That made them change their tune all right.
What's the point of truth or beauty or knowledge when the anthrax bombs are popping all around you?
That was when science first began to be controlled-after the Nine Years' War.
People were ready to have even their appetites controlled then.
Anything for a quiet life.
We've gone on controlling ever since.
It hasn't been very good for truth, of course.
But it's been very good for happiness.
One can't have something for nothing.
Happiness has got to be paid for.
You're paying for it, Mr. Watson-paying because you happen to be too much interested in beauty.
I was too much interested in truth; I paid too."
"But you didn't go to an island," said the Savage, breaking a long silence.
The Controller smiled.
"That's how I paid.
By choosing to serve happiness.
Other people's-not mine.
It's lucky," he added, after a pause, "that there are such a lot of islands in the world.
I don't know what we should do without them.
Put you all in the lethal chamber, I suppose.
By the way, Mr. Watson, would you like a tropical climate?
The Marquesas, for example; or Samoa?
Or something rather more bracing?"
Helmholtz rose from his pneumatic chair. "I should like a thoroughly bad climate," he answered.
"I believe one would write better if the climate were bad.
If there were a lot of wind and storms, for example ..."
The Controller nodded his approbation.
"I like your spirit, Mr. Watson.
I like it very much indeed. As much as I officially disapprove of it."
He smiled.
"What about the Falkland Islands?"
"Yes, I think that will do," Helmholtz answered.
"And now, if you don't mind, I'll go and see how poor Bernard's getting on."
Chapter Seventeen
ART, SCIENCE-you seem to have paid a fairly high price for your happiness," said the Savage, when they were alone.
"Anything else?"
"Well, religion, of course," replied the Controller.
"There used to be something called God-before the Nine Years' War.
But I was forgetting; you know all about God, I suppose."
"Well ..." The Savage hesitated.
He would have liked to say something about solitude, about night, about the mesa lying pale under the moon, about the precipice, the plunge into shadowy darkness, about death.
He would have liked to speak; but there were no words.
Not even in Shakespeare.
The Controller, meanwhile, had crossed to the other side of the room and was unlocking a large safe set into the wall between the bookshelves.
The heavy door swung open.
Rummaging in the darkness within, "It's a subject," he said, "that has always had a great interest for me."
He pulled out a thick black volume.
"You've never read this, for example."
The Savage took it.
"The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments/' he read aloud from the title-page.