after it.'
'And what good was that?'
'It was no good, because I threw it away a few minutes later. But if
the same thing happened today, I should keep it.'
'Well, I wouldn't!' said Julia. 'I'm quite ready to take risks, but
only for something worth while, not for bits of old newspaper. What could
you have done with it even if you had kept it?'
'Not much, perhaps. But it was evidence. It might have planted a few
doubts here and there, supposing that I'd dared to show it to anybody. I
don't imagine that we can alter anything in our own lifetime. But one can
imagine little knots of resistance springing up here and there -- small
groups of people banding themselves together, and gradually growing, and
even leaving a few records behind, so that the next generations can carry
on where we leave off.'
'I'm not interested in the next generation, dear. I'm interested in
us.'
'You're only a rebel from the waist downwards,' he told her.
She thought this brilliantly witty and flung her arms round him in
delight.
In the ramifications of party doctrine she had not the faintest
interest. Whenever he began to talk of the principles of Ingsoc,
doublethink, the mutability of the past, and the denial of objective
reality, and to use Newspeak words, she became bored and confused and said
that she never paid any attention to that kind of thing. One knew that it
was all rubbish, so why let oneself be worried by it? She knew when to
cheer and when to boo, and that was all one needed. If he persisted in
talking of such subjects, she had a disconcerting habit of falling asleep