Page 51 - BraveNewWorld

IDPH 51

But Henry’s tone was almost, for a moment, melancholy. “Do you know what
that switchback was?” he said. “It was some human being finally and definitely
disappearing. Going up in a squirt of hot gas. It would be curious to know who
it was-a man or a woman, an Alpha or an Epsilon. .” He sighed. Then, in a
resolutely cheerful voice, “Anyhow,” he concluded, “there’s one thing we can
be certain of; whoever he may have been, he was happy when he was alive.
Everybody’s happy now.”
“Yes, everybody’s happy now,” echoed Lenina. They had heard the words re-
peated a hundred and fifty times every night for twelve years.
Landing on the roof of Henry’s forty-story apartment house in Westminster,
they went straight down to the dining-hall. There, in a loud and cheerful com-
pany, they ate an excellent meal. Soma was served with the coffee. Lenina
took two half-gramme tablets and Henry three. At twenty past nine they wal-
ked across the street to the newly opened Westminster Abbey Cabaret. It was
a night almost without clouds, moonless and starry; but of this on the who-
le depressing fact Lenina and Henry were fortunately unaware. The electric
sky-signs effectively shut off the outer darkness. “CALVIN STOPES AND HIS
SIXTEEN SEXOPHONISTS.” From the façade of the new Abbey the giant let-
ters invitingly glared. “LONDON’S FINEST SCENT AND COLOUR ORGAN.
ALL THE LATEST SYNTHETIC MUSIC.”
They entered. The air seemed hot and somehow breathless with the scent of
ambergris and sandalwood. On the domed ceiling of the hall, the colour or-
gan had momentarily painted a tropical sunset. The Sixteen Sexophonists were
playing an old favourite: “There ain’t no Bottle in all the world like that de-
ar little Bottle of mine.” Four hundred couples were five-stepping round the
polished floor. Lenina and Henry were soon the four hundred and first. The sa-
xophones wailed like melodious cats under the moon, moaned in the alto and
tenor registers as though the little death were upon them. Rich with a wealth
of harmonics, their tremulous chorus mounted towards a climax, louder and
ever louder-until at last, with a wave of his hand, the conductor let loose the fi-
nal shattering note of ether-music and blew the sixteen merely human blowers
clean out of existence. Thunder in A flat major. And then, in all but silence, in
all but darkness, there followed a gradual deturgescence, a diminuendo sliding
gradually, through quarter tones, down, down to a faintly whispered dominant
chord that lingered on (while the five-four rhythms still pulsed below) char-
ging the darkened seconds with an intense expectancy. And at last expectancy
was fulfilled. There was a sudden explosive sunrise, and simultaneously, the
Sixteen burst into song:

“Bottle of mine, it’s you I’ve always wanted!
Bottle of mine, why was I ever decanted?

http://www.idph.net