WNDON LETTER
113
could have mistaken them for that at a little distance. Just the same sight
in Barcelona, only there it was plaster saints from desecrated churches....
Regular features of the time: neatly swept·up piles of glass, litter of
stone and splinters of flint, smell of escaping gas, knots of sightseers wait–
ing at the cordons where there are unexploded bombs..•. Nondescript
people wandering about, having been evacuated from their houses because
of delayed-action bombs. Yesterday two girls stopping me in the street,
very elegant in . appearance except that their faces were filthily dirty:
'Please, sir, can you tell us where we are?' ... Withal, huge areas of
London almost normal, and everyone quite happy in the daytime, never
seeming to think about the coming night, like animals which are unable to
foresee the future so long as they have a bit of food and a place in
the sun."
Cyril Connolly and Stephen Spender send all the best. Good luck
to .America.
Yours sincerely
GEORGE ORWELL
Instead of ACarol
The winter hardens. Every night, I hear
The patient, khaki beast grieve in his stall,
His eyes behind the hard fingers soft as wool.
His cheerful morning face puts me in mind
Of certain things were rumoured far and near
To hearts wherein there fretted and repined
A world that came to its last dated year.
Rayner Heppenstall
