Orwell, George — Nineteen eighty-four [639]

His mother drew her arm round the child and pressed its face against her breast. Something in the gesture told him that his sister was dying. He turned and fled down the stairs, with the chocolate growing sticky in his hand. — Orwell, George, Nineteen eighty-four, 639

Note

The mother’s arm gesture recurs, and the final clause — ‘the chocolate growing sticky in his hand’ — is a small sensorily exact emblem of guilt carried bodily out of the scene.