had picked up the glass
paperweight from the table and smashed it to pieces on the hearth-stone.
The fragment of coral, a tiny crinkle of pink like a sugar rosebud
from a cake, rolled across the mat. How small, thought Winston, how small
it always was! There was a gasp and a thump behind him, and he received a
violent kick on the ankle which nearly flung him off his balance. One of
the men had smashed his fist into Julia's solar plexus, doubling her up
like a pocket ruler. She was thrashing about on the floor, fighting for
breath. Winston dared not turn his head even by a millimetre, but sometimes
her livid, gasping face came within the angle of his vision. Even in his
terror it was as though he could feel the pain in his own body, the deadly
pain which nevertheless was less urgent than the struggle to get back her
breath. He knew what it was like; the terrible, agonizing pain which was
there all the while but could not be suffered yet, because before all else
it was necessary to be able to breathe. Then two of the men hoisted her up
by knees and shoulders, and carried her out of the room like a sack.
Winston had a glimpse of her face, upside down, yellow and contorted, with
the eyes shut, and still with a smear of rouge on either cheek; and that
was the last he saw of her.
He stood dead still. No one had hit him yet. Thoughts which came of
their own accord but seemed totally uninteresting began to flit through his
mind. He wondered whether they had got Mr. Charrington. He wondered what
they had done to the woman in the yard. He noticed that he badly wanted to
urinate, and felt a faint surprise, because he had done so only two or
three hours ago. He noticed that the clock on the mantelpiece said nine,
meaning twenty-one. But the light seemed too strong. Would not the light be
fading at twenty-one hours on an August evening? He won