Page 220 - Animal Farm and 1984

shall send you a copy of the book ”—even O’Brien, Winston noticed, seemed to pronounce the words as though they were in italics—“Goldstein’s book, you understand, as soon as possible. It may be some days before I can get hold of one. There are not many in existence, as you can imagine. The Thought Police hunts them down and destroys them almost as fast as we can produce them. It makes very little difference. The book is indestructible. If the last copy were gone, we could reproduce it almost word for word. Do you carry a brief case to work with you?” he added.
“As a rule, yes.”
“What is it like?”
“Black, very shabby. With two straps.”
“Black, two straps, very shabby—good. One day in the fairly near future—
I cannot give a date—one of the messages among your morning’s work will contain a misprinted word, and you will have to ask for a repeat. On the following day you will go to work without your brief case. At some time during the day, in the street, a man will touch you on the arm and say, ‘I think you have dropped your brief case.’ The one he gives you will contain a copy of Goldstein’s book. You will return it within fourteen days.”
They were silent for a moment.
“There are a couple of minutes before you need go,” said O’Brien. “We shall meet again—if we do meet again—”
Winston looked up at him. “In the place where there is no darkness?” he said hesitantly.
O’Brien nodded without appearance of surprise. “In the place where there is no darkness,” he said, as though he had recognized the allusion. “And in the meantime, is there anything that you wish to say before you leave? Any message? Any question?”
Winston thought. There did not seem to be any further question that he wanted to ask; still less did he feel any impulse to utter high-sounding generalities. Instead of anything directly connected with O’Brien or the Brotherhood, there came into his mind a sort of composite picture of the dark bedroom where his mother had spent her last days, and the little room over Mr. Charrington’s shop, and the glass paperweight, and the steel engraving in its rosewood frame. Almost at random he said:
“Did you ever happen to hear an old rhyme that begins “Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St. Clement’ s? ”
Again O’Brien nodded. With a sort of grave courtesy he completed the