1 1984
curred to him. When he suggested it to Julia she had agreed
with unexpected readiness. Both of them knew that it was
lunacy. It was as though they were intentionally stepping
nearer to their graves. As he sat waiting on the edge of the
bed he thought again of the cellars of the Ministry of Love.
It was curious how that predestined horror moved in and
out of one’s consciousness. There it lay, fixed in future times,
preceding death as surely as 99 precedes 100. One could not
avoid it, but one could perhaps postpone it: and yet instead,
every now and again, by a conscious, wilful act, one chose
to shorten the interval before it happened.
At this moment there was a quick step on the stairs. Julia
burst into the room. She was carrying a tool-bag of coarse
brown canvas, such as he had sometimes seen her carrying
to and fro at the Ministry. He started forward to take her in
his arms, but she disengaged herself rather hurriedly, partly
because she was still holding the tool-bag.
‘Half a second,’ she said. ‘Just let me show you what I’ve
brought. Did you bring some of that filthy Victory Coffee?
I thought you would. You can chuck it away again, because
we shan’t be needing it. Look here.’
She fell on her knees, threw open the bag, and tumbled
out some spanners and a screwdriver that filled the top part
of it. Underneath were a number of neat paper packets. The
first packet that she passed to Winston had a strange and
yet vaguely familiar feeling. It was filled with some kind of
heavy, sand-like stuff which yielded wherever you touched
it.
‘It isn’t sugar?’ he said.