1984 - Planet eBook

another ten minutes’ life even with the certainty that therewas torture at the end of it.Sometimes he tried to calculate the number of porcelainbricks in the walls of the cell. It should have been easy, buthe always lost count at some point or another. More often hewondered where he was, and what time of day it was. At onemoment he felt certain that it was broad daylight outside,and at the next equally certain that it was pitch darkness. Inthis place, he knew instinctively, the lights would never beturned out. It was the place with no darkness: he saw nowwhy O’Brien had seemed to recognize the allusion. In theMinistry of Love there were no windows. His cell might beat the heart of the building or against its outer wall; it mightbe ten floors below ground, or thirty above it. He movedhimself mentally from place to place, and tried to determineby the feeling of his body whether he was perchedhigh in the air or buried deep underground.There was a sound of marching boots outside. The steeldoor opened with a clang. A young officer, a trim black-uniformedfigure who seemed to glitter all over with polishedleather, and whose pale, straight-featured face was like awax mask, stepped smartly through the doorway. He motionedto the guards outside to bring in the prisoner theywere leading. The poet Ampleforth shambled into the cell.The door clanged shut again.Ampleforth made one or two uncertain movements fromside to side, as though having some idea that there was anotherdoor to go out of, and then began to wander up anddown the cell. He had not yet noticed Winston’s presence.