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Chapter 9
W
inston was gelatinous with fatigue. Gelatinous was
the right word. It had come into his head spontane-
ously. His body seemed to have not only the weakness of a
jelly, but its translucency. He felt that if he held up his hand
he would be able to see the light through it. All the blood
and lymph had been drained out of him by an enormous
debauch of work, leaving only a frail structure of nerves,
bones, and skin. All sensations seemed to be magnified. His
overalls fretted his shoulders, the pavement tickled his feet,
even the opening and closing of a hand was an effort that
made his joints creak.
He had worked more than ninety hours in five days. So
had everyone else in the Ministry. Now it was all over, and
he had literally nothing to do, no Party work of any descrip-
tion, until tomorrow morning. He could spend six hours in
the hiding-place and another nine in his own bed. Slowly, in
mild afternoon sunshine, he walked up a dingy street in the
direction of Mr Charrington’s shop, keeping one eye open
for the patrols, but irrationally convinced that this after-
noon there was no danger of anyone interfering with him.
The heavy brief-case that he was carrying bumped against
his knee at each step, sending a tingling sensation up and
down the skin of his leg. Inside it was the book, which he
had now had in his possession for six days and had not yet
