Page 102 - BraveNewWorld

102 IDPH

“. this monstrous practical joke,” the Director shouted.
Red in the face, he tried to disengage himself from her embrace. Desperately
she 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 uncomfortably, not knowing where to look. The
Director went suddenly pale, stopped struggling and stood, his hands on her
wrists, staring down at her, horrified. “Yes, a baby-and I was its mother.” She
flung the obscenity like a challenge into the outraged silence; then, suddenly
breaking away from him, ashamed, ashamed, covered her face with her hands,
sobbing. “It wasn’t my fault, Tomakin. Because I always did my drill, didn’t
I? Didn’t I? Always. I don’t know how. If you knew how awful, Tomakin. But
he was a comfort to me, all the same.” Turning towards the door, “John!” she
called. “John!”
He came in at once, paused for a moment just inside the door, looked round,
then soft on his moccasined feet strode quickly across the room, fell on his knees
in front of the Director, and said in a clear voice: “My father!”
The word (for “father” was not so much obscene as-with its connotation of so-
mething at one remove from the loathsomeness and moral obliquity of child-
bearing-merely gross, a scatological rather than a pornographic impropriety);
the comically smutty word relieved what had become a quite intolerable tensi-
on. Laughter broke out, enormous, almost hysterical, peal after peal, as though
it would never stop. My father-and it was the Director! My father! Oh Ford,
oh Ford! That was really too good. The whooping and the roaring renewed
themselves, faces seemed on the point of disintegration, tears were streaming.
Six more test-tubes of spermatozoa were upset. My father!
Pale, wild-eyed, the Director glared about him in an agony of bewildered hu-
miliation.
My father! The laughter, which had shown signs of dying away, broke out
again more loudly than ever. He put his hands over his ears and rushed out of
the room.

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