But when they do one good…” Fanny was a particularly sensible girl.
Our Ford—or Our Freud, as, for some reason, he chose to call himself whenever he spoke of psychological matters—had been the first to reveal the appalling dangers of family life.
“Extremes,” said the Controller, “meet. For the good reason that they were made to meet.”
“Dr. Wells says that a three months’ Pregnancy Substitute will make all the difference to my health for the next three or four years.”
“Well, I hope he’s right,” said Lenina. “But, Fanny, do you really mean to say that for the next three months you’re not supposed to…”
“Oh no, dear. Only for a week or two, that’s all. I suppose you’re going out?”
Lenina nodded.
“Who with?”
“Henry Foster.”
“Again?” Fanny’s face took on an expression of pained and disapproving astonishment. “Do you mean to tell me you’re still going out with Henry Foster?”
Mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters. But there were also husbands, wives, lovers. There were also monogamy and romance.
“Though you probably don’t know what those are,” said Mustapha Mond.
They shook their heads.
Family, monogamy, romance. Everywhere exclusiveness.
“But everyone belongs to everyone else,” he concluded, citing the hypnopaedic proverb.
The students nodded, agreeing with a statement which upwards of sixty-two thousand repetitions in the dark had made them accept as self-evident and utterly indisputable.
“But after all,” Lenina was protesting, “it’s only about four months now since I’ve been having Henry.”
“Only four months! And there’s been nobody else except Henry all that time. Has there?”
Lenina blushed scarlet. “No, there hasn’t been anyone else,” she answered. “And I jolly well don’t see why there should have been.”
“Oh, she jolly well doesn’t see why there should have been,” Fanny repeated. Then, with a sudden change of tone, “But seriously,” she said, “I really do think you ought to be careful. At forty, or thirty-five, it wouldn’t be so bad. But at your age, Lenina! And you know how strongly the D.H.C. objects to anything intense or long-drawn. Four months of Henry Foster, without having another man—why, he’d be furious if he knew…”
Mother, monogamy, romance. The urge has but a single outlet. My love, my baby. No wonder these poor pre-moderns were mad and wicked and miserable. Their world didn’t allow them to take things easily, didn’t allow them to be sane, virtuous, happy. What with mothers and lovers, what with the prohibitions they were not conditioned to obey, what with the temptations and the lonely remorses, what with all the diseases and the endless isolating pain, what with the uncertainties and the poverty—they were forced to feel strongly. And feeling strongly, how could they be stable?
“Of course there’s no need to give him up. Have somebody else from time to time, that’s all. He has other girls, doesn’t he?”
Lenina admitted it.
“Of course he does. Trust Henry Foster to be the perfect gentleman. And then there’s the Director to think of. You know what a stickler…”
Nodding, “He patted me on the behind this afternoon,” said Lenina.
“There, you see!” Fanny was triumphant. “That shows what he stands for. The strictest conventionality.”
“Stability,” said the Controller. “No civilization without social stability. No social stability without individual stability.” His voice was a trumpet.
The machine turns, turns and must keep on turning—forever. It is death if it stands still. Wheels must turn steadily, but cannot turn untended. There must be men to tend them, men as steady as the wheels upon their axles, sane men, obedient men.
Crying, screaming with pain, muttering with fever, bemoaning old age and poverty—how can they tend the wheels? And if they cannot tend the wheels…
“And after all,” Fanny’s tone was coaxing, “it’s not as though there were anything painful or disagreeable about having one or two men besides Henry. And seeing that you ought to be a little more promiscuous…”
“Stability,” insisted the Controller, “stability. The primal and the ultimate need. Stability. Hence all this.”
With a wave of his hand he indicated the gardens, the huge building of the Conditioning Centre, the naked children running across the lawns.
Lenina shook her head. “I hadn’t been feeling very keen on promiscuity lately. There are times when one doesn’t. Haven’t you found that too, Fanny?”
Fanny nodded her sympathy and understanding. “But one’s got to make the effort,” she said. “One’s got to play the game. After all, everyone belongs to everyone else.”
“Yes, everyone belongs to everyone else,” Lenina repeated slowly and, sighing, was silent for a moment; then, taking Fanny’s hand, gave it a little squeeze. “You’re quite right, Fanny. As usual. I’ll make the effort.”
Impulse arrested spills over, and the flood is feeling, the flood is passion, the flood is even madness. The unchecked stream flows smoothly down its appointed channels into a calm well-being.
“Fortunate boys!” said the Controller. “No pains have been spared to make your lives emotionally easy—to preserve you from having emotions at all.”
“Ford’s in his flivver,” murmured the D.H.C. “All’s well with the world.”
“Lenina Crowne?” said Henry Foster, echoing the Assistant Predestinator’s question. “Oh, she’s a splendid girl. I’m surprised you haven’t had her.”
“I can’t think how it is I haven’t,” said the Assistant Predestinator. “I certainly will. At the first opportunity.”
From his place on the opposite side of the changing-room aisle, Bernard Marx overheard what they were saying and turned pale.
“And to tell the truth,” said Lenina, “I’m beginning to get just a tiny bit bored with nothing but Henry every day.” She pulled on her left stocking. “Do you know Bernard Marx?”
Fanny looked startled. “You don’t mean to say …?”
“Why not? Bernard’s an Alpha Plus. Besides, he asked me to go to one of the Savage Reservations with him. I’ve always wanted to see a Savage Reservation.”
“But his reputation?”
“What do I care about his reputation?”
“They say he doesn’t like Obstacle
