Chapter VI - Summary

The chapter begins with Lenina having a struggle between whether or not she will go with Bernard to New Mexico for the vacation. She finds Bernard really odd and wishes he weren't so. She decides that she will go with him, but basically only because she hates the North Pole (it is much too old-fashioned and not good enough for her) even if it is with Benito Hoover, and because she would be one of the few to ever go to a Savage Reservation.
She asked Henry Foster about Bernard and he compared him to a rhinoceros, saying that he does not respond well to conditioning but that he is harmless.

Lenina then recalls the first time she ever went out with Bernard. He wanted to be alone with her, not just during the night, but during the day as well. Lenina did not understand why they had to be alone for talking, and persuaded him to go to the Semi-Demi-Finals of the Women's Heavyweight Wrestling Championship.
Bernard was very grumpy for the rest of the afternoon. She tried to get him to share a half-gramme soma raspberry sundae with her, but he refused and said, "I'd rather be myself. Myself and nasty. Not somebody else, however jolly." Lenina responded with the sleep-teaching's principles and he snapped and yelled at her. She just brushed it off and continued to eat her soma sundae.

Lenina and Bernard then went flying, and the weather was taking a turn for the worst. Bernard flew over the choppy waters, and Lenina tried her best to get him to turn around and leave, as the sight was making her cry. Bernard tries to get her to understand how he feels - he wishes that he was not useful and that he was free. Free from conditioning so that he knows he is truly free.
Lenina does not understand and says that he should take soma for such depressing thoughts. Bernard stares at her gravely, and as Lenina flinches away, he starts turning the helicopter around. He starts laughing and acts as if everything is fine, making Lenina feel more comfortable again.

They return to Bernard's room, and Bernard takes four tablets of soma. Lenina is saying how she is 'awfully pneumatic' and starts heading to Bernard's bed thinking she has won over him. Bernard then says that he has decided he does not want to go to bed with her, at least not on the very first day. He wants to know what passion and love feel like. Lenina does not understand, and figures that he thinks she is too 'plump'.
Lenina confides to Fanny, who reminds her again of the rumour of the alcohol in his blood-surrogate, but still believes he is attractive but wishes he was not so odd.
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PART 2
Bernard is outside of the Director's room and is bracing himself for whatever disapproval and dislike he is about to be met with.
Bernard hands the Director a permit that allows Bernard and another to go to the Savage Reservation and asks him to initial it. The Director initialed it and was about to hand it back when he is shocked when he realizes it is for the New Mexican Reservation.

Bernard is surprised by the Director's surprised reaction to the destination. He feels discomfort in the fact that the Director seems to disapprove but listens to the Director as he begins to tell a story of a time he went to the Reservation.
The Director also had gotten a permit for the New Mexican Reservation about twenty years ago and he went with a Beta-Minus girl who was 'particularly pneumatic'. Him and the girl were on the last day there when she got lost by herself. There was a thunderstorm and the horse he had ran away, causing him to hurt his knee bad enough that he could barely walk. He tried to find the girl but there was no sign of her. He believed that perhaps she had gone to the rest-house by herself, and he crawled down the valley. It would not have been as brutal if he had not lost his soma and it took him hours to crawl down to the rest-house, only to find that she was not there.
The next day, there was a search for her but she could not be found. They decided that she must have fallen in a gully or eaten by a mountain lion.
The Director recalls how upset he had been over the whole ordeal, and how he sometimes has nightmares about it.

Bernard comments enviously that he must have had a 'terrible shock'. The Director realizes what he has given away a secret and blushes. He angrily tells him that he had no emotional affair with the woman and that he is sorry that he bored him with such trivial things.
The Director, furious that he gave away a secret, then turns his angry onto Bernard and that he is not pleased with Bernard's behaviour outside of work. He wants him to behave more conditioned and that if he hears of such disapproving behaviour again he will transfer Bernard to a Sub-Centre in Iceland.

Bernard leaves the room and is not frightened, but elated by the fact his actions were so important and created a ruckus. For the first time in a long time, Bernard had complete confidence and was excited by the life-giving threat.

Bernard is now chatting to Watson about the situation with the Director that morning. He is boasting to Watson that he told him to 'go to the Bottomless Past and marched out of the room', but Watson did not respond. Watson begins to think that although he likes Bernard for the fact he can talk to him about what he feels is important, he does not like that Bernard always feels the need to boast and has outbursts of self-pity. Watson continues to say nothing and Bernard blushes and turns away.
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PART 3
Bernard and Lenina are now on their way to the New Mexican Reservation. Lenina comments on how it is 'not bad' that their flight was only forty seconds behind schedule.
Lenina is pleased that they slept in such a wonderful hotel that was incomparably better than the one in the North Pole. She is impressed by all the things to do like sixty Escalator-Squash-Racquet Courts and that there was Obstacle and Electro-magnetic Golf.
Bernard says that if Lenina cannot stand being in the Reservation, where there is no scent, television, or hot water, then she could stay at the hotel. Lenina is offended and says that she could definitely stand it but is just so pleased with the hotel and how 'progress is lovely' (another one of the hypnopaedic wisdom's). Bernard stresses again that if she cannot handle the Reservation, then she should not go but Lenina is determined to go. Bernard retaliates with, "Very well, then" in almost a threatening way.

In the morning, they met with the Warden of the Reservation that was going to be their tour of the reservation. Bernard is not listening and realizes that he left some Cologne running in the bathroom and is thinking of a way to quickly phone Watson to have him turn it off. Lenina is not listening either, as she took some soma before the Warden started to talk.
Bernard then quickly states that perhaps they should go, as the Warden discusses that there is no escape from the Reservation and that the children are born (oh yes, born, how obscene!) there. The Warden stares at Lenina in hopes she will blush at the obscenity but in her somatic state just says, "You don't say so!", disappointing the Warden.

Bernard, worried about losing so much money with the Cologne running, tries to state again that they should be on their way but the Warden continued on as if he heard nothing. After the Warden is done going on about how the Reservation has families, no conditioning, superstitions, ancestor worships, extinct languages, and diseases among many dangerous animals, Bernard and Lenina rush to the telephone.
Bernard finally gets a hold of Watson and asks him to turn off the tap. Watson then mentions that the Director is seriously looking for someone to take Bernard's place and that he is being sent to Iceland.

Bernard is dumb-founded. He thought it was an idle threat. Lenina tells him that he should take soma and eventually persuades him to take four tablets. Soon they were taken into a plane to head over to the reservation.