Page 239 - BRAVE NEW WORLD By Aldous Huxley (1894-1963)

Brave New World By Aldous Huxley

were quite determined not to see Linda. And Linda,

for her part, had no desire to see them. The return

to civilization was for her the return to soma, was

the possibility of lying in bed and taking holiday

after holiday, without ever having to come back to

a headache or a fit of vomiting, without ever being

made to feel as you always felt after peyotl, as

though you'd done something so shamefully anti-

social that you could never hold up your head again.

Soma played none of these unpleasant tricks. The

holiday it gave was perfect and, if the morning after

was disagreeable, it was so, not intrinsically, but

only by comparison with the joys of the holiday. The

remedy was to make the holiday continuous.

Greedily she clamoured for ever larger, ever more

frequent doses. Dr. Shaw at first demurred; then let

her have what she wanted. She took as much as

twenty grammes a day.

"Which will finish her off in a month or two,"

the doctor confided to Bernard. "One day the

respiratory centre will be paralyzed. No more

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