Page 288 - BRAVE NEW WORLD By Aldous Huxley (1894-1963)

Brave New World By Aldous Huxley

interrupt again. And yet, strangely enough, the

next interruption, the most disgraceful of all, came

from Helmholtz himself.

The Savage was reading Romeo and Juliet

aloud–reading (for all the time he was seeing

himself as Romeo and Lenina as Juliet) with an

intense and quivering passion. Helmholtz had

listened to the scene of the lovers' first meeting with

a puzzled interest. The scene in the orchard had

delighted him with its poetry; but the sentiments

expressed had made him smile. Getting into such a

state about having a girl–it seemed rather

ridiculous. But, taken detail by verbal detail, what a

superb piece of emotional engineering! "That old

fellow," he said, "he makes our best propaganda

technicians look absolutely silly." The Savage smiled

triumphantly and resumed his reading. All went

tolerably well until, in the last scene of the third

act, Capulet and Lady Capulet began to bully Juliet

to marry Paris. Helmholtz had been restless

throughout the entirescene; but when, pathetically

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