1984 - Planet eBook

the neck of the microphone, his shoulders hunched forward,his free hand clawing at the air, had gone straight on withhis speech. One minute more, and the feral roars of ragewere again bursting from the crowd. The Hate continuedexactly as before, except that the target had been changed.The thing that impressed Winston in looking back wasthat the speaker had switched from one line to the other actuallyin midsentence, not only without a pause, but withouteven breaking the syntax. But at the moment he had otherthings to preoccupy him. It was during the moment of disorderwhile the posters were being torn down that a manwhose face he did not see had tapped him on the shoulderand said, ‘Excuse me, I think you’ve dropped your briefcase.’He took the brief-case abstractedly, without speaking.He knew that it would be days before he had an opportunityto look inside it. The instant that the demonstration wasover he went straight to the Ministry of Truth, though thetime was now nearly twenty-three hours. The entire staffof the Ministry had done likewise. The orders already issuingfrom the telescreen, recalling them to their posts, werehardly necessary.Oceania was at war with Eastasia: Oceania had alwaysbeen at war with Eastasia. A large part of the political literatureof five years was now completely obsolete. Reportsand records of all kinds, newspapers, books, pamphlets,films, sound-tracks, photographs—all had to be rectifiedat lightning speed. Although no directive was ever issued,it was known that the chiefs of the Department intendedthat within one week no reference to the war with Eurasia,