[Tony[_8_]]

little girl took hold
of it and looked at it dully, perhaps not knowing what it was. Winston
stood watching her for a moment. Then with a sudden swift spring he had
snatched the piece of chocolate out of his sister's hand and was fleeing
for the door.
'Winston, Winston!' his mother called after him. 'Come back! Give your
sister back her chocolate!'
He stopped, but did not come back. His mother's anxious eyes were
fixed on his face. Even now he was thinking about the thing, he did not
know what it was that was on the point of happening. His sister, conscious
of having been robbed of something, had set up a feeble wail. His mother
drew her arm round the child and pressed its face against her breast.
Something in the gesture told him that his sister was dying. He turned and
fled down the stairs. with the chocolate growing sticky in his hand.
He never saw his mother again. After he had devoured the chocolate he
felt somewhat ashamed of himself and hung about in the streets for several
hours, until hunger drove him home. When he came back his mother had
disappeared. This was already becoming normal at that time. Nothing was
gone from the room except his mother and his sister. They had not taken any
clothes, not even his mother's overcoat. To this day he did not know with
any certainty that his mother was dead. It was perfectly possible that she
had merely been sent to a forced-labour camp. As for his sister, she might
have been removed, like Winston himself, to one of the colonies for
homeless children (Reclamation Centres, they were cal