Page 44 - BraveNewWorld

44 IDPH

A chronic fear of being slighted made him avoid his equals, made him stand,
where his inferiors were concerned, self- consciously on his dignity. How bit-
terly he envied men like Henry Foster and Benito Hoover! Men who never had
to shout at an Epsilon to get an order obeyed; men who took their position for
granted; men who moved through the caste system as a fish through water-so
utterly at home as to be unaware either of themselves or of the beneficent and
comfortable element in which they had their being.
Slackly, it seemed to him, and with reluctance, the twin attendants wheeled his
plane out on the roof.
“Hurry up!” said Bernard irritably. One of them glanced at him. Was that a
kind of bestial derision that he detected in those blank grey eyes? “Hurry up!”
he shouted more loudly, and there was an ugly rasp in his voice.
He climbed into the plane and, a minute later, was flying southwards, towards
the river.
The various Bureaux of Propaganda and the College of Emotional Engineering
were housed in a single sixty-story building in Fleet Street. In the basement
and on the low floors were the presses and offices of the three great Lodon
newspapers-The Hourly Radio, an upper-caste sheet, the pale green Gamma
Gazette, and, on khaki paper and in words exclusively of one syllable, The
Delta Mirror. Then came the Bureaux of Propaganda by Television, by Fee-
ling Picture, and by Synthetic Voice and Music respectively-twenty-two floors
of them. Above were the search laboratories and the padded rooms in which
Sound-Track Writers and Synthetic Composers did the delicate work. The top
eighteen floors were occupied the College of Emotional Engineering.

Bernard landed on the roof of Propaganda House and stepped out.
“Ring down to Mr. Helmholtz Watson,” he ordered the Gamma-Plus porter,
“and tell him that Mr. Bernard Marx is waiting for him on the roof.”

He sat down and lit a cigarette.
Helmholtz Watson was writing when the message came down.
“Tell him I’m coming at once,” he said and hung up the receiver. Then, turning
to his secretary, “I’ll leave you to put my things away,” he went on in the sa-
me official and impersonal tone; and, ignoring her lustrous smile, got up and
walked briskly to the door.
He was a powerfully built man, deep-chested, broad-shouldered, massive, and
yet quick in his movements, springy and agile. The round strong pillar of his
neck supported a beautifully shaped head. His hair was dark and curly, his
features strongly marked. In a forcible emphatic way, he was handsome and
looked, as his secretety was never tired of repeating, every centimetre an Alpha

http://www.idph.net