George Orwell's 1984(Signet Classics)

Part II

It was the middle of the morning, and Winston had left the cubicle to goto the lavatory.A solitary figure was coming towards him from the other end of the long,brightly-lit corridor. It was the girl with dark hair. Four days had gonepast since the evening when he had run into her outside the junk-shop.As she came nearer he saw that her right arm was in a sling, not noticeableat a distance because it was of the same colour as her overalls. Probablyshe had crushed her hand while swinging round one of the big kaleidoscopeson which the plots of novels were 'roughed in'. It was a common accidentin the Fiction Department.They were perhaps four metres apart when the girl stumbled and fell almostflat on her face. A sharp cry of pain was wrung out of her. She must havefallen right on the injured arm. Winston stopped short. The girl had risento her knees. Her face had turned a milky yellow colour against which hermouth stood out redder than ever. Her eyes were fixed on his, with anappealing expression that looked more like fear than pain.A curious emotion stirred in Winston's heart. In front of him was an enemywho was trying to kill him: in front of him, also, was a human creature,in pain and perhaps with a broken bone. Already he had instinctivelystarted forward to help her. In the moment when he had seen her fall onthe bandaged arm, it had been as though he felt the pain in his own body.'You're hurt?' he said.'It's nothing. My arm. It'll be all right in a second.'She spoke as though her heart were fluttering. She had certainly turnedvery pale.'You haven't broken anything?''No, I'm all right. It hurt for a moment, that's all.'She held out her free hand to him, and he helped her up. She had regainedsome of her colour, and appeared very much better.'It's nothing,' she repeated shortly. 'I only gave my wrist a bit of abang. Thanks, comrade!'And with that she walked on in the direction in which she had been going,as briskly as though it had really been nothing. The whole incident couldnot have taken as much as half a minute. Not to let one's feelings appearin one's face was a habit that had acquired the status of an instinct,and in any case they had been standing straight in front of a telescreenwhen the thing happened. Nevertheless it had been very difficult not tobetray a momentary surprise, for in the two or three seconds while he washelping her up the girl had slipped something into his hand. There was noquestion that she had done it intentionally. It was something small andflat. As he passed through the lavatory door he transferred it to hispocket and felt it with the tips of his fingers. It was a scrap of paperfolded into a square.While he stood at the urinal he managed, with a little more fingering, toget it unfolded. Obviously there must be a message of some kind written onit. For a moment he was tempted to take it into one of the water-closetsand read it at once. But that would be shocking folly, as he well knew.There was no place where you could be more certain that the telescreenswere watched continuously.He went back to his cubicle, sat down, threw the fragment of papercasually among the other papers on the desk, put on his spectacles andhitched the speakwrite towards him. 'Five minutes,' he told himself,'five minutes at the very least!' His heart bumped in his breast withfrightening loudness. Fortunately the piece of work he was engaged on wasmere routine, the rectification of a long list of figures, not needingclose attention.Whatever was written on the paper, it must have some kind of politicalmeaning. So far as he could see there were two possibilities. One, muchthe more likely, was that the girl was an agent of the Thought Police,just as he had feared. He did not know why the Thought Police shouldchoose to deliver their messages in such a fashion, but perhaps they hadtheir reasons. The thing that was written on the paper might be a threat, asummons, an order to commit suicide, a trap of some description. But therewas another, wilder possibility that kept raising its head, though hetried vainly to suppress it. This was, that the message did not come fromthe Thought Police at all, but from some kind of underground organization.Perhaps the Brotherhood existed after all! Perhaps the girl was part of it!No doubt the idea was absurd, but it had sprung into his mind in the veryinstant of feeling the scrap of paper in his hand. It was not till a coupleof minutes later that the other, more probable explanation had occurred tohim. And even now, though his intellect told him that the message probablymeant death--still, that was not what he believed, and the unreasonablehope persisted, and his heart banged, and it was with difficulty that hekept his voice from trembling as he murmured his figures into thespeakwrite.He rolled up the completed bundle of work and slid it into the pneumatictube. Eight minutes had gone by. He re-adjusted his spectacles on his nose,sighed, and drew the next batch of work towards him, with the scrap ofpaper on top of it. He flattened it out. On it was written, in a largeunformed handwriting:I LOVE YOU.For several seconds he was too stunned even to throw the incriminatingthing into the memory hole. When he did so, although he knew very well thedanger of showing too much interest, he could not resist reading it onceagain, just to make sure that the words were really there.For the rest of the morning it was very difficult to work. What was evenworse than having to focus his mind on a series of niggling jobs was theneed to conceal his agitation from the telescreen. He felt as though afire were burning in his belly. Lunch in the hot, crowded, noise-filledcanteen was torment. He had hoped to be alone for a little while duringthe lunch hour, but as bad luck would have it the imbecile Parsons floppeddown beside him, the tang of his sweat almost defeating the tinny smell ofstew, and kept up a stream of talk about the preparations for Hate Week.He was particularly enthusiastic about a papier-mache model of BigBrother's head, two metres wide, which was being made for the occasion byhis daughter's troop of Spies. The irritating thing was that in the racketof voices Winston could hardly hear what Parsons was saying, and wasconstantly having to ask for some fatuous remark to be repeated. Just oncehe caught a glimpse of the girl, at a table with two other girls at thefar end of the room. She appeared not to have seen him, and he did notlook in that direction again.The afternoon was more bearable. Immediately after lunch there arrived adelicate, difficult piece of work which would take several hours andnecessitated putting everything else aside. It consisted in falsifying aseries of production reports of two years ago, in such a way as to castdiscredit on a prominent member of the Inner Party, who was now under acloud. This was the kind of thing that Winston was good at, and for morethan two hours he succeeded in shutting the girl out of his mindaltogether. Then the memory of her face came back, and with it a raging,intolerable desire to be alone. Until he could be alone it was impossibleto think this new development out. Tonight was one of his nights at theCommunity Centre. He wolfed another tasteless meal in the canteen, hurriedoff to the Centre, took part in the solemn foolery of a 'discussion group',played two games of table tennis, swallowed several glasses of gin, andsat for half an hour through a lecture entitled 'Ingsoc in relation tochess'. His soul writhed with boredom, but for once he had had no impulseto shirk his evening at the Centre. At the sight of the words I LOVE YOUthe desire to stay alive had welled up in him, and the taking of minorrisks suddenly seemed stupid. It was not till twenty-three hours, when hewas home and in bed--in the darkness, where you were safe even from thetelescreen so long as you kept silent--that he was able to thinkcontinuously.It was a physical problem that had to be solved: how to get in touch withthe girl and arrange a meeting. He did not consider any longer thepossibility that she might be laying some kind of trap for him. He knewthat it was not so, because of her unmistakable agitation when she handedhim the note. Obviously she had been frightened out of her wits, as wellshe might be. Nor did the idea of refusing her advances even cross hismind. Only five nights ago he had contemplated smashing her skull in witha cobblestone, but that was of no importance. He thought of her naked,youthful body, as he had seen it in his dream. He had imagined her a foollike all the rest of them, her head stuffed with lies and hatred, herbelly full of ice. A kind of fever seized him at the thought that he mightlose her, the white youthful body might slip away from him! What he fearedmore than anything else was that she would simply change her mind if hedid not get in touch with her quickly. But the physical difficulty ofmeeting was enormous. It was like trying to make a move at chess when youwere already mated. Whichever way you turned, the telescreen faced you.Actually, all the possible ways of communicating with her had occurred tohim within five minutes of reading the note; but now, with time to think,he went over them one by one, as though laying out a row of instrumentson a table.Obviously the kind of encounter that had happened this morning could notbe repeated. If she had worked in the Records Department it might havebeen comparatively simple, but he had only a very dim idea whereabouts inthe building the Fiction Department lay, and he had no pretext for goingthere. If he had known where she lived, and at what time she left work,he could have contrived to meet her somewhere on her way home; but to tryto follow her home was not safe, because it would mean loitering aboutoutside the Ministry, which was bound to be noticed. As for sending aletter through the mails, it was out of the question. By a routine thatwas not even secret, all letters were opened in transit. Actually, fewpeople ever wrote letters. For the messages that it was occasionallynecessary to send, there were printed postcards with long lists of phrases,and you struck out the ones that were inapplicable. In any case he did notknow the girl's name, let alone her address. Finally he decided that thesafest place was the canteen. If he could get her at a table by herself,somewhere in the middle of the room, not too near the telescreens, andwith a sufficient buzz of conversation all round--if these conditionsendured for, say, thirty seconds, it might be possible to exchange a fewwords.For a week after this, life was like a restless dream. On the next day shedid not appear in the canteen until he was leaving it, the whistle havingalready blown. Presumably she had been changed on to a later shift. Theypassed each other without a glance. On the day after that she was in thecanteen at the usual time, but with three other girls and immediatelyunder a telescreen. Then for three dreadful days she did not appear atall. His whole mind and body seemed to be afflicted with an unbearablesensitivity, a sort of transparency, which made every movement, everysound, every contact, every word that he had to speak or listen to, anagony. Even in sleep he could not altogether escape from her image. He didnot touch the diary during those days. If there was any relief, it was inhis work, in which he could sometimes forget himself for ten minutes at astretch. He had absolutely no clue as to what had happened to her. Therewas no enquiry he could make. She might have been vaporized, she mighthave committed suicide, she might have been transferred to the other endof Oceania: worst and likeliest of all, she might simply have changed hermind and decided to avoid him.The next day she reappeared. Her arm was out of the sling and she had aband of sticking-plaster round her wrist. The relief of seeing her wasso great that he could not resist staring directly at her for severalseconds. On the following day he very nearly succeeded in speaking to her.When he came into the canteen she was sitting at a table well out from thewall, and was quite alone. It was early, and the place was not very full.The queue edged forward till Winston was almost at the counter, then washeld up for two minutes because someone in front was complaining that hehad not received his tablet of saccharine. But the girl was still alonewhen Winston secured his tray and began to make for her table. He walkedcasually towards her, his eyes searching for a place at some table beyondher. She was perhaps three metres away from him. Another two seconds woulddo it. Then a voice behind him called, 'Smith!' He pretended not to hear.'Smith!' repeated the voice, more loudly. It was no use. He turned round.A blond-headed, silly-faced young man named Wilsher, whom he barely knew,was inviting him with a smile to a vacant place at his table. It was notsafe to refuse. After having been recognized, he could not go and sit ata table with an unattended girl. It was too noticeable. He sat down witha friendly smile. The silly blond face beamed into his. Winston had ahallucination of himself smashing a pick-axe right into the middle of it.The girl's table filled up a few minutes later.But she must have seen him coming towards her, and perhaps she would takethe hint. Next day he took care to arrive early. Surely enough, she was ata table in about the same place, and again alone. The person immediatelyahead of him in the queue was a small, swiftly-moving, beetle-like manwith a flat face and tiny, suspicious eyes. As Winston turned away fromthe counter with his tray, he saw that the little man was making straightfor the girl's table. His hopes sank again. There was a vacant place at atable further away, but something in the little man's appearance suggestedthat he would be sufficiently attentive to his own comfort to choose theemptiest table. With ice at his heart Winston followed. It was no useunless he could get the girl alone. At this moment there was a tremendouscrash. The little man was sprawling on all fours, his tray had gone flying,two streams of soup and coffee were flowing across the floor. He startedto his feet with a malignant glance at Winston, whom he evidentlysuspected of having tripped him up. But it was all right. Five secondslater, with a thundering heart, Winston was sitting at the girl's table.He did not look at her. He unpacked his tray and promptly began eating.It was all-important to speak at once, before anyone else came, but nowa terrible fear had taken possession of him. A week had gone by sinceshe had first approached him. She would have changed her mind, she musthave changed her mind! It was impossible that this affair should endsuccessfully; such things did not happen in real life. He might haveflinched altogether from speaking if at this moment he had not seenAmpleforth, the hairy-eared poet, wandering limply round the room witha tray, looking for a place to sit down. In his vague way Ampleforthwas attached to Winston, and would certainly sit down at his table ifhe caught sight of him. There was perhaps a minute in which to act. BothWinston and the girl were eating steadily. The stuff they were eating wasa thin stew, actually a soup, of haricot beans. In a low murmur Winstonbegan speaking. Neither of them looked up; steadily they spooned thewatery stuff into their mouths, and between spoonfuls exchanged the fewnecessary words in low expressionless voices.'What time do you leave work?''Eighteen-thirty.''Where can we meet?''Victory Square, near the monument.''It's full of telescreens.''It doesn't matter if there's a crowd.''Any signal?''No. Don't come up to me until you see me among a lot of people. And don'tlook at me. Just keep somewhere near me.''What time?''Nineteen hours.''All right.'Ampleforth failed to see Winston and sat down at another table. They didnot speak again, and, so far as it was possible for two people sitting onopposite sides of the same table, they did not look at one another. Thegirl finished her lunch quickly and made off, while Winston stayed tosmoke a cigarette.Winston was in Victory Square before the appointed time. He wandered roundthe base of the enormous fluted column, at the top of which Big Brother'sstatue gazed southward towards the skies where he had vanquished theEurasian aeroplanes (the Eastasian aeroplanes, it had been, a few yearsago) in the Battle of Airstrip One. In the street in front of it there wasa statue of a man on horseback which was supposed to represent OliverCromwell. At five minutes past the hour the girl had still not appeared.Again the terrible fear seized upon Winston. She was not coming, she hadchanged her mind! He walked slowly up to the north side of the square andgot a sort of pale-coloured pleasure from identifying St Martin's Church,whose bells, when it had bells, had chimed 'You owe me three farthings.'Then he saw the girl standing at the base of the monument, reading orpretending to read a poster which ran spirally up the column. It was notsafe to go near her until some more people had accumulated. There weretelescreens all round the pediment. But at this moment there was a din ofshouting and a zoom of heavy vehicles from somewhere to the left. Suddenlyeveryone seemed to be running across the square. The girl nipped nimblyround the lions at the base of the monument and joined in the rush.Winston followed. As he ran, he gathered from some shouted remarks thata convoy of Eurasian prisoners was passing.Already a dense mass of people was blocking the south side of the square.Winston, at normal times the kind of person who gravitates to the outeredge of any kind of scrimmage, shoved, butted, squirmed his way forwardinto the heart of the crowd. Soon he was within arm's length of the girl,but the way was blocked by an enormous prole and an almost equally enormouswoman, presumably his wife, who seemed to form an impenetrable wall offlesh. Winston wriggled himself sideways, and with a violent lunge managedto drive his shoulder between them. For a moment it felt as though hisentrails were being ground to pulp between the two muscular hips, then hehad broken through, sweating a little. He was next to the girl. They wereshoulder to shoulder, both staring fixedly in front of them.A long line of trucks, with wooden-faced guards armed with sub-machineguns standing upright in each corner, was passing slowly down the street.In the trucks little yellow men in shabby greenish uniforms were squatting,jammed close together. Their sad, Mongolian faces gazed out over the sidesof the trucks utterly incurious. Occasionally when a truck jolted therewas a clank-clank of metal: all the prisoners were wearing leg-irons.Truck-load after truck-load of the sad faces passed. Winston knew theywere there but he saw them only intermittently. The girl's shoulder, andher arm right down to the elbow, were pressed against his. Her cheek wasalmost near enough for him to feel its warmth. She had immediately takencharge of the situation, just as she had done in the canteen. She beganspeaking in the same expressionless voice as before, with lips barelymoving, a mere murmur easily drowned by the din of voices and the rumblingof the trucks.'Can you hear me?''Yes.''Can you get Sunday afternoon off?''Yes.''Then listen carefully. You'll have to remember this. Go to PaddingtonStation----'With a sort of military precision that astonished him, she outlined theroute that he was to follow. A half-hour railway journey; turn left outsidethe station; two kilometres along the road; a gate with the top barmissing; a path across a field; a grass-grown lane; a track between bushes;a dead tree with moss on it. It was as though she had a map inside herhead. 'Can you remember all that?' she murmured finally.'Yes.''You turn left, then right, then left again. And the gate's got no top bar.''Yes. What time?''About fifteen. You may have to wait. I'll get there by another way. Areyou sure you remember everything?''Yes.''Then get away from me as quick as you can.'She need not have told him that. But for the moment they could notextricate themselves from the crowd. The trucks were still filing past,the people still insatiably gaping. At the start there had been a few boosand hisses, but it came only from the Party members among the crowd, andhad soon stopped. The prevailing emotion was simply curiosity. Foreigners,whether from Eurasia or from Eastasia, were a kind of strange animal. Oneliterally never saw them except in the guise of prisoners, and even asprisoners one never got more than a momentary glimpse of them. Nor didone know what became of them, apart from the few who were hanged aswar-criminals: the others simply vanished, presumably into forced-labourcamps. The round Mogol faces had given way to faces of a more Europeantype, dirty, bearded and exhausted. From over scrubby cheekbones eyeslooked into Winston's, sometimes with strange intensity, and flashed awayagain. The convoy was drawing to an end. In the last truck he could see anaged man, his face a mass of grizzled hair, standing upright with wristscrossed in front of him, as though he were used to having them boundtogether. It was almost time for Winston and the girl to part. But at thelast moment, while the crowd still hemmed them in, her hand felt for hisand gave it a fleeting squeeze.It could not have been ten seconds, and yet it seemed a long time thattheir hands were clasped together. He had time to learn every detailof her hand. He explored the long fingers, the shapely nails, thework-hardened palm with its row of callouses, the smooth flesh under thewrist. Merely from feeling it he would have known it by sight. In thesame instant it occurred to him that he did not know what colour thegirl's eyes were. They were probably brown, but people with dark hairsometimes had blue eyes. To turn his head and look at her would havebeen inconceivable folly. With hands locked together, invisible amongthe press of bodies, they stared steadily in front of them, and insteadof the eyes of the girl, the eyes of the aged prisoner gazed mournfullyat Winston out of nests of hair.