1 1984
Chapter 4
W
inston looked round the shabby little room above Mr
Charrington’s shop. Beside the window the enormous
bed was made up, with ragged blankets and a coverless bol-
ster. The old-fashioned clock with the twelve-hour face was
ticking away on the mantelpiece. In the corner, on the gate-
leg table, the glass paperweight which he had bought on his
last visit gleamed softly out of the half-darkness.
In the fender was a battered tin oilstove, a saucepan, and
two cups, provided by Mr Charrington. Winston lit the
burner and set a pan of water to boil. He had brought an
envelope full of Victory Coffee and some saccharine tablets.
The clock’s hands said seventeen-twenty: it was nineteen-
twenty really. She was coming at nineteen-thirty.
Folly, folly, his heart kept saying: conscious, gratuitous,
suicidal folly. Of all the crimes that a Party member could
commit, this one was the least possible to conceal. Actu-
ally the idea had first floated into his head in the form of a
vision, of the glass paperweight mirrored by the surface of
the gateleg table. As he had foreseen, Mr Charrington had
made no difficulty about letting the room. He was obviously
glad of the few dollars that it would bring him. Nor did he
seem shocked or become offensively knowing when it was
made clear that Winston wanted the room for the purpose
of a love-affair. Instead he looked into the middle distance
