time to look around instead of scuttling for the nearest chair! He could have sat
between Fifi Bradlaugh and Joanna Diesel. Instead of which he had gone and blindly
planted himself next to Morgana. Morgana! Ford! Those black eyebrows of hers–that
eyebrow, rather–for they met above the nose. Ford! And on his right was Clara
Deterding. True, Clara's eyebrows didn't meet. But she was really too pneumatic.
Whereas Fifi and Joanna were absolutely right. Plump, blonde, not too large … And
it was that great lout, Tom Kawaguchi, who now took the seat between them.
The last arrival was Sarojini Engels.
"You're late," said the President of the Group severely. "Don't let it happen again."
Sarojini apologized and slid into her place between Jim Bokanovsky and Herbert
Bakunin. The group was now complete, the solidarity circle perfect and without flaw.
Man, woman, man, in a ring of endless alternation round the table. Twelve of them
ready to be made one, waiting to come together, to be fused, to lose their twelve
separate identities in a larger being.
The President stood up, made the sign of the T and, switching on the synthetic
music, let loose the soft indefatigable beating of drums and a choir of
instruments–near-wind and super-string–that plangently repeated and repeated the
brief and unescapably haunting melody of the first Solidarity Hymn. Again,
again–and it was not the ear that heard the pulsing rhythm, it was the midriff; the
wail and clang of those recurring harmonies haunted, not the mind, but the yearning
bowels of compassion.
The President made another sign of the T and sat down. The service had begun.
The dedicated soma tablets were placed in the centre of the table. The loving cup of
strawberry ice-cream soma was passed from hand to hand and, with the formula, "I
drink to my annihilation," twelve times quaffed. Then to the accompaniment of the
synthetic orchestra the First Solidarity Hymn was sung.
"Ford, we are twelve; oh, make us one,
Like drops within the Social River,
Oh, make us now together run
As swiftly as thy shining Flivver."
Twelve yearning stanzas. And then the loving cup was passed a second time. "I
drink to the Greater Being" was now the formula. All drank. Tirelessly the music
played. The drums beat. The crying and clashing of the harmonies were an
obsession in the melted bowels. The Second Solidarity Hymn was sung.
"Come, Greater Being, Social Friend,
Annihilating Twelve-in-One!
We long to die, for when we end,
Our larger life has but begun."
Again twelve stanzas. By this time the soma had begun to work. Eyes shone, cheeks
were flushed, the inner light of universal benevolence broke out on every face in
happy, friendly smiles. Even Bernard felt himself a little melted. When Morgana
Rothschild turned and beamed at him, he did his best to beam back. But the
eyebrow, that black two-in-one–alas, it was still there; he couldn't ignore it, couldn't,
however hard he tried. The melting hadn't gone far enough. Perhaps if he had been
sitting between Fifi and Joanna … For the third time the loving cup went round; "I
drink to the imminence of His Coming," said Morgana Rothschild, whose turn it
happened to be to initiate the circular rite. Her tone was loud, exultant. She drank
and passed the cup to Bernard. "I drink to the imminence of His Coming," he
repeated, with a sincere attempt to feel that the coming was imminent; but the
eyebrow continued to haunt him, and the Coming, so far as he was concerned, was
horribly remote. He drank and handed the cup to Clara Deterding. "It'll be a failure
again," he said to himself. "I know it will." But he went on doing his best to beam.
The loving cup had made its circuit. Lifting his hand, the President gave a signal;
the chorus broke out into the third Solidarity Hymn.
"Feel how the Greater Being comes!
Rejoice and, in rejoicings, die!
Melt in the music of the drums!
For I am you and you are I."
As verse succeeded verse the voices thrilled with an ever intenser excitement. The
sense of the Coming's imminence was like an electric tension in the air. The
President switched off the music and, with the final note of the final stanza, there
was absolute silence–the silence of stretched expectancy, quivering and creeping
with a galvanic life. The President reached out his hand; and suddenly a Voice, a
deep strong Voice, more musical than any merely human voice, richer, warmer,
more vibrant with love and yearning and compassion, a wonderful, mysterious,
supernatural Voice spoke from above their heads. Very slowly, "Oh, Ford, Ford,
Ford," it said diminishingly and on a descending scale. A sensation of warmth
radiated thrillingly out from the solar plexus to every extremity of the bodies of
those who listened; tears came into their eyes; their hearts, their bowels seemed to
move within them, as though with an independent life. "Ford!" they were melting,
"Ford!" dissolved, dissolved. Then, in another tone, suddenly, startlingly. "Listen!"
trumpeted the voice. "Listen!" They listened. After a pause, sunk to a whisper, but a
whisper, somehow, more penetrating than the loudest cry. "The feet of the Greater
Being," it went on, and repeated the words: "The feet of the Greater Being." The
whisper almost expired. "The feet of the Greater Being are on the stairs." And once
more there was silence; and the expectancy, momentarily relaxed, was stretched
again, tauter, tauter, almost to the tearing point. The feet of the Greater Being–oh,
they heard thern, they heard them, coming softlydown the stairs, coming nearer and
nearer down the invisible stairs. The feet of the Greater Being. And suddenly the
tearing point was reached. Her eyes staring, her lips parted. Morgana Rothschild
sprang to her feet.
"I hear him," she cried. "I hear him."
"He's coming," shouted Sarojini Engels.
"Yes, he's coming, I hear him." Fifi Bradlaugh and Tom Kawaguchi rose
simultaneously to their feet.
"Oh, oh, oh!" Joanna inarticulately testified.
"He's coming!" yelled Jim Bokanovsky.
The President leaned forward and, with a touch, released a delirium of cymbals and
blown brass, a fever of tom-tomming.
"Oh, he's coming!" screamed Clara Deterding. "Aie!" and it was as though she were
having her throat cut.
Feeling that it was time for him to do something, Bernard also jumped up and
shouted: "I hear him; He's coming." But it wasn't true. He heard nothing and, for
him, nobody was coming. Nobody–in spite of the music, in spite of the mounting
excitement. But he waved his arms, he shouted with the best of them; and when
the others began to jig and stamp and shuffle, he also jigged and shuffled.
Round they went, a circular procession of dancers, each with hands on the hips of
the dancer preceding, round and round, shouting in unison, stamping to the rhythm
of the music with their feet, beating it, beating it out with hands on the buttocks in
front; twelve pairs of hands beating as one; as one, twelve buttocks slabbily
resounding. Twelve as one, twelve as one. "I hear Him, I hear Him coming." The
music quickened; faster beat the feet, faster, faster fell the rhythmic hands. And all
at once a great synthetic bass boomed out the words which announced the
approaching atonement and final consummation of solidarity, the coming of the
Twelve-in-One, the incarnation of the Greater Being. "Orgy-porgy," it sang, while the
tom-toms continued to beat their feverish tattoo:
"Orgy-porgy, Ford and fun,
Kiss the girls and make them One.
Boys at 0ne with girls at peace;
Orgy-porgy gives release."
"Orgy-porgy," the dancers caught up the liturgical refrain, "Orgy-porgy, Ford and
fun, kiss the girls …" And as they sang, the lights began slowly to fade–to fade and
at the same time to grow warmer, richer, redder, until at last they were dancing in
the crimson twilight of an Embryo Store. "Orgy-porgy …" In their blood-coloured and
foetal darkness the dancers continued for a while to circulate, to beat and beat out
the indefatigable rhythm. "Orgy-porgy …" Then the circle wavered, broke, fell in
partial disintegration on the ring of couches which surrounded–circle enclosing
circle–the table and its planetary chairs. "Orgy-porgy …" Tenderly the deep Voice
crooned and cooed; in the red twilight it was as though some enormous negro dove
were hovering benevolently over the now prone or supine dancers.
They were standing on the roof; Big Henry had just sung eleven. The night was calm
and warm.
"Wasn't it wonderful?" said Fifi Bradlaugh. "Wasn't it simply wonderful?" She looked
at Bernard with an expression of rapture, but of rapture in which there was no trace
of agitation or excitement–for to be excited is still to be unsatisfied. Hers was the
calm ecstasy of achieved consummation, the peace, not of mere vacant satiety and
nothingness, but of balanced life, of energies at rest and in equilibrium. A rich and
living peace. For the Solidarity Service had given as well as taken, drawn off only to
replenish. She was full, she was made perfect, she was still more than merely
herself. "Didn't you think it was wonderful?" she insisted, looking into Bernard's face
with those supernaturally shining eyes.
"Yes, I thought it was wonderful," he lied and looked away; the sight of her
transfigured face was at once an accusation and an ironical reminder of his own
separateness. He was as miserably isolated now as he had been when the service
began–more isolated by reason of his unreplenished emptiness, his dead satiety.
Separate and unatoned, while the others were being fused into the Greater Being;
alone even in Morgana's embrace–much more alone, indeed, more hopelessly
himself than he had ever been in his life before. He had emerged from that crimson
twilight into the common electric glare with a self-consciousness intensified to the
pitch of agony. He was utterly miserable, and perhaps (her shining eyes accused
him), perhaps it was his own fault. "Quite wonderful," he repeated; but the only
thing he could think of was Morgana's eyebrow.
Chapter Six
ODD, ODD, odd, was Lenina's verdict on Bernard Marx. So odd, indeed, that in the
course of the succeeding weeks she had wondered more than once whether she
shouldn't change her mind about the New Mexico holiday, and go instead to the
North Pole with Benito Hoover. The trouble was that she knew the North Pole, had
been there with George Edzel only last summer, and what was more, found it pretty
grim. Nothing to do, and the hotel too hopelessly old-fashioned–no television laid
on in the bedrooms, no scent organ, only the most putrid synthetic music, and not
more than twenty-five Escalator-Squash Courts for over two hundred guests. No,
decidedly she couldn't face the North Pole again. Added to which, she had only been
to America once before. And even then, how inadequately! A cheap week-end in New
York–had it been with Jean-Jacques Habibullah or Bokanovsky Jones? She couldn't
remember. Anyhow, it was of absolutely no importance. The prospect of flying West
again, and for a whole week, was very inviting. Moreover, for at least three days of
that week they would be in the Savage Reservation. Not more than half a dozen
people in the whole Centre had ever been inside a Savage Reservation. As an
Alpha-Plus psychologist, Bernard was one of the few men she knew entitled to a
permit. For Lenina, the opportunity was unique. And yet, so unique also was
Bernard's oddness that she had hesitated to take it, had actually thought of risking
the Pole again with funny old Benito. At least Benito was normal. Whereas Bernard …
"Alcohol in his blood-surrogate," was Fanny's explanation of every eccentricity. But
Henry, with whom, one evening when they were in bed together, Lenina had rather
anxiously discussed her new lover, Henry had compared poor Bernard to a
rhinoceros.
"You can't teach a rhinoceros tricks," he had explained in his brief and vigorous
style. "Some men are almost rhinoceroses; they don't respond properly to
conditioning. Poor Devils! Bernard's one of them. Luckily for him, he's pretty good at
his job. Otherwise the Director would never have kept him. However," he added
consolingly, "I think he's pretty harmless."
Pretty harmless, perhaps; but also pretty disquieting. That mania, to start with, for
doing things in private. Which meant, in practice, not doing anything at all. For what
was there that one could do in private. (Apart, of course, from going to bed: but one
couldn't do that all the time.) Yes, what was there? Precious little. The first
afternoon they went out together was particularly fine. Lenina had suggested a swim
at Toquay Country Club followed by dinner at the Oxford Union. But Bernard thought
there would be too much of a crowd. Then what about a round of Electro-magnetic
Golf at St. Andrew's? But again, no: Bernard considered that Electro-magnetic Golf
was a waste of time.
"Then what's time for?" asked Lenina in some astonishment.
Apparently, for going walks in the Lake District; for that was what he now proposed.
Land on the top of Skiddaw and walk for a couple of hours in the heather. "Alone
with you, Lenina."
"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.
In the end she persuaded him, much against his will, to fly over to Amsterdam to
see the Semi-Demi-Finals of the Women's Heavyweight Wrestling Championship.
"In a crowd," he grumbled. "As usual." He remained obstinately gloomy the whole
