Grumpy AuContraire[_2_]
December 25th 07, 07:40 PM
only
now, when he had begun to be able to formulate his thoughts, that he had
taken the decisive step. The consequences of every act are included in the
act itself. He wrote:
Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime IS death.
Now he had recognized himself as a dead man it became important to
stay alive as long as possible. Two fingers of his right hand were
inkstained. It was exactly the kind of detail that might betray you. Some
nosing zealot in the Ministry (a woman, probably: someone like the little
sandy-haired woman or the dark-haired girl from the Fiction Department)
might start wondering why he had been writing during the lunch interval,
why he had used an old-fashioned pen, what he had been writing -- and then
drop a hint in the appropriate quarter. He went to the bathroom and
carefully scrubbed the ink away with the gritty dark-brown soap which
rasped your skin like sandpaper and was therefore well adapted for this
purpose.
He put the diary away in the drawer. It was quite useless to think of
hiding it, but he could at least make sure whether or not its existence had
been discovered. A hair laid across the page-ends was too obvious. With the
tip of his finger he picked up an identifiable grain of whitish dust and
deposited it on the corner of the cover, where it was bound to be shaken
off if the book was moved.
III
Winston was dreaming of his mother.
He must, he thought, have been ten or eleven years old when his mother
had disappeared. She was a tall, statuesque, rather silent woman with slow
movements and magnificent fair hair. His father he remembered more vaguely
as dark and thin, dressed always in neat dark clothes (Winston remembered
especially the very thin soles of his father's shoes) and wearing
spectacles. The two of them must evidently have been swallowed up in one of
t
now, when he had begun to be able to formulate his thoughts, that he had
taken the decisive step. The consequences of every act are included in the
act itself. He wrote:
Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime IS death.
Now he had recognized himself as a dead man it became important to
stay alive as long as possible. Two fingers of his right hand were
inkstained. It was exactly the kind of detail that might betray you. Some
nosing zealot in the Ministry (a woman, probably: someone like the little
sandy-haired woman or the dark-haired girl from the Fiction Department)
might start wondering why he had been writing during the lunch interval,
why he had used an old-fashioned pen, what he had been writing -- and then
drop a hint in the appropriate quarter. He went to the bathroom and
carefully scrubbed the ink away with the gritty dark-brown soap which
rasped your skin like sandpaper and was therefore well adapted for this
purpose.
He put the diary away in the drawer. It was quite useless to think of
hiding it, but he could at least make sure whether or not its existence had
been discovered. A hair laid across the page-ends was too obvious. With the
tip of his finger he picked up an identifiable grain of whitish dust and
deposited it on the corner of the cover, where it was bound to be shaken
off if the book was moved.
III
Winston was dreaming of his mother.
He must, he thought, have been ten or eleven years old when his mother
had disappeared. She was a tall, statuesque, rather silent woman with slow
movements and magnificent fair hair. His father he remembered more vaguely
as dark and thin, dressed always in neat dark clothes (Winston remembered
especially the very thin soles of his father's shoes) and wearing
spectacles. The two of them must evidently have been swallowed up in one of
t