The President made another sign of the T and sat down. The service had begun. The dedicated soma tablets were placed in the centre of the table. The loving cup of strawberry ice-cream soma was passed from hand to hand and, with the formula, “I drink to my annihilation.” Then the First Solidarity Hymn was sung.
Twelve stanzas. And then the loving cup was passed a second time. “I drink to the Greater Being” was now the formula. All drank. The Second Solidarity Hymn was sung.
Again twelve stanzas. By this time the soma had begun to work. Eyes shone, cheeks were flushed. Even Bernard felt himself a little melted. When Morgana Rothschild turned and beamed at him, he did his best to beam back. But the eyebrow, it was still there; he couldn’t ignore it, couldn’t, however hard he tried. For the third time the loving cup went round; “I drink to the imminence of His Coming,” said Morgana Rothschild. She drank and passed the cup to Bernard. “I drink to the imminence of His Coming,” he repeated. He handed the cup to Clara Deterding. “It’ll be a failure again,” he said to himself. “I know it will.”
The loving cup had made its circuit. Lifting his hand, the President gave a signal; the chorus broke out into the third Solidarity Hymn.
The sense of the Coming’s imminence was like an electric tension in the air. The President switched off the music and, with the final note of the final stanza, there was absolute silence. The President reached out his hand; and suddenly a Voice, a deep strong Voice, more musical than any merely human voice, richer, warmer, more vibrant with love and yearning and compassion, a wonderful, mysterious, supernatural Voice spoke from above their heads. Very slowly, “Oh, Ford, Ford, Ford,” it said on a descending scale. A sensation of warmth radiated thrillingly out from the bodies of those who listened; tears came into their eyes. “Listen!” trumpeted the voice. “Listen!” They listened. “The feet of the Greater Being,” it went on. The whisper almost expired. “The feet of the Greater Being are on the stairs.” And once more there was silence. And suddenly the tearing point was reached. Morgana Rothschild sprang to her feet.
“I hear him,” she cried. “I hear him.”
“He’s coming,” shouted Sarojini Engels.
“Yes, he’s coming, I hear him.” Fifi Bradlaugh and Tom Kawaguchi rose simultaneously to their feet.
“Oh, oh, oh!” Joanna testified.
“He’s coming!” yelled Jim Bokanovsky.
“Oh, he’s coming!” screamed Clara Deterding.
Feeling that it was time for him to do something, Bernard also jumped up and shouted: “I hear him; He’s coming.” But it wasn’t true. He heard nothing and, for him, nobody was coming. But he waved his arms, he shouted with the best of them; and when the others began to jig and stamp and shuffle, he also jigged and shuffled.
Round they went, a circular procession of dancers, each with hands on the hips of the dancer in front of them, round and round, shouting in unison, stamping to the rhythm of the music with their feet. Twelve as one, twelve as one. The music quickened. And all at once a great synthetic bass boomed out the words which announced the approaching atonement and final consummation of solidarity, the coming of the Twelve-in-One. “Orgy-porgy,” it sang, while the drums continued to beat their feverish rhythm:
The dancers caught up the refrain. And as they sang, the lights began slowly to fade-to fade and at the same time to grow warmer, richer, redder, until at last they were dancing in the crimson twilight of an Embryo Store. “Orgy-porgy…” In their blood-coloured darkness the dancers continued for a while to circulate. “Orgy-porgy…” Then the circle wavered, broke, fell in partial disintegration on the ring of couches which surrounded the table. “Orgy-porgy…” Tenderly the deep Voice crooned and cooed.
They were standing on the roof; Big Henry had just sung eleven. The night was calm and warm.
“Wasn’t it wonderful?” said Fifi Bradlaugh. “Wasn’t it simply wonderful?” She looked at Bernard with an expression of rapture. Hers was the calm ecstasy of achieved consummation, the peace. A rich and living peace. “Didn’t you think it was wonderful?” she insisted, looking into Bernard’s face with those supernaturally shining eyes.
“Yes, I thought it was wonderful,” he lied and looked away. He was as miserably isolated now as he had been when the service began. Alone even in Morgana’s embrace-much more alone, indeed, more hopelessly himself than he had ever been in his life before. He was utterly miserable, and perhaps (her shining eyes accused him), perhaps it was his own fault. “Quite wonderful,” he repeated; but the only thing he could think of was Morgana’s eyebrow.
Chapter Six
Odd, odd, odd, was Lenina’s verdict on Bernard Marx. So odd, indeed, that in the course of the next few weeks she had wondered more than once whether she shouldn’t change her mind about the New Mexico holiday, and go instead to the North Pole with Benito Hoover. The trouble was that she knew the North Pole, had been there with George Edzel only last summer, and found it pretty grim. Added to that, she had only been to America once before. And even then, a cheap week-end in New York. The prospect of flying West again, and for a whole week, was very inviting. Moreover, for at least three days of that week they would be in the Savage Reservation. As an Alpha-Plus psychologist, Bernard was one of the few men she knew entitled to a permit. For Lenina, the opportunity was unique.
“Alcohol in his blood-surrogate,” was Fanny’s explanation of every eccentricity. But Henry, with whom Lenina had rather anxiously discussed her new lover, had compared poor Bernard to a rhinoceros.
“You can’t teach a rhinoceros tricks,” he had explained. “Some men are almost rhinoceroses; they don’t respond properly to conditioning. Poor Devils! Bernard’s one of them. Luckily for him, he’s pretty good at his job. Otherwise the Director would never have kept him. I think he’s pretty harmless.”
Pretty harmless, perhaps; but also pretty disquieting. That mania, to start with, for doing things in private. Which meant, in practice, not doing anything at all. For what was there that one could do in private. (Apart, of course, from going to bed: but one couldn’t do that all the time.) The first afternoon they went out together was particularly fine. Lenina had suggested a swim at Toquay Country Club followed by dinner at the Oxford Union. But Bernard thought there would be too much of a crowd. Then what about a round of Electro-magnetic Golf at St. Andrew’s? But again, no: Bernard considered that Electro-magnetic Golf was a waste of time.
“Then what’s time for?” asked Lenina in some astonishment.
Apparently, for going walks in the Lake District. “Alone with you, Lenina.”
“But, Bernard, we shall be alone all night.”