Orwell, George — Nineteen eighty-four [537]

Privacy, he said, was a very valuable thing. Everyone wanted a place where they could be alone occasionally. And when they had such a place, it was only common courtesy in anyone else who knew of it to keep his knowledge to himself. He even, seeming almost to fade out of existence as he did so, added that there were two entries to the house, one of them through the back yard, which gave on an alley. — Orwell, George, Nineteen eighty-four, 537

Note

Charrington’s deliberate ‘fading out of existence’ performance — privacy enacted as a courtesy among conspirators, with the practical detail of the second entrance tucked in. The irony of ‘seeming to fade’ is that he is the one hidden power in this room all along.