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双语·美丽新世界 第二章

所属教程:译林版·美丽新世界

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2022年04月16日

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Mr. Foster was left in the Decanting Room. The D.H.C. and his students stepped into the nearest lift and were carried up to the fifth floor.

INFANT NURSERIES. NEO-PAVLOVIAN CONDITIONING ROOMS, announced the notice board.

The Director opened a door. They were in a large bare room, very bright and sunny; for the whole of the southern wall was a single window. Half a dozen nurses, trousered and jacketed in the regulation white viscose-linen uniform, their hair aseptically hidden under white caps, were engaged in setting out bowls of roses in a long row across the floor. Big bowls, packed tight with blossom. Thousands of petals, ripe-blown and silkily smooth, like the cheeks of innumerable little cherubs, but of cherubs, in that bright light, not exclusively pink and Aryan, but also luminously Chinese, also Mexican, also apoplectic with too much blowing of celestial trumpets, also pale as death, pale with the posthumous whiteness of marble.

The nurses stiffened to attention as the D.H.C. came in.

“Set out the books,” he said curtly.

In silence the nurses obeyed his command. Between the rose bowls the books were duly set out—a row of nursery quartos opened invitingly each at some gaily-coloured image of beast or fish or bird.

“Now bring in the children.”

They hurried out of the room and returned in a minute or two, each pushing a kind of tall dumb-waiter laden, on all its four wire-netted shelves, with eight-month-old babies, all exactly alike (a Bokanovsky Group, it was evident) and all (since their caste was Delta) dressed in khaki.

“Put them down on the floor.”

The infants were unloaded.

“Now turn them so that they can see the flowers and books.”

Turned, the babies at once fell silent, then began to crawl towards those clusters of sleek colours, those shapes so gay and brilliant on the white pages. As they approached, the sun came out of a momentary eclipse behind a cloud. The roses flamed up as though with a sudden passion from within; a new and profound significance seemed to suffuse the shining pages of the books. From the ranks of the crawling babies came little squeals of excitement, gurgles and twitterings of pleasure.

The Director rubbed his hands. “Excellent!” he said. “It might almost have been done on purpose.”

The swiftest crawlers were already at their goal. Small hands reached out uncertainly, touched, grasped, unpetaling the transfigured roses, crumpling the illuminated pages of the books. The Director waited until all were happily busy. Then, “Watch carefully,” he said. And, lifting his hand, he gave the signal.

The Head Nurse, who was standing by a switchboard at the other end of the room, pressed down a little lever.

There was a violent explosion. Shriller and ever shriller, a siren shrieked. Alarm bells maddeningly sounded.

The children started, screamed; their faces were distorted with terror.

“And now,” the Director shouted (for the noise was deafening), “now we proceed to rub in the lesson with a mild electric shock.”

He waved his hand again, and the Head Nurse pressed a second lever.

The screaming of the babies suddenly changed its tone. There was something desperate, almost insane, about the sharp spasmodic yelps to which they now gave utterance. Their little bodies twitched and stiffened; their limbs moved jerkily as if to the tug of unseen wires.

“We can electrify that whole strip of floor,” bawled the Director in explanation. “But that's enough,” he signalled to the nurse.

The explosions ceased, the bells stopped ringing, the shriek of the siren died down from tone to tone into silence. The stiffly twitching bodies relaxed, and what had become the sob and yelp of infant maniacs broadened out once more into a normal howl of ordinary terror.

“Offer them the flowers and the books again.”

The nurses obeyed; but at the approach of the roses, at the mere sight of those gaily-coloured images of pussy and cock-a-doodle-doo and baa-baa black sheep, the infants shrank away in horror, the volume of their howling suddenly increased.

“Observe,” said the Director triumphantly, “observe.”

Books and loud noises, flowers and electric shocks—already in the infant mind these couples were compromisingly linked; and after two hundred repetitions of the same or a similar lesson would be wedded indissolubly. What man has joined, nature is powerless to put asunder.

“They'll grow up with what the psychologists used to call an ‘instinctive’ hatred of books and flowers. Reflexes unalterably conditioned. They'll be safe from books and botany all their lives.” The Director turned to his nurses. “Take them away again.”

Still yelling, the khaki babies were loaded on to their dumb-waiters and wheeled out, leaving behind them the smell of sour milk and a most welcome silence.

One of the students held up his hand; and though he could see quite well why you couldn't have lower-caste people wasting the Community's time over books, and that there was always the risk of their reading something which might undesirably decondition one of their reflexes, yet…well, he couldn't understand about the flowers. Why go to the trouble of making it psychologically impossible for Deltas to like flowers?

Patiently the D.H.C. explained. If the children were made to scream at the sight of a rose, that was on grounds of high economic policy. Not so very long ago (a century or thereabouts), Gammas, Deltas, even Epsilons, had been conditioned to like flowers—flowers in particular and wild nature in general. The idea was to make them want to be going out into the country at every available opportunity, and so compel them to consume transport.

“And didn't they consume transport?” asked the student.

“Quite a lot,” the D.H.C. replied. “But nothing else.”

Primroses and landscapes, he pointed out, have one grave defect: they are gratuitous. A love of nature keeps no factories busy. It was decided to abolish the love of nature, at any rate among the lower classes; to abolish the love of nature, but not the tendency to consume transport. For of course it was essential that they should keep on going to the country, even though they hated it. The problem was to find an economically sounder reason for consuming transport than a mere affection for primroses and landscapes. It was duly found.

“We condition the masses to hate the country,” concluded the Director. “But simultaneously we condition them to love all country sports. At the same time, we see to it that all country sports shall entail the use of elaborate apparatus. So that they consume manufactured articles as well as transport. Hence those electric shocks.”

“I see,” said the student, and was silent, lost in admiration.

There was a silence; then, clearing his throat, “Once upon a time,” the Director began, “while Our Ford was still on earth, there was a little boy called Reuben Rabinovitch. Reuben was the child of Polish-speaking parents.”

The Director interrupted himself. “You know what Polish is, I suppose?”

“A dead language.”

“Like French and German,” added another student, officiously showing off his learning.

“And ‘parent’?” questioned the D.H.C.

There was an uneasy silence. Several of the boys blushed. They had not yet learned to draw the significant but often very fine distinction between smut and pure science. One, at last, had the courage to raise a hand.

“Human beings used to be…” he hesitated; the blood rushed to his cheeks. “Well, they used to be viviparous.”

“Quite right.” The Director nodded approvingly.

“And when the babies were decanted…”

‘“Born,”’came the correction.

“Well, then they were the parents—I mean, not the babies, of course; the other ones.” The poor boy was overwhelmed with confusion.

“In brief,” the Director summed up, “the parents were the father and the mother.” The smut that was really science fell with a crash into the boys' eye-avoiding silence. “Mother,” he repeated loudly rubbing in the science; and, leaning back in his chair, “These,” he said gravely, “are unpleasant facts; I know it. But then most historical facts are unpleasant.”

He returned to Little Reuben—to Little Reuben, in whose room, one evening, by an oversight, his father and mother (crash, crash!) happened to leave the radio turned on.

(“For you must remember that in those days of gross viviparous reproduction, children were always brought up by their parents and not in State Conditioning Centres.”)

While the child was asleep, a broadcast programme from London suddenly started to come through; and the next morning, to the astonishment of his crash and crash (the more daring of the boys ventured to grin at one another), Little Reuben woke up repeating word for word a long lecture by that curious old writer (“one of the very few whose works have been permitted to come down to us”), George Bernard Shaw, who was speaking, according to a well-authenticated tradition, about his own genius. To Little Reuben's wink and snigger, this lecture was, of course, perfectly incomprehensible and, imagining that their child had suddenly gone mad, they sent for a doctor. He, fortunately, understood English, recognized the discourse as that which Shaw had broadcasted the previous evening, realized the significance of what had happened, and sent a letter to the medical press about it.

“The principle of sleep-teaching, or hypnopaedia, had been discovered.” The D.H.C. made an impressive pause.

The principle had been discovered; but many, many years were to elapse before that principle was usefully applied.

“The case of Little Reuben occurred only twenty-three years after Our Ford's first T-Model was put on the market.” (Here the Director made a sign of the T on his stomach and all the students reverently followed suit.) “And yet…”

Furiously the students scribbled. “Hypnopaedia, first used officially in A.F. 214. Why not before? Two reasons. (a)…”

“These early experimenters,” the D.H.C. was saying, “were on the wrong track. They thought that hypnopaedia could be made an instrument of intellectual education…”

(A small boy asleep on his right side, the right arm stuck out, the right hand hanging limp over the edge of the bed. Through a round grating in the side of a box a voice speaks softly.

“The Nile is the longest river in Africa and the second in length of all the rivers of the globe. Although falling short of the length of the Mississippi-Missouri, the Nile is at the head of all rivers as regards the length of its basin, which extends through 35 degrees of latitude…”

At breakfast the next morning, “Tommy,” some one says, “do you know which is the longest river in Africa?” A shaking of the head. “But don't you remember something that begins: The Nile is the…”

“The—Nile—is—the—longest—river—in—Africa—and—the—second—in—length—of—all—the—rivers—of—the—globe…” The words come rushing out. “Although—falling—short—of…”

“Well now, which is the longest river in Africa?”

The eyes are blank. “I don't know.”

“But the Nile, Tommy.”

“The—Nile—is—the—longest—river—in—Africa—and—second…”

“Then which river is the longest, Tommy?”

Tommy burst into tears. “I don't know,” he howls.)

That howl, the Director made it plain, discouraged the earliest investigators. The experiments were abandoned. No further attempt was made to teach children the length of the Nile in their sleep. Quite rightly. You can't learn a science unless you know what it's all about.

“Whereas, if they'd only started on moral education,” said the Director, leading the way towards the door. The students followed him, desperately scribbling as they walked and all the way up in the lift. “Moral education, which ought never, in any circumstances, to be rational.”

“Silence, silence,” whispered a loud speaker as they stepped out at the fourteenth floor, and “Silence, silence,” the trumpet mouths indefatigably repeated at intervals down every corridor. The students and even the Director himself rose automatically to the tips of their toes. They were Alphas, of course, but even Alphas have been well conditioned. “Silence, silence.” All the air of the fourteenth floor was sibilant with the categorical imperative.

Fifty yards of tiptoeing brought them to a door which the Director cautiously opened. They stepped over the threshold into the twilight of a shuttered dormitory. Eighty cots stood in a row against the wall. There was a sound of light regular breathing and a continuous murmur, as of very faint voices remotely whispering.

A nurse rose as they entered and came to attention before the Director.

“What's the lesson this afternoon?” he asked.

“We had Elementary Sex for the first forty minutes,” she answered. “But now it's switched over to Elementary Class Consciousness.”

The Director walked slowly down the long line of cots. Rosy and relaxed with sleep, eighty little boys and girls lay softly breathing. There was a whisper under every pillow. The D.H.C. halted and, bending over one of the little beds, listened attentively.

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

At the end of the room a loud speaker projected from the wall. 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. Oh no, 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. Besides, they wear black, which is such a beastly colour. 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 frightfully clever. I'm really awfuly glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, 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. The voice was silent. Only its thin ghost continued to mutter from beneath the eighty pillows.

“They'll have that repeated forty or fifty times more before they wake; then again on Thursday, and again on Saturday. A hundred and twenty times three times a week for thirty months. After which they go on to a more advanced lesson.”

Roses and electric shocks, the khaki of Deltas and a whiff of asafoetida—wedded indissolubly before the child can speak. But wordless conditioning is crude and wholesale; cannot bring home the finer distinctions, cannot inculcate the more complex courses of behaviour. For that there must be words, but words without reason. In brief, hypnopaedia.

“The greatest moralizing and socializing force of all time.”

The students took it down in their little books. Straight from the horse's mouth.

Once more the Director touched the switch.

“…so frightfully clever,” the soft, insinuating, indefatigable voice was saying, “I'm really awfully glad I'm a Beta, because…”

Not so much like drops of water, though water, it is true, can wear holes in the hardest granite; rather, drops of liquid sealing-wax, drops that adhere, incrust, incorporate themselves with what they fall on, till finally the rock is all one scarlet blob.

“Till at last the child's mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the child's mind. And not the child's mind only. The adult's mind too—all his life long. The mind that judges and desires and decides—made up of these suggestions. But all these suggestions are our suggestions!” The Director almost shouted in his triumph. “Suggestions from the State.” He banged the nearest table. “It therefore follows…”

A noise made him turn round.

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

福斯特先生留在换瓶室。孵化与条件训练中心主任和学生们步入最近的电梯,来到了五楼。

布告牌上写着:“育婴房,新巴甫洛夫(1)训练室”。

主任推开一道门,他们进入了一个宽敞空旷的大房间,阳光明媚,非常亮堂,因为它的整面南墙就是一扇大窗户。六七个护士穿着那种黏胶纤维的白色制服,上衣加长裤,在忙碌着,为避免细菌污染,她们的头发塞到了白色护士帽里面。她们正在地板上把一盆盆玫瑰花摆成一长排。花盆非常大,里面满满当当地盛开着花朵。有成千上万片花瓣,饱满,如丝般光滑,就像无数个小天使的脸蛋,不过,映照在明亮的阳光中的,不仅有雅利安小天使的粉红脸蛋,还有中国和墨西哥小天使们光洁的脸蛋,也有一些小脸蛋似乎因为吹奏天国的喇叭太多而有点中风的症状,显出死亡般的苍白,大理石般的惨白。

看到中心主任走进来,护士们站直了身子。

“把书摆上。”主任简短地吩咐。

护士们默默地听从他的吩咐,在玫瑰花盆中间摆上了书籍——一排四开本的儿歌图画书,每一本都翻开来,露出颜色鲜艳的动物,或者鱼儿,或者鸟儿,非常诱人。

“现在,把孩子们带进来。”

护士们匆匆离开房间,一两分钟之后,每人都推着类似小型升降机的那种小车进来,小车上面有四个网眼状的隔层,每个隔层上都满载着八个月大的婴儿,全都长得一模一样(很明显,属于一个波卡诺夫斯基组别),全都穿着卡其色的衣服(因为他们的种姓属于德尔塔)。

“把他们放在地板上。”

婴儿们被放了下来。

“现在,让他们转过身,能看到花和书。”

转过身后,婴儿们立即安静下来,然后开始往那些一簇一簇的漂亮色彩爬行,爬向那些白色页面上的鲜艳图案。他们爬着爬着,被云彩暂时遮蔽的太阳冒了出来,于是,玫瑰花显得更加绚烂了,好像由一股从里到外焕发的激情照耀着;那些闪亮的书页也仿佛充满一种崭新而深沉的意义。从正在爬行的婴儿行列里传出一阵阵兴奋的欢叫声、愉快的咯咯笑声和叽喳声。

主任搓了搓手。“太棒了!”他说,“这太阳出的,好像是故意安排的一样。”

爬得最快的婴儿已经到达他们的目标前面了,小手颤巍巍地伸出来,碰到了,抓住了,把容光焕发的玫瑰花瓣弄掉了,把闪亮的书页弄得皱巴巴的。主任等待着,看到所有婴儿都高兴地忙碌开了,才说:“仔细观察。”接着,他举起一只手,发出了信号。

护士长正站在房间另一头的一个配电盘旁边,她按下了一个小小的杠杆。

一声剧烈的爆炸声响起,接着,警报器呜呜地响起来了,一阵比一阵尖锐,警铃也突然开始发狂般地乱叫。

孩子们吓了一跳,尖叫起来,小脸儿因恐惧而扭曲变形。

“现在,”主任喊道(因为此时的噪音已经震耳欲聋),“现在,我们再给他们稍微用上点电击,让他们彻底记住这一课。”

他再次挥挥手,护士长按下了另一个杠杆。尖声哭叫的婴儿们突然变了一个腔调,开始抽搐着发出一声声短促尖厉的号叫,透着绝望,近于疯狂。他们小小的身躯抽动起来,变得僵硬,四肢也痉挛般地抽动,好像被看不见的电线牵扯着。

“我们可以把那整块地板都通上电。”主任喊着解释,“不过,这就够了。”他向那个护士做了个手势。

爆炸声停止了,警铃停止了,尖锐的警报声渐渐平息,一切都归于沉寂。孩子们僵硬的四肢停止了抽搐,慢慢放松了,他们像小疯子一样的抽泣和惊叫再次变成了婴儿受到惊吓时通常发出的那种嚎啕大哭。

“再把花和书给他们。”

护士们照着他的吩咐做了,但是,玫瑰花刚拿近一点,刚刚看到书页上那些色彩鲜艳的猫咪、大公鸡和咩咩叫的黑羊,孩子们马上吓得向后躲,哭叫声也突然变大。

“看吧,”主任得意地说,“注意观察。”

书籍与巨大的声响,花朵与电击,孩子们的头脑已经把二者给联系起来了,并且是对前者不利的联系。同样或类似的教训重复两百次之后,这个联系就密不可分了。这种人为的联系,大自然根本无力解开。

“他们长大以后,会对花和书有一种心理学家们称之为‘本能’的憎恶。这是经过条件训练后的本能反应,根本无法改变。他们一辈子都不会再碰书和植物了。”主任转向护士们:“把他们带走吧。”

依然哭叫着的卡其色婴儿们给装上小车推走了,身后留下一股发酸的牛奶味,一阵令人愉快的宁静。

一个学生举起手来,虽然他完全能明白为什么不能让种姓低贱的人读书,因为这会浪费集体的时间,他也明白他们读到的内容总有可能会破坏他们被训练出来的某个本能反应,这当然是一大危险,是不可取的,但是,他不懂关于这些花儿的训练。为什么大费周章地让德尔塔们从心理上不可能喜欢花儿呢?

中心主任耐心地进行解释。让孩子们一见到玫瑰花就尖叫,那是出于经济方面的考虑。不太久之前(大约一个世纪前吧),伽马们、德尔塔们,甚至艾普西隆们,都是要受到条件训练,去喜欢花儿的,具体讲是喜欢花儿,大致来讲就是喜欢野外的大自然。当时的观念是,让他们一有机会就想去乡间,这样就可以逼着他们在交通上消费。

“难道他们不在交通上花钱吗?”那个学生问道。

“非常多,”中心主任回答,“但除此之外,他们不花别的钱。”

他指出,报春花和美丽的风景有一个很大的缺陷,那就是,它们都是免费的。对大自然的热爱不会让任何一家工厂一直忙碌生产。人们决定,至少在下层阶级,要消除这种对大自然的热爱,但是,不消除他们花交通费的倾向。当然,尽管他们讨厌乡间,还是必须要让他们不断地往乡间去。可问题是,如何找到一个除了喜爱报春花和风景之外的理由,一个从经济学上来讲更合理的理由,让他们仍然在交通上花钱?后来,这个理由被找到了。

“我们训练大众憎恨乡下,”主任总结道,“但是,同时呢,我们却训练他们热爱所有的乡间运动。我们还保证所有的乡间运动都需要使用极其复杂的设施。这样,他们不仅在交通工具上消费,还要在工业产品上消费。正因为如此,才对婴儿们采用电击训练法。”

“我明白了。”那个学生说完,陷入沉默,心里佩服得不得了。

一阵沉默后,主任清清嗓子,说:“很久以前,我们的福帝(2)还在人世的时候,有一个叫鲁本·拉宾诺维奇的小男孩,他的父母是说波兰语的。”主任自己打了个岔,问,“你们应该知道波兰语吧?”

“一门死的语言。”

“和法语、德语一样。”另一个学生好事地插了一嘴,卖弄着自己的学问。

“那‘父母’呢?”主任又问。

一阵不安的沉默。几个男孩子脸都羞红了。他们还不能体会淫词秽语和纯粹科学之间那条至关重要但经常非常微妙的界限。最终,一个学生鼓足勇气,举起了一只手。

“人类过去是……”他迟疑着,血液一下子涌上了他的脸颊,“嗯,人类过去是胎生的。”

“非常正确。”主任赞许地点点头。

“当婴儿们换瓶的时候……”

“出生的时候。”主任纠正道。

“这样,他们就成为父母了,当然,我指的不是婴儿,是那两个人。”这个可怜的孩子慌乱得不知所措。

“一句话,”主任总结道,“父母就是父亲和母亲。”对男孩们来说,这实为科学的淫秽词语,犹如晴天霹雳,炸开了他们的沉默,他们的眼神因害羞而躲躲闪闪。主任身子往椅背上一靠,大声地重复了一句“母亲”,为的是让孩子们记住这个科学道理。“这些,”他严肃地说,“是令人不快的事实,我知道的。但是,大多数史实都令人不快呀。”

他又接着讲起小鲁本。有一天晚上,小鲁本的爸爸和妈妈(霹雳,又一声霹雳!)疏忽了,忘记关上他房间的收音机。

(“你们必须记得,在那些粗俗的胎生繁殖的日子里,孩子们总是由他们的父母养大的,而不是在国家训练中心长大。”)

这个小孩睡觉时,伦敦的一个广播节目突然开始了。第二天早晨,让他的“霹雳”和“霹雳”震惊的是(胆子大些的男孩子竟然开始对着彼此咧嘴笑了),小鲁本醒来后,居然开始一字不差地重复那个古怪的老作家的长篇大论,那个萧伯纳(3)(“作品获准留给我们的不多的作家之一”),他当时正在讲述自己的天赋,这个讲自己天赋的传统经考证确实曾经存在。小鲁本自然是一点都听不懂这个讲座,他一边背诵还一边挤眉弄眼,嘻嘻傻笑,他的父母以为这个孩子突然发了疯,赶紧请了医生。幸运的是,这个医生懂英语,他听出这是前一天晚上萧伯纳的广播讲座,并意识到了这件事的重要意义,于是马上给医学杂志写了一封信。

“在睡眠中进行教育的原则,或曰,睡眠教育法,就这样被发现了。”中心主任意味深长地停顿了一下。

原则被发现了,但是,好多年过去之后,这个原则才真正为人所用。

“小鲁本的这件事情发生在我们福帝的首辆T型车(4)推向市场后的第二十三年。”(说到这里,主任在肚子上划了个T字,所有的学生也都恭恭敬敬地照做。)“可是……”

学生们拼命地记着笔记。“睡眠教育法,福特纪元214年首次正式使用。为什么之前没有运用呢?两个原因。一……”

“那些早期的实验者,”中心主任继续讲着,“走错了路子。他们以为睡眠教育可以用作知识教育的手段……”

(一个小男孩向右侧卧着在睡觉,右胳膊伸着,右手软软地垂在床沿上。透过一个匣子侧面的圆格栅,一个声音轻柔地讲述着。

“尼罗河是非洲第一长河,全球第二长河。虽然其长度仅次于密西西比-密苏里河,但从流域的跨度来看,尼罗河居于所有河流之首,其流域跨越了35个纬度……”

第二天早餐时,有个人问:“汤米,你知道非洲第一长河是哪条河吗?”摇摇头。“你难道不记得那句话了吗?尼罗河是……”

“尼罗河是非洲第一长河,全球第二长河。”这些话脱口而出,“虽然其长度仅次于……”

“那么,非洲哪条河最长呢?”

眼神空洞。“我不知道。”

“尼罗河呀,汤米。”

“尼罗河是非洲第一长河,全球第二……”

“那么,汤米,哪条河最长呢?”

汤米哇哇大哭起来。“我不知道。”他呜呜哭着说。)

这种嚎啕大哭,主任说得很明白,令最早期的实验者们非常气馁。实验被放弃了。再没有人尝试在孩子们睡觉时教他们诸如尼罗河的长度之类的知识。放弃实验是非常明智的。你不懂科学是什么的时候根本学不了科学。

“哎呀,如果他们当时开始道德教育就好了。”主任说,领着他们走向房门。学生们在后面跟着,一边走一边使劲记着,在电梯里也一路记着。“道德教育,在任何情况下,都永远不应该诉诸理智啊。”

“肃静,肃静。”他们刚刚踏出电梯,上到十四楼,就听见扩音器在低声叮咛着。“肃静,肃静。”每隔一会儿,沿每条走廊安放的喇叭口就不知疲倦地重复一遍。学生们,甚至主任自己,都不自觉地踮起了脚尖。当然,他们都是阿尔法,但即使是阿尔法们,也是受过良好训练的。“肃静,肃静。”整个十四层的空气中都回响着这个命令。

他们踮着脚尖走了五十码,来到一道门前,主任谨慎地推开门。他们跨过门槛,进入一个昏暗的宿舍,百叶窗全拉得严严实实的。八十张婴儿床靠墙摆成一排。人们能够听到轻微而均匀的呼吸声和不间断的喃喃声,好像从远处传来的窃窃私语。

看到他们走进来,一个护士站了起来,在主任面前立正站好。

“今天下午是什么课?”他问道。

“前四十分钟我们学习了基础性知识,”她回答,“现在,已经调到基础阶级意识了。”

主任沿着那排婴儿床缓缓地往前走。八十个小男孩和小女孩躺在那儿,平静地呼吸着,他们睡着了的小脸蛋非常放松,两颊红扑扑的。从每个枕头下面都传出轻柔的声音。中心主任停下来,弯下腰,凝神听着。

“你刚才说的是基础阶级意识吗?把喇叭声音稍微调大些吧。”

房间尽头,一个扩音器从墙上伸出来。主任走过去,按下一个开关。

“……都穿绿色,”一个轻柔但清晰的声音说,正说到一句话的中间,“德尔塔孩子们穿卡其色。哦,我才不愿意和德尔塔孩子们玩呢。艾普西隆就更糟了,他们太笨了,既不会读,也不会写,况且,他们还穿黑色,那么糟糕的颜色。我是贝塔,我太高兴了。”

短暂的停顿后,这个声音又开始了。

“阿尔法孩子们穿灰色。他们比我们工作努力得多,因为他们聪明得吓人。我是贝塔,我真是太高兴了,因为我不用那么努力地工作。并且,我们比伽马和德尔塔们强多了。伽马们很笨,他们都穿绿色,德尔塔孩子们穿卡其色。哦,我才不愿意和德尔塔孩子们玩呢。艾普西隆就更糟了,他们太笨了,既不会……”

主任把开关按回原位。声音消失了,只有细细的余音还继续在八十个枕头下面萦绕着。

“在孩子们醒来前,这些内容还会重复四十或五十遍,然后星期四一次,星期六还有一次。每次重复一百二十遍,每周三次,持续三十个月,之后,他们会升入更高级的课程。”

玫瑰花和电击,德尔塔们的卡其色和一丝阿魏树脂的气味,在孩子们还不会说话时,这之间的联系就已经密不可分了。但是,这种无言的条件训练是非常粗略的,而且是大批量进行的,并不能让孩子们真正掌握更细微的差别,也不能教会他们更复杂的行为。为此,必须要使用话语,毫无理由地使用话语。简而言之,实施睡眠教育法。

“有史以来,这是进行道德教育和社会教育的最伟大的力量。”

学生们在小笔记本上记下来了。直接受教于权威人士嘛。

主任又按了一下开关。

“……聪明得吓人,”轻柔的声音正在说着,充满暗示,丝毫不知疲倦,“我是贝塔,我真是太高兴了,因为……”

这些话语,与其说像水滴,水滴确实也能在最坚硬的大理石上磨出洞来,倒不如说更像一滴滴液态封蜡,能够粘上、包覆并融入它们滴落到的物质,直到岩石也变成猩红色的一团。

“到最后,孩子的头脑就是这些暗示,这些暗示就成了孩子的头脑。不仅仅是孩子的头脑,也是未来成年人的头脑,并且终其一生。能够判断、产生欲望和做出决定的头脑,就是由这些暗示构成的。但是,所有这些暗示都是我们的暗示啊!”主任得意得几乎喊出来,“来自国家的暗示。”他敲打着离他最近的桌子,“因此呢……”

一个声音使他转过身来。

“哦,福帝!”他换了个声调,“我把孩子们给吵醒了。”

————————————————————

(1) 伊万·彼得罗维奇·巴甫洛夫(Ivan Petrovich Pavlov,1849—1936),俄罗斯生理学家、心理学家、医师。其关于狗的条件反射的实验非常著名。

(2) 指亨利·福特(Henry Ford,1863—1947),美国汽车工程师与企业家,福特汽车公司的建立者。他是世界上第一个使用流水线大批量生产汽车的人。他的生产方式不但革新了工业生产方式,而且对现代社会和文化有巨大影响。本书中世界国的国民尊福特为精神领袖,如同基督徒信仰上帝,因此,把“福特”译为“福帝”。

(3) 萧伯纳(George Bernard Shaw,1856—1950),爱尔兰剧作家,曾获诺贝尔文学奖。

(4) 福特T型车(Ford Model T)是福特汽车公司于1908年至1927年推出的一款汽车产品,它的生产是当时先进工业生产技术与管理的典范,为汽车产业及制造业的发展做出了巨大贡献。

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