[J.R. Sinclair]

the kitchen except a hunk of
dark-coloured bread which had got to be saved for tomorrow's breakfast. He
took down from the shelf a bottle of colourless liquid with a plain white
label marked VICTORY GIN. It gave off a sickly, oily smell, as of Chinese
rice-spirit. Winston poured out nearly a teacupful, nerved himself for a
shock, and gulped it down like a dose of medicine.
Instantly his face turned scarlet and the water ran out of his eyes.
The stuff was like nitric acid, and moreover, in swallowing it one had the
sensation of being hit on the back of the head with a rubber club. The next
moment, however, the burning in his belly died down and the world began to
look more cheerful. He took a cigarette from a crumpled packet marked
VICTORY CIGARETTES and incautiously held it upright, whereupon the tobacco
fell out on to the floor. With the next he was more successful. He went
back to the living-room and sat down at a small table that stood to the
left of the telescreen. From the table drawer he took out a penholder, a
bottle of ink, and a thick, quarto-sized blank book with a red back and a
marbled cover.
For some reason the telescreen in the living-room was in an unusual
position. Instead of being placed, as was normal, in the end wall, where it
could command the whole room, it was in the longer wall, opposite the
window. To one side of it there was a shallow alcove in which Winston was
now sitting, and which, when the flats were built, had probably been
intended to hold bookshelves. By sitting in the alcove, and keeping well
back, Winston was able to remain outside the range of the telescreen, so
far as sight went. He could be heard, of course, but so long as he stayed
in his present position he could not be seen. It was partly the unusual
geography of the room that had suggested to him the thing that he was now
about to do.
But it had