of the tables nearest to them. It was not wise
even to be seen in the neighbourhood of such people. They were sitting in
silence before glasses of the gin flavoured with cloves which was the
speciality of the cafe. Of the three, it was Rutherford whose appearance
had most impressed Winston. Rutherford had once been a famous caricaturist,
whose brutal cartoons had helped to inflame popular opinion before and
during the Revolution. Even now, at long intervals, his cartoons were
appearing in the Times. They were simply an imitation of his earlier
manner, and curiously lifeless and unconvincing. Always they were a
rehashing of the ancient themes -- slum tenements, starving children,
street battles, capitalists in top hats -- even on the barricades the
capitalists still seemed to cling to their top hats an endless, hopeless
effort to get back into the past. He was a monstrous man, with a mane of
greasy grey hair, his face pouched and seamed, with thick negroid lips. At
one time he must have been immensely strong; now his great body was
sagging, sloping, bulging, falling away in every direction. He seemed to be
breaking up before one's e