Collected Works. George Orwell
“That’s the stuff! Shove in! Shift yourself, Daddy, and make room for my little sit-me-down. Get one atop of each other. That’s right. Never mind the chats. Jam all together like pilchards in a perishing tin.”
Mrs. Wayne: “Here! I didn’t ask you to sit on my lap, young man!”
Ginger: “Sit on mine, then, mother—’sall the same. What-o! First bit of stuff I’ve ’ad my arm round since Easter.”
(They pile themselves in a monstrous shapeless clot, men and women clinging indiscriminately together, like a bunch of toads at spawning time. There is a writhing movement as the heap settles down, and a sour stench of clothes diffuses itself. Only Mr. Tallboys remains marching up and down.)
Mr. Tallboys (declaiming): “O ye nights and days, ye light and darkness, ye lightnings and clouds, curse ye the Lord!”
(Deafie, someone having sat on his diaphragm, utters a strange, unreproducible sound.)
Mrs. Bendigo: “Get off my bad leg, can’t you? What you think I am? Bloody drawing-room sofa?”
Charlie: “Don’t ole Daddy stink when you get up agen ’im?”
Ginger: “Bleeding Bank ’oliday for the chats this’ll be.”
Dorothy: “Oh, God, God!”
Mr. Tallboys (halting): “Why call on God, you puling deathbed penitent? Stick to your guns and call on the Devil as I do. Hail to thee, Lucifer, Prince of the Air! (Singing to the tune of ‘Holy, holy, holy’): Incubi and Succubi, falling down before Thee! . . .”
Mrs. Bendigo: “Oh, shut up, you blarsphemous old sod! ’E’s too bloody fat to feel the cold, that’s what’s wrong with ’im.”
Charlie: “Nice soft be’ind you got, Ma. Keep an eye out for the perishing flattie, Ginger.”
Mr. Tallboys: “Maledicite, omnia opera! The Blask Mass! Why not? Once a priest always a priest. Hand me a chunk of toke and I will work the miracle. Sulphur candles, Lord’s Prayer backwards, crucifix upside down. (To Dorothy) If we had a black he-goat you would come in useful.”
(The animal heat of the piled bodies has already made itself felt. A drowsiness is descending upon everyone.)
Mrs. Wayne: “You mustn’t think as I’m accustomed to sitting on a gentleman’s knee, you know . . .”
Mrs. McElligot (drowsily): “I took my sacraments reg’lar till de bloody priest wouldn’t give me absolution along o’ my Michael. De ole get, de ole getsie! . . .”
Mr. Tallboys (striking an attitude): “Per aquam sacratam quam nunc spargo, signumque crucis quod nunc facio . . .”
Ginger: “ ’Oo’s got a fill of ’ard-up? I’ve smoked my last bleeding fag-end.”
Mr. Tallboys (as at the altar): “Dearly beloved brethren we are gathered together in the sight of God for the solemnisation of unholy blasphemy. He has afflicted us with dirt and cold, with hunger and solitude, with the pox and the itch, with the headlouse and the crablouse. Our food is damp crusts and slimy meat-scraps handed out in packets from hotel doorways. Our pleasure is stewed tea and sawdust cakes bolted in reeking cellars, bar-rinsings and spittle of common ale, the embrace of toothless hags. Our destiny is the pauper’s grave, twenty-five deep in deal coffins, the kip-house of underground. It is very meet, right and our bounden duty at all times and in all places to curse Him and revile Him. Therefore with Demons and Archdemons,” etc., etc., etc.
Mrs. McElligot (drowsily): “By holy Jesus, I’m half asleep right now, only some b ——’s lyin’ across me legs an crushin’ ’em.”
Mr. Tallboys: “Amen. Evil from us deliver, but temptation into not us lead,” etc., etc., etc.
(As he reaches the first word of the prayer he tears the consecrated bread across. The blood runs out of it. There is a rolling sound, as of thunder, and the landscape changes. Dorothy’s feet are very cold. Monstrous winged shapes of Demons and Archdemons are dimly visible, moving to and fro. Something, beak or claw, closes upon Dorothy’s shoulder, reminding her that her feet and hands are aching with cold.)
The policeman (shaking Dorothy by the shoulder): “Wake up, now, wake up, wake up! Haven’t you got an overcoat? You’re as white as death. Don’t you know better than to let yourself sprawl about in the cold like that?”
(Dorothy finds that she is stiff with cold. The sky is now quite clear, with gritty little stars twinkling like electric lamps enormously remote. The pyramid has unrolled itself.)
Mrs. McElligot: “De poor kid, she ain’t used to roughin’ it de way us others are.”
Ginger (beating his arms): “Brr! Woo! ’Taters in the bleeding mould!”
Mrs. Wayne: “She’s a lady born and bred.”
The policeman: “Is that so?—See here, Miss, you best come down to the M.A.B. with me. They’ll give you a bed all right. Anyone can see with half an eye as you’re a cut above these others here.”
Mrs. Bendigo: “Thank you, constable, thank you! ’Ear that, girls? ‘A cut above us,’ ’e says. Nice, ain’t it? (To the policeman) Proper bloody Ascot swell yourself, ain’t you?”
Dorothy: “No, no! Leave me. I’d rather stay here.”
The policeman: “Well, please yourself. You looked real bad just now. I’ll be along later and take a look at you.” (Moves off doubtfully.)
Charlie: “Wait’ll the perisher’s round the corner and then pile up agen. Only perishing way we’ll keep warm.”
Mrs. McElligot: “Come on, kid. Get underneath an’ let’m warm you.”
Snouter: “Ten minutes to —— two. Can’t last for ever, I s’pose.”
Mr. Tallboys (chanting): “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: My heart also in the midst of my body is like unto melting wax! . . .”
(Once more the people pile themselves on the bench. But the temperature is now not many degrees above freezing-point, and the wind is blowing more cuttingly. The people wriggle their wind-nipped faces into the heap like sucking pigs struggling for their mother’s teats. One’s interludes of sleep shrink to a few seconds, and one’s dreams grow more monstrous, troubling and undreamlike. There are times when the nine people are talking almost normally, times when they can even laugh at their situation, and times when they press themselves together in a kind of frenzy, with deep groans of pain. Mr. Tallboys suddenly becomes exhausted and his monologue degenerates into a stream of nonsense. He drops his vast bulk on top of the others, almost suffocating them. The heap rolls apart. Some remain on the bench, some slide to the ground and collapse against the parapet or against the others’ knees. The policeman enters the Square and orders those on the ground to their feet. They get up, and collapse again the moment he is gone. There is no sound from the ten people save of snores that are partly groans. Their heads nod like those of jointed porcelain Chinamen as they fall asleep and re-awake as rhythmically as the ticking of a clock. Three strikes somewhere. A voice yells like a trumpet from the eastern end of the Square: “Boys! Up you get! The noospapersis come!”)
Charlie (starting from his sleep): “The perishing papers! C’m on, Ginger! Run like Hell!”
(They run, or shamble, as fast as they can to the corner of the Square, where three youths are distributing surplus posters given away in charity by the morning newspapers. Charlie and Ginger come back with a thick wad of posters. The five largest men now jam themselves together on the bench, Deafie and the four women sitting across their knees; then, with infinite difficulty (as it has to be done from the inside), they wrap themselves in a monstrous cocoon of paper, several sheets thick, tucking the loose