And in her practical way she scraped together a small square of dust， and with a twig from a pigeon"s nest began drawing a map on the floor.
英文十二
Winston 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 bolster. The old-fashioned clock with the twelve-hour face was ticking away on the mantelpiece. In the corner， on the gateleg 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. Actually 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 and spoke in generalities， with so delicate an air as to give the impression that he had become partly invisible. Privacy， he said， was a very valuable thing. Everyone wanted a place where they could be alone occasionally. And when they had such a place， it was only common courtesy in anyone else who knew of it to keep his knowledge to himself. He even， seeming almost to fade out of existence as he did so， added that there were two entries to the house， one of them through the back yard， which gave on an alley.
Under the window somebody was singing. Winston peeped out， secure in the protection of the muslin curtain. The June sun was still high in the sky， and in the sun-filled court below， a monstrous woman， solid as a Norman pillar， with brawny red forearms and a sacking apron strapped about her middle， was stumping to and fro between a washtub and a clothes line， pegging out a series of square white things which Winston recognized as babies’ diapers. Whenever her mouth was not corked with clothes pegs she was singing in a powerful contralto：
The tune had been haunting London for weeks past. It was one of countless similar songs published for the benefit of the proles by a sub-section of the Music Department. The words of these songs were composed without any human intervention whatever on an instrument known as a versificator. But the woman sang so tunefully as to turn the dreadful rubbish into an almost pleasant sound. He could hear the woman singing and the scrape of her shoes on the flagstones， and the cries of the children in the street， and somewhere in the far distance a faint roar of traffic， and yet the room seemed curiously silent， thanks to the absence of a telescreen.
Folly， folly， folly！ He thought again. It was inconceivable that they could frequent this place for more than a few weeks without being caught. But the temptation of having a hiding-place that was truly their own， indoors and near at hand， had been too much for both of them. For some time after their visit to the church belfry it had been impossible to arrange meetings. Working hours had been drastically increased in anticipation of Hate Week. It was more than a month distant， but the enormous， complex preparations that it entailed were throwing extra work on to everybody. Finally both of them managed to secure a free afternoon on the same day. They had agreed to go back to the clearing in the wood. On the evening beforehand they met briefly in the street. As usual， Winston hardly looked at Julia as they drifted towards one another in the crowd， but from the short glance he gave her it seemed to him that she was paler than usual.
“It’s all off，” she murmured as soon as she judged it safe to speak. “Tomorrow， I mean.”
“What？”
“Tomorrow afternoon. I can’t come.”
“Why not？”
“Oh， the usual reason. It’s started early this time.”
