Yet he came out of the blackness clutching an idea.
There was one and only one way to save himself.
He must interpose another human being, the BODY of another human being, between himself and the rats.
The circle of the mask was large enough now to shut out the vision of anything else.
The wire door was a couple of hand-spans from his face.
The rats knew what was coming now.
One of them was leaping up and down, the other, an old scaly grandfather of the sewers, stood up, with his pink hands against the bars, and fiercely sniffed the air.
Winston could see the whiskers and the yellow teeth.
Again the black panic took hold of him.
He was blind, helpless, mindless.
'It was a common punishment in Imperial China,' said O'Brien as didactically as ever.
The mask was closing on his face.
The wire brushed his cheek.
And then--no, it was not relief, only hope, a tiny fragment of hope.
Too late, perhaps too late.
But he had suddenly understood that in the whole world there was just ONE person to whom he could transfer his punishment--ONE body that he could thrust between himself and the rats.
And he was shouting frantically, over and over.
'Do it to Julia!
Do it to Julia!
Not me!
Julia!
I don't care what you do to her.
Tear her face off, strip her to the bones.
Not me!
Julia!
Not me!'
He was falling backwards, into enormous depths, away from the rats.
He was still strapped in the chair, but he had fallen through the floor, through the walls of the building, through the earth, through the oceans, through the atmosphere, into outer space, into the gulfs between the stars--always away, away, away from the rats.
He was light years distant, but O'Brien was still standing at his side.
There was still the cold touch of wire against his cheek.
But through the darkness that enveloped him he heard another metallic click, and knew that the cage door had clicked shut and not open.
Chapter 6
The Chestnut Tree was almost empty.
A ray of sunlight slanting through a window fell on dusty table-tops.
It was the lonely hour of fifteen.
A tinny music trickled from the telescreens.
Winston 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.