О дивный новый мир / Brave New World

Helmholtz Watson,” he ordered the Gamma-Plus porter, “and tell him that Mr. Bernard Marx is waiting for him on the roof.”

He sat down and lit a cigarette.

Helmholtz Watson was writing when the message came down.

“Tell him I’m coming at once,” he said and hung up the receiver. Then he got up and walked briskly to the door.

He was a powerfully built man, broad-shouldered, massive, and yet quick in his movements. His hair was dark and curly. He was handsome and looked like an Alpha Plus. By profession he was a lecturer at the College of Emotional Engineering (Department of Writing) and a working Emotional Engineer.

He wrote regularly for The Hourly Radio, composed feely scenarios, and had the knack for slogans and hypnopaedic rhymes.

“Able,” was the verdict of his superiors. “Perhaps, a little too able.”

Yes, a little too able; they were right. A mental excess had produced in Helmholtz Watson effects very similar to those in Bernard Marx. It had isolated Bernard from his fellow men, and the sense of this became in turn a cause of wider separation.

Helmholtz Watson had also become aware of his difference from the people who surrounded him. He had realized quite suddenly that sport, women, communal activities were only, so far as he was concerned, second bests. Really, and at the bottom, he was interested in something else. But in what? In what?

Three charming girls from the Bureau of Propaganda by Synthetic Voice walked up to him as he stepped out of the lift.

“Oh, Helmholtz, darling, do come and have a picnic supper with us on Exmoor.”

He shook his head, he pushed his way through them. “No, no. I’m busy.”

It was not till he had actually climbed into Bernard’s plane and slammed the door that they gave up pursuit.

“These women!” he said, as the machine rose into the air. “These women!” And he shook his head, he frowned. “Too awful,” Bernard hypocritically agreed, wishing that he could have as many girls as Helmholtz did, and with as little trouble.

He was seized with a sudden urgent need to boast. “I’m taking Lenina Crowne to New Mexico with me,” he said in a tone as casual as he could make it.

“Are you?” said Helmholtz, with a total absence of interest. Then after a little pause, “This last week or two I’ve been cutting all my committees and all my girls. It’s been worth it, I think.”

The rest of the short flight was accomplished in silence.