Page 130 - BraveNewWorld

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sers. Her zippicamiknicks were a pale shell pink. The Arch-Community- Songs-
ter’s golden T dangled at her breast.

“For those milk paps that through the window bars bore at men’s eyes....” The
singing, thundering, magical words made her seem doubly dangerous, doubly
alluring. Soft, soft, but how piercing! boring and drilling into reason, tunnelling
through resolution. “The strongest oaths are straw to the fire i’ the blood. Be
more abstemious, or else .”
Zip! The rounded pinkness fell apart like a neatly divided apple. A wriggle of
the arms, a lifting first of the right foot, then the left: the zippicamiknicks were
lying lifeless and as though deflated on the floor.
Still wearing her shoes and socks, and her rakishly tilted round white cap, she
advanced towards him. “Darling. Darling! If only you’d said so before!” She
held out her arms.

But instead of also saying “Darling!” and holding out his arms, the Savage
retreated in terror, flapping his hands at her as though he were trying to scare
away some intruding and dangerous animal. Four backwards steps, and he
was brought to bay against the wall.
“Sweet!” said Lenina and, laying her hands on his shoulders, pressed herself
against him. “Put your arms round me,” she commanded. “Hug me till you
drug me, honey.” She too had poetry at her command, knew words that sang
and were spells and beat drums. “Kiss me”; she closed her eyes, she let her
voice sink to a sleepy murmur, “Kiss me till I’m in a coma. Hug me, honey,
snuggly .”
The Savage caught her by the wrists, tore her hands from his shoulders, thrust
her roughly away at arm’s length.
“Ow, you’re hurting me, you’re. oh!” She was suddenly silent. Terror had ma-
de 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 hands that held her wrists
were trembling. He breathed deeply and irregularly. Faint almost to impercep-
tibility, but appalling, she suddenly heard the gneding 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!”
“Oh, don’t, do-on’t,” she protested in a voice made grotesquely tremulous by
his shaking.
“Whore!”

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