The Reign of Brainwash: Dystopia Box Set. Эдгар Аллан По

The drums stopped beating, life seemed to have come to an end. The old man pointed towards the two hatchways that gave entrance to the lower world. And slowly, raised by invisible hands from below, there emerged from the one a painted image of an eagle, from the other that of a man, naked, and nailed to a cross. They hung there, seemingly self-sustained, as though watching. The old man clapped his hands. Naked but for a white cotton breech-cloth, a boy of about eighteen stepped out of the crowd and stood before him, his hands crossed over his chest, his head bowed. The old man made the sign of the cross over him and turned away. Slowly, the boy began to walk round the writhing heap of snakes. He had completed the first circuit and was half-way through the second when, from among the dancers, a tall man wearing the mask of a coyote and holding in his hand a whip of plaited leather, advanced towards him. The boy moved on as though unaware of the other's existence. The coyote-man raised his whip; there was a long moment of expectancy, then a swift movement, the whistle of the lash and its loud flat-sounding impact on the flesh. The boy's body quivered; but he made no sound, he walked on at the same slow, steady pace. The coyote struck again, again; and at every blow at first a gasp and then a deep groan went up from the crowd. The boy walked on. Twice, thrice, four times round he went. The blood was streaming. Five times round, six times round. Suddenly Lenina covered her face with her hands and began to sob. 'Oh, stop them, stop them!' she implored. But the whip fell and fell inexorably. Seven times round. Then all at once the boy staggered and, still without a sound, pitched forward on to his face. Bending over him, the old man touched his back with a long white feather, held it up for a moment, crimson, for the people to see, then shook it thrice over the snakes. A few drops fell, and suddenly the drums broke out again into a panic of hurrying notes; there was a great shout. The dancers rushed forward, picked up the snakes and ran out of the square. Men, women, children, all the crowd ran after them. A minute later the square was empty, only the boy remained, prone where he had fallen, quite still. Three old women came out of one of the houses, and with some difficulty lifted him and carried him in. The eagle and the man on the cross kept guard for a little while over the empty pueblo; then, as though they had seen enough, sank slowly down through their hatchways, out of sight, into the nether world.

      Lenina was still sobbing. 'Too awful,' she kept repeating, and all Bernard's consolations were in vain. 'Too awful! That blood!' She shuddered. 'Oh, I wish I had my soma.'

      There was the sound of feet in the inner room.

      Lenina did not move, but sat with her face in her hands, unseeing, apart. Only Bernard turned round.

      The dress of the young man who now stepped out on to the terrace was Indian; but his plaited hair was straw-coloured, his eyes a pale blue, and his skin a white skin, bronzed.

      'Hullo. Good-morrow,' said the stranger, in faultless but peculiar English. 'You're civilized, aren't you? You come from the Other Place, outside the Reservation?'

      'Who on earth...?' Bernard began in astonishment.

      The young man sighed and shook his head. 'A most unhappy gentleman.' And, pointing to the bloodstains in the centre of the square, 'Do you see that damned spot?' he asked in a voice that trembled with emotion.

      'A gramme is better than a damn,' said Lenina mechanically from behind her hands. 'I wish I had my soma!'

      'I ought to have been there.' The young man went on. 'Why wouldn't they let me be the sacrifice? I'd have gone round ten times--twelve, fifteen. Palowhtiwa only got as far as seven. They could have had twice as much blood from me. The multitudinous seas incarnadine.' He flung out his arms in a lavish gesture; then, despairingly, let them fall again. 'But they wouldn't let me. They disliked me for my complexion. It's always been like that. Always.' Tears stood in the young man's eyes; he was ashamed and turned away.

      Astonishment made Lenina forget the deprivation of soma. She uncovered her face and, for the first time, looked at the stranger. 'Do you mean to say that you wanted to be hit with that whip?'

      Still averted from her, the young man made a sign of affirmation. 'For the sake of the pueblo--to make the rain come and the corn grow. And to please Pookong and Jesus. And then to show that I can bear pain without crying out. Yes,' and his voice suddenly took on a new resonance, he turned with a proud squaring of the shoulders, a proud, defiant lifting of the chin, 'to show that I'm a man... Oh!' He gave a gasp and was silent, gaping. He had seen, for the first time in his life, the face of a girl whose cheeks were not the colour of chocolate or dogskin, whose hair was auburn and permanently waved, and whose expression (amazing novelty!) was one of benevolent interest. Lenina was smiling at him; such a nice-looking boy, she was thinking, and a really beautiful body. The blood rushed up into the young man's face; he dropped his eyes, raised them again for a moment only to find her still smiling at him, and was so much overcome that he had to turn away and pretend to be looking very hard at something on the other side of the square.

      Bernard's questions made a diversion. Who? How? When? From where? Keeping his eyes fixed on Bernard's face (for so passionately did he long to see Lenina smiling that he simply dared not look at her), the young man tried to explain himself. Linda and he--Linda was his mother (the word made Lenina look uncomfortable)--were strangers in the Reservation. Linda had come from the Other Place long ago, before he was born, with a man who was his father. (Bernard pricked up his ears.) She had gone walking alone in those mountains over there to the North, had fallen down a steep place and hurt her head. ('Go on, go on,' said Bernard excitedly.) Some hunters from Malpais had found her and brought her to the pueblo. As for the man who was his father, Linda had never seen him again. His name was Tomakin. (Yes, 'Thomas' was the D.H.C.'s first name.) He must have flown away, back to the Other Place, away without her--a bad, unkind, unnatural man.

      'And so I was born in Malpais,' he concluded. 'In Malpais.' And he shook his head.

      ****

      The squalor of that little house on the outskirts of the pueblo!

      A space of dust and rubbish separated it from the village. Two famine-stricken dogs were nosing obscenely in the garbage at its door. Inside, when they entered, the twilight stank and was loud with flies.

      'Linda!' the young man called.

      From the inner room a rather hoarse female voice said, 'Coming.'

      They waited. In bowls on the floor were the remains of a meal, perhaps of several meals.

      The door opened. A very stout blonde squaw stepped across the threshold and stood looking at the strangers, staring incredulously, her mouth open. Lenina noticed with disgust that two of the front teeth were missing. And the colour of the ones that remained... She shuddered. It was worse than the old man. So fat. And all the lines in her face, the flabbiness, the wrinkles. And the sagging cheeks, with those purplish blotches. And the red veins on her nose, the bloodshot eyes. And that neck--that neck; and the blanket she wore over her head--ragged and filthy. And under the brown sack-shaped tunic those enormous breasts, the bulge of the stomach, the hips. Oh, much worse than the old man, much worse! And suddenly the creature burst out in a torrent of speech, rushed at her with outstretched arms and--Ford! Ford! it was too revolting, in another moment she'd be sick--pressed her against the bulge, the bosom, and began to kiss her. Ford! to kiss, slobberingly, and smelt too horrible, obviously never had a bath, and simply reeked of that beastly stuff that was put into Delta and Epsilon bottles (no, it wasn't true about Bernard), positively stank of alcohol. She broke away as quickly as she could.

      A blubbered and distorted face confronted her; the creature was crying.

      'Oh, my dear, my dear.' The torrent of words flowed sobbingly. 'If you knew how glad--after all these years! A civilized face. Yes, and civilized clothes. Because I thought I should never see a piece of real acetate silk again.' She fingered the sleeve of Lenina's shirt. The nails were black. 'And those adorable viscose velveteen shorts! Do you know, dear, I've still got my old clothes, the ones I came in, put away in a box. I'll show them you afterwards. Though, of course, the acetate has all gone into holes. But such a lovely white bandolier--though I must say your green morocco is even lovelier. Not that it did memuch good, that bandolier.' Her tears began to flow again. 'I suppose John told you. What I had to suffer--and not a gramme of soma to be had. Only a drink of mescal every