George Orwell - The Essential Works of George Orwell

'I like your hat,' he said.

In spite of herself, a small smile flickered at the corner of her mouth.

'It is rather nice,' she said, giving the hat a little pat with her hand.

She was still pretending to be angry, however. She took care that their bodies should not touch. As soon as they had reached the end of the stalls and were in the main street she stopped and faced him sombrely.

'What do you mean by writing me letters like that?' she said.

'Letters like what?'

'Saying I'd broken your heart.'

'So you have.'

'It looks like it, doesn't it!'

'I don't know. It certainly feels like it.'

The words were spoken half jokingly, and yet they made her look more closely at him—at his pale, wasted face, his uncut hair, his general down-at-heel, neglected appearance. Her heart softened instantly, and yet she frowned. Why won't he take care of himself? was the thought in her mind. They had moved closer together. He took her by the shoulders. She let him do it, and, putting her small arms round him, squeezed him very hard, partly in affection, partly in exasperation.

'Gordon, you are a miserable creature!' she said.

'Why am I a miserable creature?'

'Why can't you look after yourself properly? You're a perfect scarecrow. Look at these awful old clothes you're wearing!'

'They're suited to my station. One can't dress decently on two quid a week, you know.'

'But surely there's no need to go about looking like a rag-bag? Look at this button on your coat, broken in half!'

She fingered the broken button, and then suddenly lifted his discoloured Woolworth's tie aside. In some feminine way she had divined that he had no buttons on his shirt.

'Yes, again! Not a single button. You are awful, Gordon!'

'I tell you I can't be bothered with things like that. I've got a soul above buttons.'

'But why not give them to me and let me sew them on for you? And, oh, Gordon! You haven't even shaved today. How absolutely beastly of you. You might at least take the trouble to shave every morning.'

'I can't afford to shave every morning,' he said perversely.

'What do you mean, Gordon? It doesn't cost money to shave, does it?'

'Yes, it does. Everything costs money. Cleanness, decency, energy, self-respect—everything. It's all money. Haven't I told you that a million times?'

She squeezed his ribs again—she was surprisingly strong—and frowned up at him, studying his face as a mother looks at some peevish child of which she is unreasonably fond.

'What a fool I am!' she said.

'In what way a fool?'

'Because I'm so fond of you.'

'Are you fond of me?'

'Of course I am. You know I am. I adore you. It's idiotic of me.'

'Then come somewhere where it's dark. I want to kiss you.'

'Fancy being kissed by a man who hasn't even shaved!'

'Well, that'll be a new experience for you.'

'No, it won't, Gordon. Not after knowing you for two years.'

'Oh, well, come on, anyway.'

They found an almost dark alley between the backs of houses. All their lovemaking was done in such places. The only place where they could ever be private was the streets. He pressed her shoulders against the rough damp bricks of the wall. She turned her face readily up to his and clung to him with a sort of eager violent affection, like a child. And yet all the while, though they were body to body, it was as though there were a shield between them. She kissed him as a child might have done, because she knew that he expected to be kissed. It was always like this. Only at very rare moments could he awake in her the beginnings of physical desire; and these she seemed afterwards to forget, so that he always had to begin at the beginning over again. There was something defensive in the feeling of her small, shapely body. She longed to know the meaning of physical love, but also she dreaded it. It would destroy her youth, the youthful, sexless world in which she chose to live.

He parted his mouth from hers in order to speak to her.

'Do you love me?' he said.

'Of course, silly. Why do you always ask me that?'

'I like to hear you say it. Somehow I never feel sure of you till I've heard you say it.'

'But why?'

'Oh, well, you might have changed your mind. After all, I'm not exactly the answer to a maiden's prayer. I'm thirty, and moth-eaten at that.'

'Don't be so absurd, Gordon! Anyone would think you were a hundred, to hear you talk. You know I'm the same age as you are.'

'Yes, but not moth-eaten.'

She rubbed her cheek against his, feeling the roughness of his day-old beard. Their bellies were close together. He thought of the two years he had wanted her and never had her. With his lips almost against her ear he murmured:

'Are you ever going to sleep with me?'

'Yes, some day I will. Not now. Some day.'

'It's always "some day". It's been "some day" for two years now.'

'I know. But I can't help it.'

He pressed her back against the wall, pulled off the absurd flat hat and buried his face in her hair. It was tormenting to be so close to her and all for nothing. He put a hand under her chin and lifted her small face up to his, trying to distinguish her features in the almost complete darkness.

'Say you will, Rosemary. There's a dear! Do!'

'You know I'm going to some time.'

'Yes, but not some time—now. I don't mean this moment, but soon. When we get an opportunity. Say you will!'

'I can't. I can't promise.'

'Say "yes," Rosemary. Please do!'

'No.'

Still stroking her invisible face, he quoted:

'Veuillez le dire donc selon

Que vous estes benigne et doulche,

Car ce doulx mot n'est pas si long

Qu'il vous face mal en la bouche.'

'What does that mean?'

He translated it.

'I can't, Gordon. I just can't.'

'Say "yes," Rosemary, there's a dear. Surely it's as easy to say "yes" as "no"?'

'No, it isn't. It's easy enough for you. You're a man. It's different for a woman.'

'Say "yes," Rosemary! "Yes"—it's such an easy word. Go on, now; say it. "Yes!"'

'Anyone would think you were teaching a parrot to talk, Gordon.'

'Oh, damn! Don't make jokes about it.'

It was not much use arguing. Presently they came out into the street and walked on, southward. Somehow, from Rosemary's swift, neat movements, from her general air of a girl who knows how to look after herself and who yet treats life mainly as a joke, you could make a good guess at her upbringing and her mental background. She was the youngest child of one of those huge hungry families which still exist here and there in the middle classes. There had been fourteen children all told—the father was a country solicitor. Some of Rosemary's sisters were married, some of them were schoolmistresses or running typing bureaux; the brothers were farming in Canada, on tea-plantations in Ceylon, in obscure regiments of the Indian Army. Like all women who have had an eventful girlhood, Rosemary wanted to remain a girl. That was why, sexually, she was so immature. She had kept late into life the high-spirited sexless atmosphere of a big family. Also she had absorbed into her very bones the code of fair play and live-and-let-live. She was profoundly magnanimous, quite incapable of spiritual bullying. From Gordon, whom she adored, she put up with almost anything. It was the measure of her magnanimity that never once, in the two years that she had known him, had she blamed him for not attempting to earn a proper living.

Gordon was aware of all this. But at the moment he was thinking of other things. In the pallid circles of light about the lamp-posts, beside Rosemary's smaller, trimmer figure, he felt graceless, shabby and dirty. He wished very much that he had shaved that morning. Furtively he put a hand into his pocket and felt his money, half afraid—it was a recurrent fear with him—that he might have dropped a coin. However, he could feel the milled edge of a florin, his principal coin at the moment. Four and fourpence left. He couldn't possibly take her out to supper, he reflected. They'd have to trail dismally up and down the streets, as usual, or at best go to a Lyons for a coffee. Bloody! How can you have any fun when you've got no money? He said broodingly: