As he sat
waiting on the edge of the bed he thought again of the cellars of the
Ministry of Love. It was curious how that predestined horror moved in and
out of one's consciousness. There it lay, fixed in future times, preceding
death as surely as 99 precedes 100. One could not avoid it, but one could
perhaps postpone it: and yet instead, every now and again, by a conscious,
wilful act, one chose to shorten the interval before it happened.
At this moment there was a quick step on the stairs. Julia burst into
the room. She was carrying a tool-bag of coarse brown canvas, such as he
had sometimes seen her carrying to and fro at the Ministry. He started
forward to take her in his arms, but she disengaged herself rather
hurriedly, partly because she was still holding the tool-bag.
'Half a second,' she said. 'Just let me show you what I've brought.
Did you bring some of that filthy Victory Coffee? I thought you would. You
can chuck it away again, because we shan't be needing it. Look here.'
She fell on her knees, threw open the bag, and tumbled out some
spanners and a screwdriver that filled the top part of it. Underneath were
a number of neat paper packets. The first packet that she passed to Winston
had a strange and yet vaguely familiar feeling. It was filled with some
kind of heavy, sand-like stuff which yielded wherever you touched it.
'It isn't sugar?' he said.
'Real sugar. Not saccharine, sugar. And here's a loaf of bread --
proper white bread, not our bloody stuff -- and a little pot of jam. And
here's a tin of milk -- but look! This is the one I'm really proud of. I
had to wrap a bit of sacking round it, because--'
But she did not need to tell him why she had wrapped it up. The smell
was already fi
.
|
