to squeeze out the vision that
kept recurring. He had an almost overwhelming temptation to shout a string
of filthy words at the top of his voice. Or to bang his head against the
wall, to kick over the table, and hurl the inkpot through the window -- to
do any violent or noisy or painful thing that might black out the memory
that was tormenting him.
Your worst enemy, he reflected, was your own nervous system. At any
moment the tension inside you was liable to translate itself into some
visible symptom. He thought of a man whom he had passed in the street a few
weeks back; a quite ordinary-looking man, a Party member, aged thirty-five
to forty, tallish and thin, carrying a brief-case. They were a few metres
apart when the left side of the man's face was suddenly contorted by a sort
of spasm. It happened again just as they were passing one another: it was
only a twitch, a quiver, rapid as the clicking of a camera shutter, but
obviously habitual. He remembered thinking at the time: That poor devil is
done for. And what was frightening was that the action was quite possibly
unconscious. The most deadly danger of all was talking