Page 81 - BraveNewWorld

IDPH 81

how it happened, seeing that I did all the Malthusian Drill-you know, by num-
bers, One, two, three, four, always, I swear it; but all the same it happened, and
of course there wasn’t anything like an Abortion Centre here. Is it still down in
Chelsea, by the way?” she asked. Lenina nodded. “And still floodlighted on
Tuesdays and Fridays?” Lenina nodded again. “That lovely pink glass tower!”
Poor Linda lifted her face and with closed eyes ecstatically contemplated the
bright remembered image. “And the river at night,” she whispered. Great tears
oozed slowly out from behind her tight-shut eyelids. “And flying back in the
evening from Stoke Poges. And then a hot bath and vibro-vacuum massage.
But there.” She drew a deep breath, shook her head, opened her eyes again,
sniffed once or twice, then blew her nose on her fingers and wiped them on
the skirt of her tunic. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said in response to Lenina’s invo-
luntary grimace of disgust. “I oughtn’t to have done that. I’m sorry. But what
are you to do when there aren’t any handkerchiefs? I remember how it used
to upset me, all that dirt, and nothing being aseptic. I had an awful cut on my
head when they first brought me here. You can’t imagine what they used to put
on it. Filth, just filth. ’Civilization is Sterilization,’ I used to say t them. And
’Streptocock-Gee to Banbury-T, to see a fine bathroom and W.C.’ as though they
were children. But of course they didn’t understand. How should they? And in
the end I suppose I got used to it. And anyhow, how can you keep things clean
when there isn’t hot water laid on? And look at these clothes. This beastly wool
isn’t like acetate. It lasts and lasts. And you’re supposed to mend it if it gets
torn. But I’m a Beta; I worked in the Fertilizing Room; nobody ever taught me
to do anything like that. It wasn’t my business. Besides, it never used to be
right to mend clothes. Throw them away when they’ve got holes in them and
buy new. ’The more stiches, the less riches.’ Isn’t that right? Mending’s anti-
social. But it’s all different here. It’s like living with lunatics. Everything they
do is mad.” She looked round; saw John and Bernard had left them and were
walking up and down in the dust and garbage outside the house; but, none the
less confidentially lowering her voice, and leaning, while Lenina stiffened and
shrank, so close that the blown reek of embryo-poison stirred the hair on her
cheek. “For instance,” she hoarsely whispered, “take the way they have one
another here. Mad, I tell you, absolutely mad. Everybody belongs to every one
else-don’t they? don’t they?” she insisted, tugging at Lenina’s sleeve. Lenina
nodded her averted head, let out the breath she had been holding and managed
to draw another one, relatively untainted. “Well, here,” the other went on, “no-
body’s supposed to belong to more than one person. And if you have people
in the ordinary way, the others think you’re wicked and anti-social. They hate
and despise you. Once a lot of women came and made a scene because their
men came to see me. Well, why not? And then they rushed at me. No, it was
too awful. I can’t tell you about it.” Linda covered her face with her hands and
shuddered. “They’re so hateful, the women here. Mad, mad and cruel. And of
course they don’t know anything about Malthusian Drill, or bottles, or decan-

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