When John the Savage refuses to show himself at one of Bernard's nightly parties, so the people of society can meet and greet the Savage, true feelings emerge.
The people of society show their true colours and how they never truly liked Bernard, that they only tolerated him. The women he had been felt they had been tricked by Bernard and the men felt they had their reputations dirtied by Bernard's unsavory reputation for tolerating him and being polite. Thus, Bernard never truly belonged in the society after being a 'hero'. He was just seen as a pawn in order to get closer to the Savage - a very annoying and unorthodox pawn (who must have had alcohol definitely put into his blood surrogate as a foetus, claims Fanny, just as she did at the beginning of the novel).
Lenina is completely devastated. She had convinced herself that she would confess her feelings for John, but when he doesn't show up, feels that it is because she is there (hello, conceited much?). She is convinced that he doesn't like her at all, which is ironic because John feels that Lenina does not like him and that he is unworthy for her.
The most interesting part of this however is that Lenina likes him so much that as soon as she heard that John was not showing up to the party, "a sense of dreadful emptiness, a breathless apprehension, a nausea. Her heart seemed to stop beating" (XII, 152). How emotionally stirring this quote is! It is obvious that Lenina is obsessed with John and wishes that she could be with him. However, would she be willing to spend forever with him, as he wants, or would she rather just spend the night with him? It's a little too early to tell what her true intentions are. I was just over-joyed that she had such a strong emotional reaction!
Quite randomly but decently important, we turn back to the World Controller Mustapha Mond who is reading a stimulating book about a new theory about biology. He feels it is an amazing book that is ingenious, but would be incredibly dangerous and subversive to the social order and stability in society. Mustapha claims it would easily recondition the unsettled minds of the higher society ranks which would make them lose their faith in the society and the happiness it so proclaims to bring them, mostly because it would teach them that the purpose of life is not to maintain well-being, but to refine consciousness and obtain immense knowledge. He writes 'Not to be published' in dark underlined letters and states, "What fun it would be if one didn't have to think about happiness!" (XII, 155), or basically think of the possibilities that could occur if the happiness of the society wasn't a huge factor. But, ignorance is bliss.
We learn more about how truly egotistical Bernard is in this chapter as well. Bernard refers to John and Helmholtz as his 'victim-friends'. Bernard liked John but at the same time felt a secret grievance against him and would ponder about a series of small revenges to thrust upon John, mostly just because Bernard feels superiority over John and likes it. With Helmholtz, Bernard likes that he is able to return to Helmholtz even after their huge fight, but he also feels humiliated that he is not half the man that Helmholtz is. Bernard states that, "One of the principal functions of a friend is to suffer (in a milder and symbolic form) the punishments that we should like, but are unable, to inflict upon our enemies" (XII, 156), which I think is terrible. I am sure that there are those who do this, but I cannot imagine doing such a thing to my friends. I believe Bernard does this because he is insecure about himself and thus feels the need to make himself feel superior in some way, even if it means he has to hurt the ones he calls 'friends'.
One of the more important quotes from this chapter is when Helmholtz laughs at John's reading of "Romeo and Juliet" and states, "We need some other kind of madness and violence" (XII, 162). Helmholtz wishes that there would be chaos in the society and that the entire system would be turned upside down and become unstable. Those that are unstable are more interesting than stable.
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