Hier nochmal die ganze Passage - allerdings auf englisch, falls es wen interessiert. So ähnlich hätten sie es im Film machen sollen, wär weit besser gewesen.
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'Servants will not pass your mother who stands guard outside that door. Depend on it. Your mother survived this test. Now it's your turn. Be honoured. We seldom administer this to men-children.'
Curiosity reduced Paul's fear to a manageable level. He heard truth in the old woman's voice, no denying it. If his mother stood guard out there...if this were truly a test...And whatever it was, he knew himself caught in it, trapped by that hand at his neck: the gom jabbar. He recalled the response from the Litany against Fear as his mother had taught him out of the Bene Gesserit rite.
'I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.'
He felt calmless return, said: 'Get on with it, old woman.'
'Old woman!' she snapped. 'You've courage, and that can't be denied. Well, we shall see, sirra.' She bent close, lowered her voice almost to a whisper. 'You will feel pain in this hand within the box. Pain. But! Withdraw the hand and I'll touch your neck with my gom jabbar - the death so swift it's like the fall of the headsman's axe. Withdraw your hand and the gom jabbar takes you. Understand?'
'What's in the box?'
'Pain.'
He felt increased tingling in his hand, pressed his lips tightly together.
How could this be a test? he wondered. The tingling became an itch.
The old woman said: 'You've heard of animals chewing off a leg to escape a trap? There's an animal kind of trick. A human would remain in the trap, endure the pain, feigning death that he might kill the trapper and remove a threat to his kind.'
The itch became the faintest burning. 'Why are you doing this?' he demanded.
'To determine if you're human. Be silent.'
Paul clenched his left hand into a fist as the burning sensation increased in the other hand. It mounted slowly: heat upon heat upon heat ... upon heat. He felt the fingernails of his free hand biting the palm. He tried to flex the fingers of the burning hand, but couldn't move them.
'It burns,' he whispered.
'Silence!'
Pain throbbed up his arm. Sweat stood out on his forehead. Every fibre cried out to withdraw the hand from the burning pit...but...the gom jabbar. Without turning his head, he tried to move his eyes to see that terrible needle poised beside his neck. He sensed that he was breathing in gasps, tried to slow his breaths and couldn't.
Pain!
His world emptied of everything except that hand immersed in agony, that ancient face inches away staring at him.
His lips were so dry he had difficulty seperating them.
The Burning! The Burning!
He thought he could feel skin curling black on that agonised hand, the flesh crisping and dropping away until only charred bones remained.
It stopped!
As though a switch had been turned off, the pain stopped. Paul felt his right arm trembling, felt sweat bathing his body.
'Enough,' the old woman muttered. 'Kull wahad! No woman child ever withstood that much. I must've wanted you to fail.' She leaned back, withdrawing the gom jabbar from the side of his neck. 'Take your hand from the box, young human, and look at it.'
He fought down an aching shiver, stared at the lightless void where his hand seemed to remain of its own volition. Memory of pain inhibited every movement. Reason told him he would withdraw a blackened stump from that box.
'Do it!' she snapped.
He jerked his hand from the boy, stared at it astonished. Not a mark. No sign of agony on the flesh. He held up the hand, turned it, flexed the fingers.
'Pain by nerve induction,' she said. 'Can't go around maiming potential humans. There're those who'd give a pretty for the secret of this box, though.' She slipped it into the folds of her gown.
'But the pain -' he said.
'Pain,' she sniffed. 'A human can override any nerve ini the body.'
Paul felt his left hand aching, uncurled the clenched fingers, looked at four bloody marks where fingernails had bitten his palm. He dropped the hand to his side, looked at the old woman. 'You did that to my mother once?'
...
Zitat aus:
Dune
Frank Herbert
New English Library
Hodder & Stoughton
So, das wars. Der Schluß dieses Teils ist doch auch genial. Stellt euch nur vor, welche Schmerzen man aushalten muß, um sich derartig blutige Stellen auf der Hand zuzufügen. Ein geniales Buch -> kaufen!
