Bernard's other victim-friend was Helmholtz.When,discomfited,he came and asked once more for the friendship which 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 a pleasure to take some revenge on Helmholtz for his generosity)。
At their first meeting after the estrangement,Bernard poured out the tale of his miseries and accepted consolation.It was not till some days later that he learned,to his surprise and with a twinge of shame,that he was not the only one who had been in trouble.Helmholtz had also come into conflict with Authority.
"It was over some rhymes,"he explained."I was giving my usual course of Advanced Emotional Engineering for Third Year Students.Twelve lectures,of which the seventh is about rhymes.'On the Use of Rhymes in Moral Propaganda and Advertisement,'to be precise.I always illustrate my lecture with a lot of technical examples.This time I thought I'd give them one I'd just written myself.Pure madness,of course;but I couldn't resist it."He laughed."I was curious to see what their reactions would be.Besides,"he added more gravely,"I wanted to do a bit of propaganda;I was trying to engineer them into feeling as I'd felt when I wrote the rhymes.Ford!"He laughed again."What an outcry there was!The Principal had me up and threatened to hand me the immediate sack.I'm a marked man."
"But what were your rhymes?"Bernard asked.
"They were about being alone."
Bernard's eyebrows went up.
"I'll recite them to you,if you like."And Helmholtz began:
Yesterday's committee,
Sticks,but a broken drum,
Midnight in the City,
Flutes in a vacuum,
Shut lips,sleeping faces,
Every stopped machine,
The dumb and littered places
Where crowds have been-
All silences rejoice,
Weep(loudly or low),
Speak-but with the voice
Of whom,I do not know.
Absence,say,of Susan's,
Absence of Egeria's
Arms and respective bosoms,
Lips and,ah,posteriors,
Slowly form a presence;
Whose?and I ask,of what
So absurd an essence,
That something,which is not,
Nevertheless should populate
Empty night more solidly
Than that with which we copulate,
Why should it seem so squalidly?
"Well,I gave them that as an example,and they reported me to the Principal."
"I'm not surprised,"said Bernard."It's flatly against all their sleep-teaching.Remember,they've had at least a quarter of a million warnings against solitude."
"I know.But I thought I'd like to see what the effect would be."
"Well,you've seen now."
Helmholtz only laughed."I feel,"he said,after a silence,"as though I were just beginning to have something to write about.As though I were beginning to be able to use that power I feel I've got inside me-that extra,latent power.Something seems to be coming to me."In spite of all his troubles,he seemed,Bernard thought,profoundly happy.
Helmholtz and the Savage took to one another at once.So cordially indeed that Bernard felt a sharp pang of jealousy.In all these weeks he had never come to so close an intimacy with the Savage as Helmholtz immediately achieved.Watching them,listening to their talk,he found himself sometimes resentfully wishing that he had never brought them together.He was ashamed of his jealousy and alternately made efforts of will and took soma to keep himself from feeling it.But the efforts were not very successful;and between the soma-holidays there were,of necessity,intervals.The odious sentiment kept on returning.
At his third meeting with the Savage,Helmholtz recited his rhymes on Solitude.
"What do you think of them?"he asked when he had done.
The Savage shook his head."Listen to this,"was his answer;and unlocking the drawer in which he kept his mouse-eaten book,he opened and read:
"Let the bird of loudest lay,
On the sole Arabian tree,
Herald sad and trumpet be……"
