Quiz: Ritual
Read thefollowing passage and answer the questions.
But a little later it was reminding her a good deal less
of that innocuous function. For suddenly there had swarmed up from those round
chambers underground a ghastly troop of monsters. Hideously masked or painted
out of all semblance of humanity, they had tramped out a strange limping dance
round the square; round and again round, singing as they went, round and
roundeach time a little faster; and the drums had changed and quickened their rhythm,
so that it became like the pulsing of fever in the ears; and the crowd had
begun to sing with the dancers, louder and louder; and first one woman had
shrieked, and then another and another, as though they were being killed; and
then suddenly the leader of the dancers broke out of the line, ran to a big
wooden chest which was standing at one end of the square, raised the lid and
pulled out a pair of black snakes. A great yell went up from the crowd, and all
the other dancers ran towards him with out-stretched hands. He tossed the
snakes to the first-comers, then dipped back into the chest for more. More and
more, black snakes and brown and mottled-he flung them out. And then the dance
began again on a different rhythm. Round and round they went with their snakes,
snakily, with a soft undulating movement at the knees and hips. Round and
round. Then the leader gave a signal, and one after another, all the snakes
were flung down in the middle of the square; an old man came up from
underground and sprinkled them with corn meal, and from the other hatchway came
a woman and sprinkled them with water from a black jar. Then the old man lifted
his hand and, startlingly, terrifyingly, there was absolute silence. The drums
stopped beating, life seemed to have come to an end. The old man pointed
towards the two hatchways that gave entrance to the lower world. And slowly,
raised by invisible hands from below, there emerged from the one a painted
image of an eagle, from the other that of a man, naked, and nailed to a cross.
They hung there, seemingly self-sustained, as though watching. The old man
clapped his hands. Naked but for a white cotton breech-cloth, a boy of about
eighteen stepped out of the crowd and stood before him, his hands crossed over
his chest, his head bowed. The old man made the sign of the cross over him and
turned away. Slowly, the boy began to walk round the writhing heap of snakes.
He had completed the first circuit and was half-way through the second when,
from among the dancers, a tall man wearing the mask of a coyote and holding in
his hand a whip of plaited leather, advanced towards him. The boy moved on as
though unaware of the other's existence. The coyote-man raised his whip, there
was a long moment of expectancy, then a swift movement, the whistle of the lash
and its loud flat-sounding impact on the flesh. The boy's body quivered; but he
made no sound, he walked on at the same slow, steady pace. The coyote struck
again, again; and at every blow at first a gasp, and then a deep groan went up from
the crowd. The boy walked. Twice, thrice, four times round he went. The blood
was streaming. Five times round, six times round. Suddenly Lenina covered her
face shish her hands and began to sob. "Oh, stop them, stop them!"
she implored. But the whip fell and fell inexorably. Seven times round. Then
all at once the boy staggered and, still without a sound, pitched forward on to
his face. Bending over him, the old man touched his back with a long white
feather, held it up for a moment, crimson, for the people to see then shook it
thrice over the snakes. A few drops fell, and suddenly the drums broke out
again into a panic of hurrying notes; there was a great shout. The dancers
rushed forward, picked up the snakes and ran out of the square. Men, women, children,
all the crowd ran after them. A minute later the square was empty, only the boy
remained, prone where he had fallen, quite still. Three old women came out of
one of the houses, and with some difficulty lifted him and carried him in. The
eagle and the man on the cross kept guard for a little while over the empty
pueblo; then, as though they had seen enough, sank slowly down through their
hatchways, out of sight, into the nether world.
Lenina was still sobbing. "Too awful," she kept
repeating, and all Bernard's consolations were in vain. "Too awful! That
blood!" She shuddered. "Oh, I wish I had my soma."