English urgent - one question! but what is strange about these people is their invisibility.
Specifically, Orwell is using a metaphor to describe the effect of the British Empire. Wood is passing -- the speaker sees it but does not realize at first that the wood is being carried by old women. When he finally does see them, he realizes how old and crushed they are beneath the weight of the wood.
The Empire is much the same. It passes -- it moves along -- but as it does so, it crushes beneath it the oppressed, whose lives make it possible for the Empire to run smoothly.
"I hate it when you smoke", he said.
Hellen put the cigarette down, smashing its tip against the filthy bottom of the ashtray.
"That's the point", she whispered.
"What is?"
"You hate so many things about me..."
Paul finally comprehended where that conversation was going. Why she had chosen that noisy diner at the least romantic hour of the day.
"I don't hate you", he managed to say. His lips felt dry all of a sudden.
"That's not what I said."
She shifted in her seat, impatient.
"You don't have to hate me to hate things about me. I don't hate you as well. But I do find the way you treat me unbearable."
His stomach twisted into a knot.
"Was I ever violent? Or even rude?"
Hellen sighed and stared at him pitifully.
"No, thank God for that. If you had been, it might have hurt me even more than your indifference."
Paul admitted to himself he was proud of her. She had mustered the courage to say the words they both wanted to hear. He, too, sighed, in relief.
Hellen took a sip from her fuming cup.
"I'll speak for the both of us. This cannot go on like this. I know I never wished to be miserable. I believe neither did you."
He nodded.
"I won't ask you to leave.", she added. "I don't care about the house or... I just want to feel free again. I've chosen today to start feeling it."
That was sort of poetic. He raised his eyes to look into hers. There was no fear, no hesitation. For the first time in ten years. What had they done to each other?
"It was nice having you in my life...", he said.
She snorted while standing up.
"Sharing our life shouldn't be just nice. Don't you agree? Goodbye, darling."
He watched her walk across the diner, open the door with a steady hand, and leave.
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