that do it. And the nasty thing is
that the brutes always--'
'Don't go on!' said Winston, with his eyes tightly shut.
'Dearest! You've gone quite pale. What's the matter? Do they make
you
feel sick?'
'Of all horrors in the world -- a rat!'
She pressed herself against him and wound her limbs round him,
as
though to reassure him with the warmth of her body. He did not reopen
his
eyes immediately. For several moments he had had the feeling of being
back
in a nightmare which had recurred from time to time throughout his life.
It
was always very much the same. He was standing in front of a wall
of
darkness, and on the other side of it there was something
unendurable,
something too dreadful to be faced. In the dream his deepest feeling
was
always one of self-deception, because he did in fact know what was
behind
the wall of darkness. With a deadly effort, like wrenching a piece out
of
his own brain, he could even have dragged the thing into the open.
He
always woke up without discovering what it was: but somehow it
was
connected with what Julia had been saying when he cut her short.
'I'm sorry,' he said, 'it's nothing. I don't like rats, that's all.'
'Don't worry, dear, we're not going to have the filthy brutes in
here.
I'll stuff the hole with a bit of sacking before we go. And next time
we
come here I'll bring some plaster and bung
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