О дивный новый мир / Brave New World

“Elementary Class Consciousness, did you say? Let’s have it repeated a little louder by the trumpet.”

At the end of the room was a speaker. The Director walked up to it and pressed a switch.

“… all wear green,” said a soft but very distinct voice, beginning in the middle of a sentence, “and Delta Children wear khaki. I don’t want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They’re too stupid to be able to read or write. I’m so glad I’m a Beta.”

There was a pause; then the voice began again.

“Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they’re so clever. I’m really awfully glad I’m a Beta, because I don’t work so hard. And we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. I don’t want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They’re too stupid to be able…”

The Director pushed back the switch.

“They’ll have that repeated forty or fifty times more before they wake; then again on Thursday, and again on Saturday.

Once more the Director touched the switch.

“… so clever,” the soft voice was saying, “I’m really awfully glad I’m a Beta, because…”

“Till at last the child’s mind is these suggestions, and the suggestions are the child’s mind. And the adult’s mind too—all his life long. These are suggestions from the State.” He banged the nearest table.

A noise made him turn round.

“Oh, Ford!” he said in another tone, “I’ve woken the children.”

Chapter Three

Outside, in the garden, it was playtime. Six or seven hundred of naked little boys and girls were running with shrill yells over the lawns, or playing ball games, or squatting silently in twos and threes among the flowering shrubs. The air was drowsy with the murmur of bees and helicopters.

“That’s a charming little group,” said the Director, pointing.

In a little grassy bay two children, a little boy of about seven and a little girl who might have been a year older, were playing, very gravely and with all the focused attention of scientists intent on a labour of discovery, a rudimentary sexual game.

From a neighbouring shrubbery emerged a nurse, leading by the hand a small boy, who cried as he went. An anxious-looking little girl followed them.