Winston buys the glass paperweight

Winston finds himself outside the junk-shop where he bought the diary. Despite his fear, he steps inside and begins talking to the proprietor, Mr Charrington. Winston's eye is caught by a heavy lump of glass, a hemisphere with a strange pink coral object embedded in it. Mr Charrington says it is coral from the Indian Ocean, embedded in glass more than a hundred years ago, and asks four dollars for it. Winston immediately pays and slips the paperweight into his pocket. He is attracted by its air of belonging to an age completely different from the present, and by its apparent uselessness. It becomes one of his most treasured possessions.