Page 282 - BRAVE NEW WORLD By Aldous Huxley (1894-1963)

Brave New World By Aldous Huxley

functions of a friend is to suffer (in a milder and

symbolic form) the punishments that we should like,

but are unable, to inflict upon our enemies.

Bernard's other victim-friend was Helmholtz.

When, discomfited, he came and asked once more

for the friendshipwhich, in his prosperity, he had not

thought it worth his while to preserve. Helmholtz

gave it; and gave it without a reproach, without a

comment, as though he had forgotten that there had

ever been a quarrel. Touched, Bernard felt himself

at the same time humiliated by this magnanimity–a

magnanimity the more extraordinary and therefore

the more humiliating in that it owed nothing to

soma and everything to Helmholtz's character. It

was the Helmholtz of daily life who forgot and

forgave, not the Helmholtz of a half-gramme

holiday. Bernard was duly grateful (it was an

enormous comfort to have his friend again) and

also duly resentful (it would be pleasure to take

some revenge on Helmholtz for his generosity).

At their first meeting after the

282
E-Text Conversion by Nalanda Digital Library