' she said, 'I ain't meself,
quite.'
She leant forward and vomited copiously on the floor.
'Thass better,' she said, leaning back with closed eyes. 'Never keep
it down, thass what I say. Get it up while it's fresh on your stomach,
like.'
She revived, turned to have another look at Winston and seemed
immediately to take a fancy to him. She put a vast arm round his shoulder
and drew him towards her, breathing beer and vomit into his face.
'Wass your name, dearie?' she said.
'Smith,' said Winston.
'Smith?' said the woman. 'Thass funny. My name's Smith too. Why,' she
added sentimentally, 'I might be your mother!'
She might, thought Winston, be his mother. She was about the right age
and physique, and it was probable that people changed somewhat after twenty
years in a forced-labour camp.
No one else had spoken to him. To a surprising extent the ordinary
criminals ignored the Party prisoners. 'The polits,' they called them, with
a sort of unin