1984 (2,1) His Banging Heart

[monk222]

Winston still has her note, having casually flung it on his desk among his other papers, still unread. He is trying to play it cool as he sits at his desk and continues his work assignments. Naturally, the possibilities are racing through his imagination. Oddly, he is still afraid that the dark-haired girl is with the Thought Police and this note may be part of a lesser known and crueler tactic: “The thing that was written on the paper might be a threat, a summons, an order to commit suicide, a trap of some description.”

Yet, he has a happier thought, though it is not the one we readers are aching with, as “his heart banged” with the thought that the dark-haired girl may actually be a member of an underground organization. Maybe the Brotherhood really existed and he has a personal invitation right in front of him.

Finally, he feels his moment has come. Taking up his next batch of work papers, he has the note on top, and he reads it: I love you.

For several seconds he was too stunned even to throw the incriminating thing into the memory hole. When he did so, although he knew very well the danger of showing too much interest, he could not resist reading it once again, just to make sure that the words were really there.

You know Winston’s heart was really banging away now, with perhaps a bit of a bulge in his trousers as well.