Page 108 - BraveNewWorld

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red their venerable piles of ferro-concrete and vita-glass. In the centre of the
quadrangle stood the quaint old chrome-steel statue of Our Ford.

Dr. Gaffney, the Provost, and Miss Keate, the Head Mistress, received them as
they stepped out of the plane.
“Do you have many twins here?” the Savage asked rather apprehensively, as
they set out on their tour of inspection.
“Oh, no,” the Provost answered. “Eton is reserved exclusively for upper- caste
boys and girls. One egg, one adult. It makes education more difficult of course.
But as they’ll be called upon to take responsibilities and deal with unexpected
emergencies, it can’t be helped.” He sighed.
Bernard, meanwhile, had taken a strong fancy to Miss Keate. “If you’re free
any Monday, Wednesday, or Friday evening,” he was saying. Jerking his thumb
towards the Savage, “He’s curious, you know,” Bernard added. “Quaint.”
Miss Keate smiled (and her smile was really charming, he thought); said Thank
you; would be delighted to come to one of his parties. The Provost opened a
door.

Five minutes in that Alpha Double Plus classroom left John a trifle bewildered.
“What is elementary relativity?” he whispered to Bernard. Bernard tried to
explain, then thought better of it and suggested that they should go to some
other classroom.
From behind a door in the corridor leading to the Beta-Minus geography room,
a ringing soprano voice called, “One, two, three, four,” and then, with a weary
impatience, “As you were.”
“Malthusian Drill,” explained the Head Mistress. “Most of our girls are free-
martins, of course. I’m a freemartin myself.” She smiled at Bernard. “But we
have about eight hundred unsterilized ones who need constant drilling.”

In the Beta-Minus geography room John learnt that “a savage reservation is a
place which, owing to unfavourable climatic or geological conditions, or po-
verty of natural resources, has not been worth the expense of civilizing.” A
click; the room was darkened; and suddenly, on the screen above the Master’s
head, there were the Penitentes of Acoma prostrating themselves before Our
Lady, and wailing as John had heard them wail, confessing their sins before Je-
sus on the Cross, before the eagle image of Pookong. The young Etonians fairly
shouted with laughter. Still wailing, the Penitentes rose to their feet, stripped
off their upper garments and, with knotted whips, began to beat themselves,
blow after blow. Redoubled, the laughted drowned even the amplified record
of their groans.

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