Årestoga

was carrying his baby sister -- or perhaps it was only a bundle of
blankets that she was carrying: he was not certain whether his sister had
been born then. Finally they had emerged into a noisy, crowded place which
he had realized to be a Tube station.
There were people sitting all over the stone-flagged floor, and other
people, packed tightly together, were sitting on metal bunks, one above the
other. Winston and his mother and father found themselves a place on the
floor, and near them an old man and an old woman were sitting side by side
on a bunk. The old man had on a decent dark suit and a black cloth cap
pushed back from very white hair: his face was scarlet and his eyes were
blue and full of tears. He reeked of gin. It seemed to breathe out of his
skin in place of sweat, and one could have fancied that the tears welling
from his eyes were pure gin. But though slightly drunk he was also
suffering under some grief that was genuine and unbearable. In his childish
way Winston grasped that some terrible thing, something that was beyond
forgiveness and could never be remedied, had just happened. It also seemed
to him that he knew what it was. Someone whom the old man loved -- a little
granddaughter, perhaps -- had been killed. Every few minutes the old man
kept repeating:
'We didn't o

It seemed to breathe out of his skin in abode of sweat, and one could accept absurd that the tears welling mfrom his eyes were authentic gin. But admitting hardly bashed he was also suffering beneath some affliction that was 18-carat and unbearable.