No More Learning

Obviously the kind of encounter that had happened this
morning could not be repeated. If she had worked in the Re-
cords Department it might have been comparatively simple,
but he had only a very dim idea whereabouts in the building
the Fiction Department lay, and he had no pretext for going
there. If he had known where she lived, and at what time
she left work, he could have contrived to meet her some-
where on her way home; but to try to follow her home was
not safe, because it would mean loitering about outside the
Ministry, which was bound to be noticed. As for sending
a letter through the mails, it was out of the question. By
a routine that was not even secret, all letters were opened
in transit. Actually, few people ever wrote letters. For the
messages that it was occasionally necessary to send, there
were printed postcards with long lists of phrases, and you
struck out the ones that were inapplicable. In any case he
did not know the girl's name, let alone her address. Final-
ly he decided that the safest place was the canteen. If he
could get her at a table by herself, somewhere in the middle
of the room, not too near the telescreens, and with a suf-
ficient buzz of conversation all round — if these conditions
endured for, say, thirty seconds, it might be possible to ex-
change a few words.

For a week after this, life was like a restless dream. On
the next day she did not appear in the canteen until he
was leaving it, the whistle having already blown. Presum-



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ably she had been changed on to a later shift. They passed
each other without a glance. On the day after that she was
in the canteen at the usual time, but with three other girls
and immediately under a telescreen. Then for three dread-
ful days she did not appear at all. His whole mind and body
seemed to be afflicted with an unbearable sensitivity, a sort
of transparency, which made every movement, every sound,
every contact, every word that he had to speak or listen
to, an agony. Even in sleep he could not altogether escape
from her image. He did not touch the diary during those
days. If there was any relief, it was in his work, in which he
could sometimes forget himself for ten minutes at a stretch.
He had absolutely no clue as to what had happened to her.
There was no enquiry he could make. She might have been
vaporized, she might have committed suicide, she might
have been transferred to the other end of Oceania: worst
and likeliest of all, she might simply have changed her mind
and decided to avoid him.

The next day she reappeared. Her arm was out of the sling
and she had a band of sticking-plaster round her wrist. The
relief of seeing her was so great that he could not resist star-
ing directly at her for several seconds. On the following day
he very nearly succeeded in speaking to her. When he came
into the canteen she was sitting at a table well out from the
wall, and was quite alone. It was early, and the place was
not very full. The queue edged forward till Winston was
almost at the counter, then was held up for two minutes
because someone in front was complaining that he had not
received his tablet of saccharine. But the girl was still alone



1984



when Winston secured his tray and began to make for her
table. He walked casually towards her, his eyes searching
for a place at some table beyond her. She was perhaps three
metres away from him. Another two seconds would do it.
Then a voice behind him called, 'Smith! ' He pretended not
to hear. 'Smith! ' repeated the voice, more loudly. It was no
use. He turned round. A blond-headed, silly-faced young
man named Wilsher, whom he barely knew, was inviting
him with a smile to a vacant place at his table. It was not
safe to refuse. After having been recognized, he could not
go and sit at a table with an unattended girl. It was too no-
ticeable. He sat down with a friendly smile. The silly blond
face beamed into his. Winston had a hallucination of him-
self smashing a pick-axe right into the middle of it. The
girl's table filled up a few minutes later.

But she must have seen him coming towards her, and
perhaps she would take the hint. Next day he took care to
arrive early. Surely enough, she was at a table in about the
same place, and again alone. The person immediately ahead
of him in the queue was a small, swiftly-moving, beetle-like
man with a flat face and tiny, suspicious eyes. As Winston
turned away from the counter with his tray, he saw that the
little man was making straight for the girl's table. His hopes
sank again. There was a vacant place at a table further away,
but something in the little man's appearance suggested
that he would be sufficiently attentive to his own comfort
to choose the emptiest table. With ice at his heart Winston
followed. It was no use unless he could get the girl alone.
At this moment there was a tremendous crash. The little



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man was sprawling on all fours, his tray had gone flying,
two streams of soup and coffee were flowing across the floor.
He started to his feet with a malignant glance at Winston,
whom he evidently suspected of having tripped him up. But
it was all right. Five seconds later, with a thundering heart,
Winston was sitting at the girl's table.

He did not look at her. He unpacked his tray and prompt-
ly began eating. It was all-important to speak at once,
before anyone else came, but now a terrible fear had taken
possession of him. A week had gone by since she had first
approached him. She would have changed her mind, she
must have changed her mind! It was impossible that this af-
fair should end successfully; such things did not happen in
real life. He might have flinched altogether from speaking if
at this moment he had not seen Ampleforth, the hairy-eared
poet, wandering limply round the room with a tray, look-
ing for a place to sit down. In his vague way Ampleforth
was attached to Winston, and would certainly sit down at
his table if he caught sight of him. There was perhaps a min-
ute in which to act. Both Winston and the girl were eating
steadily. The stuff they were eating was a thin stew, actually
a soup, of haricot beans. In a low murmur Winston began
speaking. Neither of them looked up; steadily they spooned
the watery stuff into their mouths, and between spoonfuls
exchanged the few necessary words in low expressionless
voices.

'What time do you leave work? '

'Eighteen-thirty'

'Where can we meet? '



1984



'Victory Square, near the monument. '

'It's full of telescreens. '

'It doesn't matter if there's a crowd. '

'Any signal? '

'No. Don't come up to me until you see me among a lot
of people. And don't look at me. Just keep somewhere near
me. '

'What time? '

'Nineteen hours. '

All right. '

Ampleforth failed to see Winston and sat down at an-
other table. They did not speak again, and, so far as it was
possible for two people sitting on opposite sides of the same
table, they did not look at one another. The girl finished her
lunch quickly and made off, while Winston stayed to smoke
a cigarette.

Winston was in Victory Square before the appointed
time. He wandered round the base of the enormous flut-
ed column, at the top of which Big Brother's statue gazed
southward towards the skies where he had vanquished the
Eurasian aeroplanes (the Eastasian aeroplanes, it had been,
a few years ago) in the Battle of Airstrip One. In the street
in front of it there was a statue of a man on horseback which
was supposed to represent Oliver Cromwell. At five minutes
past the hour the girl had still not appeared. Again the ter-
rible fear seized upon Winston. She was not coming, she
had changed her mind! He walked slowly up to the north
side of the square and got a sort of pale- coloured pleasure
from identifying St Martin's Church, whose bells, when it

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had bells, had chimed 'You owe me three farthings. ' Then
he saw the girl standing at the base of the monument, read-
ing or pretending to read a poster which ran spirally up the
column. It was not safe to go near her until some more peo-
ple had accumulated. There were telescreens all round the
pediment. But at this moment there was a din of shouting
and a zoom of heavy vehicles from somewhere to the left.
Suddenly everyone seemed to be running across the square.
The girl nipped nimbly round the lions at the base of the
monument and joined in the rush. Winston followed. As he
ran, he gathered from some shouted remarks that a convoy
of Eurasian prisoners was passing.

Already a dense mass of people was blocking the south
side of the square. Winston, at normal times the kind of
person who gravitates to the outer edge of any kind of
scrimmage, shoved, butted, squirmed his way forward into
the heart of the crowd. Soon he was within arm's length of
the girl, but the way was blocked by an enormous prole and
an almost equally enormous woman, presumably his wife,
who seemed to form an impenetrable wall of flesh. Winston
wriggled himself sideways, and with a violent lunge man-
aged to drive his shoulder between them. For a moment it
felt as though his entrails were being ground to pulp be-
tween the two muscular hips, then he had broken through,
sweating a little. He was next to the girl. They were shoulder
to shoulder, both staring fixedly in front of them.

A long line of trucks, with wooden-faced guards armed
with sub -machine guns standing upright in each corner, was
passing slowly down the street. In the trucks little yellow



1984



men in shabby greenish uniforms were squatting, jammed
close together. Their sad, Mongolian faces gazed out over
the sides of the trucks utterly incurious. Occasionally when
a truck jolted there was a clank-clank of metal: all the pris-
oners were wearing leg-irons. Truck-load after truck-load of
the sad faces passed. Winston knew they were there but he
saw them only intermittently. The girl's shoulder, and her
arm right down to the elbow, were pressed against his. Her
cheek was almost near enough for him to feel its warmth.
She had immediately taken charge of the situation, just as
she had done in the canteen. She began speaking in the
same expressionless voice as before, with lips barely mov-
ing, a mere murmur easily drowned by the din of voices and
the rumbling of the trucks.

'Can you hear me? '

'Yes. '

'Can you get Sunday afternoon off? '

'Yes. '

'Then listen carefully. You'll have to remember this. Go
to Paddington Station '

With a sort of military precision that astonished him, she
outlined the route that he was to follow. A half-hour railway
journey; turn left outside the station; two kilometres along
the road; a gate with the top bar missing; a path across a
field; a grass-grown lane; a track between bushes; a dead
tree with moss on it. It was as though she had a map inside
her head. 'Can you remember all that? ' she murmured fi-
nally

'Yes. '



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'You turn left, then right, then left again. And the gate's
got no top bar. '

'Yes. What time? '

'About fifteen. You may have to wait. I'll get there by an-
other way. Are you sure you remember everything? '

'Yes. '

"Then get away from me as quick as you can. '

She need not have told him that. But for the moment
they could not extricate themselves from the crowd. The
trucks were still filing past, the people still insatiably gap-
ing. At the start there had been a few boos and hisses, but
it came only from the Party members among the crowd,
and had soon stopped. The prevailing emotion was simply
curiosity. Foreigners, whether from Eurasia or from Easta-
sia, were a kind of strange animal. One literally never saw
them except in the guise of prisoners, and even as prison-
ers one never got more than a momentary glimpse of them.
Nor did one know what became of them, apart from the
few who were hanged as war- criminals: the others simply
vanished, presumably into forced-labour camps. The round
Mogol faces had given way to faces of a more European type,
dirty, bearded and exhausted. From over scrubby cheek-
bones eyes looked into Winston's, sometimes with strange
intensity, and flashed away again. The convoy was drawing
to an end. In the last truck he could see an aged man, his
face a mass of grizzled hair, standing upright with wrists
crossed in front of him, as though he were used to having
them bound together. It was almost time for Winston and
the girl to part. But at the last moment, while the crowd still

146 1984



hemmed them in, her hand felt for his and gave it a fleeting
squeeze.

It could not have been ten seconds, and yet it seemed a
long time that their hands were clasped together. He had
time to learn every detail of her hand. He explored the long
fingers, the shapely nails, the work-hardened palm with its
row of callouses, the smooth flesh under the wrist. Merely
from feeling it he would have known it by sight. In the same
instant it occurred to him that he did not know what colour
the girl's eyes were. They were probably brown, but people
with dark hair sometimes had blue eyes. To turn his head
and look at her would have been inconceivable folly. With
hands locked together, invisible among the press of bodies,
they stared steadily in front of them, and instead of the eyes
of the girl, the eyes of the aged prisoner gazed mournfully
at Winston out of nests of hair.



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Chapter 2



Winston picked his way up the lane through dappled
light and shade, stepping out into pools of gold wher-
ever the boughs parted. Under the trees to the left of him
the ground was misty with bluebells. The air seemed to kiss
one's skin. It was the second of May. From somewhere deep-
er in the heart of the wood came the droning of ring doves.
He was a bit early. There had been no difficulties about
the journey, and the girl was so evidently experienced that
he was less frightened than he would normally have been.
Presumably she could be trusted to find a safe place. In
general you could not assume that you were much safer in
the country than in London. There were no telescreens, of
course, but there was always the danger of concealed mi-
crophones by which your voice might be picked up and
recognized; besides, it was not easy to make a journey by
yourself without attracting attention. For distances of less
than 100 kilometres it was not necessary to get your pass-
port endorsed, but sometimes there were patrols hanging
about the railway stations, who examined the papers of any
Party member they found there and asked awkward ques-
tions. However, no patrols had appeared, and on the walk
from the station he had made sure by cautious backward
glances that he was not being followed. The train was full
of proles, in holiday mood because of the summery weather.

148 1984



The wooden-seated carriage in which he travelled was filled
to overflowing by a single enormous family, ranging from
a toothless great-grandmother to a month-old baby, going
out to spend an afternoon with 'in-laws' in the country, and,
as they freely explained to Winston, to get hold of a little
blackmarket butter.

The lane widened, and in a minute he came to the foot-
path she had told him of, a mere cattle-track which plunged
between the bushes. He had no watch, but it could not be
fifteen yet. The bluebells were so thick underfoot that it was
impossible not to tread on them. He knelt down and began
picking some partly to pass the time away, but also from
a vague idea that he would like to have a bunch of flowers
to offer to the girl when they met. He had got together a
big bunch and was smelling their faint sickly scent when a
sound at his back froze him, the unmistakable crackle of a
foot on twigs. He went on picking bluebells. It was the best
thing to do. It might be the girl, or he might have been fol-
lowed after all. To look round was to show guilt. He picked
another and another. A hand fell lightly on his shoulder.

He looked up. It was the girl. She shook her head, evi-
dently as a warning that he must keep silent, then parted
the bushes and quickly led the way along the narrow track
into the wood. Obviously she had been that way before, for
she dodged the boggy bits as though by habit.
Winston fol-
lowed, still clasping his bunch of flowers. His first feeling
was relief, but as he watched the strong slender body mov-
ing in front of him, with the scarlet sash that was just tight
enough to bring out the curve of her hips, the sense of his



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own inferiority was heavy upon him. Even now it seemed
quite likely that when she turned round and looked at him
she would draw back after all. The sweetness of the air and
the greenness of the leaves daunted him. Already on the
walk from the station the May sunshine had made him feel
dirty and etiolated, a creature of indoors, with the sooty
dust of London in the pores of his skin. It occurred to him
that till now she had probably never seen him in broad day-
light in the open. They came to the fallen tree that she had
spoken of. The girl hopped over and forced apart the bush-
es, in which there did not seem to be an opening. When
Winston followed her, he found that they were in a natural
clearing, a tiny grassy knoll surrounded by tall saplings that
shut it in completely. The girl stopped and turned.

'Here we are,' she said.

He was facing her at several paces' distance. As yet he did
not dare move nearer to her.

T didn't want to say anything in the lane,' she went on,
'in case there's a mike hidden there. I don't suppose there is,
but there could be. There's always the chance of one of those
swine recognizing your voice. We're all right here. '

He still had not the courage to approach her. 'We're all
right here? ' he repeated stupidly.

'Yes. Look at the trees. ' They were small ashes, which at
some time had been cut down and had sprouted up again
into a forest of poles, none of them thicker than one's wrist.
'There's nothing big enough to hide a mike in. Besides, I've
been here before. '

They were only making conversation. He had managed



1984



to move closer to her now. She stood before him very up-
right, with a smile on her face that looked faintly ironical, as
though she were wondering why he was so slow to act. The
bluebells had cascaded on to the ground. They seemed to
have fallen of their own accord. He took her hand.

'Would you believe,' he said, 'that till this moment I
didn't know what colour your eyes were? ' They were brown,
he noted, a rather light shade of brown, with dark lashes.
'Now that you've seen what I'm really like, can you still bear
to look at me? '

'Yes, easily'

'I'm thirty-nine years old. I've got a wife that I can't get
rid of. I've got varicose veins. I've got five false teeth. '

T couldn't care less,' said the girl.

The next moment, it was hard to say by whose act, she was
in his his arms. At the beginning he had no feeling except
sheer incredulity. The youthful body was strained against
his own, the mass of dark hair was against his face, and yes!
actually she had turned her face up and he was kissing the
wide red mouth. She had clasped her arms about his neck,
she was calling him darling, precious one, loved one. He
had pulled her down on to the ground, she was utterly un-
resisting, he could do what he liked with her. But the truth
was that he had no physical sensation, except that of mere
contact. All he felt was incredulity and pride. He was glad
that this was happening, but he had no physical desire. It
was too soon, her youth and prettiness had frightened him,
he was too much used to living without women — he did
not know the reason. The girl picked herself up and pulled

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a bluebell out of her hair. She sat against him, putting her
arm round his waist.

'Never mind, dear. There's no hurry. We've got the whole
afternoon. Isn't this a splendid hide-out? I found it when I
got lost once on a community hike. If anyone was coming
you could hear them a hundred metres away'

'What is your name? ' said Winston.

'Julia. I know yours. It's Winston — Winston Smith. '

'How did you find that out? '

'I expect I'm better at finding things out than you are,
dear. Tell me, what did you think of me before that day I
gave you the note? '

He did not feel any temptation to tell lies to her. It was
even a sort of love-offering to start off by telling the worst.

'I hated the sight of you,' he said. 'I wanted to rape you
and then murder you afterwards. Two weeks ago I thought
seriously of smashing your head in with a cobblestone. If
you really want to know, I imagined that you had some-
thing to do with the Thought Police. '

The girl laughed delightedly, evidently taking this as a
tribute to the excellence of her disguise.

'Not the Thought Police! You didn't honestly think that? '

'Well, perhaps not exactly that. But from your general
appearance — merely because you're young and fresh and
healthy, you understand — I thought that probably '

'You thought I was a good Party member. Pure in word
and deed. Banners, processions, slogans, games, commu-
nity hikes all that stuff. And you thought that if I had a
quarter of a chance I'd denounce you as a thought- criminal



1984



and get you killed off? '

'Yes, something of that kind. A great many young girls
are like that, you know. '

'It's this bloody thing that does it,' she said, ripping off
the scarlet sash of the Junior Anti-Sex League and flinging
it on to a bough. Then, as though touching her waist had
reminded her of something, she felt in the pocket of her
overalls and produced a small slab of chocolate. She broke
it in half and gave one of the pieces to Winston. Even be-
fore he had taken it he knew by the smell that it was very
unusual chocolate. It was dark and shiny, and was wrapped
in silver paper. Chocolate normally was dull-brown crum-
bly stuff that tasted, as nearly as one could describe it, like
the smoke of a rubbish fire. But at some time or another he
had tasted chocolate like the piece she had given him. The
first whiff of its scent had stirred up some memory which
he could not pin down, but which was powerful and trou-
bling.

'Where did you get this stuff? ' he said.

'Black market,' she said indifferently. Actually I am that
sort of girl, to look at. I'm good at games. I was a troop -lead-
er in the Spies. I do voluntary work three evenings a week
for the Junior Anti-Sex League. Hours and hours I've spent
pasting their bloody rot all over London. I always carry one
end of a banner in the processions. I always look cheer-
ful and I never shirk anything. Always yell with the crowd,
that's what I say. It's the only way to be safe. '

The first fragment of chocolate had melted on Win-
ston's tongue. The taste was delightful. But there was still



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that memory moving round the edges of his consciousness,
something strongly felt but not reducible to definite shape,
like an object seen out of the corner of one's eye. He pushed
it away from him, aware only that it was the memory of
some action which he would have liked to undo but could
not.

'You are very young,' he said. 'You are ten or fifteen years
younger than I am. What could you see to attract you in a
man like me? '

'It was something in your face. I thought I'd take a chance.
I'm good at spotting people who don't belong. As soon as I
saw you I knew you were against THEM. '

THEM, it appeared, meant the Party, and above all the
Inner Party, about whom she talked with an open jeering
hatred which made Winston feel uneasy, although he knew
that they were safe here if they could be safe anywhere. A
thing that astonished him about her was the coarseness of
her language. Party members were supposed not to swear,
and Winston himself very seldom did swear, aloud, at any
rate. Julia, however, seemed unable to mention the Party,
and especially the Inner Party, without using the kind of
words that you saw chalked up in dripping alley-ways. He
did not dislike it. It was merely one symptom of her revolt
against the Party and all its ways, and somehow it seemed
natural and healthy, like the sneeze of a horse that smells
bad hay. They had left the clearing and were wandering
again through the chequered shade, with their arms round
each other's waists whenever it was wide enough to walk
two abreast. He noticed how much softer her waist seemed



1984



to feel now that the sash was gone. They did not speak above
a whisper. Outside the clearing, Julia said, it was better to
go quietly. Presently they had reached the edge of the little
wood. She stopped him.

'Don't go out into the open. There might be someone
watching. We're all right if we keep behind the boughs. '

They were standing in the shade of hazel bushes. The
sunlight, filtering through innumerable leaves, was still hot
on their faces. Winston looked out into the field beyond,
and underwent a curious, slow shock of recognition. He
knew it by sight. An old, closebitten pasture, with a foot-
path wandering across it and a molehill here and there. In
the ragged hedge on the opposite side the boughs of the elm
trees swayed just perceptibly in the breeze, and their leaves
stirred faintly in dense masses like women's hair. Surely
somewhere nearby, but out of sight, there must be a stream
with green pools where dace were swimming?

'Isn't there a stream somewhere near here? ' he whis-
pered.

"That's right, there is a stream. It's at the edge of the next
field, actually. There are fish in it, great big ones. You can
watch them lying in the pools under the willow trees, wav-
ing their tails. '

'It's the Golden Country — almost,' he murmured.

'The Golden Country? '

'It's nothing, really. A landscape I've seen sometimes in
a dream. '

'Look! ' whispered Julia.

A thrush had alighted on a bough not five metres away,



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almost at the level of their faces. Perhaps it had not seen
them. It was in the sun, they in the shade. It spread out its
wings, fitted them carefully into place again, ducked its
head for a moment, as though making a sort of obeisance to
the sun, and then began to pour forth a torrent of song. In
the afternoon hush the volume of sound was startling. Win-
ston and Julia clung together, fascinated. The music went on
and on, minute after minute, with astonishing variations,
never once repeating itself, almost as though the bird were
deliberately showing off its virtuosity. Sometimes it stopped
for a few seconds, spread out and resettled its wings, then
swelled its speckled breast and again burst into song. Win-
ston watched it with a sort of vague reverence. For whom, for
what, was that bird singing? No mate, no rival was watch-
ing it. What made it sit at the edge of the lonely wood and
pour its music into nothingness? He wondered whether af-
ter all there was a microphone hidden somewhere near. He
and Julia had spoken only in low whispers, and it would not
pick up what they had said, but it would pick up the thrush.
Perhaps at the other end of the instrument some small, bee-
tle-like man was listening intently — listening to that. But
by degrees the flood of music drove all speculations out of
his mind. It was as though it were a kind of liquid stuff that
poured all over him and got mixed up with the sunlight
that filtered through the leaves. He stopped thinking and
merely felt. The girl's waist in the bend of his arm was soft
and warm. He pulled her round so that they were breast
to breast; her body seemed to melt into his. Wherever his
hands moved it was all as yielding as water. Their mouths

156 1984



clung together; it was quite different from the hard kisses
they had exchanged earlier. When they moved their faces
apart again both of them sighed deeply. The bird took fright
and fled with a clatter of wings.

Winston put his lips against her ear. 'NOW,' he whis-
pered.

'Not here,' she whispered back. 'Come back to the hide-
out. It's safer. '

Quickly, with an occasional crackle of twigs, they
threaded their way back to the clearing. When they were
once inside the ring of saplings she turned and faced him.
They were both breathing fast, but the smile had reappeared
round the corners of her mouth. She stood looking at him
for an instant, then felt at the zipper of her overalls. And,
yes! it was almost as in his dream. Almost as swiftly as he
had imagined it, she had torn her clothes off, and when she
flung them aside it was with that same magnificent gesture
by which a whole civilization seemed to be annihilated. Her
body gleamed white in the sun. But for a moment he did
not look at her body; his eyes were anchored by the freckled
face with its faint, bold smile. He knelt down before her and
took her hands in his.

'Have you done this before? '

'Of course. Hundreds of times — well, scores of times,
anyway'

'With Party members? '

'Yes, always with Party members. '

'With members of the Inner Party? '

'Not with those swine, no. But there's plenty that WOULD



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if they got half a chance. They're not so holy as they make
out. '

His heart leapt. Scores of times she had done it: he wished
it had been hundreds — thousands. Anything that hinted at
corruption always filled him with a wild hope. Who knew,
perhaps the Party was rotten under the surface, its cult of
strenuousness and self-denial simply a sham concealing in-
iquity.