

He jumps among everyone to try to end the fray and protect John. He hurls the rations of soma out of a window. John finds the confused faces of the Delta workers infuriating. He tells Bernard about what John has said. Helmholtz is the one who answers the phone. The man who is handing out the soma calls Bernard, who is at home. He tells them to choose freedom, instead. He declares that is only poison that will turn them into slaves. He shouts for the groups to stop trying to get their soma rations. He recalls some lines from Shakespeare with bitter irony: “How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world.” “O brave new world” continues to echo within John’s head. The groups are picking up their rations of soma after their shift. John sees two Bokanovsky groups of Delta twins in the hospital vestibule. John hurries out of the ward after pushing the child to the ground. One of the twins asks John whether Linda is “dead,” pointing at her body. She gives chocolate éclairs to the children. The nurse is only worried about how the children’s death conditioning has been affected. By the time they arrive back, Linda has already died. John hurries off to the nurse to beg for help. After she says his name, she starts reciting a hypnopaedic phrase that she learned in childhood. John demands that his mother recognize that he is her son. She attacks him for getting in the way of the children’s death conditioning and brings the boys away. John strikes one of the children and the nurse becomes angry. They ask Linda why she is so ugly and fat. A group of Bokanvosky boys, all eight years old, gather around. He tries to think about the happy times they have experienced together. The nurse is scandalized by the word mother and blushes. He impatiently tells a nurse that he needs to see his mother. John rushes to Park Lane Hospital for the Dying. John acts out King Lear’s furious tirade against women and biological procreation (King Lear, IV. Lenina goes into the bathroom and locks the door. This terrifies the man, making him angry. Lenina starts to take off her clothes as she presses her body against John. She is horrified, however, by what he says about lifelong commitment. She asks him why he has gone so long without saying anything about his feelings. He talks of marriage and says that he loves her. After falling to his knees, John starts quoting lines from Shakespeare to express his love. She says that he does not seem pleased that she has visited him. Lenina takes a bit of soma and goes to visit John. Lenina indicates that John is the only one she wants and that other men will not be able to distract her. She says that she ought to look for someone else to help her focus on other thoughts.

Fanny informs her that it is inappropriate to be so obsessed about one man.

She later tells Fanny that she does not know what it would be like to have sex with a savage. He sees that she is upset and indicates that she might require a “Violent Passion Surrogate” (or V.P.S). Lenina declines when Henry asks her to come to a feely.
