Re: BBC iPlayer streaming version

were
not attempting to alter history. They were governed by private loyalties
which they did not question. What mattered were individual relationships,
and a completely helpless gesture, an embrace, a tear, a word spoken to a
dying man, could have value in itself. The proles, it suddenly occurred to
him, had remained in this condition. They were notloyal to a party or a
country or an idea, they were loyal to one another. For the first time in
his life he did not despise the proles or think of them merely as an inert
force which would one day spring to life and regenerate the world. The
proles had stayed human. They had not become hardened inside. They had held
on to the primitive emotions which he himself had to re-learn by conscious
effort. And in thinking this he remembered, without apparent relevance, how
a few weeks ago he had seen a severed hand lying on the pavement and had
kicked it into the gutter as though it had been a cabbage-stalk.
'The proles are human beings,' he said aloud. 'We are not human.'
'Why not?' said Julia, who had woken up again.
He thought for a little while. 'Has it ever occurred to you,' he said,
'that the best thing for us to do would be simply to walk out of here
before it's too late, and never see each other again?'
'Yes, dear, it has occurred to me, several times. But I'm not going to
do it, all the same.'
'We've been lucky,' he said 'but it can't last much longer. You're
young. You look normal and innocent. If you keep clear of people like me,
you might stay alive for another fifty years.'
'No. I've thought it all out. What you do, I'm going to do. And don't
be too downhearted. I'm rather good at stay


.

Relevant Pages