The Complete Novels of George Orwell

by George Orwell

  'Are you ready?' he said flatly.

  'Yes.'

  They went back to the road, climbed through the wire, and started down the hill without another word. Fresh clouds were rolling across the sun. It was getting much colder. Another hour and the early dusk would have fallen. They reached the bottom of the hill and came in sight of the Ravenscroft Hotel, scene of their disaster.

  'Where are we going?' said Rosemary in a small sulky voice.

  'Back to Slough, I suppose. We must cross the bridge and have a look at the signposts.'

  They scarcely spoke again till they had gone several miles. Rosemary was embarrassed and miserable. A number of times she edged closer to him, meaning to take his arm, but he edged away from her; and so they walked abreast with almost the width of the road between them. She imagined that she had offended him mortally. She supposed that it was because of his disappointment-because she had pushed him away at the critical moment-that he was angry with her; she would have apologized if he had given her a quarter of a chance. But as a matter of fact he was scarcely thinking of this any longer. His mind had turned away from that side of things. It was the money-business that was troubling him now-the fact that he had only eightpence in his pocket. In a very little while he would have to confess it. There would be the bus fares from Farnham to Slough, and tea in Slough, and cigarettes, and more bus fares and perhaps another meal when they got back to London; and just eightpence to cover the lot! He would have to borrow from Rosemary after all. And that was so damned humiliating. It is hateful to have to borrow money off someone you have just been quarrelling with. What nonsense it made of all his fine attitudes! There was he, lecturing her, putting on superior airs, pretending to be shocked because she took contraception for granted; and the next moment turning round and asking her for money! But there you are, you see, that's what money can do. There is no attitude that money or the lack of it cannot puncture.

  By half past four it was almost completely dark. They tramped along misty roads where there was no illumination save the cracks of cottage windows and the yellow beam of an occasional car. It was getting beastly cold, too, but they had walked four miles and the exercise had warmed them. It was impossible to go on being unsociable any longer. They began to talk more easily and by degrees they edged closer together. Rosemary took Gordon's arm. Presently she stopped him and swung him round to face her.

  'Gordon, why are you so beastly to me?'

  'How am I beastly to you?'

  'Coming all this way without speaking a word!'

  'Oh, well!'

  'Are you still angry with me because of what happened just now?'

  'No. I was never angry with you. You're not to blame.'

  She looked up at him, trying to divine the expression of his face in the almost pitch darkness. He drew her against him, and, as she seemed to expect it, tilted her face back and kissed her. She clung to him eagerly; her body melted against his. She had been waiting for this, it seemed.

  'Gordon, you do love me, don't you?'

  'Of course I do.'

  'Things went wrong somehow. I couldn't help it. I got frightened suddenly.'

  'It doesn't matter. Another time it'll be all right.'

  She was lying limp against him, her head on his breast. He could feel her heart beating. It seemed to flutter violently, as though she were taking some decision.

  'I don't care,' she said indistinctly, her face buried in his coat.

  'Don't care about what?'

  'The baby. I'll risk it. You can do what you like with me.'

  At these surrendering words a weak desire raised itself in him and died away at once. He knew why she had said it. It was not because, at this moment, she really wanted to be made love to. It was from a mere generous impulse to let him know that she loved him and would take a dreaded risk rather than disappoint him.

  'Now?' he said.

  'Yes, if you like.'

  He considered. He so wanted to be sure that she was his! But the cold night air flowed over them. Behind the hedges the long grass would be wet and chill. This was not the time or the place. Besides, that business of the eightpence had usurped his mind. He was not in the mood any longer.

  'I can't,' he said finally.

  'You can't! But, Gordon! I thought-'

  'I know. But it's all different now.'

  'You're still upset?'

  'Yes. In a way.'

  'Why?'

  He pushed her a little away from him. As well have the explanation now as later. Nevertheless he was so ashamed that he mumbled rather than said: 'I've got a beastly thing to say to you. It's been worrying me all the way along.'

  'What is it?'

  'It's this. Can you lend me some money? I'm absolutely cleaned out. I had just enough money for today, but that beastly hotel bill upset everything. I've only eightpence left.'

  Rosemary was amazed. She broke right out of his arms in her amazement.

  'Only eightpence left! What are you talking about? What does it matter if you've only eightpence left?'

  'Don't I tell you I shall have to borrow money off you in another minute? You'll have to pay for your own bus fares, and my bus fares, and your tea and Lord knows what. And I asked you to come out with me! You're supposed to be my guest. It's bloody.'

  'Your guest! Oh, Gordon. Is that what's been worrying you all this time?'

  'Yes.'

  'Gordon, you are a baby! How can you let yourself be worried by a thing like that? As though I minded lending you money! Aren't I always telling you I want to pay my share when we go out together?'

  'Yes, and you know how I hate your paying. We had that out the other night.'

  'Oh, how absurd, how absurd you are! Do you think there's anything to be ashamed of in having no money?'

  'Of course there is! It's the only thing in the world there is to be ashamed of.'

  'But what's it got to do with you and me making love, anyway? I don't understand you. First you want to and then you don't want to. What's money got to do with it?'

  'Everything.'

  He wound her arm in his and started down the road. She would never understand. Nevertheless he had got to explain.

  'Don't you understand that one isn't a full human being-that one doesn't feel a human being-unless one's got money in one's pocket?'

  'No. I think that's just silly.'

  'It isn't that I don't want to make love to you. I do. But I tell you I can't make love to you when I've only eightpence in my pocket. At least when you know I've only eightpence. I just can't do it. It's physically impossible.'

  'But why? Why?'

  'You'll find it in Lempriere,' he said obscurely.

  That settled it. They talked no more about it. For the second time he had behaved grossly badly and yet he had made her feel as if it were she who was in the wrong. They walked on. She did not understand him; on the other hand, she forgave him everything. Presently they reached Farnham Common, and, after a wait at the cross road, got a bus to Slough. In the darkness, as the bus loomed near, Rosemary found Gordon's hand and slipped half a crown into it, so that he might pay the fares and not be shamed in public by letting a woman pay for him.

  For his own part Gordon would sooner have walked to Slough and saved the bus fares, but he knew Rosemary would refuse. In Slough, also, he was for taking the train straight back to London, but Rosemary said indignantly that she wasn't going to go without her tea, so they went to a large, dreary, draughty hotel near the station. Tea, with little wilting sandwiches and rock cakes like balls of putty, was two shillings a head. It was torment to Gordon to let her pay for his food. He sulked, ate nothing, and, after a whispered argument, insisted on contributing his eightpence towards the cost of the tea.

  It was seven o'clock when they took the train back to London. The train was full of tired hikers in khaki shorts. Rosemary and Gordon did not talk much. They sat close together, Rosemary with her arm twined through his, playing with his hand, Gordon looking out of the window.
People in the carriage eyed them, wondering what they had quarrelled about. Gordon watched the lamp-starred darkness streaming past. So the day to which he had looked forward was ended. And now back to Willowbed Road, with a penniless week ahead. For a whole week, unless some miracle happened, he wouldn't even be able to buy himself a cigarette. What a bloody fool he had been! Rosemary was not angry with him. By the pressure of her hand she tried to make it clear to him that she loved him. His pale discontented face, turned half away from her, his shabby coat, and his unkempt mouse-coloured hair that wanted cutting more than ever, filled her with profound pity. She felt more tenderly towards him than she would have done if everything had gone well, because in her feminine way she grasped that he was unhappy and that life was difficult for him.

  'See me home, will you?' she said as they got out at Paddington.

  'If you don't mind walking. I haven't got the fare.'

  'But let me pay the fare. Oh, dear! I suppose you won't. But how are you going to get home yourself?'

  'Oh, I'll walk. I know the way. It's not very far.'

  'I hate to think of you walking all that way. You look so tired. Be a dear and let me pay your fare home. Do!'

  'No. You've paid quite enough for me already.'

  'Oh, dear! You are so silly!'

  They halted at the entrance to the Underground. He took her hand. 'I suppose we must say good-bye for the present,' he said.

  'Good-bye, Gordon dear. Thanks ever so much for taking me out. It was such fun this morning.'

  'Ah, this morning! It was different then.' His mind went back to the morning hours, when they had been alone on the road together and there was still money in his pocket. Compunction seized him. On the whole he had behaved badly. He pressed her hand a little tighter. 'You're not angry with me, are you?'

  'No, silly, of course not.'

  'I didn't mean to be beastly to you. It was the money. It's always the money.'

  'Never mind, it'll be better next time. We'll go to some better place. We'll go down to Brighton for the week-end, or something.'

  'Perhaps, when I've got the money. You will write soon, won't you?'

  'Yes.'

  'Your letters are the only things that keep me going. Tell me when you'll write, so that I can have your letter to look forward to.'

  'I'll write tomorrow night and post it on Tuesday. Then you'll get it last post on Tuesday night.'

  'Then good-bye, Rosemary dear.'

  'Good-bye, Gordon darling.'

  He left her at the booking-office. When he had gone twenty yards he felt a hand laid on his arm. He turned sharply. It was Rosemary. She thrust a packet of twenty Gold Flake, which she had bought at the tobacco kiosk, into his coat pocket and ran back to the Underground before he could protest.

  He trailed homeward through the wastes of Marylebone and Regent's Park. It was the fag-end of the day. The streets were dark and desolate, with that strange listless feeling of Sunday night when people are more tired after a day of idleness than after a day of work. It was vilely cold, too. The wind had risen when the night fell. Sharply the menacing wind sweeps over. Gordon was footsore, having walked a dozen or fifteen miles, and also hungry. He had had little food all day. In the morning he had hurried off without a proper breakfast, and the lunch at the Ravenscroft Hotel wasn't the kind of meal that did you much good; since then he had had no solid food. However, there was no hope of getting anything when he got home. He had told Mother Wisbeach that he would be away all day.

  When he reached the Hampstead Road he had to wait on the kerb to let a stream of cars go past. Even here everything seemed dark and gloomy, in spite of the glaring lamps and the cold glitter of the jewellers' windows. The raw wind pierced his thin clothes, making him shiver. Sharply the menacing wind sweeps over The bending poplars, newly bare. He had finished that poem, all except the last two lines. He thought again of those hours this morning-the empty misty roads, the feeling of freedom and adventure, of having the whole day and the whole country before you in which to wander at will. It was having money that did it, of course. Seven and elevenpence he had had in his pocket this morning. It had been a brief victory over the money-god; a morning's apostasy, a holiday in the groves of Ashtaroth. But such things never last. Your money goes and your freedom with it. Circumcise ye your foreskins, saith the Lord. And back we creep, duly snivelling.

  Another shoal of cars swam past. One in particular caught his eye, a long slender thing, elegant as a swallow, all gleaming blue and silver; a thousand guineas it would have cost, he thought. A blue-clad chauffeur sat at the wheel, upright, immobile, like some scornful statue. At the back, in the pink-lit interior, four elegant young people, two youths, and two girls, were smoking cigarettes and laughing. He had a glimpse of sleek bunny-faces; faces of ravishing pinkness and smoothness, lit by that peculiar inner glow that can never be counterfeited, the soft warm radiance of money.

  He crossed the road. No food tonight. However, there was still oil in the lamp, thank God; he would have a secret cup of tea when he got back. At this moment he saw himself and his life without saving disguises. Every night the same-back to the cold lonely bedroom and the grimy littered sheets of the poem that never got any further. It was a blind alley. He would never finish London Pleasures, he would never marry Rosemary, he would never set his life in order. He would only drift and sink, drift and sink, like the others of his family; but worse than them-down, down into some dreadful sub-world that as yet he could only dimly imagine. It was what he had chosen when he declared war on money. Serve the money-god or go under; there is no other rule.

  Something deep below made the stone street shiver. The tube-train, sliding through middle earth. He had a vision of London, of the western world; he saw a thousand million slaves toiling and grovelling about the throne of money. The earth is ploughed, ships sail, miners sweat in dripping tunnels underground, clerks hurry for the eight-fifteen with the fear of the boss eating at their vitals. And even in bed with their wives they tremble and obey. Obey whom? The money-priesthood, the pink-faced masters of the world. The Upper Crust. A welter of sleek young rabbits in thousand guinea motor cars, of golfing stockbrokers and cosmopolitan financiers, of Chancery lawyers and fashionable Nancy boys, of bankers, newspaper peers, novelists of all four sexes, American pugilists, lady aviators, film stars, bishops, titled poets, and Chicago gorillas.

  When he had gone another fifty yards the rhyme for the final stanza of his poem occurred to him. He walked homeward, repeating the poem to himself: Sharply the menacing wind sweeps over

  The bending poplars, newly bare,

  And the dark ribbons of the chimneys

  Veer downward; flicked by whips of air, Torn posters flutter; coldly sound

  The boom of trams and the rattle of hooves,

  And the clerks who hurry to the station

  Look, shuddering, over the eastern rooves, Thinking, each one, 'Here comes the winter!

  Please God I keep my job this year!'

  And bleakly, as the cold strikes through

  Their entrails like an icy spear, They think of rent, rates, season tickets,

  Insurance, coal, the skivvy's wages,

  Boots, school-bills, and the next instalment

  Upon the two twin beds from Drage's.

  For if in careless summer days

  In groves of Ashtaroth we whored,

  Repentant now, when winds blow cold,

  We kneel before our rightful lord; The lord of all, the money-god,

  Who rules us blood and hand and brain,

  Who gives the roof that stops the wind,

  And, giving, takes away again; Who spies with jealous, watchful care,

  Our thoughts, our dreams, our secret ways,

  Who picks our words and cuts our clothes,

  And maps the pattern of our days; Who chills our anger, curbs our hope,

  And buys our lives and pays with toys,

  Who claims as tribute broken faith,

  Accepted ins
ults, muted joys; Who binds with chains the poet's wit,

  The navvy's strength, the soldier's pride,

  And lays the sleek, estranging shield

  Between the lover and his bride.

  8

  As the clock struck one Gordon slammed the shop door to and hurried, almost ran, to the branch of the Westminster Bank down the street.

  With a half-conscious gesture of caution he was clutching the lapel of his coat, holding it tight against him. In there, stowed away in his right-hand inner pocket, was an object whose very existence he partly doubted. It was a stout blue envelope with an American stamp; in the envelope was a cheque for fifty dollars; and the cheque was made out to 'Gordon Comstock'!

  He could feel the square shape of the envelope outlined against his body as clearly as though it had been red hot. All the morning he had felt it there, whether he touched it or whether he did not; he seemed to have developed a special patch of sensitiveness in the skin below his right breast. As often as once in ten minutes he had taken the cheque out of its envelope and anxiously examined it. After all, cheques are tricky things. It would be frightful if there turned out to be some hitch about the date or the signature. Besides, he might lose it-it might even vanish of its own accord like fairy gold.

  The cheque had come from the Californian Review, that American magazine to which, weeks or months ago, he had despairingly sent a poem. He had almost forgotten about the poem, it had been so long away, until this morning their letter had come sailing out of the blue. And what a letter! No English editor ever writes letters like that. They were 'very favorably impressed' by his poem. They would 'endeavor' to include it in their next number. Would he 'favor' them by showing them some more of his work? (Would he? Oh, boy!-as Flaxman would say.) And the cheque had come with it. It seemed the most monstrous folly, in this year of blight 1934, that anyone should pay fifty dollars for a poem. However, there it was; and there was the cheque, which looked perfectly genuine however often he inspected it.

  He would have no peace of mind till the cheque was cashed-for quite possibly the bank would refuse it-but already a stream of visions was flowing through his mind. Visions of girls' faces, visions of cobwebby claret bottles and quart pots of beer, visions of a new suit and his overcoat out of pawn, visions of a week-end at Brighton with Rosemary, visions of the crisp, crackling five pound note which he was going to give to Julia. Above all, of course, that fiver for Julia. It was almost the first thing he had thought of when the cheque came. Whatever else he did with the money, he must give Julia half of it. It was only the barest justice, considering how much he had 'borrowed' from her in all these years. All the morning the thought of Julia and the money he owed her had been cropping up in his mind at odd moments. It was a vaguely distasteful thought, however. He would forget about it for half an hour at a time, would plan a dozen ways of spending his ten pounds to the uttermost farthing, and then suddenly he would remember about Julia. Good old Julia! Julia should have her share. A fiver at the very least. Even that was not a tenth of what he owed her. For the twentieth time, with a faint malaise, he registered the thought: five quid for Julia.