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After a while, Lenina decides Bernard is definitely odd. He has a mania for doing things in private, which in her mind means not doing anything at all. When she proposed for their first date a swim or a round of Electro-magnetic Golf, Bernard shied away, saying it was a waste of time. Lenina asked him what, then, was time for? Finally, she persuaded him to go with her to the Women's Heavyweight Wrestling Championship, where Bernard, hating the crowd, remained gloomy. She pressed on him a half-gramme soma raspberry sundae, but he refused it, saying he'd rather be himself and nasty than somebody else, however jolly. Afterward, Bernard hovered the helicopter at the edge of the Channel, where a southwesterly wind had sprung up against a cloudy sky. To Lenina, the rushing emptiness was horrible, and she flicked on music, only to have Bernard turn it back off. He said he wanted to look at the sea in peace; it made him feel more himself, and not so completely a part of something else. He wondered what it would be like to be free, and not enslaved by his own conditioning. Lenina thought he was saying the most awful things, because, after all, everyone is free to have a wonderful time. Everyone is happy now. Bernard said yes, that was a statement children began getting at age five. Bernard finally consented to go back, and to take the soma Lenina gave him. In his rooms later, Lenina worried she might be too plump. Bernard thought of her again as a piece of meat, and realized that was how she saw herself. Later, he told her he'd wanted the night to end differently, to try the effect of arresting his impulses. For Lenina, that was a bunch of dangerous nonsense—never put off till tomorrow the fun you can have today. But Bernard persisted, saying he wanted to know what passion felt like, and wondered if it was possible to be adult all the time. Lenina recited, "When the individual feels, the community reels." Bernard asked why the community shouldn't reel a bit. Despite her misgivings, Lenina still wants to go to the Savage Reservation, which is bound to be better than going back to the North Pole with Benito Hoover. And as an Alpha Plus psychologist, Bernard is one of the few people who can get permission to enter the Reservation. Before their trip, Bernard takes the permit to the D.H.C.'s office for his signature. The sight of the permit reminds the Director of a similar trip he took to the Reservation twenty years ago. Lost in the memory, the Director, so conventional most of the time, commits a gross error by talking about the remote past. Despite his discomfort, Bernard listens, fascinated, as the Director describes taking the girl he was having at the time—a Beta-Minus—into the mountains, and then being overtaken by a storm while they slept. When the Director woke up, the girl was gone. A search later failed to find her. They assumed she'd fallen into a gully somewhere, or been eaten by a mountain lion. The Director shakes himself, says it could have happened to anyone, and of course, the social body persists though the component cells may change. Still, he dreams of it sometimes. Then the Director pulls himself together and, realizing his error, hastens to add that there was nothing unseemly in his relationship with the girl, nothing emotional or long-term. Furious with himself, he takes it out on Bernard. He signs the permit, but tells Bernard he's been getting disturbing reports about Bernard's behavior outside working hours. Alphas are conditioned so that they don't have to be infantile in their emotional behavior, but that's all the more reason to make a special effort to conform. The Director warns him that he won't risk the reputation of the Centre, and if he hears again about Bernard lapsing from a proper standard of infantile decorum, he'll transfer him to Iceland. Bernard isn't worried about the threat; people simply aren't transferred for such things. Rather, he's elated by the idea of the threat, intoxicated by the consciousness of his own individual significance. The journey to Santa Fe is uneventful, and Bernard and Lenina spend the night in a nice hotel with all the modern conveniences. The next morning, they present themselves to the Warden of the Reservation, who describes the sixty-thousand-volt fences surrounding the Sub-Reservations. To touch the fence is instant death, he says; there's no escape from a Savage Reservation. Lenina swallowed some soma when the man began droning facts, and she sits with an expression of rapt attention thinking nothing at all. Bernard suddenly remembers he's left the Eau de Cologne tap in his bathroom open and running, which is going to cost him a fortune. But the Warden keeps spewing information: there are sixty thousand Indians and half-breeds on the Reservation, absolute savages who still practice repulsive customs like marriage, Christianity, and ancestor worship. They speak extinct languages and have no communication at all with the outside world. Finally, they manage to get away. When Bernard calls Helmholtz to run by and turn off his tap, Helmholtz tells him that the D.H.C. said in public yesterday that he's looking for a replacement for Bernard, who's being sent to Iceland. Bernard is appalled; although he's often longed for some great affliction or persecution to try him, he didn't think the Director's threat was serious. Now Bernard's courage deserts him, and Lenina persuades him to swallow four tablets of soma. He sleeps all the way to the Reservation. Lenina and Bernard clearly represent conflicting ideas. Lenina, despite some personal desires to the contrary, is a product of her conditioning. She accepts the values of the State without question. Bernard, on the other hand, questions everything. In particular, he wants to feel those strong emotions that conditioning and soma have kept from him. Bernard recognizes his own enslavement, and he wonders what it would like to be able to exercise free will. His ideas frighten Lenina, adding to the tension. Bernard is clearly headed toward a crisis in his conflict with society. This crisis is foreshadowed by the warning of the Director, who represents conventional society. He—and society—won't tolerate Bernard's behavior. Bernard will have to make a choice between conforming and losing his position. The threat, however, only sparks in Bernard an elation he hasn't felt before. The idea of jeopardy produces a real reaction no amount of soma can reproduce. The craving for natural, strong emotion is one that not even the advanced techniques of this society can completely eradicate. We even see this in the Director, who lapses from conventionality long enough to betray a painful memory. Although he denies the event was painful, he still has trouble sleeping. The story he tells Bernard is important for another reason: the lost woman is about to be found, and it will have repercussions for everyone. In contrast to the outwardly perfect New World, the Savage Reservation is shown as a bleak prison, contained by deadly fences. But Lenina, having taken her soma, is oblivious to anything but the most superficial facts given to her by the Warden. In fact, she's bored. Bernard, on the other hand, is distracted by the idea that he left his tap running, and the amount of money it's costing him. Even Bernard can't escape the practical concerns of his life. When he learns the Director intends to make good on his threat, his courage deserts him, and Bernard resorts to soma rather than face the conflict. He and Lenina are shown to be as imprisoned as the savages on the Reservation.
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