Patty Winter
December 25th 07, 05:49 PM
that was coming. All day, with
little spurts of excitement, the thought of a smashing defeat in Africa had
been in and out of his mind. He seemed actually to see the Eurasian army
swarming across the never-broken frontier and pouring down into the tip of
Africa like a column of ants. Why had it not been possible to outflank them
in some way? The outline of the West African coast stood out vividly in his
mind. He picked up the white knight and moved it across the board. There
was the proper spot. Even while he saw the black horde racing southward he
saw another force, mysteriously assembled, suddenly planted in their rear,
cutting their comunications by land and sea. He felt that by willing it he
was bringing that other force into existence. But it was necessary to act
quickly. If they could get control of the whole of Africa, if they had
airfields and submarine bases at the Cape, it would cut Oceania in two. It
might mean anything: defeat, breakdown, the redivision of the world, the
destruction of the Party! He drew a deep breath. An extraordinary medley of
feeling -- but it was not a medley, exactly; rather it was successive
layers of feeling, in which one could not say which layer was undermost --
struggled inside him.
The spasm passed. He put the white knight back in its place, but for
the moment he could not settle down to serious study of the chess problem.
His thoughts wandered again. Almost unconsciously he traced with his finger
in the dust on the table:
2 + 2 = 5
'They can't get inside you,' she had said. But they could get inside
you. 'What happens to you here is for ever,' O'Brien had said. That was a
true word. There were things, your own acts, from which you could never
recover. Something was killed in your
little spurts of excitement, the thought of a smashing defeat in Africa had
been in and out of his mind. He seemed actually to see the Eurasian army
swarming across the never-broken frontier and pouring down into the tip of
Africa like a column of ants. Why had it not been possible to outflank them
in some way? The outline of the West African coast stood out vividly in his
mind. He picked up the white knight and moved it across the board. There
was the proper spot. Even while he saw the black horde racing southward he
saw another force, mysteriously assembled, suddenly planted in their rear,
cutting their comunications by land and sea. He felt that by willing it he
was bringing that other force into existence. But it was necessary to act
quickly. If they could get control of the whole of Africa, if they had
airfields and submarine bases at the Cape, it would cut Oceania in two. It
might mean anything: defeat, breakdown, the redivision of the world, the
destruction of the Party! He drew a deep breath. An extraordinary medley of
feeling -- but it was not a medley, exactly; rather it was successive
layers of feeling, in which one could not say which layer was undermost --
struggled inside him.
The spasm passed. He put the white knight back in its place, but for
the moment he could not settle down to serious study of the chess problem.
His thoughts wandered again. Almost unconsciously he traced with his finger
in the dust on the table:
2 + 2 = 5
'They can't get inside you,' she had said. But they could get inside
you. 'What happens to you here is for ever,' O'Brien had said. That was a
true word. There were things, your own acts, from which you could never
recover. Something was killed in your