The Chestnut Tree was almost empty.  A  ray  of  sunlight
slanting  through a window fell on dusty table-tops. It was the
lonely hour  of  fifteen.  A  tinny  music  trickled  from  the
telescreens.
     Winston  sat  in  his  usual  corner, gazing into an empty
glass. Now and again he glanced up at a vast  face  which  eyed
him  from  the  opposite wall. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the
caption said. Unbidden, a waiter came and filled his  glass  up
with  Victory  Gin,  shaking  into  it a few drops from another
bottle with  a  quill  through  the  cork.  It  was  saccharine
flavoured with cloves, the speciality of the cafe/.
     Winston  was  listening to the telescreen. At present only
music was coming out of it, but there was a possibility that at
any moment there might be a special bulletin from the  Ministry
of  Peace.  The  news from the African front was disquieting in
the extreme. On and off he had been worrying about it all  day.
A  Eurasian  army (Oceania was at war with Eurasia: Oceania had
always been at  war  with  Eurasia)  was  moving  southward  at
terrifying  speed.  The  mid-day bulletin had not mentioned any
definite area, but it was probable that already  the  mouth  of
the  Congo was a battlefield. Brazzaville and Leopoldville were
in danger. One did not have to look at the map to see  what  it
meant.  It  was not merely a question of losing Central Africa:
for the first time in the whole war, the territory  of  Oceania
itself was menaced.
     A  violent  emotion,  not  fear  exactly  but  a  sort  of
undifferentiated excitement,  flared  up  in  him,  then  faded
again.  He  stopped  thinking  about  the war. In these days he
could never fix his mind on any one subject for more than a few
moments at a time. He picked up his glass and drained it  at  a
gulp.  As  always,  the  gin  made  him  shudder and even retch
slightly. The stuff was horrible. The  cloves  and  saccharine,
themselves  disgusting  enough  in  their sickly way, could not
disguise the flat oily smell; and what was  worst  of  all  was
that  the smell of gin, which dwelt with him night and day, was
inextricably mixed up in his mind with the smell of those-
     He never named them, even in his thoughts, and so  far  as
it  was  possible he never visualized them. They were something
that he was half-aware of, hovering close to his face, a  smell
that  clung  to his nostrils. As the gin rose in him he belched
through purple lips. He had grown fatter  since  they  released
him,  and  had  regained  his  old  colour -- indeed, more than
regained it. His features had thickened, the skin on  nose  and
cheekbones was coarsely red, even the bald scalp was too deep a
pink.  A waiter, again unbidden, brought the chessboard and the
current issue of The Times, with the page turned down at
the chess problem. Then, seeing that Winston's glass was empty,
he brought the gin bottle and filled it. There was no  need  to
give  orders.  They  knew his habits. The chessboard was always
waiting for him, his corner table  was  always  reserved;  even
when  the  place  was  full  he had it to himself, since nobody
cared to be seen sitting  too  close  to  him.  He  never  even
bothered  to  count  his  drinks.  At  irregular intervals they
presented him with a dirty slip of paper which  they  said  was
the   bill,   but  he  had  the  impression  that  they  always
undercharged him. It would have made no difference  if  it  had
been  the  other  way  about.  He  had  always  plenty of money
nowadays. He even had a job, a sinecure, more highly-paid  than
his old job had been.
     The  music  from  the  telescreen stopped and a voice took
over. Winston raised his head to listen. No bulletins from  the
front,  however.  It  was  merely a brief announcement from the
Ministry of Plenty. In the preceding quarter, it appeared,  the
Tenth   ThreeYear   Plan's   quota   for   bootlaces  had  been
overfulfilled by 98 per cent.
     He examined the chess problem and set out the  pieces.  It
was  a  tricky ending, involving a couple of knights. 'White to
play and mate in two moves.' Winston looked up at the  portrait
of  Big  Brother. White always mates, he thought with a sort of
cloudy mysticism. Always, without exception, it is so arranged.
In no chess problem since the beginning of the world has  black
ever  won.  Did it not symbolize the eternal, unvarying triumph
of Good over Evil? The huge face gazed back  at  him,  full  of
calm power. White always mates.
     The  voice  from  the  telescreen  paused  and  added in a
different and much graver tone: 'You are warned to stand by for
an important announcement at fifteen-thirty.  Fifteen-  thirty!
This  is  news of the highest importance. Take care not to miss
it. Fifteen-thirty !' The tinking music struck up again.
     Winston's heart stirred. That was the  bulletin  from  the
front;  instinct told him that it was bad news 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=
     '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 breast: burnt out, cauterized out.
     He  had  seen her; he had even spoken to her. There was no
danger in it. He knew as though  instinctively  that  they  now
took  almost  no interest in his doings. He could have arranged
to meet her a second time if either  of  them  had  wanted  to.
Actually  it  was  by  chance  that they had met. It was in the
Park, on a vile, biting day in March, when the earth  was  like
iron  and  all  the  grass  seemed dead and there was not a bud
anywhere except a few crocuses which had pushed  themselves  up
to  be  dismembered  by  the  wind.  He was hurrying along with
frozen hands and watering eyes when he saw her not  ten  metres
away  from  him.  It struck him at once that she had changed in
some ill-defined way. They almost passed one another without  a
sign,  then  he  turned  and followed her, not very eagerly. He
knew that there was no danger, nobody would take  any  interest
in him. She did not speak. She walked obliquely away across the
grass as though trying to get rid of him, then seemed to resign
herself to having him at her side. Presently they were in among
a   clump   of  ragged  leafless  shrubs,  useless  either  for
concealment or as protection from the wind. They halted. It was
vilely cold. The wind whistled through the  twigs  and  fretted
the  occasional,  dirty-looking  crocuses. He put his arm round
her waist.
     There  was  no  telescreen,  but  there  must  be   hidden
microphones:  besides,  they  could be seen. It did not matter,
nothing mattered. They could have lain down on the  ground  and
done  that  if  they had wanted to. His flesh froze with
horror at the thought of it. She made no response  whatever  to
the  clasp  of  his  arm  ;  she  did not even try to disengage
herself. He knew now what had changed  in  her.  Her  face  was
sallower, and there was a long scar, partly hidden by the hair,
across her forehead and temple; but that was not the change. It
was that her waist had grown thicker, and, in a surprising way,
had stiffened. He remembered how once, after the explosion of a
rocket  bomb, he had helped to drag a corpse out of some ruins,
and had been astonished not only by the  incredible  weight  of
the thing, but by its rigidity and awkwardness to handle, which
made  it  seem  more  like stone than flesh. Her body felt like
that. It occurred to him that the texture of her skin would  be
quite different from what it had once been.
     He  did  not  attempt  to kiss her, nor did they speak. As
they walked back across the grass, she looked directly  at  him
for  the  first  time.  It was only a momentary glance, full of
contempt and dislike. He wondered whether it was a dislike that
came purely out of the past or whether it was inspired also  by
his  bloated  face  and  the water that the wind kept squeezing
from his eyes. They sat down on two iron chairs, side  by  side
but not too close together. He saw that she was about to speak.
She  moved  her  clumsy shoe a few centimetres and deliberately
crushed a twig. Her feet  seemed  to  have  grown  broader,  he
noticed.
     'I betrayed you,' she said baldly.
     'I betrayed you,' he said.
     She gave him another quick look of dislike.
     'Sometimes,'  she  said, 'they threaten you with something
something you can't stand up to, can't even  think  about.  And
then you say, "Don't do it to me, do it to somebody else, do it
to  So-and-so." And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that
it was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stop
and didn't really mean it. But that isn't  true.  At  the  time
when  it happens you do mean it. You think there's no other way
of saving yourself, and you're quite  ready  to  save  yourself
that way. You want it to happen to the other person. You
don't  give  a  damn  what  they  suffer. All you care about is
yourself.'
     'All you care about is yourself,' he echoed.
     'And after that, you don't feel the same towards the other
person any longer.'
     'No,' he said, 'you don't feel the same.'
     There did not seem to be anything more to  say.  The  wind
plastered  their  thin overalls against their bodies. Almost at
once it became embarrassing to sit there in  silence:  besides,
it  was  too  cold  to  keep  still.  She  said something about
catching her Tube and stood up to go.
     'We must meet again,' he said.
     'Yes,' she said, 'we must meet again. '
     He followed irresolutely for a  little  distance,  half  a
pace behind her. They did not speak again. She did not actually
try  to  shake  him  off, but walked at just such a speed as to
prevent his keeping abreast of her. He had  made  up  his  mind
that  he  would  accompany  her as far as the Tube station, but
suddenly this process of trailing  along  in  the  cold  seemed
pointless and unbearable. He was overwhelmed by a desire not so
much to get away from Julia as to get back to the Chestnut Tree
Cafe/,  which had never seemed so attractive as at this moment.
He had a  nostalgic  vision  of  his  corner  table,  with  the
newspaper  and  the  chessboard  and the everflowing gin. Above
all, it would be warm in there. The next moment, not altogether
by accident, he allowed himself to become separated from her by
a small knot of people. He made a halfhearted attempt to  catch
up,  then  slowed  down,  turned,  and made off in the opposite
direction. When he had gone fifty metres he  looked  back.  The
street  was  not  crowded, but already he could not distinguish
her. Any one of a dozen hurrying figures might have been  hers.
Perhaps   her   thickened,   stiffened   body   was  no  longer
recognizable from behind.
     'At the time when it happens,' she had said, 'you do  mean
it.'  He had meant it. He had not merely said it, he had wished
it. He had wished that she and not he should be delivered  over
to the-
     Something  changed  in  the  music  that trickled from the
telescreen. A cracked and jeering note,  a  yellow  note,  came
into  it.  And then -- perhaps it was not happening, perhaps it
was only a memory taking on the semblance of sound --  a  voice
was singing:

     'Under the spreading chestnut tree
     I sold you and you sold me '

     The  tears welled up in his eyes. A passing waiter noticed
that his glass was empty and came back with the gin bottle.
     He took up his glass and sniffed at it. The stuff grew not
less but more horrible with every mouthful he drank. But it had
become the element he swam in. It was his life, his death,  and
his  resurrection.  It  was gin that sank him into stupor every
night, and gin that revived him every morning.  When  he  woke,
seldom  before eleven hundred, with gummed-up eyelids and fiery
mouth and a back that seemed to be broken, it would  have  been
impossible  even to rise from the horizontal if it had not been
for the bottle and teacup  placed  beside  the  bed  overnight.
Through  the  midday  hours he sat with glazed face, the bottle
handy,  listening  to   the   telescreen.   From   fifteen   to
closing-time  he  was  a  fixture  in the Chestnut Tree. No one
cared  what  he  did  any  longer,  no  whistle  woke  him,  no
telescreen  admonished him. Occasionally, perhaps twice a week,
he went to a dusty, forgotten-looking office in the Ministry of
Truth and did a little work, or what was called  work.  He  had
been  appointed to a sub-committee of a sub-committee which had
sprouted from one of the innumerable  committees  dealing  with
minor  difficulties  that  arose  in  the  compilation  of  the
Eleventh Edition of the Newspeak Dictionary. They were  engaged
in  producing  something  called an Interim Report, but what it
was that they were reporting on he had never  definitely  found
out. It was something to do with the question of whether commas
should  be  placed inside brackets, or outside. There were four
others on  the  committee,  all  of  them  persons  similar  to
himself.  There were days when they assembled and then promptly
dispersed again, frankly admitting to one  another  that  there
was  not  really anything to be done. But there were other days
when they settled down to their work almost eagerly,  making  a
tremendous  show of entering up their minutes and drafting long
memoranda which were never finished -- when the argument as  to
what  they  were  supposedly arguing about grew extraordinarily
involved and abstruse, with subtle haggling  over  definitions,
enormous  digressions,  quarrels  threats,  even,  to appeal to
higher authority. And then suddenly the life would  go  out  of
them  and they would sit round the table looking at one another
with extinct eyes, like ghosts fading at cock-crow.
     The telescreen was silent for a moment. Winston raised his
head again. The bulletin! But no, they were merely changing the
music. He had  the  map  of  Africa  behind  his  eyelids.  The
movement  of  the  armies  was a diagram: a black arrow tearing
vertically southward, and a white arrow horizontally  eastward,
across  the  tail  of  the  first. As though for reassurance he
looked up at the imperturbable face in  the  portrait.  Was  it
conceivable that the second arrow did not even exist?
     His  interest  flagged again. He drank another mouthful of
gin, picked up the white knight  and  made  a  tentative  move.
Check. But it was evidently not the right move, because
     Uncalled,  a  memory  floated  into  his  mind.  He  saw a
candle-lit  room  with  a  vast  white-counterpaned  bed,   and
himself,  a boy of nine or ten, sitting on the floor, shaking a
dice-box,  and  laughing  excitedly.  His  mother  was  sitting
opposite him and also laughing.
     It must have been about a month before she disappeared. It
was a  moment of reconciliation, when the nagging hunger in his
belly was forgotten and  his  earlier  affection  for  her  had
temporarily  revived.  He  remembered  the day well, a pelting,
drenching day when the water streamed down the window-pane  and
the  light  indoors was too dull to read by. The boredom of the
two children in the dark, cramped  bedroom  became  unbearable.
Winston  whined  and  grizzled,  made  futile demands for food,
fretted about the room pulling  everything  out  of  place  and
kicking  the  wainscoting  until  the  neighbours banged on the
wall, while the younger child wailed intermittently. In the end
his mother said, 'Now be good, and I'Il buy you a toy. A lovely
toy -- you'll love it'; and then she had gone out in the  rain,
to  a  little  general  shop  which was still sporadically open
nearby, and came back with a cardboard box containing an outfit
of Snakes and Ladders. He could still remember the smell of the
damp cardboard. It  was  a  miserable  outfit.  The  board  was
cracked  and  the  tiny  wooden  dice were so ill-cut that they
would hardly lie on their sides. Winston looked  at  the  thing
sulkily  and  without interest. But then his mother lit a piece
of candle and they sat down on the floor to play. Soon  he  was
wildly  excited  and shouting with laughter as the tiddly-winks
climbed hopefully up the ladders and then came slithering  down
the  snakes  again,  almost to the starting- point. They played
eight games, winning four each. His tiny sister, too  young  to
understand  what the game was about, had sat propped up against
a bolster, laughing because the others  were  laughing.  For  a
whole  afternoon  they  had  all been happy together, as in his
earlier childhood.
     He pushed the picture out of his  mind.  It  was  a  false
memory.  He  was  troubled by false memories occasionally. They
did not matter so long as one knew them  for  what  they  were.
Some  things  had  happened, others had not happened. He turned
back to the chessboard and picked up the  white  knight  again.
Almost  in  the  same instant it dropped on to the board with a
clatter. He had started as though a pin had run into him.
     A shrill trumpet-call had pierced  the  air.  It  was  the
bulletin! Victory! It always meant victory when a trumpet- call
preceded  the  news.  A  sort of electric drill ran through the
cafe/. Even the waiters had started and pricked up their ears.
     The trumpet-call had  let  loose  an  enormous  volume  of
noise.   Already   an  excited  voice  was  gabbling  from  the
telescreen, but even as it started it was almost drowned  by  a
roar  of  cheering  from  outside.  The  news had run round the
streets like magic. He could  hear  just  enough  of  what  was
issuing  from  the  telescreen  to  realize  that  it  had  all
happened, as he  had  foreseen;  a  vast  seaborne  armada  had
secretly assembled a sudden blow in the enemy's rear, the white
arrow  tearing  across  the  tail  of  the  black. Fragments of
triumphant phrases pushed themselves  through  the  din:  'Vast
strategic  manoeuvre  -- perfect co-ordination -- utter rout --
half a million prisoners -- complete demoralization --  control
of  the  whole  of  Africa  --  bring the war within measurable
distance of its  end  victory  --  greatest  victory  in  human
history -- victory, victory, victory !'
     Under  the table Winston's feet made convulsive movements.
He had not stirred from his  seat,  but  in  his  mind  he  was
running,  swiftly  running,  he  was  with  the crowds outside,
cheering himself deaf. He looked up again at  the  portrait  of
Big  Brother.  The  colossus that bestrode the world ! The rock
against which the hordes of Asia dashed themselves in vain ! He
thought how ten minutes ago-yes, only ten minutes -- there  had
still been equivocation in his heart as he wondered whether the
news  from  the front would be of victory or defeat. Ah, it was
more than a Eurasian army that had perished! Much  had  changed
in  him  since  that first day in the Ministry of Love, but the
final, indispensable, healing change had never happened,  until
this moment.
     The  voice from the telescreen was still pouring forth its
tale of prisoners and booty and  slaughter,  but  the  shouting
outside  had  died down a little. The waiters were turning back
to their work. One of them  approached  with  the  gin  bottle.
Winston,  sitting in a blissful dream, paid no attention as his
glass was filled up. He was not running or cheering any longer.
He was back in the Ministry of Love, with everything  forgiven,
his  soul  white as snow. He was in the public dock, confessing
everything, implicating everybody.  He  was  walking  down  the
white-tiled  corridor, with the feeling of walking in sunlight,
and an armed guard at his back. The  longhoped-for  bullet  was
entering his brain.
     He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken
him to  learn  what  kind  of smile was hidden beneath the dark
moustache. O  cruel,  needless  misunderstanding!  O  stubborn,
self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears
trickled  down  the  sides  of  his nose. But it was all right,
everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won
the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.

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