bodies. It was
obviously some serious piece of news that they were reading. He was a few
paces away from them when suddenly the group broke up and two of the men
were in violent altercation. For a moment they seemed almost on the point
of blows.
'Can't you bleeding well listen to what I say? I tell you no number
ending in seven ain't won for over fourteen months!'
'Yes, it 'as, then!'
'No, it 'as not! Back 'ome I got the 'ole lot of 'em for over two
years wrote down on a piece of paper. I takes 'em down reg'lar as the
clock. An" I tell you, no number ending in seven--'
'Yes, a seven 'as won! I could pretty near tell you the bleeding
number. Four oh seven, it ended in. It were in February -- second week in
February.'
'February your grandmother! I got it all down in black and white. An"
I tell you, no number--'
'Oh, pack it in!' said the third man.
They were talking about the Lottery. Winston looked back when he had
gone thirty metres. They were still arguing, with vivid, passionate faces.
The Lottery, with its weekly pay-out of enormous prizes, was the one public
event to which the proles paid serious attention. It was probable that
there were some millions of proles for whom the Lottery was the principal
if not the only reason for remaining alive. It was their delight, their
folly, their anodyne, their intellectual stimulant. Where the Lottery was
concerned, even people who could barely read and write seemed capable of
intricate calculations and staggering feats of memory.
.
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