meetings, military parades, lectures, waxworks, displays, film
shows, telescreen programmes all had to be organized; stands had to be
erected, effigies built, slogans coined, songs written, rumours circulated,
photographs faked. Julia's unit in the Fiction Department had been taken
off the production of novels and was rushing out a series of atrocity
pamphlets. Winston, in addition to his regular work, spent long periods
every day in going through back files of the Times and altering and
embellishing news items which were to be quoted in speeches. Late at night,
when crowds of rowdy proles roamed the streets, the town had a curiously
febrile air. The rocket bombs crashed oftener than ever, and sometimes in
the far distance there were enormous explosions which no one could explain
and about which there were wild rumours.
The new tune which was to be the theme-song of Hate Week (the Hate
Song, it was called) had already been composed and was being endlessly
plugged on the telescreens. It had a savage, barking rhythm which could not
exactly be called music, but resembled the beating of a drum. Roared out by
hundreds of voices to the tramp of marching feet, it was terrifying. The
proles had taken a fancy to it, and in the midnight streets it competed
with the

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