Page 92 - BraveNewWorld

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out, like Jesus on the Cross.”
“What on earth for?”
“I wanted to know what it was like being crucified. Hanging there in the sun .”

“But why?”
“Why? Well .” He hesitated. “Because I felt I ought to. If Jesus could stand it.
And then, if one has done something wrong. Besides, I was unhappy; that was
another reason.”
“It seems a funny way of curing your unhappiness,” said Bernard. But on se-
cond thoughts he decided that there was, after all, some sense in it. Better than
taking soma.

“I fainted after a time,” said the young man. “Fell down on my face. Do you see
the mark where I cut myself?” He lifted the thick yellow hair from his forehead.
The scar showed, pale and puckered, on his right temple.
Bernard looked, and then quickly, with a little shudder, averted his eyes. His
conditioning had made him not so much pitiful as profoundly squeamish. The
mere suggestion of illness or wounds was to him not only horrifying, but even
repulsive and rather disgusting. Like dirt, or deformity, or old age. Hastily he
changed the subject.
“I wonder if you’d like to come back to London with us?” he asked, making the
first move in a campaign whose strategy he had been secretly elaborating ever
since, in the little house, he had reahzed who the “father” of this young savage
must be. “Would you like that?”
The young man’s face lit up. “Do you really mean it?”
“Of course; if I can get permission, that is.”

“Linda too?”
“Well .” He hesitated doubtfully. That revolting creature! No, it was impossible.
Unless, unless. It suddenly occurred to Bernard that her very revoltingness
might prove an enormous asset. “But of course!” he cried, making up for his
first hesitations with an excess of noisy cordiality.

The young man drew a deep breath. “To think it should be coming true-what
I’ve dreamt of all my life. Do you remember what Miranda says?”
“Who’s Miranda?”

But the young man had evidently not heard the question. “O wonder!” he was
saying; and his eyes shone, his face was brightly flushed. “How many goodly
creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is!” The flush suddenly dee-

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