Brave New World

413 Pages·2001·0.69 MB·English

by  Aldous Huxley

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Brave New World By Aldous Huxley
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Contents
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Chapter One .......................(cid:11)....................... 3
Chapter Two............................................ 29
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Chapter Three ...............(cid:3).......................... 47
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Chapter Four ........................................... 86
Chapter Five............(cid:10).............................. 109
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Chapter Six ........................................... 132
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Chapter Seven....................................... 164
Chapter Eight ..(cid:8)...................................... 191
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Chapter Nine ......................................... 219
Chapter Ten .......................................... 228
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Chapter El(cid:2)even...................................... 238
Chapter Twelve ..................................... 270
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Chapter Thirteen ................................... 292
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Chapter Fourteen .................................. 312
Chapter Fifteen ..................................... 329
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Chapter Sixteen .................................... 343
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Chapter Seventeen................................ 364
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Chapter Eighteen................................... 382
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Brave New World By Aldous Huxley
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Chapter One
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A SQUAT grey building of only thirty-four
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stories. Over the main entrance the words, CENTRAL
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LONDON HATCHERY AND CONDITION(cid:12)ING CENTRE,
and, in a shield, the World (cid:8)State’s motto,
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COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY.
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The enormous room on the ground floor faced
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towards the north. Cold for all the summer beyond
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the panes, for all the tropical heat of the room itself,
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a harsh thin light glared through the windows,
hungrily seeking som(cid:8)e draped lay figure, some pallid
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shape of academic goose-flesh, but finding only the
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glass and nickel and bleakly shining porcelain of a
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laboratory. Wintriness responded to wintriness. The
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overalls of the workers were white, their hands
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gloved with a pale corpse-coloured rubber. The light
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was frozen, dead, a ghost. Only from the yellow
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bar(cid:2)rels of the microscopes did it borrow a certain
r(cid:1)ich and living substance, lying along the polished
tubes like butter, streak after luscious streak in long
recession down the work tables.
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"And this," said the Director opening the door,
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"is the Fertilizing Room."
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Bent over their instruments, three hundred
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Fertilizers were plunged, as the Director of
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Hatcheries and Conditioning entered the room, in
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the scarcely breathing silence, the absent-minded,
soliloquizing hum or whis(cid:6)tle, of absorbed
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concentration. A troop of n(cid:2)ewly arrived students,
very young, pink and ca(cid:10)llow, followed nervously,
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rather abjectly, at the D(cid:9)irector’s heels. Each of them
carried a notebook, in which, whenever the great
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man spoke, he desperately scribbled. Straight from
the horse’s mout(cid:6)h. It was a rare privilege. The D. H.
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C. for Central London always made a point of
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personally conducting his new students round the
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various departments.
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"Just to give you a general idea," he would
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explain to them. For of course some sort of general
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idea they must have, if they were to do their work
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intelligently(cid:150)though as little of one, if they were to
be good and happy members of society, as possible.
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For particulars, as every one knows, make for virtue
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and happiness; generalities are intellectually
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necessary evils. Not philosophers but fret-sawyers
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and stamp collectors compose the backbone of
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society.
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"To-morrow," he would add, smiling at them
with a slightly menacing geniali(cid:6)ty, "you’ll be settling
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down to serious work. You(cid:2) won’t have time for
generalities. Meanwhile (cid:133)"(cid:10)
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Meanwhile, it was a(cid:9) privilege. Straight from the
horse’s mouth into the notebook. The boys scribbled
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like mad.
Tall and rat(cid:6)her thin but upright, the Director
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advanced into the room. He had a long chin and big
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rather prominent teeth, just covered, when he was
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not talking, by his full, floridly curved lips. Old,
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young? Thirty? Fifty? Fifty-five? It was hard to say.
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And anyhow the question didn’t arise; in this year of
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stability, A. F. 632, it didn’t occur to you to ask it.
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"I shall begin at the beginning," said the D.H.C.
and the more zealous students recorded his
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intention in their notebooks: Begin at the beginning.
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"These," he waved his hand, "are the incubators."
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And opening an insulated door he showed them
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racks upon racks of numbered test-tubes. "The
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week’s supply of ova. Kept," he explained, "at blood
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heat; whereas the male gametes," and here he
opened another door, "they h(cid:6)ave to be kept at
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thirty-five instead of thirty-(cid:2)seven. Full blood heat
sterilizes." Rams wrapped (cid:10)in theremogene beget no
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lambs. (cid:9)
Still leaning against the incubators he gave
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them, while the pencils scurried illegibly across the
pages, a brief d(cid:6)escription of the modern fertilizing
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process; spoke first, of course, of its surgical
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introduction(cid:150)"the operation undergone voluntarily
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for the good of Society, not to mention the fact that
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it carries a bonus amounting to six months’ salary";
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continued with some account of the technique for
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preserving the excised ovary alive and actively
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developing; passed on to a consideration of
optimum temperature, salinity, viscosity; referred to
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the liquor in which the detached and ripened eggs
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were kept; and, leading his charges to the work
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tables, actually showed them how this liquor was
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drawn off from the test-tubes; how it was let out
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drop by drop onto the specially warmed slides of the
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microscopes; how the eggs which it contained were
inspected for abnormalities, cou(cid:6)nted and transferred
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to a porous receptacle; how (cid:2)(and he now took them
to watch the operation(cid:10)) this receptacle was
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immersed in a warm(cid:9) bouillon containing free-
swimming spermatozoa(cid:150)at a minimum concentration
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of one hundred thousand per cubic centimetre, he
insisted; and ho(cid:6)w, after ten minutes, the container
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was lifted out of the liquor and its contents re-
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examined; how, if any of the eggs remained
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unfertilized, it was again immersed, and, if
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necessary, yet again; how the fertilized ova went
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back to the incubators; where the Alphas and Betas
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remained until definitely bottled; while the Gammas,
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Deltas and Epsilons were brought out again, after
only thirty-six hours, to undergo Bokanovsky’s
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Process.
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"Bokanovsky’s Process," repeated the Director,
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and the students underlined the words in their little
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notebooks.
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One egg, one embryo, one adult-normality. But
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a bokanovskified egg will bud, will proliferate, will
divide. From eight to ninety-six (cid:6)buds, and every bud
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will grow into a perfectly form(cid:2)ed embryo, and every
embryo into a full-sized (cid:10)adult. Making ninety-six
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human beings grow wh(cid:9)ere only one grew before.
Progress.
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"Essentially," the D.H.C. concluded,
"bokanovskificati(cid:6)on consists of a series of arrests of
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development. We check the normal growth and,
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paradoxically enough, the egg responds by
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budding."
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Responds by budding. The pencils were busy.
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He pointed. On a very slowly moving band a
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rack-full of test-tubes was entering a large metal
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box, another, rack-full was emerging. Machinery
faintly purred. It took eight minutes for the tubes to
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go through, he told them. Eight minutes of hard X-
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rays being about as much as an egg can stand. A
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few died; of the rest, the least susceptible divided
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into two; most put out four buds; some eight; all
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were returned to the incubators, where the buds
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began to develop; then, after two days, were
suddenly chilled, chilled and (cid:6)checked. Two, four,
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eight, the buds in their tur(cid:2)n budded; and having
budded were dosed almo(cid:10)st to death with alcohol;
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consequently burgeoned(cid:9) again and having budded(cid:150)
bud out of bud out of bud(cid:150)were thereafter(cid:150)further
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arrest being generally fatal(cid:150)left to develop in peace.
By which time th(cid:6)e original egg was in a fair way to
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becoming anything from eight to ninety-six
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embryos(cid:150) a prodigious improvement, you will agree,
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on nature. Identical twins(cid:150)but not in piddling twos
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and threes as in the old viviparous days, when an
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egg would sometimes accidentally divide; actually
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by dozens, by scores at a time.
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"Scores," the Director repeated and flung out his
arms, as though he were distributing largesse.
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"Scores."
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But one of the students was fool enough to ask
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where the advantage lay.
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"My good boy!" The Director wheeled sharply
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round on him. "Can’t you see? Can’t you see?" He
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raised a hand; his expression was solemn.
"Bokanovsky’s Process is o(cid:6)ne of the major
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instruments of social stability(cid:2)!"
Major instruments of s(cid:10)ocial stability.
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Standard men and (cid:9)women; in uniform batches.
The whole of a small factory staffed with the
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products of a single bokanovskified egg.
"Ninety-six (cid:6)identical twins working ninety-six
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identical machines!" The voice was almost tremulous
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with enthusiasm. "You really know where you are.
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For the first time in history." He quoted the
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planetary motto. "Community, Identity, Stability."
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Grand words. "If we could bokanovskify indefinitely
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the whole problem would be solved."
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Solved by standard Gammas, unvarying Deltas,
uniform Epsilons. Millions of identical twins. The
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