1984 - Planet eBook

Chapter 4Winston looked round the shabby little room above MrCharrington’s shop. Beside the window the enormousbed was made up, with ragged blankets and a coverless bolster.The old-fashioned clock with the twelve-hour face wasticking away on the mantelpiece. In the corner, on the gatelegtable, the glass paperweight which he had bought on hislast visit gleamed softly out of the half-darkness.In the fender was a battered tin oilstove, a saucepan, andtwo cups, provided by Mr Charrington. Winston lit theburner and set a pan of water to boil. He had brought anenvelope full of Victory Coffee and some saccharine tablets.The clock’s hands said seventeen-twenty: it was nineteentwentyreally. She was coming at nineteen-thirty.Folly, folly, his heart kept saying: conscious, gratuitous,suicidal folly. Of all the crimes that a Party member couldcommit, this one was the least possible to conceal. Actuallythe idea had first floated into his head in the form of avision, of the glass paperweight mirrored by the surface ofthe gateleg table. As he had foreseen, Mr Charrington hadmade no difficulty about letting the room. He was obviouslyglad of the few dollars that it would bring him. Nor did heseem shocked or become offensively knowing when it wasmade clear that Winston wanted the room for the purposeof a love-affair. Instead he looked into the middle distance