1984 - Planet eBook

ked from the waist upwards, with her cheek pillowed onher hand and one dark lock tumbling across her eyes. Herbreast rose and fell slowly and regularly.‘Julia.’No answer.‘Julia, are you awake?’No answer. She was asleep. He shut the book, put it carefullyon the floor, lay down, and pulled the coverlet overboth of them.He had still, he reflected, not learned the ultimate secret.He understood HOW; he did not understand WHY. ChapterI, like Chapter III, had not actually told him anythingthat he did not know, it had merely systematized the knowledgethat he possessed already. But after reading it he knewbetter than before that he was not mad. Being in a minority,even a minority of one, did not make you mad. There wastruth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the trutheven against the whole world, you were not mad. A yellowbeam from the sinking sun slanted in through the windowand fell across the pillow. He shut his eyes. The sun on hisface and the girl’s smooth body touching his own gave hima strong, sleepy, confident feeling. He was safe, everythingwas all right. He fell asleep murmuring ‘Sanity is not statistical,’with the feeling that this remark contained in it aprofound wisdom.*****When he woke it was with the sensation of having sleptfor a long time, but a glance at the old-fashioned clock toldhim that it was only twenty-thirty. He lay dozing for a while;