‘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 furtive in the undergrowth or running across the lawns.

Lenina shook her head. ‘Somehow, she mused, ‘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 sententiously, ‘one’s got to play the game. After all, every one belongs to every one else.’

‘Yes, every one belongs to every one 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: it depends on the force of the current, the height and strength of the barrier. The unchecked stream flows smoothly down its appointed channels into a calm well-being. (The embryo is hungry; day in, day out, the blood-surrogate pump unceasingly turns its eight hundred revolutions a minute. The decanted infant howls; at once a nurse appears with a bottle of external secretion. Feeling lurks in that interval of time between desire and its consummation. Shorten that interval, break down all those old unnecessary barriers.

‘Fortunate boys!’ said the Controller. ‘No pains have been spared to make your lives emotionally easy—to preserve you, so far as that is possible, 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 as he zipped up his trousers. ‘Oh, she’s a splendid girl. Wonderfully pneumatic. 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?’ she asked in a tone whose excessive casualness was evidently forced.

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 Golf.’

‘They say, they say,’ mocked Lenina.

‘And then he spends most of his time by himself—alone.’ There was horror in Fanny’s voice.