“ It was like trying to make a move at chess when you were already mated. ”
 George Orwell, 1984 (1949). copy citation

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“A kind of fever seized him at the thought that he might lose her, the white youthful body might slip away from him! What he feared more than anything else was that she would simply change her mind if he did not get in touch with her quickly. But the physical difficulty of meeting was enormous. It was like trying to make a move at chess when you were already mated. Whichever way you turned, the telescreen faced you. Actually, all the possible ways of communicating with her had occurred to him within fiveminutes of reading the note; but now, with time to think, he went over them one by one, as though laying out a row of instruments on a table.” source

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