‘Syrup of Corpus Luteum.’ Lenina read the names aloud. ‘Ovarin, guaranteed fresh: not to be used after August ist, a.f. 632. Mammary Gland Extract: to be taken Three Times Daily, Before Meals, with a Little Water. Placentin: 5cc to be Injected Intravenally every Third Day… Ugh!’ Lenina shuddered. ‘How I loathe intravenals, don’t you?’

‘Yes. But when they do one good…’ Fanny was a particularly sensible girl.

Our Ford—or Our Freud, as, for some inscrutable reason, he chose to call himself whenever he spoke of psychological matters—Our Freud had been the first to reveal the appalling dangers of family life. The world was full of fathers—was therefore full of misery; full of mothers—therefore of every kind of perversion from sadism to chastity; full of brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts—full of madness and suicide.

‘And yet, among the savages of Samoa, in certain islands off the coast of New Guinea…’

The tropical sunshine lay like warm honey on the naked bodies of children tumbling promiscuously among the hibiscus blossoms. Home was in any one of twenty palm-thatched houses. In the Trobriands conception was the work of ancestral ghosts; nobody had ever heard of a father.

‘Extremes,’ said the Controller, ‘meet. For the good reason that they were made to meet.’

‘Dr. Wells says that a three months’ Pregnancy Substitute now 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 shall spend the evening at the Club playing Musical Bridge. I suppose you’re going out?’

Lenina nodded.

‘Who with?’

‘Henry Foster.’

‘Again?’ Fanny’s kind, rather moon-like face took on an incongruous 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, everywhere a focussing of interest, a narrow channelling of impulse and energy.

‘But every one belongs to every one else,’ he concluded, citing the hypnopædic proverb.

The students nodded, emphatically agreeing with a statement which upwards of sixty-two thousand repetitions in the dark had made them accept, not merely as true, but as axiomatic, self-evident, utterly indisputable.

‘But after all,’ Lenina was protesting, ‘it’s only about four months now since I’ve been having Henry.’

‘Only four months! I like that. And what’s more,’ Fanny went on, pointing an accusing finger, ‘there’s been nobody else except Henry all that time. Has there?’