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his only impulse
was to run away. His heart bounded violently. He would have been incapable
of speaking. O'Brien, however, had continued forward in the same movement,
laying a friendly hand for a moment on Winston's arm, so that the two of
them were walking side by side. He began speaking with the peculiar grave
courtesy that differentiated him from the majority of Inner Party members.
'I had been hoping for an opportunity of talking to you,' he said. 'I
was reading one of your Newspeak articles in the Times the other day. You
take a scholarly interest in Newspeak, I believe?'
Winston had recovered part of his self-possession. 'Hardly scholarly,'
he said. 'I'm only an amateur. It's not my subject. I have never had
anything to do with the actual construction of the language.'
'But you write it very elegantly,' said O'Brien. 'That is not only my
own opinion. I was talking recently to a friend of yours who is certainly
an expert. His name has slipped my memory for the moment.'
Again Winston's heart stirred painfully. It was inconceivable that
this was anything other than a reference to Syme. But Syme was not only
dead, he was abolished, an unperson. Any identifiable reference to him
would have been mortally dangerous. O'Brien's remark must obviously have
been intended as a signal, a codeword. By sharing a small act of
thoughtcrime he had turned the two of them into accomplices. They had
continued to stroll slowly down the corridor, but now O'Brien halted. With
the curious, disarming friendliness that he always managed to put in to the
gesture he resettled his spectacles on his nose. Then he went on:
'What I had really intended to say was that in your article I noticed
you had used two words which have become obsolete. But they have only
become so very recently. Have you seen the tenth edition of the New