It had happened at last. The expected  message  had  come.
All his life, it seemed to him, he had been waiting for this to
happen.
     He  was walking down the long corridor at the Ministry and
he was almost at the spot where Julia had slipped the note into
his hand when he became aware that someone larger than  himself
was walking just behind him. The person, whoever it was, gave a
small  cough,  evidently  as  a  prelude  to  speaking. Winston
stopped abruptly and turned. It was O'Brien.
     At last they were face to face, and  it  seemed  that  his
only  impulse  was to run away. His heart bounded violently. He
would have been incapable of speaking.  O'Brien,  however,  had
continued  forward in the same movement, laying a friendly hand
for a moment on Winston's arm, so that the  two  of  them  were
walking side by side. He began speaking with the peculiar grave
courtesy  that  differentiated  him  from the majority of Inner
Party members.
     'I had been hoping for an opportunity of talking to  you,'
he said. 'I was reading one of your Newspeak articles in The
Times  the  other  day.  You  take  a scholarly interest in
Newspeak, I believe?'
     Winston had recovered part of his self-possession. 'Hardly
scholarly,' he said. 'I'm only an amateur. It's not my subject.
I have never had anything to do with the actual construction of
the language.'
     'But you write it very elegantly,' said O'Brien. 'That  is
not  only my own opinion. I was talking recently to a friend of
yours who is certainly an  expert.  His  name  has  slipped  my
memory for the moment.'
     Again   Winston's   heart   stirred   painfully.   It  was
inconceivable that this was anything other than a reference  to
Syme.  But  Syme  was  not  only  dead,  he  was  abolished, an
unperson. Any identifiable reference to him  would  have
been  mortally  dangerous. O'Brien's remark must obviously have
been intended as a signal, a codeword. By sharing a  small  act
of thoughtcrime he had turned the two of them into accomplices.
They  had continued to stroll slowly down the corridor, but now
O'Brien halted. With the curious, disarming  friendliness  that
he  always  managed  to  put in to the gesture he resettled his
spectacles on his nose. Then he went on:
     'What I had really  intended  to  say  was  that  in  your
article  I  noticed  you  had  used two words which have become
obsolete. But they have only become so very recently. Have  you
seen the tenth edition of the Newspeak Dictionary?'
     'No,'  said  Winston.  'I  didn't think it had been issued
yet. We are still using the ninth in the Records Department.'
     'The tenth edition is not due to appear for some months, I
believe. But a few advance copies have been circulated. I  have
one myself. It might interest you to look at it, perhaps?'
     'Very  much  so,'  said  Winston, immediately seeing where
this tended.
     'Some of the new  developments  are  most  ingenious.  The
reduction in the number of verbs -- that is the point that will
appeal to you, I think. Let me see, shall I send a messenger to
you  with  the  dictionary? But I am afraid I invariably forget
anything of that kind. Perhaps you could pick it up at my  flat
at  some  time  that  suited  you?  Wait.  Let  me  give you my
address.'
     They were standing in  front  of  a  telescreen.  Somewhat
absentmindedly  O'Brien  felt  two  of  his  pockets  and  then
produced a small  leather-covered  notebook  and  a  gold  ink-
pencil.  Immediately beneath the telescreen, in such a position
that anyone who was watching at the other end of the instrument
could read what he was writing, he scribbled an  address,  tore
out the page and handed it to Winston.
     'I  am usually at home in the evenings,' he said. 'If not,
my servant will give you the dictionary.'
     He was gone, leaving Winston holding the scrap  of  paper,
which  this  time there was no need to conceal. Nevertheless he
carefully memorized what was written  on  it,  and  some  hours
later  dropped  it  into  the  memory hole along with a mass of
other papers.
     They had been talking to  one  another  for  a  couple  of
minutes  at  the  most.  There  was  only  one meaning that the
episode could possibly have. It had been contrived as a way  of
letting  Winston  know  O'Brien's  address. This was necessary,
because except by direct  enquiry  it  was  never  possible  to
discover  where  anyone lived. There were no directories of any
kind. 'If you ever want to see me,  this  is  where  I  can  be
found,'  was what O'Brien had been saying to him. Perhaps there
would even be a message concealed somewhere in the  dictionary.
But  at any rate, one thing was certain. The conspiracy that he
had dreamed of did exist, and he had reached the outer edges of
it.
     He knew that sooner  or  later  he  would  obey  O'Brien's
summons. Perhaps tomorrow, perhaps after a long delay -- he was
not  certain.  What was happening was only the working-out of a
process that had started years ago. The first step had  been  a
secret, involuntary thought, the second had been the opening of
the  diary.  He  had moved from thoughts to words, and now from
words to actions. The last step was something that would happen
in the Ministry of Love.  He  had  accepted  it.  The  end  was
contained  in  the  beginning. But it was frightening: or, more
exactly, it was like a foretaste of death, like being a  little
less  alive.  Even  whiIe  he was speaking to O'Brien, when the
meaning of the words had sunk in, a chilly  shuddering  feeling
had  taken  possession  of  his  body.  He had the sensation of
stepping into the dampness of a grave,  and  it  was  not  much
better because he had always known that the grave was there and
waiting for him.

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