Author: Aldous Huxley
Category: Literature
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As the Narrator speaks, we dissolve to the alfresco picnic of the baboons and their captive Einsteins. They eat and drink with gusto, while the first two bars of ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers’ are repeated again and again, faster and faster, louder and louder. Suddenly the music is interrupted by the first of a succession of enormous explosions. Darkness. A long-drawn, deafening noise of crashing, rending, screaming, moaning. Then silence and increasing light, and once again it is the hour before sunrise, with the morning star and the delicate, pure music.
NARRATOR
Beauty inexpressible, peace beyond understanding ...
Far off, from below the horizon, a column of rosy smoke pushes up into the sky, swells out into the likeness of an enormous toadstool and hangs there, eclipsing the solitary planet.
We dissolve again to the scene of the picnic. The baboons are all dead. Horribly disfigured by burns, the two Einsteins lie side by side under what remains of a flowering apple tree. Not far off, a pressure-tank is still oozing its Improved Glanders.
FIRST EINSTEIN
It’s unjust, it isn’t right ...
SECOND EINSTEIN
We, who never did any harm to anybody;
FIRST EINSTEIN
We, who lived only for Truth.
NARRATOR
And that precisely is why you are dying in the murderous service of baboons. Pascal explained it all more than three hundred years ago. ‘We make an idol of truth; for truth without charity is not God, but his image and idol, which we must neither love nor worship.’ You lived for the worship of an idol. But, in the last analysis, the name of every idol is Moloch. So here you are, my friends, here you are.
Stirred by a sudden gust, the stagnant plague-fog noiselessly advances, sends a wreath of pus-coloured vapour swirling among the apple blossoms, then descends to engulf the two recumbent figures. A choking scream announces the death, by suicide, of twentieth-century science.
We dissolve to a point on the coast of Southern California, twenty miles or thereabouts due west of Los Angeles. The scientists of the Re-Discovery Expedition are in the act of landing from a whale-boat. A huge sewer, shattered where it enters the sea, stands in the background.
NARRATOR
Parthenon, Coliseum —
Glory that was Greece, grandeur, etcetera.
And there are all the others: —
Thebes and Copan, Arezzo and Ajanta;
Bourges, taking heaven by violence,
And the Holy Wisdom, floating in repose.
But the glory that was Queen Victoria
Remains unquestionably the W.C.;
The grandeur that was Franklin Delano
Is this by far the biggest drain-pipe ever —
Dry now and shattered, Ichabod, Ichabod;
And its freight of condoms (irrepressibly buoyant,
Like hope, like concupiscence) no longer whitens
This lonely beach with a galaxy as of wind-flowers
Or summer daisies.
Meanwhile the scientists, with Dr. Craigie at their head, have crossed the beach, scrambled up the low cliff and are making their way across the sandy and eroded plain towards the oil-wells on the hills beyond.
The Camera holds on Dr. Poole, the Chief Botanist of the Expedition. Like a browsing sheep, he moves from plant to plant, examining flowers through his magnifying glass, putting away specimens in his collecting box, making notes in a little black book.
NARRATOR
Well, here he is, our hero, Dr. Alfred Poole, D.Sc. Better known to his students and younger colleagues as Stagnant Poole. And the nickname, alas, is painfully apt. For though not unhandsome, as you see, though a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand and by no means a fool, in the circumstances of practical life his intelligence seems to be only potential, his attractiveness no more than latent. It is as though he lived behind plate glass, could see and be seen, but never establish contact. And the fault, as Dr. Schneeglock of the Psychology Department is only too ready to tell you, the fault lies with that devoted and intensely widowed Mother of his — that saint, that pillar of fortitude, that vampire, who still presides at his breakfast table and with her own hands launders his silk shirts and sacrificially darns his socks.
Miss Hook now enters the shot — enters it on a burst of enthusiasm.
‘Isn’t this exciting, Alfred!’ she exclaims.
‘Very,’ says Dr. Poole politely.
‘Seeing Yucca gloriosa in its native habitat — who would have imagined that we’d ever get the chance? And Artemisia tridentata.’
‘There are still some flowers on the Artemisia,’ says Dr. Poole. ‘Do you notice anything unusual about them?’
Miss Hook examines them, and shakes her head.
‘They’re a great deal bigger than what’s described in the old text-books,’ he says in a tone of studiedly repressed excitement.
‘A great deal bigger?’ she repeats. Her face lights up. ‘Alfred, you don’t think ...?’
Dr. Poole nods.
‘I’m ready to bet on it,’ he says. ‘Tetraploidy. Induced by irradiation with gamma-rays.’
‘Oh, Alfred!’ she cries ecstatically.
NARRATOR
In her tweeds and her horn-rimmed spectacles Ethel Hook is one of those extraordinarily wholesome, amazingly efficient and intensely English girls to whom, unless one is oneself equally wholesome, equally English and even more efficient, one would so much rather not be married. Which is probably why, at thirty-five, Ethel is still without a husband. Still without a husband — but not, she dares to hope, for much longer. For though dear Alfred has not yet actually proposed, she knows (and knows that he knows) that his Mother’s dearest wish is for him to do so — and Alfred is the most dutiful of sons. Besides, they have so much in common — botany, the University, the poetry of Wordsworth. She feels confident that before they get back to Auckland it will all be arranged — the simple ceremony with dear old Dr. Trilliams officiating, the honeymoon in the Southern Alps, the return to their sweet little house in Mount Eden, and then, after eighteen months, the first baby ...
Cut to the other members of the expedition, as they toil up the hill towards the oil-wells. Professor Craigie, their leader, halts to mop his brow and to take stock of his charges.
‘Where’s Poole?’ he asks. ‘And Ethel Hook?’
Somebody points and, in a long shot, we see the distant figures of the two botanists.
Cut back to Professor Craigie, who cups his hands around his mouth and shouts: ‘Poole, Poole!’
‘Why don’t you leave them to their little romance?’ asks the genial Cudworth.
‘Romance indeed!’ Dr. Schneeglock snorts derisively.
‘But she’s obviously sweet on him.’
‘It takes two to make a romance.’
‘Trust a woman to get her man to pop the question.’
‘You might as well expect him to commit incest with his Mother,’ says Dr. Schneeglock emphatically.
‘Poole!’ bellows Professor Craigie once more, and turning to the others, ‘I don’t like people to lag behind,’ he says in a tone of irritation. ‘In a strange country ... You never know.’
He renews his shouting.
Cut back to Dr. Poole and Miss Hook. They hear the distant call, look up from their tetraploid Artemisia, wave their hands and start in pursuit of the others. Suddenly Dr. Poole catches sight of something that makes him cry aloud.
‘Look!’ He points a forefinger.
‘What is it?’
‘Echinocactus hexaedrophorus — and the most beautiful specimen.’
Medium long shot from his viewpoint of a ruined bungalow among the sage-brush. Then a close shot of the cactus growing between two paving-stones, near the front door. Cut back to Dr. Poole. From the leather sheath at his belt he draws a long, narrow-bladed trowel.
‘You’re not going to dig it up?’
His only answer is to walk over to where the cactus is growing and squat down beside it.
‘Professor Craigie will be so cross,’ protests Miss Hook.
‘Well, then, run ahead and keep him quiet.’
She looks at him for a few seconds with an expression of solicitude.
‘I hate to leave you alone, Alfred.’
‘You talk as though I were five years old,’ he answers irritably. ‘Go ahead, I tell you.’
He turns away and starts to dig.
Miss Hook does not immediately obey, but stands looking at him in silence for a little while longer.
NARRATOR
Tragedy is the farce that involves our sympathies; farce, the tragedy that happens to outsiders. Tweedy and breezy, wholesome and efficient, this object of the easiest kind of satire is also the subject of an Intimate Journal. What flaming sunsets she has seen and vainly attempted to describe! What velvety and voluptuous summer nights! What lyrically lovely days of spring! And oh, the torrents of feeling, the temptations, the hopes, the passionate throbbing of the heart, the humiliating disappointments! And now, after all these years, after so many committee meetings attended, so many lectures delivered and examination papers corrected, now at last, moving in His mysterious way, God has made her, she feels, responsible for this helpless and unhappy man. And because he is unhappy and helpless, she loves him — not romantically, of course, not as she loved that curly-headed scamp who, fifteen years ago, swept her off her feet and then married the daughter of that rich contractor, but genuinely none the less, with a strong, protective tenderness.
‘All right,’ she says at last. ‘I’ll go ahead. But promise you won’t be long.’
‘Of course I won’t be long.’
She turns and walks away. Dr. Poole looks after her; then, with a sigh of relief at finding himself once more alone, resumes his digging.
NARRATOR
‘Never,’ he is repeating to himself, ‘Never! Whatever Mother may say.’ For though he respects Miss Hook as a botanist, relies on her as an organizer and admires her as a high-minded person, the idea of being made one flesh with her is as unthinkable as a violation of the Categorical Imperative.
Suddenly, from behind him, three villainous-looking men, black-bearded, dirty and ragged, emerge very quietly from out of the ruins of the house, stand poised for a moment, then throw themselves upon the unsuspecting botanist and, before he can so much as utter a cry, force a gag into his mouth, tie his hands behind his back and drag him down into a gully, out of sight of his companions.
We dissolve to a panoramic view of Southern California from fifty miles up in the stratosphere. As the Camera plummets downwards, we hear the Narrator’s voice.
NARRATOR
The sea and its clouds, the mountains glaucous-golden,
The valleys full of indigo darkness,
The drouth of lion-coloured plains,
The rivers of pebbles and white sand.
And in the midst of them the City of the Angels.
Half a million houses,
Five thousand miles of streets,
Fifteen hundred thousand motor vehicles,
And more rubber goods than Akron,
More celluloid than the Soviets,
More Nylons than New Rochelle,
More brassieres than Buffalo,
More deodorants than Denver,
More oranges than anywhere,
With bigger and better girls —
The great Metrollopis of the West.
And now we are only five miles up and it becomes increasingly obvious that the great Metrollopis is a ghost town, that what was once the world’s largest oasis is now its greatest agglomeration of ruins in a waste-land. Nothing moves in the streets. Dunes of sand have drifted across the concrete. The avenues of palms and pepper trees have left no trace.
The Camera comes down over a large rectangular graveyard, lying between the ferro-concrete towers of Hollywood and those of Wilshire Boulevard. We land, pass under an arched gateway, enjoy a trucking shot of mortuary gazebos. A baby pyramid. A Gothic sentry box. A marble sarcophagus surmounted by weeping seraphs. The more than life-size statue of Hedda Boddy— ‘affectionately known,’ reads the inscription on the pedestal, ‘as Public Sweetheart Number One. “Hitch your wagon to a Star.”’ We hitch and move on; and suddenly in the midst of all this desolation, here is a little group of human beings. There are four men, heavily bearded and more than a little dirty, and two young women, all of them busy with shovels in or around an opened grave and all dressed identically in shirts and trousers of tattered homespun. Over these rough garments each wears a small square apron upon which, in scarlet wool, is embroidered the word ‘NO.’ In addition to the apron, the girls wear a round patch over either breast and, behind, a pair of somewhat larger patches on the seat of their trousers. Three unequivocal negatives greet us as they approach, two more, by way of Parthian shots, as they recede.
Overseeing the labourers from the roof of an adjacent mausoleum sits a man in his middle forties, tall, powerfully built, with the dark eyes and hawk nose of an Algerian corsair. A black curly beard emphasizes the moistness and redness of his full lips. Somewhat incongruously, he is dressed in a pale grey suit of midtwentieth-century cut, a little too small for him. When we catch our first sight of him, he is absorbed in the paring of his nails.
Cut back to the grave-diggers. One of them, the youngest and handsomest of the men, looks up from his shovelling, glances surreptitiously at the overseer on the roof and, seeing him busy with his nails, turns an intensely concupiscent look on the plump girl who stands, stooped over her spade, beside him. Close shot of the two prohibitory patches. NO and again NO, growing larger and larger the more longingly he looks. Cupped already for the deliciously imagined contact, his hand goes out, tentative, hesitant; then, with a jerk, as conscience abruptly gets the better of temptation, is withdrawn again. Biting his lip, the young man turns away and, with redoubled zeal, addresses himself once more to his digging.
Suddenly a spade strikes something hard. There is a cry of delight, a flurry of concerted activity. A moment later a handsome mahogany coffin is hoisted to the surface of the ground.
‘Break it open.’
‘O.K., Chief.’
We hear the creaking and cracking of rent wood.
‘Man or woman?’
‘Man.’
‘Fine! Spill him out.’
With a yo-heave-ho they tilt the coffin, and the corpse rolls out on to the sand. The eldest of the bearded gravediggers kneels down beside it and starts methodically to relieve the thing of its watch and jewellery.
NARRATOR
Thanks to the dry climate and the embalmer’s art, what remains of the Managing Director of the Golden Rule Brewing Corporation looks as though it had been buried only yesterday. The cheeks are still pink with the rouge applied by the undertaker for the lying-in-state. Stitched into a perpetual smile, the upturned corners of the lips impart to the round, crumpet-like face the maddeningly enigmatic expression of a Madonna by Boltraffio.
Suddenly the lash of a dog-whip cuts across the shoulders of the kneeling grave-digger. The Camera pulls back to reveal the Chief impending, whip in hand, like the embodiment of divine Vengeance, from the height of his marble Sinai.
‘Give back that ring.’
‘Which ring?’ the man falters.
For answer the Chief administers two or three more cuts with the dog-whip.
‘No, no — please! Ow! I’ll give it back. Stop!’
The culprit inserts two fingers into his mouth and after a little fumbling draws forth the handsome diamond ring which the deceased brewer bought for himself when business was so hearteningly good during the Second World War.
‘Put it there with the other things,’ commands the Chief, and, as the man obeys, ‘Twenty-five lashes,’ he continues with grim relish, ‘that’s what you’re going to get this evening.’
Blubbering, the man begs for indulgence — just for this once. Seeing that tomorrow is Belial Day ... And after all he’s old, he has worked faithfu
lly all his life, has risen to the rank of a Deputy Supervisor ...
The Chief cuts him short.
‘This is a Democracy,’ he says. ‘We’re all equal before the Law. And the Law says that everything belongs to the Proletariat — in other words, it all goes to the State. And what’s the penalty for robbing the State?’ The man looks up at him in speechless misery. ‘What’s the penalty?’ the Chief bellows, raising his whip.
‘Twenty-five lashes,’ comes the almost inaudible reply.
‘Good! Well, that settles that, doesn’t it? And now, what are the clothes like?’
The younger and slimmer of the girls bends down and fingers the corpse’s double-breasted black jacket.
‘Nice stuff,’ she says. ‘And no stains. He hasn’t leaked or anything.’
‘I’ll try them on,’ says the Chief.
With some difficulty they divest the cadaver of its trousers, coat and shirt, then drop it back into the grave and shovel the earth back over its one-piece undergarment. Meanwhile the Chief takes the clothes, sniffs at them critically, then doffs the pearl-grey jacket which once belonged to the Production Manager of Western-Shakespeare Pictures Incorporated, and slips his arms into the more conservative tailoring that goes with malt liquors and the Golden Rule.
NARRATOR
Put yourself in his place. You may not know it, but a complete scribbler, or first card-engine, consists of a breast, or small swift, and two swifts, with the accompanying workers, strippers, fancies, doffers, etc. And if you don’t have any carding machinery or power looms, if you don’t have any electric motors to run them, or any dynamos to generate the electricity, or any turbines to turn the dynamos, or any coal to raise steam, or any blast furnaces to make steel — why then, obviously, you must depend for your fine cloth on the cemeteries of those who once enjoyed these advantages. And so long as the radioactivity persisted, there weren’t even any cemeteries to exploit. For three generations the dwindling remnant of those who survived the consummation of technological progress lived precariously in the wilderness. It is only during the last thirty years that it has been safe for them to enjoy the buried remains of le confort moderne.