Ministry of Plenty, which was responsible
for economic affairs. Their names, in Newspeak: Minitrue, Minipax, Miniluv,
and Miniplenty.
The Ministry of Love was the really frightening one. There were no
windows in it at all. Winston had never been inside the Ministry of Love,
nor within half a kilometre of it. It was a place impossible to enter
except on official business, and then only by penetrating through a maze of
barbed-wire entanglements, steel doors, and hidden machine-gun nests. Even
the streets leading up to its outer barriers were roamed by gorilla-faced
guards in black uniforms, armed with jointed truncheons.
Winston turned round abruptly. He had set his features into the
expression of quiet optimism which it was advisable to wear when facing the
telescreen. He crossed the room into the tiny kitchen. By leaving the
Ministry at this time of day he had sacrificed his lunch in the canteen,
and he was aware that there was no food in the kitchen except a hunk of
dark-coloured bread which had got to be saved for tomorrow's breakfast. He
took down from the shelf a bottle of colourless liquid with a plain white
label marked VICTORY GIN. It gave off a sickly, oily smell, as of Chinese
rice-spirit. Winston poured out nearly a teacupful, nerved himself for a
shock, and gulped it down like a dose of medicine.
Instantly his face turned scarlet and the water ran out of his eyes.
The stuff was like nitric acid, and moreover, in swallowing it one had the
sensation of being hit on the back of the head with a rubber club. The next
moment, however, the burning in his belly died down and the world began to
look more cheerful. He took a cigarette from a crumpled packet marked
VICTORY CIGARETTES and i