【有声英语文学名著】美丽新世界（18b）

 Brave New World

by Aldous Huxley
Chapter Eighteen - continued
The whip was hanging on a nail by the door, ready to hand against the arrival of reporters. In a frenzy 1 the Savage 2 ran back to the house, seized it, whirled it. The knotted cords bit into his flesh.
"Strumpet! Strumpet!" he shouted at every blow as though it were Lenina (and how frantically 4, without knowing it, he wished it were), white, warm, scented 5, infamous 6 Lenina that he was dogging thus. "Strumpet!" And then, in a voice of despair, "Oh, Linda, forgive me. Forgive me, God. I'm bad. I'm wicked. I'm ... No, no, you strumpet, you strumpet!"
From his carefully constructed hide in the wood three hundred metres away, Darwin Bonaparte, the Feely Corporation's most expert big game photographer had watched the whole proceedings 7. Patience and skill had been rewarded. He had spent three days sitting inside the bole of an artificial oak tree, three nights crawling on his belly 8 through the heather, hiding microphones in gorse bushes, burying wires in the soft grey sand. Seventy-two hours of profound discomfort 9. But now me great moment had come-the greatest, Darwin Bonaparte had time to reflect, as he moved among his instruments, the greatest since his taking of the famous all-howling stereoscopic feely of the gorillas 10' wedding. "Splendid," he said to himself, as the Savage started his astonishing performance. "Splendid!" He kept his telescopic cameras carefully aimed-glued to their moving objective; clapped on a higher power to get a close-up of the frantic 3 and distorted face (admirable!); switched over, for half a minute, to slow motion (an exquisitely 11 comical effect, he promised himself); listened in, meanwhile, to the blows, the groans 12, the wild and raving 13 words that were being recorded on the sound-track at the edge of his film, tried the effect of a little amplification 14 (yes, that was decidedly better); was delighted to hear, in a momentary 15 lull 16, the shrill 17 singing of a lark 18; wished the Savage would turn round so that he could get a good close-up of the blood on his back-and almost instantly (what astonishing luck!) the accommodating fellow did turn round, and he was able to take a perfect close-up.
"Well, that was grand!" he said to himself when it was all over. "Really grand!" He mopped his face. When they had put in the feely effects at the studio, it would be a wonderful film. Almost as good, thought Darwin Bonaparte, as the Sperm 19 Whale's Love-Life-and that, by Ford 20, was saying a good deal!
Twelve days later The Savage of Surrey had been released and could be seen, heard and felt in every first-class feely-palace in Western Europe.
The effect of Darwin Bonaparte's film was immediate 21 and enormous. On the afternoon which followed the evening of its release John's rustic 22 solitude 23 was suddenly broken by the arrival overhead of a great swarm 24 of helicopters.
He was digging in his garden-digging, too, in his own mind, laboriously 25 turning up the substance of his thought. Death-and he drove in his spade once, and again, and yet again. And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. A convincing thunder rumbled 26 through the words. He lifted another spadeful of earth. Why had Linda died? Why had she been allowed to become gradually less than human and at last ... He shuddered 27. A good kissing carrion 28. He planted his foot on his spade and stamped it fiercely into the tough ground. As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport. Thunder again; words that proclaimed themselves true-truer somehow than truth itself. And yet that same Gloucester had called them ever-gentle gods. Besides, thy best of rest is sleep and that thou oft provok'st; yet grossly fear'st thy death which is no more. No more than sleep. Sleep. Perchance to dream. His spade struck against a stone; he stooped to pick it up. For in that sleep of death, what dreams? ...
A humming overhead had become a roar; and suddenly he was in shadow, there was something between the sun and him. He looked up, startled, from his digging, from his thoughts; looked up in a dazzled bewilderment, his mind still wandering in that other world of truer-than-truth, still focused on the immensities of death and deity 29; looked up and saw, close above him, the swarm of hovering 30 machines. Like locusts 31 they came, hung poised 32, descended 33 all around him on the heather. And from out of the bellies 34 of these giant grasshoppers 35 stepped men in white viscose-flannels, women (for the weather was hot) in acetate-shantung pyjamas 36 or velveteen shorts and sleeveless, half-unzippered singlets-one couple from each. In a few minutes there were dozens of them, standing 37 in a wide circle round the lighthouse, staring, laughing, clicking their cameras, throwing (as to an ape) peanuts, packets of sex-hormone chewing-gum, pan-glandular petite beurres. And every moment-for across the Hog's Back the stream of traffic now flowed unceasingly-their numbers increased. As in a nightmare, the dozens became scores, the scores hundreds.
The Savage had retreated towards cover, and now, in the posture 38 of an animal at bay, stood with his back to the wall of the lighthouse, staring from face to face in speechless horror, like a man out of his senses.
From this stupor 39 he was aroused to a more immediate sense of reality by the impact on his cheek of a well-aimed packet of chewing-gum. A shock of startling pain-and he was broad awake, awake and fiercely angry.
"Go away!" he shouted.
The ape had spoken; there was a burst of laughter and hand-clapping. "Good old Savage! Hurrah 41, hurrah!" And through the babel he heard cries of: "Whip, whip, the whip!"
Acting 42 on the word's suggestion, he seized the bunch of knotted cords from its nail behind the door and shook it at his tormentors.
There was a yell of ironical 43 applause.
Menacingly he advanced towards them. A woman cried out in fear. The line wavered at its most immediately threatened point, then stiffened 44 again, stood firm. The consciousness of being in overwhelming force had given these sightseers a courage which the Savage had not expected of them. Taken aback, he halted and looked round.
"Why don't you leave me alone?" There was an almost plaintive 45 note in his anger.
"Have a few magnesium 46-salted almonds!" said the man who, if the Savage were to advance, would be the first to be attacked. He held out a packet. "They're really very good, you know," he added, with a rather nervous smile of propitiation. "And the magnesium salts will help to keep you young."
The Savage ignored his offer. "What do you want with me?" he asked, turning from one grinning face to another. "What do you want with me?"
"The whip," answered a hundred voices confusedly. "Do the whipping stunt 47. Let's see the whipping stunt."
Then, in unison 48 and on a slow, heavy rhythm, "We-want-the whip," shouted a group at the end of the line. "We-want-the whip."
Others at once took up the cry, and the phrase was repeated, parrot-fashion, again and again, with an ever-growing volume of sound, until, by the seventh or eighth reiteration 49, no other word was being spoken. "We-want-the whip."
They were all crying together; and, intoxicated 50 by the noise, the unanimity 51, the sense of rhythmical 52 atonement, they might, it seemed, have gone on for hours-almost indefinitely. But at about the twenty-fifth repetition the proceedings were startlingly interrupted. Yet another helicopter had arrived from across the Hog's Back, hung poised above the crowd, then dropped within a few yards of where the Savage was standing, in the open space between the line of sightseers and the lighthouse. The roar of the air screws momentarily drowned the shouting; then, as the machine touched the ground and the engines were turned off: "We-want-the whip; we-want-the whip," broke out again in the same loud, insistent 53 monotone.
The door of the helicopter opened, and out stepped, first a fair and ruddy-faced young man, then, in green velveteen shorts, white shirt, and jockey cap, a young woman.
At the sight of the young woman, the Savage started, recoiled 54, turned pale.
The young woman stood, smiling at him-an uncertain, imploring 55, almost abject 56 smile. The seconds passed. Her lips moved, she was saying something; but the sound of her voice was covered by the loud reiterated 57 refrain of the sightseers.
"We-want-the whip! We-want-the whip!"
The young woman pressed both hands to her left side, and on that peach-bright, doll-beautiful face of hers appeared a strangely incongruous expression of yearning 58 distress 59. Her blue eyes seemed to grow larger, brighter; and suddenly two tears rolled down her cheeks. Inau-dibly, she spoke 40 again; then, with a quick, impassioned gesture stretched out her arms towards the Savage, stepped forward.
"We-want-the whip! We-want ..."
And all of a sudden they had what they wanted.
"Strumpet!" The Savage had rushed at her like a madman. "Fitchew!" Like a madman, he was slashing 60 at her with his whip of small cords.
Terrified, she had turned to flee, had tripped and fallen in the heather. "Henry, Henry!" she shouted. But her ruddy-faced companion had bolted out of harm's way behind the helicopter.
With a whoop 61 of delighted excitement the line broke; there was a convergent 62 stampede towards that magnetic centre of attraction. Pain was a fascinating horror.
"Fry, lechery 63, fry!" Frenzied 64, the Savage slashed 65 again.
Hungrily they gathered round, pushing and scrambling 66 like swine about the trough.
"Oh, the flesh!" The Savage ground his teeth. This time it was on his shoulders that the whip descended. "Kill it, kill it!"
Drawn 67 by the fascination 68 of the horror of pain and, from within, impelled 69 by that habit of cooperation, that desire for unanimity and atonement, which their conditioning had so ineradicably implanted in them, they began to mime 70 the frenzy of his gestures, striking at one another as the Savage struck at his own rebellious 71 flesh, or at that plump incarnation of turpitude 72 writhing 73 in the heather at his feet.
"Kill it, kill it, kill it ..." The Savage went on shouting.
Then suddenly somebody started singing "Orgy-porgy" and, in a moment, they had all caught up the refrain and, singing, had begun to dance. Orgy-porgy, round and round and round, beating one another in six-eight time. Orgy-porgy ...
It was after midnight when the last of the helicopters took its flight. Stupefied by soma, and exhausted 74 by a long-drawn frenzy of sensuality, the Savage lay sleeping in the heather. The sun was already high when he awoke. He lay for a moment, blinking in owlish incomprehension at the light; then suddenly remembered-everything.
"Oh, my God, my God!" He covered his eyes with his hand.
That evening the swarm of helicopters that came buzzing across the Hog's Back was a dark cloud ten kilometres long. The description of last night's orgy of atonement had been in all the papers.
"Savage!" called the first arrivals, as they alighted from their machine. "Mr. Savage!"
There was no answer.
The door of the lighthouse was ajar. They pushed it open and walked into a shuttered twilight 75. Through an archway on the further side of the room they could see the bottom of the staircase that led up to the higher floors. Just under the crown of the arch dangled 76 a pair of feet.
"Mr. Savage!"
Slowly, very slowly, like two unhurried compass needles, the feet turned towards the right; north, north-east, east, south-east, south, south-south-west; then paused, and, after a few seconds, turned as unhurriedly back towards the left. South-south-west, south, southeast, east. ...