the feeble light of the paraffin lamp had seemed
very bright. For the first time he could see the woman properly. He had
taken a step towards her and then halted, full of lust and terror. He was
painfully conscious of the risk he had taken in coming here. It was
perfectly possible that the patrols would catch him on the way out: for
that matter they might be waiting outside the door at this moment. If he
went away without even doing what he had come here to do--!
It had got to be written down, it had got to be confessed. What he had
suddenly seen in the lamplight was that the woman was old. The paint was
plastered so thick on her face that it looked as though it might crack like
a cardboard mask. There were streaks of white in her hair; but the truly
dreadful detail was that her mouth had fallen a little open, revealing
nothing except a cavernous blackness. She had no teeth at all.
He wrote hurriedly, in scrabbling handwriting:

When I saw her in the light she was quite an old woman, fifty years
old at least. But I went ahead and did it just the same.

He pressed his fingers against his eyelids again. He had written it
down at last, but it made no difference. The therapy had not worked. The
urge to shout filthy words at the top of his voice was as strong as ever.



VII

If there is hope, wrote Winston, it lies in the proles.

If there was hope, it must lie in the proles, because o

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