ORWELL RECONSIDERED
stones, poking a stick up the leaden wastepipe which ran from the
sink inside and which I suppose was blocked. I had time to see every–
thing about heI'--her sacking apron, her clumsy clogs, her arms red–
dened by the cold. She looked up as the train passed, and I was almost
near enough to catch her eye. She had a round pale face, the usual
exhausted face of the slum girl who is 25 and looks 40, thanks to mis–
carriages and drudgery; and
it
wore, for the second in which I saw it,
the most desolate, hopeless expression I have ever seen. It struck me
then that we are mistaken when we say that "It isn't the same for
them as it would be for us," and that people bred in the slums can
imagine nothing but the slums. For what I saw in her face was not
the ignorant suffering of an animal. She knew well enough what was
happening to her-understood as well as I did how dreadful a destiny
it was to
be
kneeling there in the bitter cold, on the slimy stones of a
slum backyard, poking a stick up a foul drainpipe.
We are saddened
by
the death of
ALBERT CAMUS
1913-1960
97
