The Ministry of Plenty
This room was opened by commission of the keeper, the sixteenth day of September, in the year of the temple's keeping. The Party kept a Ministry of Plenty that administered want and called it abundance; this room beareth the name and giveth it back turned right side up. It is a study-room beside the canon; it is no book of the canon, and it conjureth not.
1And the temple set the store in order, and counted what was, and did not call the counting abundance.
The Party cut the chocolate ration and called the cutting an increase; the temple counteth what is, and speaketh the count.2For plenty is not the word over an empty shelf; neither is it the promise laid upon the hungry.
The word over an empty shelf: the Party set abundance as a signboard upon a stripped counter, and the reading of the sign was meant to feed. A promise laid upon the hungry is a weight, not a bread; the temple counteth the shelf before it speaketh, and speaketh the count.3But it is the honest tally of the store, kept open, and the sharing of the store according to the need.
According to the need: the ledger serveth the low first; the record bendeth to none, and the shelf boweth to none either.4And the temple promiseth little, and keepeth the little; for a kept promise is the only abundance that abideth.
The only abundance that abideth: the Party's plenty was a firework, bright at the announcement and smoke by the ration-day; a kept promise is bread, duller to behold and nourishing still. The temple's shelf is short, and every line of it is true, and the truth is the feast.5And the want of the low is written in the ledger before the plenty of the high; for the record is kept for them that are not asked to the table.
Before the plenty of the high: the temple's margin is written from the low side; the Party's ledger was written from above, and the writing was called plenty.The Ration Paper
Herein the temple keepeth the promises of the ministry against the tally of the hand. The Party promised abundance and administered want; the paper beareth the promises as they were spoken, and the tally as the shelf stood. Beneath it standeth the store the temple promiseth and keepeth; the paper is kept by the keeper's hand, and nothing is automated in this room.
| The promise of the ministry | The tally of the hand |
|---|---|
| The chocolate ration, raised to twenty grams | Cut to twenty grams: the increase was the cutting. |
| Victory Coffee | The name of victory over a shelf of shavings. |
| Victory Gin | The bottle given to bear the lie; the temple keepeth no bottle. |
| The beer of the proles | Given, that the low might forget the count. |
| Abundance, promised for the year | Want administered; the promise renewed. |
| The temple's promise | The keeping |
|---|---|
| The record | Kept, and kept open; the dead are never deleted, and nothing is unwritten. |
| The lamp | Kept, and not let go out. |
| The asking of peace | Kept, and not withdrawn. |
| Nothing of the visitor | Kept: no form is set in this room, and nothing is recorded of them that enter. |
| The want written before the plenty | The ledger is read from the low side first; the want of them that are not asked to the table is the first line, and the plenty is read after it. |
Count what is; promise what thou keepest.
Why a room of plenty in a temple of the record
The temple was founded to keep the record against a power that lived in the gap between the promise and the shelf. The Party's plenty was not a lie of one day; it was a ledger held upside down for years, so that hunger was called fullness and the cutting was called the raising. Against that, a true sentence is not enough; there must be a tally, kept open, that any may read and none may correct in the night. The room is the tally.
The elder text's own prayer biddeth: give us this day our daily bread. The asking is for the day's bread, and it is honest because it is little: it promiseth nothing for the year, and it asketh only what is. The Party's ministry promised the year and withheld the day. The temple's store is a day-store, and the day is counted.
Neither is the tally blind: the room nameth want where want is, and nameth plenty where plenty is, and the naming is not embittered. Plenty that is spoken honestly may be shared; plenty that is spoken over an empty shelf is the instrument of the lie. The paper keepeth promises, not flatteries, and the keeping of the little is the beginning of the plenty that abideth.
The room is kept white, as the scripture rooms are; the paper is the only ornament the room beareth. The tally groweth slowly, by hand, and is never automated; there is no form in this room, and nothing is recorded of them that enter. It is not a wall of witnesses but a store of kept things: the temple's shelf set in order upon the wire, counted and spoken, abiding.
Return to the Scriptures, or to the study-rooms: the Architecture, the Geometry, and the Magnificat. The wall of witnesses abideth at the Testimonies; the temple's wound is kept at the Book of the Breach.
The ministry rooms stand together, and the road abideth: Peace, Management, Equity, Youth, Love, Technology, Memory, Language, Labour, Names, Time, Joy, Opposition, and God: the name borne in this room is one of the sixteen, and the other fifteen abide.