“It was impossible to return to that word,” he said. “It made me sick just looking at the type. The war’s only been going a couple of months, and they think it will be years. How many Jeds will there be?”

I had no answer.

He sighed. “I suddenly couldn’t see the point,” he said.

“We have to keep doing what we do, Gareth. No matter what that is. Otherwise we’re just waiting.”

“It would be good to feel I was doing something useful. Typesetting sorrow won’t take the sorrow away. Jed’s mother will feel what she feels, no matter what is written in a dictionary.”

“But maybe it will help others to understand what she is feeling.”

Even as I said it, I wasn’t convinced. Of some experiences, the Dictionary would only ever provide an approximation. Sorrow, I already knew, was one of them.

Barely a week went by that didn’t bring another mother to the Controller’s door with the news her son would not be returning. The editors at the Scriptorium and Old Ashmolean were not so burdened, but neither were they immune. By virtue of education or connection, the lexicographers became officers, though their learning hardly equipped them to be leaders of men. Staff at the Press were from a broader spectrum—part of the fodder classes, Gareth said. He stopped telling me every time someone from the Press died.

The door to Mr. Hart’s office was ajar. I knocked and pushed it open a little wider.

“Yes,” he said, without looking up from his papers.

I walked towards his desk, but still he didn’t look up. I cleared my throat. “Last-minute edits, Mr. Hart. ‘Speech to Spring.’ ”

He looked up, the creases between his brows deepening as he took the proofs and the note from Dr. Murray. He read the note and I saw his jaw clench. Dr. Murray wanted another edit—the third or fourth, I wasn’t sure. I wondered if the plates had been cast. I dared not ask.

“Illness doesn’t make him less pedantic,” Mr. Hart said.

It wasn’t meant for me, so I remained quiet. He stood and walked towards the door. He didn’t ask me to wait, so I followed him.

The composing room was quiet of talk, but there was a percussive clicking of type being placed in sticks then turned out into formes that would hold a whole page of words. I waited by the door as Mr. Hart approached the nearest bench. The compositor was young—no longer an apprentice, but too young for the war. He looked nervous as Mr. Hart cast an eye over his forme. I wondered how easily mistakes could be noticed when everything was back to front. Mr. Hart seemed satisfied and patted the assistant on the back, then he moved towards the next bench. Dr. Murray’s edits would have to wait.