Re: ATWT LOD

and
written records were falsified -- when that happened, the claim of the
Party to have improved the conditions of human life had got to be accepted,
because there did not exist, and never again could exist, any standard
against which it could be tested.
At this moment his train of thought stopped abruptly. He halted and
looked up. He was in a narrow street, with a few dark little shops,
interspersed among dwelling-houses. Immediately above his head there hung
three discoloured metal balls which looked as if they had once been gilded.
He seemed to know the place. Of course! He was standing outside the junk-
shop where he had bought the diary.
A twinge of fear went through him. It had been a sufficiently rash act
to buy the book in the beginning, and he had sworn never to come near the
place again. And yet the instant that he allowed his thoughts to wander,
his feet had brought him back here of their own accord. It was precisely
against suicidal impulses of this kind that he had hoped to guard himself
by opening the diary. At the same time he noticed that although it was
nearly twenty-one hours the shop was still open. With the feeling that he
would be less conspicuous inside than hanging about on the pavement, he
stepped through the doorway. If questioned, he could plausibly say that he
was trying to buy razor blades.
The proprietor had just lighted a hanging oil lamp which gave off an
unclean but friendly smell. He was a man of perhaps sixty, frail and bowed,
with a long, benevolent nose, and mild eyes distorted by thick spectacles.
His hair was almost white, but his eyebrows were bushy and still black. His
spectacles, his gentle, fussy movements, and the fact that he was wearing
an aged jacket of black velvet, gave him a vague air of intellect