Charlie Goodmorning
December 25th 07, 06:01 PM
suffocation.
In the room over Mr. Charrington's shop, when they could get there,
Julia and Winston lay side by side on a stripped bed under the open window,
naked for the sake of coolness. The rat had never come back, but the bugs
had multiplied hideously in the heat. It did not seem to matter. Dirty or
clean, the room was paradise. As soon as they arrived they would sprinkle
everything with pepper bought on the black market, tear off their clothes,
and make love with sweating bodies, then fall asleep and wake to find that
the bugs had rallied and were massing for the counter-attack.
Four, five, six -- seven times they met during the month of June.
Winston had dropped his habit of drinking gin at all hours. He seemed to
have lost the need for it. He had grown fatter, his varicose ulcer had
subsided, leaving only a brown stain on the skin above his ankle, his fits
of coughing in the early morning had stopped. The process of life had
ceased to be intolerable, he had no longer any impulse to make faces at the
telescreen or shout curses at the top of his voice. Now that they had a
secure hiding-place, almost a home, it did not even seem a hardship that
they could only meet infrequently and for a couple of hours at a time. What
mattered was that the room over the junk-shop should exist. To know that it
was there, inviolate, was almost the same as being in it. The room was a
world, a pocket of the past where extinct animals could walk. Mr.
Charrington, thought Winston, was another extinct animal. He usually
stopped to talk with Mr. Charrington for a few minutes on his way upstairs.
In the room over Mr. Charrington's shop, when they could get there,
Julia and Winston lay side by side on a stripped bed under the open window,
naked for the sake of coolness. The rat had never come back, but the bugs
had multiplied hideously in the heat. It did not seem to matter. Dirty or
clean, the room was paradise. As soon as they arrived they would sprinkle
everything with pepper bought on the black market, tear off their clothes,
and make love with sweating bodies, then fall asleep and wake to find that
the bugs had rallied and were massing for the counter-attack.
Four, five, six -- seven times they met during the month of June.
Winston had dropped his habit of drinking gin at all hours. He seemed to
have lost the need for it. He had grown fatter, his varicose ulcer had
subsided, leaving only a brown stain on the skin above his ankle, his fits
of coughing in the early morning had stopped. The process of life had
ceased to be intolerable, he had no longer any impulse to make faces at the
telescreen or shout curses at the top of his voice. Now that they had a
secure hiding-place, almost a home, it did not even seem a hardship that
they could only meet infrequently and for a couple of hours at a time. What
mattered was that the room over the junk-shop should exist. To know that it
was there, inviolate, was almost the same as being in it. The room was a
world, a pocket of the past where extinct animals could walk. Mr.
Charrington, thought Winston, was another extinct animal. He usually
stopped to talk with Mr. Charrington for a few minutes on his way upstairs.