Page 116 - BraveNewWorld

116 IDPH

news was received with indignation. 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.

“To play such a joke on me,” the Arch-Songster kept repeating, “on me!”
As for the women, they indignantly felt that they had been had on false
pretences-had by a wretched little man who had had alcohol poured into his
bottle by mistake-by a creature with a Gamma-Minus physique. It was an ou-
trage, and they said so, more and more loudly. The Head Mistress of Eton was
particularly scathing.
Lenina alone said nothing. Pale, her blue eyes clouded with an unwonted me-
lancholy, she sat in a corner, cut off from those who surrounded her by an emo-
tion which they did not share. She had come to the party filled with a strange
feeling of anxious exultation. “In a few minutes,” she had said to herself, as she
entered the room, “I shall be seeing him, talking to him, telling him” (for she
had come with her mind made up) “that I like him- more than anybody I’ve
ever known. And then perhaps he’ll say .”

What would he say? The blood had rushed to her cheeks.
“Why was he so strange the other night, after the feelies? So queer. And yet I’m
absolutely sure he really does rather like me. I’m sure .”

It was at this moment that Bernard had made his announcement; the Savage
wasn’t coming to the party.
Lenina suddenly felt all the sensations normally experienced at the beginning
of a Violent Passion Surrogate treatment-a sense of dreadful emptiness, a bre-
athless apprehension, a nausea. Her heart seemed to stop beating.

“Perhaps it’s because he doesn’t like me,” she said to herself. And at once this
possibility became an established certainty: John had refused to come because
he didn’t like her. He didn’t like her..
“It really is a bit too thick,” the Head Mistress of Eton was saying to the Director
of Crematoria and Phosphorus Reclamation. “When I think that I actually .”

“Yes,” came the voice of Fanny Crowne, “it’s absolutely true about the alcohol.
Some one I know knew some one who was working in the Embryo Store at the
time. She said to my friend, and my friend said to me .”
“Too bad, too bad,” said Henry Foster, sympathizing with the Arch-
Community- Songster. “It may interest you to know that our ex-Director was
on the point of transferring him to Iceland.”
Pierced by every word that was spoken, the tight balloon of Bernard’s happy

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