old man looked meditatively at the darts board. He finished up his
beer, more slowly than before. When he spoke it was with a tolerant
philosophical air, as though the beer had mellowed him.
'I know what you expect me to say,' he said. 'You expect me to say as
I'd sooner be young again. Most people'd say they'd sooner be young, if you
arst" 'em. You got your 'ealth and strength when you're young. When you get
to my time of life you ain't never well. I suffer something wicked from my
feet, and my bladder's jest terrible. Six and seven times a night it 'as me
out of bed. On the other 'and, there's great advantages in being a old man.
You ain't got the same worries. No truck with women, and that's a great
thing. I ain't 'ad a woman for near on thirty year, if you'd credit it. Nor
wanted to, what's more.'
Winston sat back against the window-sill. It was no use going on. He
was about to buy some more beer when the old man suddenly got up and
shuffled rapidly into the stinking urinal at the side of the room. The
extra half-litre was already working on him. Winston sat for a minute or
two gazing at his empty glass, and hardly noticed when his feet carried him
out into the street again. Within twenty years at the most, he reflected,
the huge and simple question, 'Was life better before the Revolution than
it is now?' would have ceased once and for all to be answerable. But in
effect it was unanswerable even now, since the few scattered survivors from
the ancient world were incapable of comparing one age with another. They
remembered a million useless things, a quarrel with a workmate, a hunt for
a lost bicycle pump, the expression on a long-dead sister's face, the
swirls of dust on a windy morning seventy years ago: but all the relevant
facts were outside the range of their vision. They were like the ant, which
can see small objects but not large ones. And when memory