George Orwell: A Life in Letters (49 page)

I suppose I’d better go to sleep. By the way the six teeth are 3 top & 3 bottom which gives rather an odd appearance, but I hope the fourth top one will be through soon.

All my love & Richard’s

E.

[XVII, 2642, pp. 107–9; typed and handwritten]

1
.
On 23 March, Operation Plunder, the offensive across the Rhine, began; it may be reports of this to which Eileen refers.

2
.
Eileen’s will can be read in XVII,
2643, pp. 109–10.

3
.
After Orwell had also died, it was Avril who took care of Richard, and he was very happy with her. Eileen’s fears proved completely unfounded.

4
.
Norah Myles and her husband Quartus, a general practitioner. (See headnote to
3.11.36.
)

5
.and
6
.Nothing has been deleted at either of these points: the stops and dashes are Eileen’s.

7
.
The journal
Windmill
, in which ‘In Defence of P. G. Wodehouse’ was to appear (XVII, 2624).

Eileen Blair* to her husband

29 March 1945

Fernwood House

Clayton Road

Newcastle-on-Tyne
°

Dearest

I’m just going to have the operation, already enema’d, injected (with morphia in the
right
arm which is a nuisance), cleaned & packed up like a precious image in cotton wool & bandages. When its’° over I’ll add a note to this & it can get off quickly. Judging by my fellow patients it will be a
short
note. They’ve all had their operations. Annoying—I shall never have a chance to feel superior.

I haven’t seen Harvey Evers since arrival & apparently Gwen didn’t communicate with him & no one knows what operation I am having! They don’t believe that Harvey Evers really left it to me to decide—he always ‘does what he thinks best’! He will of course. But I must say I feel irritated though I am being a
model
patient. They think I’m wonderful, so placid & happy they say. As indeed I am once I can hand myself over to someone else to deal with.

This is a nice room—ground floor so one can see the garden. Not much in it except daffodils & I think arabis but a nice little lawn. My bed isn’t next the window but it faces the right way. I also see the fire & the clock.

[XVII, 2647, pp. 112–3; handwritten]

The letter ends here. No note was added. Eileen suffered a heart attack and died under the anaesthetic. She was thirty-nine. Orwell was in Paris when he received the news that Eileen had died; he got to Greystone on Saturday, 31 March. Eileen was buried in St Andrew’s and Jesmond Cemetery, Newcastle upon Tyne. The grave is number 1
45 in Section B. Orwell took Richard back with him to London, and Doreen Kopp took care of him when Orwell returned to France to complete his assignment.

To Lydia Jackson*

1 April 1945

at Greystone, Carlton

Dear Lydia,

I do not know whether you will have heard from anyone else the very bad news. Eileen is dead. As you know she had been ill for some time past and it was finally diagnosed that she had a growth which must be removed. The operation was not supposed to be a very serious one, but she seems to have died as soon as she was given the anaesthetic, and, apparently, as a result of the anaesthetic. This was last Thursday. I was in Paris and didn’t even know she was to have the operation till two days before. It was a dreadful shock and a very cruel thing to happen, because she had become so devoted to Richard and was looking forward to living a normal life in the country again as soon as the war was over. The only consolation is that I don’t think she suffered, because she went to the operation, apparently, not expecting anything to go wrong, and never recovered consciousness. It is perhaps as well that Richard wasn’t a bit older, because I don’t think he actually misses her, at any rate he seems in very good spirits as well as health. I am going to bring him back to London when I come, and for the time being he is going to stay with Doreen [Kopp] who lives in the same square and has a baby a month old herself. I think we shall be able to find a nurse whom we can share, and when the war stops I can probably get him a nurse of his own and make a proper home for him in the country. It is a shame Eileen should have died just when he is becoming so charming, however she did enjoy very much being with him during her last months of life. Please give my love to Pat. I don’t know about my plans, but I think that if the
Observer
want me to I shall go back to France for a month or two when I have settled Richard.

Yours

George

[XVII, 2650, p. 118; typewritten]

To Anthony Powell*

13 April 1945

Hotel Scribe

Paris 9e

Dear Tony,

I tried to get in touch with you when I was in London last week, but failed. I don’t know whether you will have heard from some other source about what has happened. Eileen is dead. She died very suddenly and unexpectedly on March 29th during an operation which was not supposed to be very serious. I was over here and had no expectation of anything going wrong, which indeed nobody seems to have had. I didn’t see the final findings of the inquest and indeed don’t want to, because it doesn’t bring her back, but I think the anaesthetic was responsible. It was a most horrible thing to happen because she had had five really miserable years of bad health and overwork, and things were just beginning to get better. The only good thing is that I don’t think she can have suffered or had any apprehensions. She was actually looking forward to the operation to cure her trouble, and I found among her papers a letter she must have written only about an hour before she died and which she expected to finish when she came round. But it was terribly sad that she should die when she had become so devoted to Richard and was making such a good job of his upbringing. Richard I am glad to say is very well and for the moment is provided for. He is staying with his sort of aunt
¹
who lives in the same square as me and has a young baby of her own, and I hope within a fairly short time to find a good nurse whom I can take on as a permanency. As soon as I can get a nurse and a house I shall remove him to the country, as I don’t want him to learn to walk in London. I just got him settled in and then came straight back here, as I felt so upset at home I thought I would rather be on the move for a bit. I was in Germany for a few days recently and am now going back there for a week or two.

What I partly wrote for was to ask if you know Malcolm Muggeridge’s address. He has left Paris and I have no idea how to get in touch with him. I vaguely heard there had been some kind of row in which l’affaire Wodehouse was mixed up, but have no idea what it is. Letters generally take about a fortnight, but the above address will find me. Please remember me to Violet.
²

Yours

George

[XVII, 2656, p. 124; typewritten]

1
.
Doreen Kopp.

2
.
The Lady Violet Powell (1912–2002),* Anthony Powell’s wife.

To Lydia Jackson*

11 May 1945

Hotel Scribe

Paris 9e

Dear Lydia,

I just had letters from you and Pat
¹
about simultaneously. I don’t want to relet the cottage, because for the time being I want to keep it on as a place to go down to for an occasional week end. I can however make either of the following arrangements with you. Either I will lend you the cottage for a month in the summer at any time you choose to name, or else you can continue to use the cottage at all times, but on the understanding that I can come and have it for a week or so any time I want to. In either case I don’t want you to pay me anything. I should be back in London about May 25th and we can make any final arrangements then. You could have it for June or July or really whenever you like provided I know beforehand. At present it seems impossible to get a house in the country and for that reason I want to keep on the cottage so that Richard can get a few days of country air now and then. Eileen and I had hoped that it would not be necessary for him to learn to walk in London, but it seems unavoidable, so I am going to keep on the flat.

Gwen
[O’Shaughnessy] says you borrowed a refrigerator of hers. Do you think we could have it back, because it is so hard to keep milk from going sour in the summer months and that makes it so difficult with the children.

I came straight back here after Eileen’s death and have felt somewhat better for being at work most of the time. The destruction in Germany is terrifying, far worse than people in England grasp, but my trips there have been quite interesting. I am making one more trip, to Austria I hope, and then coming back about the end of next week. I get bulletins about Richard from Doreen
and it seems he is doing very well and had tripled his birth weight at 11 months. The next thing is to find a nurse for him which is next door to impossible at present. I don’t know how long this letter will take getting to you—sometimes they take only 4
days, sometimes about 3 weeks—but if it gets to you before I get back, and you want to go down to the cottage, you can do so. Looking forward to seeing you both.

Yours

George

[XVII, 2666, pp. 138–9; typewritten]

1
.
Patricia Donoghue shared Orwell’s cottage at Wallington with Lydia Jackson.

Unpublished letter to
Tribune

This letter was set up in type but, according to Orwell’s marginal note on the galley slip, ‘withdrawn because
Tribune
altered attitude in following week’.

[26?] June 1945

POLISH TRIAL

I read with some disappointment your comment on the trial of the sixteen Poles in Moscow,
¹
in which you seemed to imply that they had behaved in a discreditable manner and deserved punishment.

Early in the proceedings I formed the opinion that the accused were technically guilty: only, just what were they guilty of? Apparently it was merely of doing what everyone thinks it right to do when his country is occupied by a foreign power—that is, of trying to keep a military force in being, of maintaining communication with the outside world, of committing acts of sabotage and occasionally killing people. In other words, they were accused of trying to preserve the independence of their country against an unelected puppet government, and of remaining obedient to a government which at that time was recognised by the whole world except the U.S.S.R. The Germans during their period of occupation could have brought exactly the same indictment against them, and they would have been equally guilty.

It will not do to say that the efforts of the Poles to remain independent ‘objectively’ aided the Nazis, and leave it at that. Many actions which Left-wingers do not disapprove of have ‘objectively’ aided the Germans. How about E.A.M., for instance?
²
They also tried to keep their military force in being, and they, too, killed Allied soldiers—British in this case—and they were not even acting under the orders of a government which was recognised by anyone as legal. But what of it? We do not disapprove of their action, and if sixteen E.A.M. leaders were now brought to London and sentenced to long terms of imprisonment we should rightly protest.

To be anti-Polish and pro-Greek is only possible if one sets up a double standard of political morality, one for the U.S.S.R. and the other for the rest of the world. Before these sixteen Poles went to Moscow they were described in the Press as political delegates, and it was stated that they had been summoned there to take part in discussions on the formation of a new government. After their arrest all mention of their status as political delegates was dropped from the British Press—an example of the kind of censorship that is necessary if this double standard is to be made acceptable to the big public. Any well-informed person is aware of similar instances. To name just one: at this moment speakers up and down the country are justifying the Russian purges on the ground that Russia ‘had no quislings,’ at the same time as any mention of the considerable numbers of Russian troops, including several generals, who changed sides and fought for the Germans is being suppressed by cautious editors. This kind of whitewashing may be due to a number of different motives, some of them respectable ones, but its effect on the Socialist movement can be deadly if it is long continued.

When I wrote in your columns I repeatedly said that if one criticises this or that Russian action one is not obliged to put on airs of moral superiority. Their behaviour is not worse than that of capitalist governments, and its actual results may often be better. Nor is it likely that we shall alter the behaviour of the rulers of the U.S.S.R. by telling them that we disapprove of them. The whole point is the effect of the Russian mythos on the Socialist movement
here
.
At present we are all but openly applying the double standard of morality. With one side of our mouths we cry out that mass deportations, concentration camps, forced labour and suppression of freedom of speech are appalling crimes, while with the other we proclaim that these things are perfectly all right if done by the U.S.S.R. or its satellite states: and where necessary we make this plausible by doctoring the news and cutting out unpalatable facts. One cannot possibly build up a healthy Socialist movement if one is obliged to condone no matter what crime when the U.S.S.R. commits it. No one knows better than I do that it is unpopular to say anything anti-Russian
at this moment
.
But what of it? I am only 42, and I can remember the time when it was as dangerous to say anything pro-Russian as it is to say anything anti-Russian now. Indeed, I am old enough to have seen working class audiences booing and jeering at speakers who had used the word Socialism. These fashions pass away, but they can’t be depended on to do so unless thinking people are willing to raise their voices against the fallacy of the moment. It is only because over the past hundred years small groups and lonely individuals have been willing to face unpopularity that the Socialist movement exists at all.