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 sacchar