements and the expression on his face were so menacing that the nurse fell back in terror. With a great effort he checked himself and, without speaking, turned away and sat down again by the bed. (Huxley 1932: 239)
'No shoving here, now!' shouted the Deputy Sub-Busar in a fury. He slammed down the lid of his cash-box. 'I shall stop the distribution unless I have good behaviour.'
The Deltas muttered, jostled one another a little, and then were still. The threat had been effective. Deprivation of soma - appalling thought!
'That's better,' said the young man, and reopened his cash-box. (Huxley 1932: 248)
'Do you like being babies? Yes, babies. Mewling and puking,' he added, exasperated by their bestial stupidity into throwing insults at those he had come to save. The insults bounced off their carapace of thick stupidity; they stared at him with a blank expression of dull and sullen resentment in their eyes. (Huxley 1932: 251)
'It's more like a caffeine-solution party than a trial,' he said, and let himself fall into the most luxurious of the pneumatic arm-chairs. 'Cheer up, bernard,' he added, catching sight of his friend's green unhappy face. But Bernard would not be cheered; without answring, without even looking at Helmholtz, he went and sat down on the most uncomfortable chair in the room, carefully chosen in the obscure hope of somehow deprecating the wrath of the higher powers. (Huxley 1932: 256)
Bernard started and looked horrified. What would the Controlled think? To be labelled as the friend of a man who said that he didn't like civilization - said it openly and, of all people, to the Controller - it was terrible. "But, John,' he began. A look from Mustapha Mond reduced him to an abject silence. (Huxley 1932: 257)
'But why is it prohibited?' asked the Savage. In the excitement of meeting a man who had read Shakespeare he had momentarily forgotten everything else.
The Controlled shrugged his shoulders. 'Because it's old; that's the chief reason. We haven't any use for old things here.'
'Even when they're beautiful?'
'Particularly when they're beautiful. Beauty's attractive, and we don't want people to be attracted by old things. We want them to like the new ones.' (Huxley 1932: 258)
THe Savage was silent for a little. 'All the same,' he insisted obstinately, 'Othello's good, Othello's better than those feelies.'
'Of course it is,' the Controller agreed. 'But that's the price we have to pay for stability. You've got to choose between hapiness and what people used to call high art. We've sacrificed the high art. We have the feelies and the scent organ instead.'
'But they don't mean anything.'
'They mean themselves; they mean a lot of agreeable sensations to the audience.' (Huxley 1932: 260)
'One would think he was going to have his throat cut,' said the Controller, as the door closed. 'Whereas, if he had the smallest sense, he'd understand that his punishment is really a reward. He's being sent to an island. THat's to say, he's being sent to a place where he'll meet the most interesting set of men and women to be found anywhere in the world. All the people who, for one reason or another, have got too self-consciously individual to fit into community-life. All the people who aren't satisfied with orthodoxy, who've got independent ideas of their own. Every one, in a word, who's any one. ...' (Huxley 1932: 267-268)
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