flinched altogether from speaking if at this moment he had not seen
Ampleforth, the hairy-eared poet, wandering limply round the room with a
tray, looking for a place to sit down. In his vague way Ampleforth was
attached to Winston, and would certainly sit down at his table if he caught
sight of him. There was perhaps a minute in which to act. Both Winston and
the girl were eating steadily. The stuff they were eating was a thin stew,
actually a soup, of haricot beans. In a low murmur Winston began speaking.
Neither of them looked up; steadily they spooned the watery stuff into
their mouths, and between spoonfuls exchanged the few necessary words in
low expressionless voices.
'What time do you leave work?'
'Eighteen-thirty.'
'Where can we meet?'
'Victory Square, near the monument.'
'It's full of telescreens.'
'It doesn't matter if there's a crowd.'
'Any signal?'
'No. Don't come up to me until you see me among a lot of people. And
don't look at me. Just keep somewhere near me.'
'What time?'
'Nineteen hours.'
'All right.'
Ampleforth failed to see Winston and sat down at another table. They
did not speak again, and, so far as it was possible for two people sitting
on opposite sides of the same table, they did not look at one another. The
girl finished her lunch quickly and made off, while Winston stayed to smoke
a cigarette.
Winston was in Victory Square before the appointed time. He wandered
round the base of the enormous fluted column, at the top of which Big
Brother's statue gazed southward towards the skies where he had vanquished
the Eurasian aeroplanes (the Eastasian aeroplanes, it had been, a few years
ago) in the Battle of Airstrip One. In the street in front of