Page 144 - BraveNewWorld

144 IDPH

A door had been opened, a table and chair carried into the vestibule. The voi-
ce was that of a jaunty young Alpha, who had entered carrying a black iron
cash-box. A murmur of satisfaction went up from the expectant twins. They
forgot all about the Savage. Their attention was now focused on the black cash-
box, which the young man had placed on the table, and was now in process of
unlocking. The lid was lifted.

“Oo-oh!” said all the hundred and sixty-two simultaneously, as though they
were looking at fireworks.
The young man took out a handful of tiny pill-boxes. “Now,” he said peremp-
torily, “step forward, please. One at a time, and no shoving.”
One at a time, with no shoving, the twins stepped forward. First two males,
then a female, then another male, then three females, then.
The Savage stood looking on. “O brave new world, O brave new world .” In
his mind the singing words seemed to change their tone. They had mocked
him through his misery and remorse, mocked him with how hideous a note
of cynical derision! Fiendishly laughing, they had insisted on the low squalor,
the nauseous ugliness of the nightmare. Now, suddenly, they trumpeted a call
to arms. “O brave new world!” Miranda was proclaiming the possibility of
loveliness, the possibility of transforming even the nightmare into something
fine and noble. “O brave new world!” It was a challenge, a command.

“No shoving there now!” shouted the Deputy Sub-Bursar in a fury. He slam-
med down he lid of his cash-box. “I shall stop the distribution unless I have
good behaviour.”
The Deltas muttered, jostled one another a little, and then were still. The threat
had been effective. Deprivation of soma-appalling thought!
“That’s better,” said the young man, and reopened his cash-box.
Linda had been a slave, Linda had died; others should live in freedom, and
the world be made beautiful. A reparation, a duty. And suddenly it was lumi-
nously clear to the Savage what he must do; it was as though a shutter had been
opened, a curtain drawn back.
“Now,” said the Deputy Sub-Bursar.
Another khaki female stepped forward.

“Stop!” called the Savage in a loud and ringing voice. “Stop!”
He pushed his way to the table; the Deltas stared at him with astonishment.
“Ford!” said the Deputy Sub-Bursar, below his breath. “It’s the Savage.” He
felt scared.

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