CHAPTER 2

Winston picked his way up the lane through dappled light
and shade, stepping out into pools of gold wherever the
boughs parted. Under the trees to the left of him the
ground was misty with bluebells. The air seemed to kiss one’s skin.
It was the second of May. From somewhere deeper in the heart of
the wood came the droning of ring-doves.
He was a bit early. There had been no difficulties about the
journey, and the girl was so evidently experienced that he was less
frightened than he would normally have been. Presumably she
could be trusted to find a safe place. In general you could not
assume that you were much safer in the country than in London.
There were no telescreens, of course, but there was always the
danger of concealed microphones by which your voice might be
picked up and recognized; besides, it was not easy to make a
journey by yourself without attracting attention. For distances of
less than 100 kilometres it was not necessary to get your passport
endorsed, but sometimes there were patrols hanging about the
railway stations, who examined the papers of any Party member
they found there and asked awkward questions. However, no
patrols had appeared, and on the walk from the station he had
made sure by cautious backward glances that he was not being
followed. The train was full of proles, in holiday mood because of
the summery weather. The wooden-seated carriage in which he
travelled was filled to overflowing by a single enormous family,
ranging from a toothless great-grandmother to a month-old baby, going out to spend an afternoon with ‘in-laws’ in the country, and,
as they freely explained to Winston, to get hold of a little blackmarket butter.
The lane widened, and in a minute he came to the footpath she
had told him of, a mere cattle-track which plunged between the
bushes. He had no watch, but it could not be fifteen yet. The
bluebells were so thick underfoot that it was impossible not to
tread on them. He knelt down and began picking some partly to
pass the time away, but also from a vague idea that he would like to
have a bunch of flowers to offer to the girl when they met. He had
got together a big bunch and was smelling their faint sickly scent
when a sound at his back froze him, the unmistakable crackle of a
foot on twigs. He went on picking bluebells. It was the best thing to
do. It might be the girl, or he might have been followed after all. To
look round was to show guilt. He picked another and another. A
hand fell lightly on his shoulder.
He looked up. It was the girl. She shook her head, evidently as
a warning that he must keep silent, then parted the bushes and
quickly led the way along the narrow track into the wood.
Obviously she had been that way before, for she dodged the boggy
bits as though by habit. Winston followed, still clasping his bunch
of flowers. His first feeling was relief, but as he watched the strong
slender body moving in front of him, with the scarlet sash that was
just tight enough to bring out the curve of her hips, the sense of his
own inferiority was heavy upon him. Even now it seemed quite
likely that when she turned round and looked at him she would
draw back after all. The sweetness of the air and the greenness of
the leaves daunted him. Already on the walk from the station the
May sunshine had made him feel dirty and etiolated, a creature of
indoors, with the sooty dust of London in the pores of his skin. It occurred to him that till now she had probably never seen him in
broad daylight in the open. They came to the fallen tree that she
had spoken of. The girl hopped over and forced apart the bushes, in
which there did not seem to be an opening. When Winston
followed her, he found that they were in a natural clearing, a tiny
grassy knoll surrounded by tall saplings that shut it in completely.
The girl stopped and turned.
‘Here we are,’ she said.
He was facing her at several paces’ distance. As yet he did not
dare move nearer to her.
‘I didn’t want to say anything in the lane,’ she went on, ‘in case
there’s a mike hidden there. I don’t suppose there is, but there
could be. There’s always the chance of one of those swine
recognizing your voice. We’re all right here.’
He still had not the courage to approach her. ‘We’re all right
here?’ he repeated stupidly.
‘Yes. Look at the trees.’ They were small ashes, which at some
time had been cut down and had sprouted up again into a forest of
poles, none of them thicker than one’s wrist. ‘There’s nothing big
enough to hide a mike in. Besides, I’ve been here before.’
They were only making conversation. He had managed to
move closer to her now. She stood before him very upright, with a
smile on her face that looked faintly ironical, as though she were
wondering why he was so slow to act. The bluebells had cascaded
on to the ground. They seemed to have fallen of their own accord.
He took her hand.
‘Would you believe,’ he said, ‘that till this moment I didn’t
know what colour your eyes were?’ They were brown, he noted, a
rather light shade of brown, with dark lashes. ‘Now that you’ve
seen what I’m really like, can you still bear to look at me?’ ‘Yes, easily.’
‘I’m thirty-nine years old. I’ve got a wife that I can’t get rid of.
I’ve got varicose veins. I’ve got five false teeth.’
‘I couldn’t care less,’ said the girl.
The next moment, it was hard to say by whose act, she was in
his his arms. At the beginning he had no feeling except sheer
incredulity. The youthful body was strained against his own, the
mass of dark hair was against his face, and yes! actually she had
turned her face up and he was kissing the wide red mouth. She had
clasped her arms about his neck, she was calling him darling,
precious one, loved one. He had pulled her down on to the ground,
she was utterly unresisting, he could do what he liked with her. But
the truth was that he had no physical sensation, except that of
mere contact. All he felt was incredulity and pride. He was glad that
this was happening, but he had no physical desire. It was too soon,
her youth and prettiness had frightened him, he was too much
used to living without women — he did not know the reason. The
girl picked herself up and pulled a bluebell out of her hair. She sat
against him, putting her arm round his waist.
‘Never mind, dear. There’s no hurry. We’ve got the whole
afternoon. Isn’t this a splendid hide-out? I found it when I got lost
once on a community hike. If anyone was coming you could hear
them a hundred metres away.’
‘What is your name?’ said Winston.
‘Julia. I know yours. It’s Winston — Winston Smith.’
‘How did you find that out?’
‘I expect I’m better at finding things out than you are, dear.
Tell me, what did you think of me before that day I gave you the
note?’ He did not feel any temptation to tell lies to her. It was even a
sort of love-offering to start off by telling the worst.
‘I hated the sight of you,’ he said. ‘I wanted to rape you and
then murder you afterwards. Two weeks ago I thought seriously of
smashing your head in with a cobblestone. If you really want to
know, I imagined that you had something to do with the Thought
Police.’
The girl laughed delightedly, evidently taking this as a tribute
to the excellence of her disguise.
‘Not the Thought Police! You didn’t honestly think that?’
‘Well, perhaps not exactly that. But from your general
appearance — merely because you’re young and fresh and healthy,
you understand — I thought that probably ——’
‘You thought I was a good Party member. Pure in word and
deed. Banners, processions, slogans, games, community hikes all
that stuff. And you thought that if I had a quarter of a chance I’d
denounce you as a thought-criminal and get you killed off?’
‘Yes, something of that kind. A great many young girls are like
that, you know.’
‘It’s this bloody thing that does it,’ she said, ripping off the
scarlet sash of the Junior Anti-Sex League and flinging it on to a
bough. Then, as though touching her waist had reminded her of
something, she felt in the pocket of her overalls and produced a
small slab of chocolate. She broke it in half and gave one of the
pieces to Winston. Even before he had taken it he knew by the
smell that it was very unusual chocolate. It was dark and shiny, and
was wrapped in silver paper. Chocolate normally was dull-brown
crumbly stuff that tasted, as nearly as one could describe it, like the
smoke of a rubbish fire. But at some time or another he had tasted
chocolate like the piece she had given him. The first whiff of its scent had stirred up some memory which he could not pin down,
but which was powerful and troubling.
‘Where did you get this stuff?’ he said.
‘Black market,’ she said indifferently. ‘Actually I am that sort
of girl, to look at. I’m good at games. I was a troop-leader in the
Spies. I do voluntary work three evenings a week for the Junior
Anti-Sex League. Hours and hours I’ve spent pasting their bloody
rot all over London. I always carry one end of a banner in the
processions. I always look cheerful and I never shirk anything.
Always yell with the crowd, that’s what I say. It’s the only way to be
safe.’
The first fragment of chocolate had melted on Winston’s
tongue. The taste was delightful. But there was still that memory
moving round the edges of his consciousness, something strongly
felt but not reducible to definite shape, like an object seen out of
the corner of one’s eye. He pushed it away from him, aware only
that it was the memory of some action which he would have liked
to undo but could not.
‘You are very young,’ he said. ‘You are ten or fifteen years
younger than I am. What could you see to attract you in a man like
me?’
‘It was something in your face. I thought I’d take a chance. I’m
good at spotting people who don’t belong. As soon as I saw you I
knew you were against THEM.’
THEM, it appeared, meant the Party, and above all the Inner
Party, about whom she talked with an open jeering hatred which
made Winston feel uneasy, although he knew that they were safe
here if they could be safe anywhere. A thing that astonished him
about her was the coarseness of her language. Party members were
supposed not to swear, and Winston himself very seldom did swear, aloud, at any rate. Julia, however, seemed unable to
mention the Party, and especially the Inner Party, without using
the kind of words that you saw chalked up in dripping alley-ways.
He did not dislike it. It was merely one symptom of her revolt
against the Party and all its ways, and somehow it seemed natural
and healthy, like the sneeze of a horse that smells bad hay. They
had left the clearing and were wandering again through the
chequered shade, with their arms round each other’s waists
whenever it was wide enough to walk two abreast. He noticed how
much softer her waist seemed to feel now that the sash was gone.
They did not speak above a whisper. Outside the clearing, Julia
said, it was better to go quietly. Presently they had reached the
edge of the little wood. She stopped him.
‘Don’t go out into the open. There might be someone
watching. We’re all right if we keep behind the boughs.’
They were standing in the shade of hazel bushes. The sunlight,
filtering through innumerable leaves, was still hot on their faces.
Winston looked out into the field beyond, and underwent a
curious, slow shock of recognition. He knew it by sight. An old,
close-bitten pasture, with a footpath wandering across it and a
molehill here and there. In the ragged hedge on the opposite side
the boughs of the elm trees swayed just perceptibly in the breeze,
and their leaves stirred faintly in dense masses like women’s hair.
Surely somewhere nearby, but out of sight, there must be a stream
with green pools where dace were swimming?
‘Isn’t there a stream somewhere near here?’ he whispered.
‘That’s right, there is a stream. It’s at the edge of the next field,
actually. There are fish in it, great big ones. You can watch them
lying in the pools under the willow trees, waving their tails.’
‘It’s the Golden Country — almost,’ he murmured ‘The Golden Country?’
‘It’s nothing, really. A landscape I’ve seen sometimes in a
dream.’
‘Look!’ whispered Julia.
A thrush had alighted on a bough not five metres away, almost
at the level of their faces. Perhaps it had not seen them. It was in
the sun, they in the shade. It spread out its wings, fitted them
carefully into place again, ducked its head for a moment, as though
making a sort of obeisance to the sun, and then began to pour forth
a torrent of song. In the afternoon hush the volume of sound was
startling. Winston and Julia clung together, fascinated. The music
went on and on, minute after minute, with astonishing variations,
never once repeating itself, almost as though the bird were
deliberately showing off its virtuosity. Sometimes it stopped for a
few seconds, spread out and resettled its wings, then swelled its
speckled breast and again burst into song. Winston watched it with
a sort of vague reverence. For whom, for what, was that bird
singing? No mate, no rival was watching it. What made it sit at the
edge of the lonely wood and pour its music into nothingness? He
wondered whether after all there was a microphone hidden
somewhere near. He and Julia had spoken only in low whispers,
and it would not pick up what they had said, but it would pick up
the thrush. Perhaps at the other end of the instrument some small,
beetle-like man was listening intently — listening to that. But by
degrees the flood of music drove all speculations out of his mind. It
was as though it were a kind of liquid stuff that poured all over him
and got mixed up with the sunlight that filtered through the leaves.
He stopped thinking and merely felt. The girl’s waist in the bend of
his arm was soft and warm. He pulled her round so that they were
breast to breast; her body seemed to melt into his. Wherever his hands moved it was all as yielding as water. Their mouths clung
together; it was quite different from the hard kisses they had
exchanged earlier. When they moved their faces apart again both of
them sighed deeply. The bird took fright and fled with a clatter of
wings.
Winston put his lips against her ear. ‘NOW,’ he whispered.
‘Not here,’ she whispered back. ‘Come back to the hide-out. It’s
safer.’
Quickly, with an occasional crackle of twigs, they threaded
their way back to the clearing. When they were once inside the ring
of saplings she turned and faced him. They were both breathing
fast, but the smile had reappeared round the corners of her mouth.
She stood looking at him for an instant, then felt at the zipper of
her overalls. And, yes! it was almost as in his dream. Almost as
swiftly as he had imagined it, she had torn her clothes off, and
when she flung them aside it was with that same magnificent
gesture by which a whole civilization seemed to be annihilated. Her
body gleamed white in the sun. But for a moment he did not look
at her body; his eyes were anchored by the freckled face with its
faint, bold smile. He knelt down before her and took her hands in
his.
‘Have you done this before?’
‘Of course. Hundreds of times — well, scores of times,
anyway.’
‘With Party members?’
‘Yes, always with Party members.’
‘With members of the Inner Party?’
‘Not with those swine, no. But there’s plenty that WOULD if
they got half a chance. They’re not so holy as they make out.’ His heart leapt. Scores of times she had done it: he wished it
had been hundreds — thousands. Anything that hinted at
corruption always filled him with a wild hope. Who knew, perhaps
the Party was rotten under the surface, its cult of strenuousness
and self-denial simply a sham concealing iniquity. If he could have
infected the whole lot of them with leprosy or syphilis, how gladly
he would have done so! Anything to rot, to weaken, to undermine!
He pulled her down so that they were kneeling face to face.
‘Listen. The more men you’ve had, the more I love you. Do you
understand that?’
‘Yes, perfectly.’
‘I hate purity, I hate goodness! I don’t want any virtue to exist
anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones.’
‘Well then, I ought to suit you, dear. I’m corrupt to the bones.’
‘You like doing this? I don’t mean simply me: I mean the thing
in itself?’
‘I adore it.’
That was above all what he wanted to hear. Not merely the
love of one person but the animal instinct, the simple
undifferentiated desire: that was the force that would tear the Party
to pieces. He pressed her down upon the grass, among the fallen
bluebells. This time there was no difficulty. Presently the rising
and falling of their breasts slowed to normal speed, and in a sort of
pleasant helplessness they fell apart. The sun seemed to have
grown hotter. They were both sleepy. He reached out for the
discarded overalls and pulled them partly over her. Almost
immediately they fell asleep and slept for about half an hour.
Winston woke first. He sat up and watched the freckled face,
still peacefully asleep, pillowed on the palm of her hand. Except for her mouth, you could not call her beautiful. There was a line or two
round the eyes, if you looked closely. The short dark hair was
extraordinarily thick and soft. It occurred to him that he still did
not know her surname or where she lived.
The young, strong body, now helpless in sleep, awoke in him a
pitying, protecting feeling. But the mindless tenderness that he had
felt under the hazel tree, while the thrush was singing, had not
quite come back. He pulled the overalls aside and studied her
smooth white flank. In the old days, he thought, a man looked at a
girl’s body and saw that it was desirable, and that was the end of
the story. But you could not have pure love or pure lust nowadays.
No emotion was pure, because everything was mixed up with fear
and hatred. Their embrace had been a battle, the climax a victory. It
was a blow struck against the Party. It was a political act.