1984 - Planet eBook

of it and looked at it dully, perhaps not knowing what it was.Winston stood watching her for a moment. Then with asudden swift spring he had snatched the piece of chocolateout of his sister’s hand and was fleeing for the door.‘Winston, Winston!’ his mother called after him. ‘Comeback! Give your sister back her chocolate!’He stopped, but did not come back. His mother’s anxiouseyes were fixed on his face. Even now he was thinkingabout the thing, he did not know what it was that was onthe point of happening. His sister, conscious of having beenrobbed of something, had set up a feeble wail. His motherdrew her arm round the child and pressed its face againsther breast. Something in the gesture told him that his sisterwas dying. He turned and fled down the stairs, with thechocolate growing sticky in his hand.He never saw his mother again. After he had devouredthe chocolate he felt somewhat ashamed of himself andhung about in the streets for several hours, until hungerdrove him home. When he came back his mother had disappeared.This was already becoming normal at that time.Nothing was gone from the room except his mother and hissister. They had not taken any clothes, not even his mother’sovercoat. To this day he did not know with any certaintythat his mother was dead. It was perfectly possible that shehad merely been sent to a forced-labour camp. As for hissister, she might have been removed, like Winston himself,to one of the colonies for homeless children (ReclamationCentres, they were called) which had grown up as a resultof the civil war, or she might have been sent to the labour