Brave New World, Chapter 8

He said the stuff in the gourd was called mescal;
but Linda said it ought to be called soma; only it made you feel ill afterwards.

The flush suddenly deehttp://
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pened; he was thinking of Lenina, of an angel in bottle-green viscose, lustrous
with youth and skin food, plump, benevolently smiling.

Sang “Streptocock-Gee to Banbury-T” and “Bye Baby Banting,
soon you’ll need decanting.”

And
sometimes, when he and the other children were tired with too much playing,
one of the old men of the pueblo would talk to them, in those other words, of
the great Transformer of the World, and of the long fight between Right Hand
and Left Hand, between Wet and Dry; of Awonawilona, who made a great fog
by thinking in the night, and then made the whole world out of the fog; of
Earth Mother and Sky Father; of Ahaiyuta and Marsailema, the twins of War
and Chance; of Jesus and ...

Remorseless,
treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain.

His hair was like two black ropes, and round
his arm was a lovely silver bracelet with blue stones in it.

The flush suddenly deehttp://
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IDPH 93
pened; he was thinking of Lenina, of an angel in bottle-green viscose, lustrous
with youth and skin food, plump, benevolently smiling.

He said the stuff in the gourd was called mescal;
but Linda said it ought to be called soma; only it made you feel ill afterwards.

“Oh, stuff like magnesium salts, and alcohol for keeping the Deltas and Epsilons
small and backward, and calcium carbonate for bones, and all that sort of
thing.”

The Chemical and Bacteriological
Conditioning of the Embryo.

They had eaten a lot of tortillas and sweet corn.

She took a last sip, set the cup down on
the floor beside the bed, turned over on her side, hiccoughed once or twice and
went to sleep.

“Having young ones like an animal.

When they got back to their house, Popé was waiting at the door, and
he came in with them.

THE
CAT IS ON THEMAT.

“How should I know how to do their
beastly weaving?” she said.

Patronizingly, Bernard smiled.

“Oh, stuff like magnesium salts, and alcohol for keeping the Deltas and Epsilons
small and backward, and calcium carbonate for bones, and all that sort of
thing.”

Lying in bed, he
would think of Heaven and London and Our Lady of Acoma and the rows and
rows of babies in clean bottles and Jesus flying up and Linda flying up and the
great Director of World Hatcheries and Awonawilona.

They threw back; a
sharp stone cut his cheek.

OUTSIDE, in the dust and among the garbage (there were four dogs now), Bernard
and John were walking slowly up and down.

Kiai silu silu, tsithl-but better than
Mitsima’s magic, because it meant more, because it talked to him, talked wonderfully
and only half-understandably, a terrible beautiful magic, about Linda;
about Linda lying there snoring, with the empty cup on the floor beside the bed;
about Linda and Popé, Linda and Popé.

When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage
Or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed.

The Chemical and Bacteriological
Conditioning of the Embryo.

He leaned against the wall to steady himself.

They walked out of the pueblo, across the mesa.

“Little idiot!” she shouted; and then, suddenly,
she began to slap him.

“A, B, C, Vitamin D,” he sang to himself as he
worked.

When he knew how to read all the words she wrote on the wall, Linda opened
her big wooden box and pulled out from under those funny little red trousers
she never wore a thin little book.

The flush suddenly deehttp://
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IDPH 93
pened; he was thinking of Lenina, of an angel in bottle-green viscose, lustrous
with youth and skin food, plump, benevolently smiling.

He screamed.

Nay, but to live
In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,
Stew’d in corruption, honeying and making love
Over the nasty sty.

He looked away.

He ran across the room and
stabbed-oh, the blood!-stabbed again, as Popé heaved out of his sleep, lifted his
hand to stab once more, but found his wrist caught, held and-oh, oh!-twisted.

The
mere suggestion of illness or wounds was to him not only horrifying, but even
repulsive and rather disgusting.

Kiai silu silu, tsithl-but better than
Mitsima’s magic, because it meant more, because it talked to him, talked wonderfully
and only half-understandably, a terrible beautiful magic, about Linda;
about Linda lying there snoring, with the empty cup on the floor beside the bed;
about Linda and Popé, Linda and Popé.

Practical Instructions for Beta Embryo-Store
Workers.

“I wanted to know what it was like being crucified.

And
sometimes, when he and the other children were tired with too much playing,
one of the old men of the pueblo would talk to them, in those other words, of
the great Transformer of the World, and of the long fight between Right Hand
and Left Hand, between Wet and Dry; of Awonawilona, who made a great fog
by thinking in the night, and then made the whole world out of the fog; of
Earth Mother and Sky Father; of Ahaiyuta and Marsailema, the twins of War
and Chance; of Jesus and Pookong...

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Linda was lying on the bed, sipping that horrible stinking mescal out of a cup.

She cried
out, wrenched her hand free, and gave him such a push that he fell down.

His hair was like two black ropes, and round
his arm was a lovely silver bracelet with blue stones in it.

“The fat’s in the liver, the cod’s in the sea.”

Uncivilized.

“Oh, stuff like magnesium salts, and alcohol for keeping the Deltas and Epsilons
small and backward, and calcium carbonate for bones, and all that sort of
thing.”

Standing
on tiptoe he could just reach the big wooden latch.

Sometimes, too, they
laughed at him for being so ragged.

He couldn’t move, he was trapped, and there were Popé’s small black eyes, very
close, staring into his own.

Kiai silu silu, tsithl-but better than
Mitsima’s magic, because it meant more, because it talked to him, talked wonderfully
and only half-understandably, a terrible beautiful magic, about Linda;
about Linda lying there snoring, with the empty cup on the floor beside the bed;
about Linda and Popé, Linda and Popé.

It was fairly easy, if he thought hard enough about
the reading, to pretend that he didn’t mind when they made fun of him.

Then
Khakimé’s father stepped forward, and holding up a feathered prayer stick,
made a long prayer, then threw the stick after the corn meal.

She had pulled the blanket up to her chin,
but the man pulled it down again.

When he knew how to read all the words she wrote on the wall, Linda opened
her big wooden box and pulled out from under those funny little red trousers
she never wore a thin little book.

From the cut on his wrist the blood was still oozing.

Bleeding, he ran away into the darkness.

THE TOT IS IN THE POT.

Sometimes she was sick.

When he tore his clothes, Linda did not
know how to mend them.

“Sing,”
and Linda sang.

He picked it up, looked at the title-page: the book was called The Complete
Works of William Shakespeare.

Nay, but to live
In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,
Stew’d in corruption, honeying and making love
Over the nasty sty.

“But the next one will be better,” he said, and began to moisten another piece
of clay.

“You see,” he said, mumbling and with averted
eyes, “I’m rather different from most people, I suppose.

The strange words rolled through his mind; rumbled, like talking thunder; like
the drums at the summer dances, if the drums could have spoken; like the men
singing the Corn Song, beautiful, beautiful, so that you cried; like old Mitsima
saying magic over his feathers and his carved sticks and his bits of bone and
stone-kiathla tsilu silokwe silokwe silokwe.

One day, when he came in from playing, the door of the inner room was open,
and he saw them lying together on the bed, asleep-white Linda and Popé almost
black beside her, with one arm under her shoulders and the other dark hand on
her breast, and one of the plaits of his long hair lying across her throat, like a
black snake trying to strangle her.

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Linda was lying on the bed, sipping that horrible stinking mescal out of a cup.

The strange words rolled through his mind; rumbled, like talking thunder; like
the drums at the summer dances, if the drums could have spoken; like the men
singing the Corn Song, beautiful, beautiful, so that you cried; like old Mitsima
saying magic over his feathers and his carved sticks and his bits of bone and
stone-kiathla tsilu silokwe silokwe silokwe.

Suddenly people started talking very loud, and there were the women
pushing Linda away, and Linda was crying.

The rock was like
bleached bones in the moonlight.

She pulled down his arm; his face was uncovered.

He ran across the room and
stabbed-oh, the blood!-stabbed again, as Popé heaved out of his sleep, lifted his
hand to stab once more, but found his wrist caught, held and-oh, oh!-twisted.

Kothlu came first, his right
hand out-stretched and tightly closed, as though over some precious jewel.

With her free hand she held him away.

Linda said,
“Come and lie down, Baby.”

“Sing,”
and Linda sang.

The bruises hurt him, the cuts were still bleeding; but it was not
for pain that he sobbed; it was because he was all alone, because he had been
driven out, alone, into this skeleton world of rocks and moonlight.

Suddenly people started talking very loud, and there were the women
pushing Linda away, and Linda was crying.

“First of all,” said Mitsima, taking a lump of the wetted clay between his hands,
“we make a little moon.”

He hated Popé.

Or else she drank the stuff that Popé brought and laughed a great deal and
went to sleep.

Squatting by the river, they worked together.

Nay, but to live
In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,
Stew’d in corruption, honeying and making love
Over the nasty sty.

“Linda,” he shouted.

One of the
women was holding her wrists.

Every few seconds a drop
fell, dark, almost colourless in the dead light.

And she would tell him about the lovely music that came
out of a box, and all the nice games you could play, and the delicious things to
eat and drink, and the light that came when you pressed a little thing in the
wall, asd the pictures that you could hear and feel and smell, as well as see,
and another box for making nice smells, and the pink and green and blue and
silver houses as high as mountains, and everybody happy and no one ever
sad or angry, and every one belonging to every o...

His cheeks burnt with the rush of blood,
the room swam and darkened before his eyes.

The man put up his other hand
and lifted him up.

And she would tell him about the lovely music that came
out of a box, and all the nice games you could play, and the delicious things to
eat and drink, and the light that came when you pressed a little thing in the
wall, asd the pictures that you could hear and feel and smell, as well as see,
and another box for making nice smells, and the pink and green and blue and
silver houses as high as mountains, and everybody happy and no one ever
sad or angry, and every one belonging to every o...

In those other words he did not
understand so well, she said to the man, “Not with John here.”

They walked out of the pueblo, across the mesa.

She pulled down his arm; his face was uncovered.

“Oh, stuff like magnesium salts, and alcohol for keeping the Deltas and Epsilons
small and backward, and calcium carbonate for bones, and all that sort of
thing.”

Mitsima squeezed and patted, stroked and scraped; and there
at last it stood, in shape the familiar water pot of Malpais, but creamy white
instead of black, and still soft to the touch.

“No,” Linda said again, and
he felt her hand squeezing him more tightly.

“Oh, stuff like magnesium salts, and alcohol for keeping the Deltas and Epsilons
small and backward, and calcium carbonate for bones, and all that sort of
thing.”

THE TOT IS IN THE POT.

“From the beginning.

Another was lying across her legs, so that she
couldn’t kick.

Bernard blushed uncomfortably.

He hated Popé.

“It seems a funny way of curing your unhappiness,” said Bernard.

She had pulled the blanket up to her chin,
but the man pulled it down again.

A man was saying something
to Linda, and Linda was laughing.

“So hard for me to realize,” Bernard was saying, “to reconstruct.

A mother, and all
this dirt, and gods, and old age, and disease .”

At the full moon, in the Antelope Kiva, secrets would be told, secrets would
be done and borne.

When he knew how to read all the words she wrote on the wall, Linda opened
her big wooden box and pulled out from under those funny little red trousers
she never wore a thin little book.

In the Other Place, she told him, people threw away
clothes with holes in them and got new ones.

To-morrow
and to-morrow and to-morrow.

But the man took hold
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of one of his arms, and it hurt.

Lying in bed, he
would think of Heaven and London and Our Lady of Acoma and the rows and
rows of babies in clean bottles and Jesus flying up and Linda flying up and the
great Director of World Hatcheries and Awonawilona.

And
sometimes, when he and the other children were tired with too much playing,
one of the old men of the pueblo would talk to them, in those other words, of
the great Transformer of the World, and of the long fight between Right Hand
and Left Hand, between Wet and Dry; of Awonawilona, who made a great fog
by thinking in the night, and then made the whole world out of the fog; of
Earth Mother and Sky Father; of Ahaiyuta and Marsailema, the twins of War
and Chance; of Jesus and ...

Linda was in bed and so
fast asleep that he couldn’t wake her.

He had a big gourd full of stuff that looked like water;
only it wasn’t water, but something with a bad smell that burnt your mouth
and made you cough.

I expect it’s true, because I looked at
it, and it seemed to be full of nonsense.

When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage
Or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed.

Then
suddenly, crash! something was upset; he heard people moving about quickly,
and there was another crash and then a noise like hitting a mule, only not so
bony; then Linda screamed.

But their magic was strong and went on rumbling in
his head, and somehow it was as though he had never really hated Popé before;
never really hated him because he had never been able to say how much he
hated him.

She took a last sip, set the cup down on
the floor beside the bed, turned over on her side, hiccoughed once or twice and
went to sleep.

Then
Khakimé’s father stepped forward, and holding up a feathered prayer stick,
made a long prayer, then threw the stick after the corn meal.

“Well,” said Linda, as they turned away, “all I can say is, it does seem a lot of
fuss to make about so little.

He lifted it and pushed; but
the door wouldn’t open.

In those other words he did not
understand so well, she said to the man, “Not with John here.”

They lay down together in the big bed.

They had eaten a lot of tortillas and sweet corn.

How beauteous mankind is!”

The man put up his other hand
and lifted him up.

The rock was like
bleached bones in the moonlight.

He opened the book at random.

“It seems a funny way of curing your unhappiness,” said Bernard.

The young man nodded.

Linda said,
“Come and lie down, Baby.”

She slapped him on the cheek.

Bleeding, he ran away into the darkness.

The
binding had been eaten by mice; some of its pages were loose and crumpled.

Then
Khakimé’s father stepped forward, and holding up a feathered prayer stick,
made a long prayer, then threw the stick after the corn meal.

She had pulled the blanket up to her chin,
but the man pulled it down again.

“Oh, stuff like magnesium salts, and alcohol for keeping the Deltas and Epsilons
small and backward, and calcium carbonate for bones, and all that sort of
thing.”

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88 IDPH
Linda was lying on the bed, sipping that horrible stinking mescal out of a cup.

Then
suddenly, crash! something was upset; he heard people moving about quickly,
and there was another crash and then a noise like hitting a mule, only not so
bony; then Linda screamed.

Sang “Streptocock-Gee to Banbury-T” and “Bye Baby Banting,
soon you’ll need decanting.”

And
sometimes, when he and the other children were tired with too much playing,
one of the old men of the pueblo would talk to them, in those other words, of
the great Transformer of the World, and of the long fight between Right Hand
and Left Hand, between Wet and Dry; of Awonawilona, who made a great fog
by thinking in the night, and then made the whole world out of the fog; of
Earth Mother and Sky Father; of Ahaiyuta and Marsailema, the twins of War
and Chance; of Jesus and ...

But the man took hold
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of one of his arms, and it hurt.

His hair was like two black ropes, and round
his arm was a lovely silver bracelet with blue stones in it.

Sang “Streptocock-Gee to Banbury-T” and “Bye Baby Banting,
soon you’ll need decanting.”

Linda was in bed and so
fast asleep that he couldn’t wake her.

The strange words rolled through his mind; rumbled, like talking thunder; like
the drums at the summer dances, if the drums could have spoken; like the men
singing the Corn Song, beautiful, beautiful, so that you cried; like old Mitsima
saying magic over his feathers and his carved sticks and his bits of bone and
stone-kiathla tsilu silokwe silokwe silokwe.

Round by round,
Mitsima built up the sides of the pot; it was narrow, it bulged, it narrowed again
towards the neck.

“I wonder if you’d like to come back to London with us?” he asked, making the
first move in a campaign whose strategy he had been secretly elaborating ever
since, in the little house, he had reahzed who the “father” of this young savage
must be.

He paid no attention to her calling, but ran on, away, away, anywhere to be by
himself.

A mother, and all
this dirt, and gods, and old age, and disease .”

Crying, he tugged at the fringe of the woman’s
blanket.

He hesitated doubtfully.

Linda was on the bed.

His hair was like two black ropes, and round
his arm was a lovely silver bracelet with blue stones in it.

He had a big gourd full of stuff that looked like water;
only it wasn’t water, but something with a bad smell that burnt your mouth
and made you cough.

“Alone, always alone,” the young man was saying.

“No,” Linda said again, and
he felt her hand squeezing him more tightly.

There was a loud noise, and he woke with a start.

A man was saying something
to Linda, and Linda was laughing.

With a piece of charcoal she drew pictures on the
wall-an animal sitting down, a baby inside a bottle; then she wrote letters.

He was
crying, because the red marks of the whip on his back still hurt so terribly.

“How should I know how to do their
beastly weaving?” she said.

He held out his right hand in the moonlight.

When he knew how to read all the words she wrote on the wall, Linda opened
her big wooden box and pulled out from under those funny little red trousers
she never wore a thin little book.

He kicked and wriggled; but the man carried him across to the door,
opened it, put him down on the floor in the middle of the other room, and went
away, shutting the door behind hirn.

Men were standing, dark, at the entrance to the kiva; the ladder went
down into the red lighted depths.

He ran out into the other room to hide his tears.

They worked all day, and all day he was filled with
an intense, absorbing happiness.

Suddenly she put her arms
round him and kissed him again and again.

He couldn’t move, he was trapped, and there were Popé’s small black eyes, very
close, staring into his own.

“Linda,” he shouted.

“Linda,” he cried out.

“If only you could see the lovely reading machines
we used to have in London!”

He stood for a long time outside the house, and at last the ceremonies within
were finished.

He played with the little boys for a long
time.

He kicked and wriggled; but the man carried him across to the door,
opened it, put him down on the floor in the middle of the other room, and went
away, shutting the door behind hirn.

He asked her why they were angry.

The strange words rolled through his mind; rumbled, like talking thunder; like
the drums at the summer dances, if the drums could have spoken; like the men
singing the Corn Song, beautiful, beautiful, so that you cried; like old Mitsima
saying magic over his feathers and his carved sticks and his bits of bone and
stone-kiathla tsilu silokwe silokwe silokwe.

The old man squeezed the lump into a disk, then bent
up the edges, the moon became a shallow cup.

Or else she drank the stuff that Popé brought and laughed a great deal and
went to sleep.

The blood woudn’t stop; he was covered with blood.

Suddenly people started talking very loud, and there were the women
pushing Linda away, and Linda was crying.

Linda taught him to read.

The man looked
at him, then again at Linda, and said a few words in a soft voice.

Standing
on tiptoe he could just reach the big wooden latch.

It took him a quarter of an hour to read the title alone.

He stood for a long time outside the house, and at last the ceremonies within
were finished.

And
sometimes, when he and the other children were tired with too much playing,
one of the old men of the pueblo would talk to them, in those other words, of
the great Transformer of the World, and of the long fight between Right Hand
and Left Hand, between Wet and Dry; of Awonawilona, who made a great fog
by thinking in the night, and then made the whole world out of the fog; of
Earth Mother and Sky Father; of Ahaiyuta and Marsailema, the twins of War
and Chance; of Jesus and ...

Standing
on tiptoe he could just reach the big wooden latch.

After a little time, he opened his eyes again and saw that
she was looking at him.

He kicked and wriggled; but the man carried him across to the door,
opened it, put him down on the floor in the middle of the other room, and went
away, shutting the door behind hirn.

And
sometimes, when he and the other children were tired with too much playing,
one of the old men of the pueblo would talk to them, in those other words, of
the great Transformer of the World, and of the long fight between Right Hand
and Left Hand, between Wet and Dry; of Awonawilona, who made a great fog
by thinking in the night, and then made the whole world out of the fog; of
Earth Mother and Sky Father; of Ahaiyuta and Marsailema, the twins of War
and Chance; of Jesus and ...

He got up, he ran to the door.

That would have been too shameful.”

His hair was like two black ropes, and round
his arm was a lovely silver bracelet with blue stones in it.

One
afternoon, when he had been playing with the other children-it was cold, he
remembered, and there was snow on the mountains-he came back to the house
and heard angry voices in the bedroom.

She pulled down his arm; his face was uncovered.

He had a big gourd full of stuff that looked like water;
only it wasn’t water, but something with a bad smell that burnt your mouth
and made you cough.

Then
suddenly, crash! something was upset; he heard people moving about quickly,
and there was another crash and then a noise like hitting a mule, only not so
bony; then Linda screamed.

And
sometimes, when he and the other children were tired with too much playing,
one of the old men of the pueblo would talk to them, in those other words, of
the great Transformer of the World, and of the long fight between Right Hand
and Left Hand, between Wet and Dry; of Awonawilona, who made a great fog
by thinking in the night, and then made the whole world out of the fog; of
Earth Mother and Sky Father; of Ahaiyuta and Marsailema, the twins of War
and Chance; of Jesus and ...

Linda taught him to read.

Her
clenched hand similarly outstretched, Kiakimé followed.

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pened; he was thinking of Lenina, of an angel in bottle-green viscose, lustrous
with youth and skin food, plump, benevolently smiling.

He shut his eyes, expecting the blow.

Her
clenched hand similarly outstretched, Kiakimé followed.

In silence and frum a long way off, but violently, desperately, hopelessly,
he had loved Kiakimé.

He had a big gourd full of stuff that looked like water;
only it wasn’t water, but something with a bad smell that burnt your mouth
and made you cough.

His
head banged against the wall.

“They
say those men are their men,” she went on; and she did not seem to be talking
to him at all; she seemed to be talking with some one inside herself.

From the red-lit kiva came the noise of singing.

Down in the valley, the coyotes were howling
at the moon.

A pinch of corn
meal lay white on the palm; he breathed on it, murmured a few words, then
threw it, a handful of white dust, towards the sun.

They woud go down, boys, into the kiva and come out
again, men.

And
sometimes, when he and the other children were tired with too much playing,
one of the old men of the pueblo would talk to them, in those other words, of
the great Transformer of the World, and of the long fight between Right Hand
and Left Hand, between Wet and Dry; of Awonawilona, who made a great fog
by thinking in the night, and then made the whole world out of the fog; of
Earth Mother and Sky Father; of Ahaiyuta and Marsailema, the twins of War
and Chance; of Jesus and ...

He remembered a huge room, rather dark; and there were big wooden things
with strings fastened to them, and lots of women standing round them-making
blankets, Linda said.

Already the leading boys had begun to climb
down.

His hair was like two black ropes, and round
his arm was a lovely silver bracelet with blue stones in it.

“The fat’s in the liver, the cod’s in the sea.”

One day they sang a
song about her, again and again.

His hair was like two black ropes, and round
his arm was a lovely silver bracelet with blue stones in it.

Once, twice, three times;
and each time Linda screamed.

Linda put her hand on him and he felt safer.

One day (John calculated later that it must have been soon after his twelfth
birthday) he came home and found a book that he had never seen before Iying
on the floor in the bedroom.

Mitsima rolled out another piece of clay
into a long flexible cylinder, trooped it into a circle and pressed it on to the rim
of the cup.

Kothlu came first, his right
hand out-stretched and tightly closed, as though over some precious jewel.

And
sometimes, when he and the other children were tired with too much playing,
one of the old men of the pueblo would talk to them, in those other words, of
the great Transformer of the World, and of the long fight between Right Hand
and Left Hand, between Wet and Dry; of Awonawilona, who made a great fog
by thinking in the night, and then made the whole world out of the fog; of
Earth Mother and Sky Father; of Ahaiyuta and Marsailema, the twins of War
and Chance; of Jesus and Pookong...

Popé burst out laughing.

They had eaten a lot of tortillas and sweet corn.

The strange words rolled through his mind; rumbled, like talking thunder; like
the drums at the summer dances, if the drums could have spoken; like the men
singing the Corn Song, beautiful, beautiful, so that you cried; like old Mitsima
saying magic over his feathers and his carved sticks and his bits of bone and
stone-kiathla tsilu silokwe silokwe silokwe.

Linda drank some and Popé drank some, and then Linda
laughed a lot and talked very loud; and then she and Popé went into the other
room.

He remembered a huge room, rather dark; and there were big wooden things
with strings fastened to them, and lots of women standing round them-making
blankets, Linda said.

They walked in silence,
and in silence, behind them, came the brothers and sisters and cousins and
all the troop of old people.

Suddenly people started talking very loud, and there were the women
pushing Linda away, and Linda was crying.

But the man took hold
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of one of his arms, and it hurt.

The rock was like
bleached bones in the moonlight.

He was silent for a little; then,
in a low voice, “Once,” he went on, “I did something that none of the others
did: I stood against a rock in the middle of the day, in summer, with my arms
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out, like Jesus on the Cross.”

She had pulled the blanket up to her chin,
but the man pulled it down again.

Linda told him to sit in the corner with the other children,
while she went and helped the women.

Linda said,
“Come and lie down, Baby.”

With a piece of charcoal she drew pictures on the
wall-an animal sitting down, a baby inside a bottle; then she wrote letters.

And
sometimes, when he and the other children were tired with too much playing,
one of the old men of the pueblo would talk to them, in those other words, of
the great Transformer of the World, and of the long fight between Right Hand
and Left Hand, between Wet and Dry; of Awonawilona, who made a great fog
by thinking in the night, and then made the whole world out of the fog; of
Earth Mother and Sky Father; of Ahaiyuta and Marsailema, the twins of War
and Chance; of Jesus and ...

“The seed of men and all creatures, the seed of the sun and the seed of earth
and the seed of the sky-Awonawilona made them all out of the Fog of Increase.

“And you
really can go flying, whenever you like?”

And she would tell him about the lovely music that came
out of a box, and all the nice games you could play, and the delicious things to
eat and drink, and the light that came when you pressed a little thing in the
wall, asd the pictures that you could hear and feel and smell, as well as see,
and another box for making nice smells, and the pink and green and blue and
silver houses as high as mountains, and everybody happy and no one ever
sad or angry, and every one belonging to ...

He pressed himself against her.

Even the longest.

“So hard for me to realize,” Bernard was saying, “to reconstruct.

He went with the
others.

When he knew how to read all the words she wrote on the wall, Linda opened
her big wooden box and pulled out from under those funny little red trousers
she never wore a thin little book.

The man looked
at him, then again at Linda, and said a few words in a soft voice.

“O wonder!” he was
saying; and his eyes shone, his face was brightly flushed.

“Having young ones like an animal.

He couldn’t move, he was trapped, and there were Popé’s small black eyes, very
close, staring into his own.

Linda drank some and Popé drank some, and then Linda
laughed a lot and talked very loud; and then she and Popé went into the other
room.

As though
we were living on different planets, in different centuries.

The words awoke a plaintive echo in Bernard’s mind.

Then
suddenly, crash! something was upset; he heard people moving about quickly,
and there was another crash and then a noise like hitting a mule, only not so
bony; then Linda screamed.

The
binding had been eaten by mice; some of its pages were loose and crumpled.

“First of all,” said Mitsima, taking a lump of the wetted clay between his hands,
“we make a little moon.”

A man was saying something
to Linda, and Linda was laughing.

He kicked and wriggled; but the man carried him across to the door,
opened it, put him down on the floor in the middle of the other room, and went
away, shutting the door behind hirn.

There was a loud noise, and he woke with a start.

His cheeks burnt with the rush of blood,
the room swam and darkened before his eyes.

OUTSIDE, in the dust and among the garbage (there were four dogs now), Bernard
and John were walking slowly up and down.

“And you
really can go flying, whenever you like?”

One
afternoon, when he had been playing with the other children-it was cold, he
remembered, and there was snow on the mountains-he came back to the house
and heard angry voices in the bedroom.

His hair was like two black ropes, and round
his arm was a lovely silver bracelet with blue stones in it.

His hair was like two black ropes, and round
his arm was a lovely silver bracelet with blue stones in it.

They lay down together in the big bed.

“I’m afraid you won’t find it very exciting,” she said.

He got up, he ran to the door.

And she would tell him about the lovely music that came
out of a box, and all the nice games you could play, and the delicious things to
eat and drink, and the light that came when you pressed a little thing in the
wall, asd the pictures that you could hear and feel and smell, as well as see,
and another box for making nice smells, and the pink and green and blue and
silver houses as high as mountains, and everybody happy and no one ever
sad or angry, and every one belonging to every o...

Sometimes, too, they
laughed at him for being so ragged.

“But of course!” he cried, making up for his
first hesitations with an excess of noisy cordiality.

His
head banged against the wall.

He caught hold of the woman’s
enormous brown hand between his own and bit it with all his might.

Linda said,
“Come and lie down, Baby.”

The door opened; they came out.

And
sometimes, when he and the other children were tired with too much playing,
one of the old men of the pueblo would talk to them, in those other words, of
the great Transformer of the World, and of the long fight between Right Hand
and Left Hand, between Wet and Dry; of Awonawilona, who made a great fog
by thinking in the night, and then made the whole world out of the fog; of
Earth Mother and Sky Father; of Ahaiyuta and Marsailema, the twins of War
and Chance; of Jesus and ...

Her
clenched hand similarly outstretched, Kiakimé followed.

He remembered a huge room, rather dark; and there were big wooden things
with strings fastened to them, and lots of women standing round them-making
blankets, Linda said.

The strange words rolled through his mind; rumbled, like talking thunder; like
the drums at the summer dances, if the drums could have spoken; like the men
singing the Corn Song, beautiful, beautiful, so that you cried; like old Mitsima
saying magic over his feathers and his carved sticks and his bits of bone and
stone-kiathla tsilu silokwe silokwe silokwe.

OUTSIDE, in the dust and among the garbage (there were four dogs now), Bernard
and John were walking slowly up and down.

“They
say those men are their men,” she went on; and she did not seem to be talking
to him at all; she seemed to be talking with some one inside herself.

Still, it’ll be good enough
for you to practice your reading on.”

In those other words he did not
understand so well, she said to the man, “Not with John here.”

He was silent for a little; then,
in a low voice, “Once,” he went on, “I did something that none of the others
did: I stood against a rock in the middle of the day, in summer, with my arms
http://www.idph.net
92 IDPH
out, like Jesus on the Cross.”

He kicked and wriggled; but the man carried him across to the door,
opened it, put him down on the floor in the middle of the other room, and went
away, shutting the door behind hirn.

There was a shower of stones.

One day (John calculated later that it must have been soon after his twelfth
birthday) he came home and found a book that he had never seen before Iying
on the floor in the bedroom.

He liked the bracelet;
but all the same, he was frightened; he hid his face against Linda’s body.

Down in the valley, the coyotes were howling
at the moon.

He kicked and wriggled; but the man carried him across to the door,
opened it, put him down on the floor in the middle of the other room, and went
away, shutting the door behind hirn.

“Oh, stuff like magnesium salts, and alcohol for keeping the Deltas and Epsilons
small and backward, and calcium carbonate for bones, and all that sort of
thing.”

The
binding had been eaten by mice; some of its pages were loose and crumpled.

My shoulder!

“They are married.”

“I’ll kill
him, I’ll kill him, I’ll kill him,” he kept saying.

It was a thick book and looked very old.

She went to the door and he ran
after her.

Practical Instructions for Beta Embryo-Store
Workers.

He stepped
back in the outer room.

Kiai silu silu, tsithl-but better than
Mitsima’s magic, because it meant more, because it talked to him, talked wonderfully
and only half-understandably, a terrible beautiful magic, about Linda;
about Linda lying there snoring, with the empty cup on the floor beside the bed;
about Linda and Popé, Linda and Popé.

He kicked and wriggled; but the man carried him across to the door,
opened it, put him down on the floor in the middle of the other room, and went
away, shutting the door behind hirn.

The strange words rolled through his mind; rumbled, like talking thunder; like
the drums at the summer dances, if the drums could have spoken; like the men
singing the Corn Song, beautiful, beautiful, so that you cried; like old Mitsima
saying magic over his feathers and his carved sticks and his bits of bone and
stone-kiathla tsilu silokwe silokwe silokwe.

The boys began to point their fingers at him.

A pinch of corn
meal lay white on the palm; he breathed on it, murmured a few words, then
threw it, a handful of white dust, towards the sun.

He kicked and wriggled; but the man carried him across to the door,
opened it, put him down on the floor in the middle of the other room, and went
away, shutting the door behind hirn.

It was difficult to hear what she said,
because she was lying on her stomach and her face was in the pillow.

Mitsima squeezed and patted, stroked and scraped; and there
at last it stood, in shape the familiar water pot of Malpais, but creamy white
instead of black, and still soft to the touch.

And she would tell him about the lovely music that came
out of a box, and all the nice games you could play, and the delicious things to
eat and drink, and the light that came when you pressed a little thing in the
wall, asd the pictures that you could hear and feel and smell, as well as see,
and another box for making nice smells, and the pink and green and blue and
silver houses as high as mountains, and everybody happy and no one ever
sad or angry, and every one belonging to every o...

“Ford, no!”

Lying in bed, he
would think of Heaven and London and Our Lady of Acoma and the rows and
rows of babies in clean bottles and Jesus flying up and Linda flying up and the
great Director of World Hatcheries and Awonawilona.

Bleeding, he ran away into the darkness.

One
afternoon, when he had been playing with the other children-it was cold, he
remembered, and there was snow on the mountains-he came back to the house
and heard angry voices in the bedroom.

She cried
out, wrenched her hand free, and gave him such a push that he fell down.

Sometimes, for several days, Linda didn’t get up at all.

There was a loud noise, and he woke with a start.

His cheeks burnt with the rush of blood,
the room swam and darkened before his eyes.

He picked it up, looked at the title-page: the book was called The Complete
Works of William Shakespeare.

They lay down together in the big bed.

A pinch of corn
meal lay white on the palm; he breathed on it, murmured a few words, then
threw it, a handful of white dust, towards the sun.

They had eaten a lot of tortillas and sweet corn.

He was
crying, because the red marks of the whip on his back still hurt so terribly.

And
sometimes, when he and the other children were tired with too much playing,
one of the old men of the pueblo would talk to them, in those other words, of
the great Transformer of the World, and of the long fight between Right Hand
and Left Hand, between Wet and Dry; of Awonawilona, who made a great fog
by thinking in the night, and then made the whole world out of the fog; of
Earth Mother and Sky Father; of Ahaiyuta and Marsailema, the twins of War
and Chance; of Jesus and ...

He tried to smile at her.

When they got back to their house, Popé was waiting at the door, and
he came in with them.

Linda said,
“Come and lie down, Baby.”

The strange words rolled through his mind; rumbled, like talking thunder; like
the drums at the summer dances, if the drums could have spoken; like the men
singing the Corn Song, beautiful, beautiful, so that you cried; like old Mitsima
saying magic over his feathers and his carved sticks and his bits of bone and
stone-kiathla tsilu silokwe silokwe silokwe.

Linda was still holding him, still saying, “No, no.”

“Having young ones like an animal.

He remembered a huge room, rather dark; and there were big wooden things
with strings fastened to them, and lots of women standing round them-making
blankets, Linda said.

One
afternoon, when he had been playing with the other children-it was cold, he
remembered, and there was snow on the mountains-he came back to the house
and heard angry voices in the bedroom.

And then she got angry too.

One day (John calculated later that it must have been soon after his twelfth
birthday) he came home and found a book that he had never seen before Iying
on the floor in the bedroom.

If it
hadn’t been for you, I might have gone to the Inspector, I might have got away.

He ran across the room and
stabbed-oh, the blood!-stabbed again, as Popé heaved out of his sleep, lifted his
hand to stab once more, but found his wrist caught, held and-oh, oh!-twisted.

In the Other Place, she told him, people threw away
clothes with holes in them and got new ones.

“How should I know how to do their
beastly weaving?” she said.

They had eaten a lot of tortillas and sweet corn.

OUTSIDE, in the dust and among the garbage (there were four dogs now), Bernard
and John were walking slowly up and down.

He kicked and wriggled; but the man carried him across to the door,
opened it, put him down on the floor in the middle of the other room, and went
away, shutting the door behind hirn.

He had a big gourd full of stuff that looked like water;
only it wasn’t water, but something with a bad smell that burnt your mouth
and made you cough.

He was
crying, because the red marks of the whip on his back still hurt so terribly.

A pinch of corn
meal lay white on the palm; he breathed on it, murmured a few words, then
threw it, a handful of white dust, towards the sun.

A pinch of corn
meal lay white on the palm; he breathed on it, murmured a few words, then
threw it, a handful of white dust, towards the sun.

She cried
out, wrenched her hand free, and gave him such a push that he fell down.

He liked the bracelet;
but all the same, he was frightened; he hid his face against Linda’s body.

One
afternoon, when he had been playing with the other children-it was cold, he
remembered, and there was snow on the mountains-he came back to the house
and heard angry voices in the bedroom.

For a long time, for hours and hours.

In silence and frum a long way off, but violently, desperately, hopelessly,
he had loved Kiakimé.

After a little time, he opened his eyes again and saw that
she was looking at him.

The flush suddenly deehttp://
www.idph.net
IDPH 93
pened; he was thinking of Lenina, of an angel in bottle-green viscose, lustrous
with youth and skin food, plump, benevolently smiling.

They threw back; a
sharp stone cut his cheek.

Nay, but to live
In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,
Stew’d in corruption, honeying and making love
Over the nasty sty.

A mother, and all
this dirt, and gods, and old age, and disease .”

OUTSIDE, in the dust and among the garbage (there were four dogs now), Bernard
and John were walking slowly up and down.

He remembered a huge room, rather dark; and there were big wooden things
with strings fastened to them, and lots of women standing round them-making
blankets, Linda said.

He couldn’t move, he was trapped, and there were Popé’s small black eyes, very
close, staring into his own.

And she would tell him about the lovely music that came
out of a box, and all the nice games you could play, and the delicious things to
eat and drink, and the light that came when you pressed a little thing in the
wall, asd the pictures that you could hear and feel and smell, as well as see,
and another box for making nice smells, and the pink and green and blue and
silver houses as high as mountains, and everybody happy and no one ever
sad or angry, and every one belonging to every o...

When they got back to their house, Popé was waiting at the door, and
he came in with them.

When he tore his clothes, Linda did not
know how to mend them.

“I wonder if you’d like to come back to London with us?” he asked, making the
first move in a campaign whose strategy he had been secretly elaborating ever
since, in the little house, he had reahzed who the “father” of this young savage
must be.

He played with the little boys for a long
time.

And she would tell him about the lovely music that came
out of a box, and all the nice games you could play, and the delicious things to
eat and drink, and the light that came when you pressed a little thing in the
wall, asd the pictures that you could hear and feel and smell, as well as see,
and another box for making nice smells, and the pink and green and blue and
silver houses as high as mountains, and everybody happy and no one ever
sad or angry, and every one belonging to ...

And she would tell him about the lovely music that came
out of a box, and all the nice games you could play, and the delicious things to
eat and drink, and the light that came when you pressed a little thing in the
wall, asd the pictures that you could hear and feel and smell, as well as see,
and another box for making nice smells, and the pink and green and blue and
silver houses as high as mountains, and everybody happy and no one ever
sad or angry, and every one belonging to every o...

He had discovered Tirne and Death and God.

“Because I broke something,”
she said.

And
sometimes, when he and the other children were tired with too much playing,
one of the old men of the pueblo would talk to them, in those other words, of
the great Transformer of the World, and of the long fight between Right Hand
and Left Hand, between Wet and Dry; of Awonawilona, who made a great fog
by thinking in the night, and then made the whole world out of the fog; of
Earth Mother and Sky Father; of Ahaiyuta and Marsailema, the twins of War
and Chance; of Jesus and Pookong...

And she would tell him about the lovely music that came
out of a box, and all the nice games you could play, and the delicious things to
eat and drink, and the light that came when you pressed a little thing in the
wall, asd the pictures that you could hear and feel and smell, as well as see,
and another box for making nice smells, and the pink and green and blue and
silver houses as high as mountains, and everybody happy and no one ever
sad or angry, and every one belonging to ...

Linda told him to sit in the corner with the other children,
while she went and helped the women.

When Popé went away, he went into the room.

As far back as you can remember.”

Linda told him to sit in the corner with the other children,
while she went and helped the women.

He hated them all-all the men who came to see Linda.

A mother, and all
this dirt, and gods, and old age, and disease .”

“But what is there to say?”

Suddenly people started talking very loud, and there were the women
pushing Linda away, and Linda was crying.

He kicked and wriggled; but the man carried him across to the door,
opened it, put him down on the floor in the middle of the other room, and went
away, shutting the door behind hirn.

Sometimes, for several days, Linda didn’t get up at all.

With a piece of charcoal she drew pictures on the
wall-an animal sitting down, a baby inside a bottle; then she wrote letters.

“Go,” he said, in the other Indian words.

Then
Khakimé’s father stepped forward, and holding up a feathered prayer stick,
made a long prayer, then threw the stick after the corn meal.

The man looked
at him, then again at Linda, and said a few words in a soft voice.

Then
suddenly, crash! something was upset; he heard people moving about quickly,
and there was another crash and then a noise like hitting a mule, only not so
bony; then Linda screamed.

And it was the little house outside the
village.

She lay in bed and was
sad.

One
afternoon, when he had been playing with the other children-it was cold, he
remembered, and there was snow on the mountains-he came back to the house
and heard angry voices in the bedroom.

“And, anyhow, hadn’t you better
wait till you actually see the new world?”

The happiest times were when she told him ahout the Other Place.

OUTSIDE, in the dust and among the garbage (there were four dogs now), Bernard
and John were walking slowly up and down.

One day, when he came in from playing, the door of the inner room was open,
and he saw them lying together on the bed, asleep-white Linda and Popé almost
black beside her, with one arm under her shoulders and the other dark hand on
her breast, and one of the plaits of his long hair lying across her throat, like a
black snake trying to strangle her.

It was difficult to hear what she said,
because she was lying on her stomach and her face was in the pillow.

Then
suddenly, crash! something was upset; he heard people moving about quickly,
and there was another crash and then a noise like hitting a mule, only not so
bony; then Linda screamed.

“They are married.”

The man put up his other hand
and lifted him up.

He was sixteen.

And she would tell him about the lovely music that came
out of a box, and all the nice games you could play, and the delicious things to
eat and drink, and the light that came when you pressed a little thing in the
wall, asd the pictures that you could hear and feel and smell, as well as see,
and another box for making nice smells, and the pink and green and blue and
silver houses as high as mountains, and everybody happy and no one ever
sad or angry, and every one belonging to every o...

He remembered a huge room, rather dark; and there were big wooden things
with strings fastened to them, and lots of women standing round them-making
blankets, Linda said.

At the full moon, in the Antelope Kiva, secrets would be told, secrets would
be done and borne.

“When you’re
bigger,” she had said, “you can read it.”

But the man took hold
83
84 IDPH
of one of his arms, and it hurt.

“But of course!” he cried, making up for his
first hesitations with an excess of noisy cordiality.

A long
talk which she didn’t understand; and in the end she started crying louder than
ever.

He remembered a huge room, rather dark; and there were big wooden things
with strings fastened to them, and lots of women standing round them-making
blankets, Linda said.

And she would tell him about the lovely music that came
out of a box, and all the nice games you could play, and the delicious things to
eat and drink, and the light that came when you pressed a little thing in the
wall, asd the pictures that you could hear and feel and smell, as well as see,
and another box for making nice smells, and the pink and green and blue and
silver houses as high as mountains, and everybody happy and no one ever
sad or angry, and every one belonging to every o...

He remembered a huge room, rather dark; and there were big wooden things
with strings fastened to them, and lots of women standing round them-making
blankets, Linda said.

The more the boys pointed and sang, the harder he read.

The whip
came down again, and again Linda screamed.

She lay in bed and was
sad.

And she would tell him about the lovely music that came
out of a box, and all the nice games you could play, and the delicious things to
eat and drink, and the light that came when you pressed a little thing in the
wall, asd the pictures that you could hear and feel and smell, as well as see,
and another box for making nice smells, and the pink and green and blue and
silver houses as high as mountains, and everybody happy and no one ever
sad or angry, and every one belonging to every o...

Then
suddenly, crash! something was upset; he heard people moving about quickly,
and there was another crash and then a noise like hitting a mule, only not so
bony; then Linda screamed.

There was a long silence.

“They
say those men are their men,” she went on; and she did not seem to be talking
to him at all; she seemed to be talking with some one inside herself.

The
mere suggestion of illness or wounds was to him not only horrifying, but even
repulsive and rather disgusting.

He shut his eyes, expecting the blow.

“Please, please.”

Popé used to come often.

Or else she drank the stuff that Popé brought and laughed a great deal and
went to sleep.

Linda said,
“No.” But the man bent over the bed towards him and his face was huge, terrible;
the black ropes of hair touched the blanket.

She didn’t answer.

A mother, and all
this dirt, and gods, and old age, and disease .”

Sometimes she was sick.

Often she forgot to wash him, and there
http://www.idph.net
86 IDPH
was nothing to eat except cold tortillas.

The strange words rolled through his mind; rumbled, like talking thunder; like
the drums at the summer dances, if the drums could have spoken; like the men
singing the Corn Song, beautiful, beautiful, so that you cried; like old Mitsima
saying magic over his feathers and his carved sticks and his bits of bone and
stone-kiathla tsilu silokwe silokwe silokwe.

He ran out into the other room to hide his tears.

If it
hadn’t been for you, I might have gone to the Inspector, I might have got away.

Her voice got fainter and fainter.

Once, twice, three times;
and each time Linda screamed.

He put his arm round her neck.

At the edge of the clid they
halted, facing the early morning sun.

Lying in bed, he
would think of Heaven and London and Our Lady of Acoma and the rows and
rows of babies in clean bottles and Jesus flying up and Linda flying up and the
great Director of World Hatcheries and Awonawilona.

These words and the strange, strange story out of which they were
taken (he couldn’t make head or tail of it, but it was wonderful, wonderful all
the same)-they gave him a reason for hating Popé; and they made his hatred
more real; they even made Popé himself more real.

Now the world has four wombs; and he laid the seeds in the lowest of the four
wombs.

OUTSIDE, in the dust and among the garbage (there were four dogs now), Bernard
and John were walking slowly up and down.

And she would tell him about the lovely music that came
out of a box, and all the nice games you could play, and the delicious things to
eat and drink, and the light that came when you pressed a little thing in the
wall, asd the pictures that you could hear and feel and smell, as well as see,
and another box for making nice smells, and the pink and green and blue and
silver houses as high as mountains, and everybody happy and no one ever
sad or angry, and every one belonging to ...

When he tore his clothes, Linda did not
know how to mend them.

She cried
out, wrenched her hand free, and gave him such a push that he fell down.

And she would tell him about the lovely music that came
out of a box, and all the nice games you could play, and the delicious things to
eat and drink, and the light that came when you pressed a little thing in the
wall, asd the pictures that you could hear and feel and smell, as well as see,
and another box for making nice smells, and the pink and green and blue and
silver houses as high as mountains, and everybody happy and no one ever
sad or angry, and every one belonging to ...

He said the stuff in the gourd was called mescal;
but Linda said it ought to be called soma; only it made you feel ill afterwards.

And Mitsima also sang-a
song about killing a bear.

He shut his eyes, expecting the blow.

But the man took hold
83
84 IDPH
of one of his arms, and it hurt.

“Oh, stuff like magnesium salts, and alcohol for keeping the Deltas and Epsilons
small and backward, and calcium carbonate for bones, and all that sort of
thing.”

The words awoke a plaintive echo in Bernard’s mind.

“Turned into a savage,” she shouted.

Linda was still holding him, still saying, “No, no.”

“They
say those men are their men,” she went on; and she did not seem to be talking
to him at all; she seemed to be talking with some one inside herself.

He stepped
back in the outer room.

He listened by the hour.

“But why did they want to hurt you, Linda?” he asked that night.

His hair was like two black ropes, and round
his arm was a lovely silver bracelet with blue stones in it.

“It was lying in one of the chests of the Antelope Kiva.

He picked it up, looked at the title-page: the book was called The Complete
Works of William Shakespeare.

Linda said,
“No.” But the man bent over the bed towards him and his face was huge, terrible;
the black ropes of hair touched the blanket.

But
he was also crying because people were so beastly and unfair, and because he
was only a little boy and couldn’t do anything against them.

“So hard for me to realize,” Bernard was saying, “to reconstruct.

And she would tell him about the lovely music that came
out of a box, and all the nice games you could play, and the delicious things to
eat and drink, and the light that came when you pressed a little thing in the
wall, asd the pictures that you could hear and feel and smell, as well as see,
and another box for making nice smells, and the pink and green and blue and
silver houses as high as mountains, and everybody happy and no one ever
sad or angry, and every one belonging to ...

I shall never understand, unless you explain.”

And she would tell him about the lovely music that came
out of a box, and all the nice games you could play, and the delicious things to
eat and drink, and the light that came when you pressed a little thing in the
wall, asd the pictures that you could hear and feel and smell, as well as see,
and another box for making nice smells, and the pink and green and blue and
silver houses as high as mountains, and everybody happy and no one ever
sad or angry, and every one belonging to ...

It hurt more
than anything he had ever felt-like fire.

He shut his eyes, expecting the blow.

Linda said,
“No.” But the man bent over the bed towards him and his face was huge, terrible;
the black ropes of hair touched the blanket.

The old man squeezed the lump into a disk, then bent
up the edges, the moon became a shallow cup.

And
sometimes, when he and the other children were tired with too much playing,
one of the old men of the pueblo would talk to them, in those other words, of
the great Transformer of the World, and of the long fight between Right Hand
and Left Hand, between Wet and Dry; of Awonawilona, who made a great fog
by thinking in the night, and then made the whole world out of the fog; of
Earth Mother and Sky Father; of Ahaiyuta and Marsailema, the twins of War
and Chance; of Jesus and ...

His cheeks burnt with the rush of blood,
the room swam and darkened before his eyes.

The man looked
at him, then again at Linda, and said a few words in a soft voice.

He hated Popé more and more.

Suddenly people started talking very loud, and there were the women
pushing Linda away, and Linda was crying.

In the strange other words they said that Linda was bad; they called her names
he did not understand, but that he knew were bad names.

OUTSIDE, in the dust and among the garbage (there were four dogs now), Bernard
and John were walking slowly up and down.

One day, when he came in from playing, the door of the inner room was open,
and he saw them lying together on the bed, asleep-white Linda and Popé almost
black beside her, with one arm under her shoulders and the other dark hand on
her breast, and one of the plaits of his long hair lying across her throat, like a
black snake trying to strangle her.

Hanging there in the sun .”

As far back as you can remember.”

OUTSIDE, in the dust and among the garbage (there were four dogs now), Bernard
and John were walking slowly up and down.

He had only
to take one step, one little jump..

He lifted the thick yellow hair from his forehead.

And
sometimes, when he and the other children were tired with too much playing,
one of the old men of the pueblo would talk to them, in those other words, of
the great Transformer of the World, and of the long fight between Right Hand
and Left Hand, between Wet and Dry; of Awonawilona, who made a great fog
by thinking in the night, and then made the whole world out of the fog; of
Earth Mother and Sky Father; of Ahaiyuta and Marsailema, the twins of War
and Chance; of Jesus and ...

“Didn’t eat anything for five days
and then went out one night alone into those mountains there.”

“And you
really can go flying, whenever you like?”

He paid no attention to her calling, but ran on, away, away, anywhere to be by
himself.

Men were standing, dark, at the entrance to the kiva; the ladder went
down into the red lighted depths.

He played with the little boys for a long
time.

He had a big gourd full of stuff that looked like water;
only it wasn’t water, but something with a bad smell that burnt your mouth
and made you cough.

“What on earth for?”

Another was lying across her legs, so that she
couldn’t kick.

The knife for the meat was
lying on the floor near the fireplace.

Hanging there in the sun .”

And
sometimes, when he and the other children were tired with too much playing,
one of the old men of the pueblo would talk to them, in those other words, of
the great Transformer of the World, and of the long fight between Right Hand
and Left Hand, between Wet and Dry; of Awonawilona, who made a great fog
by thinking in the night, and then made the whole world out of the fog; of
Earth Mother and Sky Father; of Ahaiyuta and Marsailema, the twins of War
and Chance; of Jesus and Pookong...

These words and the strange, strange story out of which they were
taken (he couldn’t make head or tail of it, but it was wonderful, wonderful all
the same)-they gave him a reason for hating Popé; and they made his hatred
more real; they even made Popé himself more real.

“Because I broke something,”
she said.

One
afternoon, when he had been playing with the other children-it was cold, he
remembered, and there was snow on the mountains-he came back to the house
and heard angry voices in the bedroom.

Kothlu came first, his right
hand out-stretched and tightly closed, as though over some precious jewel.

Lying in bed, he
would think of Heaven and London and Our Lady of Acoma and the rows and
rows of babies in clean bottles and Jesus flying up and Linda flying up and the
great Director of World Hatcheries and Awonawilona.

“No,” Linda said again, and
he felt her hand squeezing him more tightly.

Lying in bed, he
would think of Heaven and London and Our Lady of Acoma and the rows and
rows of babies in clean bottles and Jesus flying up and Linda flying up and the
great Director of World Hatcheries and Awonawilona.

It was very hot.

She cried
out, wrenched her hand free, and gave him such a push that he fell down.

How beauteous mankind is!”

And she would tell him about the lovely music that came
out of a box, and all the nice games you could play, and the delicious things to
eat and drink, and the light that came when you pressed a little thing in the
wall, asd the pictures that you could hear and feel and smell, as well as see,
and another box for making nice smells, and the pink and green and blue and
silver houses as high as mountains, and everybody happy and no one ever
sad or angry, and every one belonging to ...

And
sometimes, when he and the other children were tired with too much playing,
one of the old men of the pueblo would talk to them, in those other words, of
the great Transformer of the World, and of the long fight between Right Hand
and Left Hand, between Wet and Dry; of Awonawilona, who made a great fog
by thinking in the night, and then made the whole world out of the fog; of
Earth Mother and Sky Father; of Ahaiyuta and Marsailema, the twins of War
and Chance; of Jesus and Pookong...

And she would tell him about the lovely music that came
out of a box, and all the nice games you could play, and the delicious things to
eat and drink, and the light that came when you pressed a little thing in the
wall, asd the pictures that you could hear and feel and smell, as well as see,
and another box for making nice smells, and the pink and green and blue and
silver houses as high as mountains, and everybody happy and no one ever
sad or angry, and every one belonging to ...

The strange words rolled through his mind; rumbled, like talking thunder; like
the drums at the summer dances, if the drums could have spoken; like the men
singing the Corn Song, beautiful, beautiful, so that you cried; like old Mitsima
saying magic over his feathers and his carved sticks and his bits of bone and
stone-kiathla tsilu silokwe silokwe silokwe.

But the man took hold
83
84 IDPH
of one of his arms, and it hurt.

Suddenly she put her arms
round him and kissed him again and again.

Besides, I was unhappy; that was
another reason.”

A mother, and all
this dirt, and gods, and old age, and disease .”

He had a big gourd full of stuff that looked like water;
only it wasn’t water, but something with a bad smell that burnt your mouth
and made you cough.

He hated them all-all the men who came to see Linda.

They lay down together in the big bed.

He kicked and wriggled; but the man carried him across to the door,
opened it, put him down on the floor in the middle of the other room, and went
away, shutting the door behind hirn.

With a piece of charcoal she drew pictures on the
wall-an animal sitting down, a baby inside a bottle; then she wrote letters.

Linda put her hand on him and he felt safer.

“O
brave new world,” he began, then-suddenly interrupted himself; the blood had
left his cheeks; he was as pale as paper.

“I’m afraid you won’t find it very exciting,” she said.

When they got back to their house, Popé was waiting at the door, and
he came in with them.

He had a big gourd full of stuff that looked like water;
only it wasn’t water, but something with a bad smell that burnt your mouth
and made you cough.

He remembered a huge room, rather dark; and there were big wooden things
with strings fastened to them, and lots of women standing round them-making
blankets, Linda said.

He caught hold of the woman’s
enormous brown hand between his own and bit it with all his might.

One day, when he came in from playing, the door of the inner room was open,
and he saw them lying together on the bed, asleep-white Linda and Popé almost
black beside her, with one arm under her shoulders and the other dark hand on
her breast, and one of the plaits of his long hair lying across her throat, like a
black snake trying to strangle her.

He remembered a huge room, rather dark; and there were big wooden things
with strings fastened to them, and lots of women standing round them-making
blankets, Linda said.

It was fairly easy, if he thought hard enough about
the reading, to pretend that he didn’t mind when they made fun of him.

Her voice was thick and hoarse like somebody else’s
voice.

Or else she drank the stuff that Popé brought and laughed a great deal and
went to sleep.

As though
we were living on different planets, in different centuries.

Or else she drank the stuff that Popé brought and laughed a great deal and
went to sleep.

But their magic was strong and went on rumbling in
his head, and somehow it was as though he had never really hated Popé before;
never really hated him because he had never been able to say how much he
hated him.

OUTSIDE, in the dust and among the garbage (there were four dogs now), Bernard
and John were walking slowly up and down.

All alone, outside the pueblo, on the bare plain of the mesa.

She was grown up, but she wasn’t big enough to fight against three of
them.

Now the world has four wombs; and he laid the seeds in the lowest of the four
wombs.

With her free hand she held him away.

He said the stuff in the gourd was called mescal;
but Linda said it ought to be called soma; only it made you feel ill afterwards.

“Turned into a savage,” she shouted.

And
sometimes, when he and the other children were tired with too much playing,
one of the old men of the pueblo would talk to them, in those other words, of
the great Transformer of the World, and of the long fight between Right Hand
and Left Hand, between Wet and Dry; of Awonawilona, who made a great fog
by thinking in the night, and then made the whole world out of the fog; of
Earth Mother and Sky Father; of Ahaiyuta and Marsailema, the twins of War
and Chance; of Jesus and ...

And it was the little house outside the
village.

And
sometimes, when he and the other children were tired with too much playing,
one of the old men of the pueblo would talk to them, in those other words, of
the great Transformer of the World, and of the long fight between Right Hand
and Left Hand, between Wet and Dry; of Awonawilona, who made a great fog
by thinking in the night, and then made the whole world out of the fog; of
Earth Mother and Sky Father; of Ahaiyuta and Marsailema, the twins of War
and Chance; of Jesus and ...

When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage
Or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed.

Then
suddenly, crash! something was upset; he heard people moving about quickly,
and there was another crash and then a noise like hitting a mule, only not so
bony; then Linda screamed.

The
binding had been eaten by mice; some of its pages were loose and crumpled.

“The fat’s in the liver, the cod’s in the sea.”

He asked her why they were angry.

And when the bottles are
empty, you send up to the Chemical Store for more.

The knife for the meat was
lying on the floor near the fireplace.

A pinch of corn
meal lay white on the palm; he breathed on it, murmured a few words, then
threw it, a handful of white dust, towards the sun.

He shook his head.

They worked all day, and all day he was filled with
an intense, absorbing happiness.

Linda put her hand on him and he felt safer.

And she would tell him about the lovely music that came
out of a box, and all the nice games you could play, and the delicious things to
eat and drink, and the light that came when you pressed a little thing in the
wall, asd the pictures that you could hear and feel and smell, as well as see,
and another box for making nice smells, and the pink and green and blue and
silver houses as high as mountains, and everybody happy and no one ever
sad or angry, and every one belonging to ...

His hair was like two black ropes, and round
his arm was a lovely silver bracelet with blue stones in it.

“But why did they want to hurt you, Linda?” he asked that night.

He caught hold of the woman’s
enormous brown hand between his own and bit it with all his might.

Nay, but to live
In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,
Stew’d in corruption, honeying and making love
Over the nasty sty.

In those other words he did not
understand so well, she said to the man, “Not with John here.”

“You are fifteen,” said old Mitsima, in the Indian words.

When the other boys were sent out to spend the night on
the mountains-you know, when you have to dream which your sacred animal
is-they wouldn’t let me go with the others; they wouldn’t tell me any of the secrets.

It was fairly easy, if he thought hard enough about
the reading, to pretend that he didn’t mind when they made fun of him.

He kicked and wriggled; but the man carried him across to the door,
opened it, put him down on the floor in the middle of the other room, and went
away, shutting the door behind hirn.

When he knew how to read all the words she wrote on the wall, Linda opened
her big wooden box and pulled out from under those funny little red trousers
she never wore a thin little book.

In the Other Place, she told him, people threw away
clothes with holes in them and got new ones.

The flush suddenly deehttp://
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IDPH 93
pened; he was thinking of Lenina, of an angel in bottle-green viscose, lustrous
with youth and skin food, plump, benevolently smiling.

With her free hand she held him away.

Linda told him to sit in the corner with the other children,
while she went and helped the women.

She was grown up, but she wasn’t big enough to fight against three of
them.

The flush suddenly deehttp://
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IDPH 93
pened; he was thinking of Lenina, of an angel in bottle-green viscose, lustrous
with youth and skin food, plump, benevolently smiling.

And gradually the seeds began to grow .”

He tried to smile at her.

Once, twice, three times;
and each time Linda screamed.

He liked the bracelet;
but all the same, he was frightened; he hid his face against Linda’s body.

And she would tell him about the lovely music that came
out of a box, and all the nice games you could play, and the delicious things to
eat and drink, and the light that came when you pressed a little thing in the
wall, asd the pictures that you could hear and feel and smell, as well as see,
and another box for making nice smells, and the pink and green and blue and
silver houses as high as mountains, and everybody happy and no one ever
sad or angry, and every one belonging to every o...

He ground his teeth.

And then she got angry too.

He remembered the first time she found
those little animals in his hair, how she screamed and screamed.

Linda told him to sit in the corner with the other children,
while she went and helped the women.

He picked it up, looked at the title-page: the book was called The Complete
Works of William Shakespeare.

Kiai silu silu, tsithl-but better than
Mitsima’s magic, because it meant more, because it talked to him, talked wonderfully
and only half-understandably, a terrible beautiful magic, about Linda;
about Linda lying there snoring, with the empty cup on the floor beside the bed;
about Linda and Popé, Linda and Popé.

He liked the bracelet;
but all the same, he was frightened; he hid his face against Linda’s body.

The boys began to point their fingers at him.

And she would tell him about the lovely music that came
out of a box, and all the nice games you could play, and the delicious things to
eat and drink, and the light that came when you pressed a little thing in the
wall, asd the pictures that you could hear and feel and smell, as well as see,
and another box for making nice smells, and the pink and green and blue and
silver houses as high as mountains, and everybody happy and no one ever
sad or angry, and every one belonging to every o...

The bruises hurt him, the cuts were still bleeding; but it was not
for pain that he sobbed; it was because he was all alone, because he had been
driven out, alone, into this skeleton world of rocks and moonlight.

They walked in silence,
and in silence, behind them, came the brothers and sisters and cousins and
all the troop of old people.

One day, when he came in from playing, the door of the inner room was open,
and he saw them lying together on the bed, asleep-white Linda and Popé almost
black beside her, with one arm under her shoulders and the other dark hand on
her breast, and one of the plaits of his long hair lying across her throat, like a
black snake trying to strangle her.

Another was lying across her legs, so that she
couldn’t kick.

OUTSIDE, in the dust and among the garbage (there were four dogs now), Bernard
and John were walking slowly up and down.

Popé used to come often.

Linda said,
“No.” But the man bent over the bed towards him and his face was huge, terrible;
the black ropes of hair touched the blanket.

As though
we were living on different planets, in different centuries.

Once, twice, three times;
and each time Linda screamed.

He paid no attention to her calling, but ran on, away, away, anywhere to be by
himself.

She was grown up, but she wasn’t big enough to fight against three of
them.

Popé used to come often.

He had a big gourd full of stuff that looked like water;
only it wasn’t water, but something with a bad smell that burnt your mouth
and made you cough.

OUTSIDE, in the dust and among the garbage (there were four dogs now), Bernard
and John were walking slowly up and down.

Mitsima squeezed and patted, stroked and scraped; and there
at last it stood, in shape the familiar water pot of Malpais, but creamy white
instead of black, and still soft to the touch.

He hated them all-all the men who came to see Linda.

The blood woudn’t stop; he was covered with blood.

John looked surprised.

It was very hot.

“First of all,” said Mitsima, taking a lump of the wetted clay between his hands,
“we make a little moon.”

He caught hold of the woman’s
enormous brown hand between his own and bit it with all his might.

Popé used to come often.

Then
suddenly, crash! something was upset; he heard people moving about quickly,
and there was another crash and then a noise like hitting a mule, only not so
bony; then Linda screamed.

John also laughed, but for another reason-laughed for pure joy.

I mean,
Linda always said that nobody was ever alone there.”

“Oh, stuff like magnesium salts, and alcohol for keeping the Deltas and Epsilons
small and backward, and calcium carbonate for bones, and all that sort of
thing.”

He lifted the thick yellow hair from his forehead.

For a long time, for hours and hours.

And
sometimes, when he and the other children were tired with too much playing,
one of the old men of the pueblo would talk to them, in those other words, of
the great Transformer of the World, and of the long fight between Right Hand
and Left Hand, between Wet and Dry; of Awonawilona, who made a great fog
by thinking in the night, and then made the whole world out of the fog; of
Earth Mother and Sky Father; of Ahaiyuta and Marsailema, the twins of War
and Chance; of Jesus and ...

He listened by the hour.

And she would tell him about the lovely music that came
out of a box, and all the nice games you could play, and the delicious things to
eat and drink, and the light that came when you pressed a little thing in the
wall, asd the pictures that you could hear and feel and smell, as well as see,
and another box for making nice smells, and the pink and green and blue and
silver houses as high as mountains, and everybody happy and no one ever
sad or angry, and every one belonging to ...

And gradually the seeds began to grow .”

Or else she drank the stuff that Popé brought and laughed a great deal and
went to sleep.

The strange words rolled through his mind; rumbled, like talking thunder; like
the drums at the summer dances, if the drums could have spoken; like the men
singing the Corn Song, beautiful, beautiful, so that you cried; like old Mitsima
saying magic over his feathers and his carved sticks and his bits of bone and
stone-kiathla tsilu silokwe silokwe silokwe.

He shook his head.

These words and the strange, strange story out of which they were
taken (he couldn’t make head or tail of it, but it was wonderful, wonderful all
the same)-they gave him a reason for hating Popé; and they made his hatred
more real; they even made Popé himself more real.

It is finished Old Mitsima’s words repeated themselves in his mind.

A mother, and all
this dirt, and gods, and old age, and disease .”

But on second
thoughts he decided that there was, after all, some sense in it.

Linda was in bed and so
fast asleep that he couldn’t wake her.

Bleeding, he ran away into the darkness.

Strange stories, all the more wonderful to him for
being told in the other words and so not fully understood.

And
sometimes, when he and the other children were tired with too much playing,
one of the old men of the pueblo would talk to them, in those other words, of
the great Transformer of the World, and of the long fight between Right Hand
and Left Hand, between Wet and Dry; of Awonawilona, who made a great fog
by thinking in the night, and then made the whole world out of the fog; of
Earth Mother and Sky Father; of Ahaiyuta and Marsailema, the twins of War
and Chance; of Jesus and ...

That would have been too shameful.”

He had a big gourd full of stuff that looked like water;
only it wasn’t water, but something with a bad smell that burnt your mouth
and made you cough.

The boys were all afraid and at the same time impatient.

“It’s almost
inconceivable.

He ran across the room and
stabbed-oh, the blood!-stabbed again, as Popé heaved out of his sleep, lifted his
hand to stab once more, but found his wrist caught, held and-oh, oh!-twisted.

One
afternoon, when he had been playing with the other children-it was cold, he
remembered, and there was snow on the mountains-he came back to the house
and heard angry voices in the bedroom.

I did it by myself, though,” he added.

Sang “Streptocock-Gee to Banbury-T” and “Bye Baby Banting,
soon you’ll need decanting.”

The young man drew a deep breath.

She had pulled the blanket up to her chin,
but the man pulled it down again.

The happiest times were when she told him ahout the Other Place.

Strange stories, all the more wonderful to him for
being told in the other words and so not fully understood.

And
sometimes, when he and the other children were tired with too much playing,
one of the old men of the pueblo would talk to them, in those other words, of
the great Transformer of the World, and of the long fight between Right Hand
and Left Hand, between Wet and Dry; of Awonawilona, who made a great fog
by thinking in the night, and then made the whole world out of the fog; of
Earth Mother and Sky Father; of Ahaiyuta and Marsailema, the twins of War
and Chance; of Jesus and ...

While
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IDPH 85
he was lying on the ground she hit him three times with the whip.

Then
Khakimé’s father stepped forward, and holding up a feathered prayer stick,
made a long prayer, then threw the stick after the corn meal.

There were three women in dark blankets.