in
preparation for the Two Minutes Hate. Winston was just taking his place in
one of the middle rows when two people whom he knew by sight, but had never
spoken to, came unexpectedly into the room. One of them was a girl whom he
often passed in the corridors. He did not know her name, but he knew that
she worked in the Fiction Department. Presumably -- since he had sometimes
seen her with oily hands and carrying a spanner -- she had some mechanical
job on one of the novel-writing machines. She was a bold-looking girl, of
about twenty-seven, with thick hair, a freckled face, and swift, athletic
movements. A narrow scarlet sash, emblem of the Junior Anti-Sex League, was
wound several times round the waist of her overalls, just tightly enough to
bring out the shapeliness of her hips. Winston had disliked her from the
very first moment of seeing her. He knew the reason. It was because of the
atmosphere of hockey-fields and cold baths and community hikes and general
clean-mindedness which she managed to carry about with her. He disliked
nea