'Bomb,' he shouted. ' U p there! Bomb!'
Winston threw himself to the ground. The
proles were usually
right when they warned you that a bomb was falling. W h e n he
stood up, he was covered w i t h bits of glass from the nearest
window. He continued walking. The bomb had destroyed a
group of houses two hundred metres up the street and in front of
h i m he saw a human hand, cut off at the wrist. He kicked it to
the side of the road and turned right, away from the crowd.
He was in a narrow street w i t h a few dark little shops among
the houses. He seemed to know the place. Of course! He was
standing outside the shop where he had bought the diary. He was
afraid, suddenly. He had been mad to buy the diary, and he had
promised himself he would never come near this place again. But
he noticed that the shop was still open, although it was nearly
twenty-one hours. He would be safer inside than standing there
doing nothing outside, so he went i n . If anyone asked, he could
say he was trying to buy a razor blade.
The owner had just lit a hanging oil lamp which smelled
unclean but friendly. He was a small, gentle-looking man of
about sixty w i t h a long nose and thick glasses. His hair was
almost white but the rest of his face looked surprisingly young.
He looked like a writer, or perhaps a musician. His voice was soft
and he didn't speak like a
prole.
'I recognized you when you were outside,' he said immediately.
'You're the gentleman who bought the diary. There's beautiful
paper in that diary. No paper like that has been made for - oh, I'd
say fifty years.' He looked at Winston over the top of his glasses. 'Is
there anything special I can do for you? Or did you just want to
look round?'
'I was . . . er . . . passing,' said Winston. ' A n d I just came in. I
don't want to buy anything.'
'Well, that's all right,' said the shop owner, 'because I haven't
got much to sell you.' He looked round the shop sadly. 'Don't tell
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anyone I said so, but it's difficult to get old things these days. A n d
when you can get them nobody wants them. 'The old man's shop
was full
o f things, but they were all cheap and dirty and useless.
'There's another room upstairs that you could look at,' he said.
Winston followed the man upstairs. The room was a bedroom
w i t h furniture in it. There was a bed under the window, taking
nearly a quarter of the room.
'We lived here for thirty years until my wife died,' said the old
man sadly. ' I ' m selling the furniture, slowly. That's a beautiful bed,
but perhaps it would be too big for you?'
Winston thought he could probably rent the room for a few
dollars a week, if he dared to. It would be so peaceful to live as
people used to live in the past, w i t h no voice talking to you,
nobody watching you . . .
'There's no
telescreen', he said.
' A h ! ' said the old man. 'I never had one. Too expensive.'
There was a picture on the wall. It showed a London church
that used to be famous, in the days when churches were famous
and people still went to them. Winston did not buy the picture,
but he stayed in the room talking to the old man whose name, he
discovered, was Charrington.
Even when he left he was still thinking about renting the
room. But then, as he stepped into the street, his heart turned to
ice. A woman in blue overalls was walking towards him, not ten
metres away. It was the girl
w i t h dark hair, the one in the Young
People's League. The girl must be following h i m . Even if she was
not in the Thought Police, she must be a spy.
The Thought Police would come for h i m one night. They
always came at night and they always caught you. A n d before
they killed you, before you asked them on your knees to forgive
you for your
thoughtcrime, there would be a lot of pain.
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