[richard lucassen]

him that the man's whole life
was playing a part, and that he felt it to be dangerous to drop his assumed
personality even for a moment. O'Brien took the decanter by the neck and
filled up the glasses with a dark-red liquid. It aroused in Winston dim
memories of something seen long ago on a wall or a hoarding -- a vast
bottle composed of electric lights which seemed to move up and down and
pour its contents into a glass. Seen from the top the stuff looked almost
black, but in the decanter it gleamed like a ruby. It had a sour-sweet
smell. He saw Julia pick up her glass and sniff at it with frank curiosity.
'It is called wine,' said O'Brien with a faint smile. 'You will have
read about it in books, no doubt. Not much of it gets to the Outer Party, I
am afraid.' His face grew solemn again, and he raised his glass: 'I think
it is fitting that we should begin by drinking a health. To our Leader: To
Emmanuel Goldstein.'
Winston took up his glass with a certain eagerness. Wine was a thing
he had read and dreamed about. Like the glass paperweight or Mr.
Charrington's half-remembered rhymes, it belonged to the vanished, romantic
past, the olden time as he liked to call it in his secret thoughts. For
some reason he had always thought of wine as having an intensely sweet
taste, like that of blackberry jam and an immediate intoxicating effect.
Actually, when he came to swallow it, the stuff was distinctly
disappointing. The truth was that after years of gin-drinking he could
barely taste it. He set down the empty glass.
'Then there is such a person as Goldstein?' he said.
'Yes, there is such a person, and he is alive. Where, I do not know.'
'And the conspiracy -- the organization? Is it real? It is not simply
an inven