Which brings us to Bernard's other "friend-victim": Helmholtz Watson.It's the job of friends, Huxley tells us, to suffer for us when our enemies are too inaccessible. Now the text gets all philosophical about how Bernard really just needs to take his revenge out on one victim, any victim, and since the Arch-Singer guy is out of the question, the Savage is the easiest target.But inwardly he continues to harbor a "secret grievance" against John, which means that revenge is likely coming soon. Finally, Bernard comes around to admitting that he's being a twerp.Bernard responds to this nugget of enlightenment gold by complaining about how John ditched the dinner party and cost him (Bernard) his reputation.John adds that he would "rather be unhappy than have the sort of false, lying happiness" that Bernard was having. John confronts him and says that, this morning, with Bernard being all grumpy, he's much more like the guy he was at Malpais when they first met.
Bernard is himself in the middle of a lovely soma-induced sleep, but by the time he wakes up, he's sober.We jump momentarily to Lenina, who finds that she has to take soma just to bring herself to sleep with the Arch-Community-Song-whatever guy.Back to John, who is enmeshed in the ecstasy that is Romeo and Juliet, or, more specifically, Romeo's description of his gorgeous new flame.It spells it with the letters u-p-r-i-s-i-n-g. The problem with the paper is that it discusses a notion of "purpose." This is dangerous: if the upper castes start thinking about purpose, they may come to believe that conditioning serves some purpose other than everyone's immediate happiness.Also, he suspects the author may need to be moved to a remote location devoid of all human contact. Next we jump to Mustapha Mond, who is reading a paper called "The New Theory of Biology." He decides it is novel, genius, and all-around awesome, but that it can't be published because it's subversive.In the meantime, John is holed up in his room reading Romeo and Juliet.(What ever happened to "wanting to feel anger"?) Adding insult to injury, he takes Lenina with him. Very angry, the Arch-Community-Songster leaves.The whole thing is particularly mortifying, since at this "Meet the Savage" dinner party the Arch-Community-Songster of Canterbury was in attendance.Bernard's ego, meanwhile, is deflating like a balloon as everyone talks about what a loser he is.Then she hears that John isn't coming out to play, and she feels like she's just been hit with a Violent Passion Surrogate (again, don't ask us).(Actually, what she has in mind is more of a "I have the biggest crush ever on you!" sort of thing.)
Meanwhile, Lenina sits alone, planning her attack.And they take it out on Bernard by making fun of his less-than-perfect physique. All the people who came to see the Savage, in turn, have a cow themselves.
He yells something in Zuñi, the language of the Indians on the Reservation.
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