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-<TITLE>George Orwell's 1984</TITLE>
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-<LINK rel="chapter" href="#3" title="Chapter 3">
-<LINK rel="chapter" href="#4" title="Chapter 4">
-<LINK rel="chapter" href="#5" title="Chapter 5">
-<LINK rel="chapter" href="#6" title="Chapter 6">
-<LINK rel="chapter" href="#7" title="Chapter 7">
-<LINK rel="chapter" href="#8" title="Chapter 8">
-<LINK rel="chapter" href="#9" title="Chapter 9">
-<LINK rel="chapter" href="#10" title="Chapter 10">
-<LINK rel="chapter" href="#11" title="Chapter 11">
-<LINK rel="chapter" href="#12" title="Chapter 12">
-<LINK rel="chapter" href="#13" title="Chapter 13">
-<LINK rel="chapter" href="#14" title="Chapter 14">
-<LINK rel="chapter" href="#15" title="Chapter 15">
-<LINK rel="chapter" href="#16" title="Chapter 16">
-<LINK rel="chapter" href="#17" title="Chapter 17">
-<LINK rel="chapter" href="#18" title="Chapter 18">
-<LINK rel="chapter" href="#19" title="Chapter 19">
-<LINK rel="chapter" href="#20" title="Chapter 20">
-<LINK rel="chapter" href="#21" title="Chapter 21">
-<LINK rel="chapter" href="#22" title="Chapter 22">
-<LINK rel="chapter" href="#23" title="Chapter 23">
-<LINK rel="appendix" href="#appendix" title="The Principles of Newspeak">
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-<P>
-<H1><a name="1">I</a></H1>
-<p class="no-indent">
- It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were
-striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his
-breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly
-through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly
-enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along
-with him.
-</p>
-<p>
- The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats. At
-one end of it a coloured poster, too large for indoor display,
-had been tacked to the wall. It depicted simply an enormous
-face, more than a metre wide: the face of a man of about
-forty-five, with a heavy black moustache and ruggedly handsome
-features. Winston made for the stairs. It was no use trying the
-lift. Even at the best of times it was seldom working, and at
-present the electric current was cut off during daylight hours.
-It was part of the economy drive in preparation for Hate Week.
-The flat was seven flights up, and Winston, who was thirty-nine
-and had a varicose ulcer above his right ankle, went slowly,
-resting several times on the way. On each landing, opposite the
-lift-shaft, the poster with the enormous face gazed from the
-wall. It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that
-the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS
-WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran.
-</p>
-<p>
- Inside the flat a fruity voice was reading out a list of
-figures which had something to do with the production of
-pig-iron. The voice came from an oblong metal plaque like a
-dulled mirror which formed part of the surface of the
-right-hand wall. Winston turned a switch and the voice sank
-somewhat, though the words were still distinguishable. The
-instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but
-there was no way of shutting it off completely. He moved over
-to the window: a smallish, frail figure, the meagreness of his
-body merely emphasized by the blue overalls which were the
-uniform of the party. His hair was very fair, his face
-naturally sanguine, his skin roughened by coarse soap and blunt
-razor blades and the cold of the winter that had just ended.
-</p>
-<p>
- Outside, even through the shut window-pane, the world
-looked cold. Down in the street little eddies of wind were
-whirling dust and torn paper into spirals, and though the sun
-was shining and the sky a harsh blue, there seemed to be no
-colour in anything, except the posters that were plastered
-everywhere. The blackmoustachio'd face gazed down from every
-commanding corner. There was one on the house-front immediately
-opposite. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption said, while
-the dark eyes looked deep into Winston's own. Down at
-streetlevel another poster, torn at one corner, flapped
-fitfully in the wind, alternately covering and uncovering the
-single word INGSOC. In the far distance a helicopter skimmed
-down between the roofs, hovered for an instant like a
-bluebottle, and darted away again with a curving flight. It was
-the police patrol, snooping into people's windows. The patrols
-did not matter, however. Only the Thought Police mattered.
-</p>
-<p>
- Behind Winston's back the voice from the telescreen was
-still babbling away about pig-iron and the overfulfilment of
-the Ninth Three-Year Plan. The telescreen received and
-transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above
-the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it,
-moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision
-which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as
-heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were
-being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what
-system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire
-was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched
-everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your
-wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live -- did live, from
-habit that became instinct -- in the assumption that every
-sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every
-movement scrutinized.
-</p>
-<p>
- Winston kept his back turned to the telescreen. It was
-safer, though, as he well knew, even a back can be revealing. A
-kilometre away the Ministry of Truth, his place of work,
-towered vast and white above the grimy landscape. This, he
-thought with a sort of vague distaste -- this was London, chief
-city of Airstrip One, itself the third most populous of the
-provinces of Oceania. He tried to squeeze out some childhood
-memory that should tell him whether London had always been
-quite like this. Were there always these vistas of rotting
-nineteenth-century houses, their sides shored up with baulks of
-timber, their windows patched with cardboard and their roofs
-with corrugated iron, their crazy garden walls sagging in all
-directions? And the bombed sites where the plaster dust swirled
-in the air and the willow-herb straggled over the heaps of
-rubble; and the places where the bombs had cleared a larger
-patch and there had sprung up sordid colonies of wooden
-dwellings like chicken-houses? But it was no use, he could not
-remember: nothing remained of his childhood except a series of
-bright-lit tableaux occurring against no background and mostly
-unintelligible.
-</p>
-<p>
- The Ministry of Truth -- Minitrue, in Newspeak* -- was
-startlingly different from any other object in sight. It was an
-enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete,
-soaring up, terrace after terrace, 300 metres into the air.
-From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked
-out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans
-of the Party:
-</p>
-<p class="quote">
- WAR IS PEACE<br>
- FREEDOM IS SLAVERY<br>
- IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH<br>
-</p>
-<p>
- The Ministry of Truth contained, it was said, three
-thousand rooms above ground level, and corresponding
-ramifications below. Scattered about London there were just
-three other buildings of similar appearance and size. So
-completely did they dwarf the surrounding architecture that
-from the roof of Victory Mansions you could see all four of
-them simultaneously. They were the homes of the four Ministries
-between which the entire apparatus of government was divided.
-The Ministry of Truth, which concerned itself with news,
-entertainment, education, and the fine arts. The Ministry of
-Peace, which concerned itself with war. The Ministry of Love,
-which maintained law and order. And the Ministry of Plenty,
-which was responsible for economic affairs. Their names, in
-Newspeak: Minitrue, Minipax, Miniluv, and Miniplenty.
-</p>
-<p>
- The Ministry of Love was the really frightening one. There
-were no windows in it at all. Winston had never been inside the
-Ministry of Love, nor within half a kilometre of it. It was a
-place impossible to enter except on official business, and then
-only by penetrating through a maze of barbed-wire
-entanglements, steel doors, and hidden machine-gun nests. Even
-the streets leading up to its outer barriers were roamed by
-gorilla-faced guards in black uniforms, armed with jointed
-truncheons.
-</p>
-<p>
- Winston turned round abruptly. He had set his features
-into the expression of quiet optimism which it was advisable to
-wear when facing the telescreen. He crossed the room into the
-tiny kitchen. By leaving the Ministry at this time of day he
-had sacrificed his lunch in the canteen, and he was aware that
-there was no food in the kitchen except a hunk of dark-coloured
-bread which had got to be saved for tomorrow's breakfast. He
-took down from the shelf a bottle of colourless liquid with a
-plain white label marked VICTORY GIN. It gave off a sickly,
-oily smell, as of Chinese rice-spirit. Winston poured out nearly
-a teacupful, nerved himself for a shock, and gulped it down
-like a dose of medicine.
-</p>
-<p>
- Instantly his face turned scarlet and the water ran out of
-his eyes. The stuff was like nitric acid, and moreover, in
-swallowing it one had the sensation of being hit on the back of
-the head with a rubber club. The next moment, however, the
-burning in his belly died down and the world began to look more
-cheerful. He took a cigarette from a crumpled packet marked
-VICTORY CIGARETTES and incautiously held it upright, whereupon
-the tobacco fell out on to the floor. With the next he was more
-successful. He went back to the living-room and sat down at a
-small table that stood to the left of the telescreen. From the
-table drawer he took out a penholder, a bottle of ink, and a
-thick, quarto-sized blank book with a red back and a marbled
-cover.
-</p>
-<p>
- For some reason the telescreen in the living-room was in
-an unusual position. Instead of being placed, as was normal, in
-the end wall, where it could command the whole room, it was in
-the longer wall, opposite the window. To one side of it there
-was a shallow alcove in which Winston was now sitting, and
-which, when the flats were built, had probably been intended to
-hold bookshelves. By sitting in the alcove, and keeping well
-back, Winston was able to remain outside the range of the
-telescreen, so far as sight went. He could be heard, of course,
-but so long as he stayed in his present position he could not
-be seen. It was partly the unusual geography of the room that
-had suggested to him the thing that he was now about to do.
-</p>
-<p>
- But it had also been suggested by the book that he had
-just taken out of the drawer. It was a peculiarly beautiful
-book. Its smooth creamy paper, a little yellowed by age, was of
-a kind that had not been manufactured for at least forty years
-past. He could guess, however, that the book was much older
-than that. He had seen it lying in the window of a frowsy
-little junk-shop in a slummy quarter of the town (just what
-quarter he did not now remember) and had been stricken
-immediately by an overwhelming desire to possess it. Party
-members were supposed not to go into ordinary shops ('dealing
-on the free market', it was called), but the rule was not
-strictly kept, because there were various things, such as
-shoelaces and razor blades, which it was impossible to get hold
-of in any other way. He had given a quick glance up and down
-the street and then had slipped inside and bought the book for
-two dollars fifty. At the time he was not conscious of wanting
-it for any particular purpose. He had carried it guiltily home
-in his briefcase. Even with nothing written in it, it was a
-compromising possession.
-</p>
-<p>
- The thing that he was about to do was to open a diary.
-This was not illegal (nothing was illegal, since there were no
-longer any laws), but if detected it was reasonably certain
-that it would be punished by death, or at least by twenty-five
-years in a forced-labour camp. Winston fitted a nib into the
-penholder and sucked it to get the grease off. The pen was an
-archaic instrument, seldom used even for signatures, and he had
-procured one, furtively and with some difficulty, simply
-because of a feeling that the beautiful creamy paper deserved
-to be written on with a real nib instead of being scratched
-with an ink-pencil. Actually he was not used to writing by
-hand. Apart from very short notes, it was usual to dictate
-everything into the speak-write which was of course impossible
-for his present purpose. He dipped the pen into the ink and
-then faltered for just a second. A tremor had gone through his
-bowels. To mark the paper was the decisive act. In small clumsy
-letters he wrote:
-</p>
-<p class="quote">
- April 4th, 1984.
-</p>
-<p>
- He sat back. A sense of complete helplessness had
-descended upon him. To begin with, he did not know with any
-certainty that this was 1984. It must be round about that date,
-since he was fairly sure that his age was thirty-nine, and he
-believed that he had been born in 1944 or 1945; but it was
-never possible nowadays to pin down any date within a year or
-two.
-</p>
-<p>
- For whom, it suddenly occurred to him to wonder, was he
-writing this diary? For the future, for the unborn. His mind
-hovered for a moment round the doubtful date on the page, and
-then fetched up with a bump against the Newspeak word
-doublethink. For the first time the magnitude of what he
-had undertaken came home to him. How could you communicate with
-the future? It was of its nature impossible. Either the future
-would resemble the present, in which case it would not listen
-to him: or it would be different from it, and his predicament
-would be meaningless.
-</p>
-<p>
- For some time he sat gazing stupidly at the paper. The
-telescreen had changed over to strident military music. It was
-curious that he seemed not merely to have lost the power of
-expressing himself, but even to have forgotten what it was that
-he had originally intended to say. For weeks past he had been
-making ready for this moment, and it had never crossed his mind
-that anything would be needed except courage. The actual
-writing would be easy. All he had to do was to transfer to
-paper the interminable restless monologue that had been running
-inside his head, literally for years. At this moment, however,
-even the monologue had dried up. Moreover his varicose ulcer
-had begun itching unbearably. He dared not scratch it, because
-if he did so it always became inflamed. The seconds were
-ticking by. He was conscious of nothing except the blankness of
-the page in front of him, the itching of the skin above his
-ankle, the blaring of the music, and a slight booziness caused
-by the gin.
-</p>
-<p>
- Suddenly he began writing in sheer panic, only imperfectly
-aware of what he was setting down. His small but childish
-handwriting straggled up and down the page, shedding first its
-capital letters and finally even its full stops:
-</p>
-<p>
- April 4th, 1984. Last night to the flicks. All war
-films. One very good one of a ship full of refugees being
-bombed somewhere in the Mediterranean. Audience much amused by
-shots of a great huge fat man trying to swim away with a
-helicopter after him, first you saw him wallowing along in the
-water like a porpoise, then you saw him through the helicopters
-gunsights, then he was full of holes and the sea round him
-turned pink and he sank as suddenly as though the holes had let
-in the water, audience shouting with laughter when he sank.
-then you saw a lifeboat full of children with a helicopter
-hovering over it. there was a middle-aged woman might have been
-a jewess sitting up in the bow with a little boy about three
-years old in her arms. little boy screaming with fright and
-hiding his head between her breasts as if he was trying to
-burrow right into her and the woman putting her arms round him
-and comforting him although she was blue with fright herself,
-all the time covering him up as much as possible as if she
-thought her arms could keep the bullets off him. then the
-helicopter planted a 20 kilo bomb in among them terrific flash
-and the boat went all to matchwood. then there was a wonderful
-shot of a child's arm going up up up right up into the air a
-helicopter with a camera in its nose must have followed it up
-and there was a lot of applause from the party seats but a
-woman down in the prole part of the house suddenly started
-kicking up a fuss and shouting they didnt oughter of showed it
-not in front of kids they didnt it aint right not in front of
-kids it aint until the police turned her turned her out i dont
-suppose anything happened to her nobody cares what the proles
-say typical prole reaction they never
-</p>
-<p>
- Winston stopped writing, partly because he was suffering
-from cramp. He did not know what had made him pour out this
-stream of rubbish. But the curious thing was that while he was
-doing so a totally different memory had clarified itself in his
-mind, to the point where he almost felt equal to writing it
-down. It was, he now realized, because of this other incident
-that he had suddenly decided to come home and begin the diary
-today.
-</p>
-<p>
- It had happened that morning at the Ministry, if anything
-so nebulous could be said to happen.
-</p>
-<p>
- It was nearly eleven hundred, and in the Records
-Department, where Winston worked, they were dragging the chairs
-out of the cubicles and grouping them in the centre of the hall
-opposite the big telescreen, in preparation for the Two Minutes
-Hate. Winston was just taking his place in one of the middle
-rows when two people whom he knew by sight, but had never
-spoken to, came unexpectedly into the room. One of them was a
-girl whom he often passed in the corridors. He did not know her
-name, but he knew that she worked in the Fiction Department.
-Presumably -- since he had sometimes seen her with oily hands
-and carrying a spanner she had some mechanical job on one of
-the novel-writing machines. She was a bold-looking girl, of
-about twenty-seven, with thick hair, a freckled face, and
-swift, athletic movements. A narrow scarlet sash, emblem of the
-Junior Anti-Sex League, was wound several times round the waist
-of her overalls, just tightly enough to bring out the
-shapeliness of her hips. Winston had disliked her from the very
-first moment of seeing her. He knew the reason. It was because
-of the atmosphere of hockey-fields and cold baths and community
-hikes and general clean-mindedness which she managed to carry
-about with her. He disliked nearly all women, and especially
-the young and pretty ones. It was always the women, and above
-all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the
-Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and
-nosers-out of unorthodoxy. But this particular girl gave him
-the impression of being more dangerous than most. Once when
-they passed in the corridor she gave him a quick sidelong
-glance which seemed to pierce right into him and for a moment
-had filled him with black terror. The idea had even crossed his
-mind that she might be an agent of the Thought Police. That, it
-was true, was very unlikely. Still, he continued to feel a
-peculiar uneasiness, which had fear mixed up in it as well as
-hostility, whenever she was anywhere near him.
-</p>
-<p>
- The other person was a man named O'Brien, a member of the
-Inner Party and holder of some post so important and remote
-that Winston had only a dim idea of its nature. A momentary
-hush passed over the group of people round the chairs as they
-saw the black overalls of an Inner Party member approaching.
-O'Brien was a large, burly man with a thick neck and a coarse,
-humorous, brutal face. In spite of his formidable appearance he
-had a certain charm of manner. He had a trick of resettling his
-spectacles on his nose which was curiously disarming -- in some
-indefinable way, curiously civilized. It was a gesture which,
-if anyone had still thought in such terms, might have recalled
-an eighteenth-century nobleman offering his snuffbox. Winston
-had seen O'Brien perhaps a dozen times in almost as many years.
-He felt deeply drawn to him, and not solely because he was
-intrigued by the contrast between O'Brien's urbane manner and
-his prize-fighter's physique. Much more it was because of a
-secretly held belief -- or perhaps not even a belief, merely a
-hope -- that O'Brien's political orthodoxy was not perfect.
-Something in his face suggested it irresistibly. And again,
-perhaps it was not even unorthodoxy that was written in his
-face, but simply intelligence. But at any rate he had the
-appearance of being a person that you could talk to if somehow
-you could cheat the telescreen and get him alone. Winston had
-never made the smallest effort to verify this guess: indeed,
-there was no way of doing so. At this moment O'Brien glanced at
-his wrist-watch, saw that it was nearly eleven hundred, and
-evidently decided to stay in the Records Department until the
-Two Minutes Hate was over. He took a chair in the same row as
-Winston, a couple of places away. A small, sandy-haired woman
-who worked in the next cubicle to Winston was between them. The
-girl with dark hair was sitting immediately behind.
-</p>
-<p>
- The next moment a hideous, grinding speech, as of some
-monstrous machine running without oil, burst from the big
-telescreen at the end of the room. It was a noise that set
-one's teeth on edge and bristled the hair at the back of one's
-neck. The Hate had started.
-</p>
-<p>
- As usual, the face of Emmanuel Goldstein, the Enemy of the
-People, had flashed on to the screen. There were hisses here
-and there among the audience. The little sandy-haired woman
-gave a squeak of mingled fear and disgust. Goldstein was the
-renegade and backslider who once, long ago (how long ago,
-nobody quite remembered), had been one of the leading figures
-of the Party, almost on a level with Big Brother himself, and
-then had engaged in counter-revolutionary activities, had been
-condemned to death, and had mysteriously escaped and
-disappeared. The programmes of the Two Minutes Hate varied from
-day to day, but there was none in which Goldstein was not the
-principal figure. He was the primal traitor, the earliest
-defiler of the Party's purity. All subsequent crimes against
-the Party, all treacheries, acts of sabotage, heresies,
-deviations, sprang directly out of his teaching. Somewhere or
-other he was still alive and hatching his conspiracies: perhaps
-somewhere beyond the sea, under the protection of his foreign
-paymasters, perhaps even -- so it was occasionally rumoured --
-in some hiding-place in Oceania itself.
-</p>
-<p>
- Winston's diaphragm was constricted. He could never see
-the face of Goldstein without a painful mixture of emotions. It
-was a lean Jewish face, with a great fuzzy aureole of white
-hair and a small goatee beard -- a clever face, and yet somehow
-inherently despicable, with a kind of senile silliness in the
-long thin nose, near the end of which a pair of spectacles was
-perched. It resembled the face of a sheep, and the voice, too,
-had a sheep-like quality. Goldstein was delivering his usual
-venomous attack upon the doctrines of the Party -- an attack so
-exaggerated and perverse that a child should have been able to
-see through it, and yet just plausible enough to fill one with
-an alarmed feeling that other people, less level-headed than
-oneself, might be taken in by it. He was abusing Big Brother,
-he was denouncing the dictatorship of the Party, he was
-demanding the immediate conclusion of peace with Eurasia, he
-was advocating freedom of speech, freedom of the Press, freedom
-of assembly, freedom of thought, he was crying hysterically
-that the revolution had been betrayed -- and all this in rapid
-polysyllabic speech which was a sort of parody of the habitual
-style of the orators of the Party, and even contained Newspeak
-words: more Newspeak words, indeed, than any Party member would
-normally use in real life. And all the while, lest one should
-be in any doubt as to the reality which Goldstein's specious
-claptrap covered, behind his head on the telescreen there
-marched the endless columns of the Eurasian army -- row after
-row of solid-looking men with expressionless Asiatic faces, who
-swam up to the surface of the screen and vanished, to be
-replaced by others exactly similar. The dull rhythmic tramp of
-the soldiers' boots formed the background to Goldstein's
-bleating voice.
-</p>
-<p>
- Before the Hate had proceeded for thirty seconds,
-uncontrollable exclamations of rage were breaking out from half
-the people in the room. The self-satisfied sheep-like face on
-the screen, and the terrifying power of the Eurasian army
-behind it, were too much to be borne: besides, the sight or
-even the thought of Goldstein produced fear and anger
-automatically. He was an object of hatred more constant than
-either Eurasia or Eastasia, since when Oceania was at war with
-one of these Powers it was generally at peace with the other.
-But what was strange was that although Goldstein was hated and
-despised by everybody, although every day and a thousand times
-a day, on platforms, on the telescreen, in newspapers, in
-books, his theories were refuted, smashed, ridiculed, held up
-to the general gaze for the pitiful rubbish that they were in
-spite of all this, his influence never seemed to grow less.
-Always there were fresh dupes waiting to be seduced by him. A
-day never passed when spies and saboteurs acting under his
-directions were not unmasked by the Thought Police. He was the
-commander of a vast shadowy army, an underground network of
-conspirators dedicated to the overthrow of the State. The
-Brotherhood, its name was supposed to be. There were also
-whispered stories of a terrible book, a compendium of all the
-heresies, of which Goldstein was the author and which
-circulated clandestinely here and there. It was a book without
-a title. People referred to it, if at all, simply as the
-book. But one knew of such things only through vague
-rumours. Neither the Brotherhood nor the book was a
-subject that any ordinary Party member would mention if there
-was a way of avoiding it.
-</p>
-<p>
- In its second minute the Hate rose to a frenzy. People
-were leaping up and down in their places and shouting at the
-tops of their voices in an effort to drown the maddening
-bleating voice that came from the screen. The little
-sandy-haired woman had turned bright pink, and her mouth was opening
-and shutting like that of a landed fish. Even O'Brien's heavy
-face was flushed. He was sitting very straight in his chair,
-his powerful chest swelling and quivering as though he were
-standing up to the assault of a wave. The dark-haired girl
-behind Winston had begun crying out 'Swine! Swine! Swine!' and
-suddenly she picked up a heavy Newspeak dictionary and flung it
-at the screen. It struck Goldstein's nose and bounced off; the
-voice continued inexorably. In a lucid moment Winston found
-that he was shouting with the others and kicking his heel
-violently against the rung of his chair. The horrible thing
-about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act
-a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid
-joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretence was always
-unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a
-desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a
-sledge-hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people
-like an electric current, turning one even against one's will
-into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the rage that one
-felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be
-switched from one object to another like the flame of a
-blowlamp. Thus, at one moment Winston's hatred was not turned
-against Goldstein at all, but, on the contrary, against Big
-Brother, the Party, and the Thought Police; and at such moments
-his heart went out to the lonely, derided heretic on the
-screen, sole guardian of truth and sanity in a world of lies.
-And yet the very next instant he was at one with the people
-about him, and all that was said of Goldstein seemed to him to
-be true. At those moments his secret loathing of Big Brother
-changed into adoration, and Big Brother seemed to tower up, an
-invincible, fearless protector, standing like a rock against
-the hordes of Asia, and Goldstein, in spite of his isolation,
-his helplessness, and the doubt that hung about his very
-existence, seemed like some sinister enchanter, capable by the
-mere power of his voice of wrecking the structure of
-civilization.
-</p>
-<p>
- It was even possible, at moments, to switch one's hatred
-this way or that by a voluntary act. Suddenly, by the sort of
-violent effort with which one wrenches one's head away from the
-pillow in a nightmare, Winston succeeded in transferring his
-hatred from the face on the screen to the dark-haired girl
-behind him. Vivid, beautiful hallucinations flashed through his
-mind. He would flog her to death with a rubber truncheon. He
-would tie her naked to a stake and shoot her full of arrows
-like Saint Sebastian. He would ravish her and cut her throat at
-the moment of climax. Better than before, moreover, he realized
-why it was that he hated her. He hated her because she was
-young and pretty and sexless, because he wanted to go to bed
-with her and would never do so, because round her sweet supple
-waist, which seemed to ask you to encircle it with your arm,
-there was only the odious scarlet sash, aggressive symbol of
-chastity.
-</p>
-<p>
- The Hate rose to its climax. The voice of Goldstein had
-become an actual sheep's bleat, and for an instant the face
-changed into that of a sheep. Then the sheep-face melted into
-the figure of a Eurasian soldier who seemed to be advancing,
-huge and terrible, his sub-machine gun roaring, and seeming to
-spring out of the surface of the screen, so that some of the
-people in the front row actually flinched backwards in their
-seats. But in the same moment, drawing a deep sigh of relief
-from everybody, the hostile figure melted into the face of Big
-Brother, black-haired, black-moustachio'd, full of power and
-mysterious calm, and so vast that it almost filled up the
-screen. Nobody heard what Big Brother was saying. It was merely
-a few words of encouragement, the sort of words that are
-uttered in the din of battle, not distinguishable individually
-but restoring confidence by the fact of being spoken. Then the
-face of Big Brother faded away again, and instead the three
-slogans of the Party stood out in bold capitals:
-</p>
-<p class="quote">
- WAR IS PEACE<br>
- FREEDOM IS SLAVERY<br>
- IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH<br>
-</p>
-<p>
- But the face of Big Brother seemed to persist for several
-seconds on the screen, as though the impact that it had made on
-everyone's eyeballs was too vivid to wear off immediately. The
-little sandy-haired woman had flung herself forward over the
-back of the chair in front of her. With a tremulous murmur that
-sounded like 'My Saviour!' she extended her arms towards the
-screen. Then she buried her face in her hands. It was apparent
-that she was uttering a prayer.
-</p>
-<p>
- At this moment the entire group of people broke into a
-deep, slow, rhythmical chant of 'B-B! ... B-B!' -- over and
-over again, very slowly, with a long pause between the first
-'B' and the second-a heavy, murmurous sound, somehow curiously
-savage, in the background of which one seemed to hear the stamp
-of naked feet and the throbbing of tom-toms. For perhaps as
-much as thirty seconds they kept it up. It was a refrain that
-was often heard in moments of overwhelming emotion. Partly it
-was a sort of hymn to the wisdom and majesty of Big Brother,
-but still more it was an act of self-hypnosis, a deliberate
-drowning of consciousness by means of rhythmic noise. Winston's
-entrails seemed to grow cold. In the Two Minutes Hate he could
-not help sharing in the general delirium, but this sub-human
-chanting of 'B-B! ... B-B!' always filled him with horror.
-Of course he chanted with the rest: it was impossible to do
-otherwise. To dissemble your feelings, to control your face, to
-do what everyone else was doing, was an instinctive reaction.
-But there was a space of a couple of seconds during which the
-expression of his eyes might conceivably have betrayed him. And
-it was exactly at this moment that the significant thing
-happened -- if, indeed, it did happen.
-</p>
-<p>
- Momentarily he caught O'Brien's eye. O'Brien had stood up.
-He had taken off his spectacles and was in the act of
-resettling them on his nose with his characteristic gesture.
-But there was a fraction of a second when their eyes met, and
-for as long as it took to happen Winston knew -- yes, he
-knew! -- that O'Brien was thinking the same thing as
-himself. An unmistakable message had passed. It was as though
-their two minds had opened and the thoughts were flowing from
-one into the other through their eyes. 'I am with you,' O'Brien
-seemed to be saying to him. 'I know precisely what you are
-feeling. I know all about your contempt, your hatred, your
-disgust. But don't worry, I am on your side!' And then the
-flash of intelligence was gone, and O'Brien's face was as
-inscrutable as everybody else's.
-</p>
-<p>
- That was all, and he was already uncertain whether it had
-happened. Such incidents never had any sequel. All that they
-did was to keep alive in him the belief, or hope, that others
-besides himself were the enemies of the Party. Perhaps the
-rumours of vast underground conspiracies were true after all --
-perhaps the Brotherhood really existed! It was impossible, in
-spite of the endless arrests and confessions and executions, to
-be sure that the Brotherhood was not simply a myth. Some days
-he believed in it, some days not. There was no evidence, only
-fleeting glimpses that might mean anything or nothing: snatches
-of overheard conversation, faint scribbles on lavatory walls --
-once, even, when two strangers met, a small movement of the
-hand which had looked as though it might be a signal of
-recognition. It was all guesswork: very likely he had imagined
-everything. He had gone back to his cubicle without looking at
-O'Brien again. The idea of following up their momentary contact
-hardly crossed his mind. It would have been inconceivably
-dangerous even if he had known how to set about doing it. For a
-second, two seconds, they had exchanged an equivocal glance,
-and that was the end of the story. But even that was a
-memorable event, in the locked loneliness in which one had to
-live.
-</p>
-<p>
- Winston roused himself and sat up straighter. He let out a
-belch. The gin was rising from his stomach.
-</p>
-<p>
- His eyes re-focused on the page. He discovered that while
-he sat helplessly musing he had also been writing, as though by
-automatic action. And it was no longer the same cramped,
-awkward handwriting as before. His pen had slid voluptuously
-over the smooth paper, printing in large neat capitals
-</p>
-<p class="quote">
- DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER<br>
- DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER<br>
- DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER<br>
- DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER<br>
- DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER<br>
-</p>
-<p>over and over again, filling half a page.
-</p>
-<p>
- He could not help feeling a twinge of panic. It was
-absurd, since the writing of those particular words was not
-more dangerous than the initial act of opening the diary, but
-for a moment he was tempted to tear out the spoiled pages and
-abandon the enterprise altogether.
-</p>
-<p>
- He did not do so, however, because he knew that it was
-useless. Whether he wrote DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER, or whether he
-refrained from writing it, made no difference. Whether he went
-on with the diary, or whether he did not go on with it, made no
-difference. The Thought Police would get him just the same. He
-had committed -- would still have committed, even if he had
-never set pen to paper -- the essential crime that contained
-all others in itself. Thoughtcrime, they called it.
-Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed for ever.
-You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but
-sooner or later they were bound to get you.
-</p>
-<p>
- It was always at night -- the arrests invariably happened
-at night. The sudden jerk out of sleep, the rough hand shaking
-your shoulder, the lights glaring in your eyes, the ring of
-hard faces round the bed. In the vast majority of cases there
-was no trial, no report of the arrest. People simply
-disappeared, always during the night. Your name was removed
-from the registers, every record of everything you had ever
-done was wiped out, your one-time existence was denied and then
-forgotten. You were abolished, annihilated: vaporized
-was the usual word.
-</p>
-<p>
- For a moment he was seized by a kind of hysteria. He began
-writing in a hurried untidy scrawl:
-</p>
-<p>
- theyll shoot me i don't care theyll shoot me in the
-back of the neck i dont care down with big brother they always
-shoot you in the back of the neck i dont care down with big
-brother
-</p>
-<p>
- He sat back in his chair, slightly ashamed of himself, and
-laid down the pen. The next moment he started violently. There
-was a knocking at the door.
-</p>
-<p>
- Already! He sat as still as a mouse, in the futile hope
-that whoever it was might go away after a single attempt. But
-no, the knocking was repeated. The worst thing of all would be
-to delay. His heart was thumping like a drum, but his face,
-from long habit, was probably expressionless. He got up and
-moved heavily towards the door.
-</p>
-<H1><a name="2">II</a></H1>
-<p class="no-indent">
- As he put his hand to the door-knob Winston saw that he
-had left the diary open on the table. DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER was
-written all over it, in letters almost big enough to be legible
-across the room. It was an inconceivably stupid thing to have
-done. But, he realized, even in his panic he had not wanted to
-smudge the creamy paper by shutting the book while the ink was
-wet.</p>
-<p>
- He drew in his breath and opened the door. Instantly a
-warm wave of relief flowed through him. A colourless,
-crushed-looking woman, with wispy hair and a lined face, was
-standing outside.</p>
-<p>
- 'Oh, comrade,' she began in a dreary, whining sort of
-voice, 'I thought I heard you come in. Do you think you could
-come across and have a look at our kitchen sink? It's got
-blocked up and-'</p>
-<p>
- It was Mrs Parsons, the wife of a neighbour on the same
-floor. ('Mrs' was a word somewhat discountenanced by the Party
--- you were supposed to call everyone 'comrade' -- but with
-some women one used it instinctively.) She was a woman of about
-thirty, but looking much older. One had the impression that
-there was dust in the creases of her face. Winston followed her
-down the passage. These amateur repair jobs were an almost
-daily irritation. Victory Mansions were old flats, built in
-1930 or thereabouts, and were falling to pieces. The plaster
-flaked constantly from ceilings and walls, the pipes burst in
-every hard frost, the roof leaked whenever there was snow, the
-heating system was usually running at half steam when it was
-not closed down altogether from motives of economy. Repairs,
-except what you could do for yourself, had to be sanctioned by
-remote committees which were liable to hold up even the mending
-of a window-pane for two years.</p>
-<p>
- 'Of course it's only because Tom isn't home,' said Mrs
-Parsons vaguely.</p>
-<p>
- The Parsons' flat was bigger than Winston's, and dingy in
-a different way. Everything had a battered, trampled-on look,
-as though the place had just been visited by some large violent
-animal. Games impedimenta -- hockey-sticks, boxing-gloves. a
-burst football, a pair of sweaty shorts turned inside out --
-lay all over the floor, and on the table there was a litter of
-dirty dishes and dog-eared exercise-books. On the walls were
-scarlet banners of the Youth League and the Spies, and a
-full-sized poster of Big Brother. There was the usual
-boiled-cabbage smell, common to the whole building, but it was
-shot through by a sharper reek of sweat, which-one knew this at
-the first sniff, though it was hard to say how was the sweat of
-some person not present at the moment. In another room someone
-with a comb and a piece of toilet paper was trying to keep tune
-with the military music which was still issuing from the
-telescreen.</p>
-<p>
- 'It's the children,' said Mrs Parsons, casting a
-half-apprehensive glance at the door. 'They haven't been out today.
-And of course-'</p>
-<p>
- She had a habit of breaking off her sentences in the
-middle. The kitchen sink was full nearly to the brim with
-filthy greenish water which smelt worse than ever of cabbage.
-Winston knelt down and examined the angle-joint of the pipe. He
-hated using his hands, and he hated bending down, which was
-always liable to start him coughing. Mrs Parsons looked on
-helplessly.</p>
-<p>
- 'Of course if Tom was home he'd put it right in a moment,'
-she said. 'He loves anything like that. He's ever so good with
-his hands, Tom is.'</p>
-<p>
- Parsons was Winston's fellow-employee at the Ministry of
-Truth. He was a fattish but active man of paralysing stupidity,
-a mass of imbecile enthusiasms -- one of those completely
-unquestioning, devoted drudges on whom, more even than on the
-Thought Police, the stability of the Party depended. At
-thirty-five he had just been unwillingly evicted from the Youth
-League, and before graduating into the Youth League he had
-managed to stay on in the Spies for a year beyond the statutory
-age. At the Ministry he was employed in some subordinate post
-for which intelligence was not required, but on the other hand
-he was a leading figure on the Sports Committee and all the
-other committees engaged in organizing community hikes,
-spontaneous demonstrations, savings campaigns, and voluntary
-activities generally. He would inform you with quiet pride,
-between whiffs of his pipe, that he had put in an appearance at
-the Community Centre every evening for the past four years. An
-overpowering smell of sweat, a sort of unconscious testimony to
-the strenuousness of his life, followed him about wherever he
-went, and even remained behind him after he had gone.</p>
-<p>
- 'Have you got a spanner?' said Winston, fiddling with the
-nut on the angle-joint.</p>
-<p>
- 'A spanner,' said Mrs Parsons, immediately becoming
-invertebrate. 'I don't know, I'm sure. Perhaps the children -'</p>
-<p>
- There was a trampling of boots and another blast on the
-comb as the children charged into the living-room. Mrs Parsons
-brought the spanner. Winston let out the water and disgustedly
-removed the clot of human hair that had blocked up the pipe. He
-cleaned his fingers as best he could in the cold water from the
-tap and went back into the other room.</p>
-<p>
- 'Up with your hands!' yelled a savage voice.</p>
-<p>
- A handsome, tough-looking boy of nine had popped up from
-behind the table and was menacing him with a toy automatic
-pistol, while his small sister, about two years younger, made
-the same gesture with a fragment of wood. Both of them were
-dressed in the blue shorts, grey shirts, and red neckerchiefs
-which were the uniform of the Spies. Winston raised his hands
-above his head, but with an uneasy feeling, so vicious was the
-boy's demeanour, that it was not altogether a game.</p>
-<p>
- 'You're a traitor!' yelled the boy. 'You're a thought-criminal!
-You're a Eurasian spy! I'll shoot you, I'll vaporize
-you, I'll send you to the salt mines!'</p>
-<p>
- Suddenly they were both leaping round him, shouting
-'Traitor!' and 'Thought-criminal!' the little girl imitating
-her brother in every movement. It was somehow slightly
-frightening, like the gambolling of tiger cubs which will soon
-grow up into man-eaters. There was a sort of calculating
-ferocity in the boy's eye, a quite evident desire to hit or
-kick Winston and a consciousness of being very nearly big
-enough to do so. It was a good job it was not a real pistol he
-was holding, Winston thought.</p>
-<p>
- Mrs Parsons' eyes flitted nervously from Winston to the
-children, and back again. In the better light of the
-living-room he noticed with interest that there actually
-was dust in the creases of her face.</p>
-<p>
- 'They do get so noisy,' she said. 'They're disappointed
-because they couldn't go to see the hanging, that's what it is.
-I'm too busy to take them. and Tom won't be back from work in
-time.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Why can't we go and see the hanging?' roared the boy in
-his huge voice.</p>
-<p>
- 'Want to see the hanging! Want to see the hanging!'
-chanted the little girl, still capering round.</p>
-<p>
- Some Eurasian prisoners, guilty of war crimes, were to be
-hanged in the Park that evening, Winston remembered. This
-happened about once a month, and was a popular spectacle.
-Children always clamoured to be taken to see it. He took his
-leave of Mrs Parsons and made for the door. But he had not gone
-six steps down the passage when something hit the back of his
-neck an agonizingly painful blow. It was as though a red-hot
-wire had been jabbed into him. He spun round just in time to
-see Mrs Parsons dragging her son back into the doorway while
-the boy pocketed a catapult.</p>
-<p>
- 'Goldstein!' bellowed the boy as the door closed on him.
-But what most struck Winston was the look of helpless fright on
-the woman's greyish face.</p>
-<p>
- Back in the flat he stepped quickly past the telescreen
-and sat down at the table again, still rubbing his neck. The
-music from the telescreen had stopped. Instead, a clipped
-military voice was reading out, with a sort of brutal relish, a
-description of the armaments of the new Floating Fortress which
-had just been anchored between lceland and the Faroe lslands.</p>
-<p>
- With those children, he thought, that wretched woman must
-lead a life of terror. Another year, two years, and they would
-be watching her night and day for symptoms of unorthodoxy.
-Nearly all children nowadays were horrible. What was worst of
-all was that by means of such organizations as the Spies they
-were systematically turned into ungovernable little savages,
-and yet this produced in them no tendency whatever to rebel
-against the discipline of the Party. On the contrary, they
-adored the Party and everything connected with it. The songs,
-the processions, the banners, the hiking, the drilling with
-dummy rifles, the yelling of slogans, the worship of Big
-Brother -- it was all a sort of glorious game to them. All
-their ferocity was turned outwards, against the enemies of the
-State, against foreigners, traitors, saboteurs,
-thought-criminals. It was almost normal for people over thirty
-to be frightened of their own children. And with good reason,
-for hardly a week passed in which The Times did not
-carry a paragraph describing how some eavesdropping little
-sneak -- 'child hero' was the phrase generally used -- had
-overheard some compromising remark and denounced its parents to
-the Thought Police.</p>
-<p>
- The sting of the catapult bullet had worn off. He picked
-up his pen half-heartedly, wondering whether he could find
-something more to write in the diary. Suddenly he began
-thinking of O'Brien again.</p>
-<p>
- Years ago -- how long was it? Seven years it must be -- he
-had dreamed that he was walking through a pitch-dark room. And
-someone sitting to one side of him had said as he passed: 'We
-shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.' It was
-said very quietly, almost casually -- a statement, not a
-command. He had walked on without pausing. What was curious was
-that at the time, in the dream, the words had not made much
-impression on him. It was only later and by degrees that they
-had seemed to take on significance. He could not now remember
-whether it was before or after having the dream that he had
-seen O'Brien for the first time, nor could he remember when he
-had first identified the voice as O'Brien's. But at any rate
-the identification existed. It was O'Brien who had spoken to
-him out of the dark.</p>
-<p>
- Winston had never been able to feel sure -- even after
-this morning's flash of the eyes it was still impossible to be
-sure whether O'Brien was a friend or an enemy. Nor did it even
-seem to matter greatly. There was a link of understanding
-between them, more important than affection or partisanship.
-'We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness,' he had
-said. Winston did not know what it meant, only that in some way
-or another it would come true.</p>
-<p>
- The voice from the telescreen paused. A trumpet call,
-clear and beautiful, floated into the stagnant air. The voice
-continued raspingly:</p>
-<p>
- 'Attention! Your attention, please! A newsflash has this
-moment arrived from the Malabar front. Our forces in South
-India have won a glorious victory. I am authorized to say that
-the action we are now reporting may well bring the war within
-measurable distance of its end. Here is the newsflash -'</p>
-<p>
- Bad news coming, thought Winston. And sure enough,
-following on a gory description of the annihilation of a
-Eurasian army, with stupendous figures of killed and prisoners,
-came the announcement that, as from next week, the chocolate
-ration would be reduced from thirty grammes to twenty.</p>
-<p>
- Winston belched again. The gin was wearing off, leaving a
-deflated feeling. The telescreen -- perhaps to celebrate the
-victory, perhaps to drown the memory of the lost chocolate --
-crashed into 'Oceania, 'tis for thee'. You were supposed to
-stand to attention. However, in his present position he was
-invisible.</p>
-<p>
- 'Oceania, 'tis for thee' gave way to lighter music.
-Winston walked over to the window, keeping his back to the
-telescreen. The day was still cold and clear. Somewhere far
-away a rocket bomb exploded with a dull, reverberating roar.
-About twenty or thirty of them a week were falling on London at
-present.</p>
-<p>
- Down in the street the wind flapped the torn poster to and
-fro, and the word INGSOC fitfully appeared and vanished.
-Ingsoc. The sacred principles of Ingsoc. Newspeak, doublethink,
-the mutability of the past. He felt as though he were wandering
-in the forests of the sea bottom, lost in a monstrous world
-where he himself was the monster. He was alone. The past was
-dead, the future was unimaginable. What certainty had he that a
-single human creature now living was on his side? And what way
-of knowing that the dominion of the Party would not endure
-for ever? Like an answer, the three slogans on the white
-face of the Ministry of Truth came back to him:</p>
-<p class="quote">
- WAR IS PEACE<br>
- FREEDOM IS SLAVERY<br>
- IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH</p>
-<p>
-
- He took a twenty-five cent piece out of his pocket. There,
-too, in tiny clear lettering, the same slogans were inscribed,
-and on the other face of the coin the head of Big Brother. Even
-from the coin the eyes pursued you. On coins, on stamps, on the
-covers of books, on banners, on posters, and on the wrappings
-of a cigarette Packet -- everywhere. Always the eyes watching
-you and the voice enveloping you. Asleep or awake, working or
-eating, indoors or out of doors, in the bath or in bed -- no
-escape. Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres
-inside your skull.</p>
-<p>
- The sun had shifted round, and the myriad windows of the
-Ministry of Truth, with the light no longer shining on them,
-looked grim as the loopholes of a fortress. His heart quailed
-before the enormous pyramidal shape. It was too strong, it
-could not be stormed. A thousand rocket bombs would not batter
-it down. He wondered again for whom he was writing the diary.
-For the future, for the past -- for an age that might be
-imaginary. And in front of him there lay not death but
-annihilation. The diary would be reduced to ashes and himself
-to vapour. Only the Thought Police would read what he had
-written, before they wiped it out of existence and out of
-memory. How could you make appeal to the future when not a
-trace of you, not even an anonymous word scribbled on a piece
-of paper, could physically survive?</p>
-<p>
- The telescreen struck fourteen. He must leave in ten
-minutes. He had to be back at work by fourteen-thirty.</p>
-<p>
- Curiously, the chiming of the hour seemed to have put new
-heart into him. He was a lonely ghost uttering a truth that
-nobody would ever hear. But so long as he uttered it, in some
-obscure way the continuity was not broken. It was not by making
-yourself heard but by staying sane that you carried on the
-human heritage. He went back to the table, dipped his pen, and
-wrote:</p>
-<p>
- To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is
-free, when men are different from one another and do not live
-alone -- to a time when truth exists and what is done cannot be
-undone:</p>
-<p>
- From the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude,
-from the age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink --
-greetings!</p>
-<p>
- He was already dead, he reflected. It seemed to him that
-it was only now, when he had begun to be able to formulate his
-thoughts, that he had taken the decisive step. The consequences
-of every act are included in the act itself. He wrote:</p>
-<p>
- Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime IS
-death.</p>
-<p>
- Now he had recognized himself as a dead man it became
-important to stay alive as long as possible. Two fingers of his
-right hand were inkstained. It was exactly the kind of detail
-that might betray you. Some nosing zealot in the Ministry (a
-woman, probably: someone like the little sandy-haired woman or
-the dark-haired girl from the Fiction Department) might start
-wondering why he had been writing during the lunch interval,
-why he had used an old-fashioned pen, what he had been
-writing -- and then drop a hint in the appropriate quarter. He
-went to the bathroom and carefully scrubbed the ink away with
-the gritty dark-brown soap which rasped your skin like
-sandpaper and was therefore well adapted for this purpose.</p>
-<p>
- He put the diary away in the drawer. It was quite useless
-to think of hiding it, but he could at least make sure whether
-or not its existence had been discovered. A hair laid across
-the page-ends was too obvious. With the tip of his finger he
-picked up an identifiable grain of whitish dust and deposited
-it on the corner of the cover, where it was bound to be shaken
-off if the book was moved.</p>
-<H1><a name="3">III</a></H1>
-<p class="no-indent">
- Winston was dreaming of his mother.</p>
-<p>
- He must, he thought, have been ten or eleven years old
-when his mother had disappeared. She was a tall, statuesque,
-rather silent woman with slow movements and magnificent fair
-hair. His father he remembered more vaguely as dark and thin,
-dressed always in neat dark clothes (Winston remembered
-especially the very thin soles of his father's shoes) and
-wearing spectacles. The two of them must evidently have been
-swallowed up in one of the first great purges of the fifties.</p>
-<p>
- At this moment his mother was sitting in some place deep
-down beneath him, with his young sister in her arms. He did not
-remember his sister at all, except as a tiny, feeble baby,
-always silent, with large, watchful eyes. Both of them were
-looking up at him. They were down in some subterranean place --
-the bottom of a well, for instance, or a very deep grave -- but
-it was a place which, already far below him, was itself moving
-downwards. They were in the saloon of a sinking ship, looking
-up at him through the darkening water. There was still air in
-the saloon, they could still see him and he them, but all the
-while they were sinking down, down into the green waters which
-in another moment must hide them from sight for ever. He was
-out in the light and air while they were being sucked down to
-death, and they were down there because he was up here.
-He knew it and they knew it, and he could see the knowledge in
-their faces. There was no reproach either in their faces or in
-their hearts, only the knowledge that they must die in order
-that he might remain alive, and that this was part of the
-unavoidable order of things.</p>
-<p>
- He could not remember what had happened, but he knew in
-his dream that in some way the lives of his mother and his
-sister had been sacrificed to his own. It was one of those
-dreams which, while retaining the characteristic dream scenery,
-are a continuation of one's intellectual life, and in which one
-becomes aware of facts and ideas which still seem new and
-valuable after one is awake. The thing that now suddenly struck
-Winston was that his mother's death, nearly thirty years ago,
-had been tragic and sorrowful in a way that was no longer
-possible. Tragedy, he perceived, belonged to the ancient time,
-to a time when there was still privacy, love, and friendship,
-and when the members of a family stood by one another without
-needing to know the reason. His mother's memory tore at his
-heart because she had died loving him, when he was too young
-and selfish to love her in return, and because somehow, he did
-not remember how, she had sacrificed herself to a conception of
-loyalty that was private and unalterable. Such things, he saw,
-could not happen today. Today there were fear, hatred, and
-pain, but no dignity of emotion, no deep or complex sorrows.
-All this he seemed to see in the large eyes of his mother and
-his sister, looking up at him through the green water, hundreds
-of fathoms down and still sinking.</p>
-<p>
- Suddenly he was standing on short springy turf, on a
-summer evening when the slanting rays of the sun gilded the
-ground. The landscape that he was looking at recurred so often
-in his dreams that he was never fully certain whether or not he
-had seen it in the real world. In his waking thoughts he called
-it the Golden Country. It was an old, rabbit-bitten pasture,
-with a foot-track wandering across it and a molehill here and
-there. In the ragged hedge on the opposite side of the field
-the boughs of the elm trees were swaying very faintly in the
-breeze, their leaves just stirring in dense masses like women's
-hair. Somewhere near at hand, though out of sight, there was a
-clear, slow-moving stream where dace were swimming in the pools
-under the willow trees.</p>
-<p>
- The girl with dark hair was coming towards them across the
-field. With what seemed a single movement she tore off her
-clothes and flung them disdainfully aside. Her body was white
-and smooth, but it aroused no desire in him, indeed he barely
-looked at it. What overwhelmed him in that instant was
-admiration for the gesture with which she had thrown her
-clothes aside. With its grace and carelessness it seemed to
-annihilate a whole culture, a whole system of thought, as
-though Big Brother and the Party and the Thought Police could
-all be swept into nothingness by a single splendid movement of
-the arm. That too was a gesture belonging to the ancient time.
-Winston woke up with the word 'Shakespeare' on his lips.</p>
-<p>
- The telescreen was giving forth an ear-splitting whistle
-which continued on the same note for thirty seconds. It was
-nought seven fifteen, getting-up time for office workers.
-Winston wrenched his body out of bed -- naked, for a member of
-the Outer Party received only 3,000 clothing coupons annually,
-and a suit of pyjamas was 600 -- and seized a dingy singlet and
-a pair of shorts that were lying across a chair. The Physical
-Jerks would begin in three minutes. The next moment he was
-doubled up by a violent coughing fit which nearly always
-attacked him soon after waking up. It emptied his lungs so
-completely that he could only begin breathing again by lying on
-his back and taking a series of deep gasps. His veins had
-swelled with the effort of the cough, and the varicose ulcer
-had started itching.</p>
-<p>
- 'Thirty to forty group!' yapped a piercing female voice. '
-Thirty to forty group! Take your places, please. Thirties to
-forties!'</p>
-<p>
- Winston sprang to attention in front of the telescreen,
-upon which the image of a youngish woman, scrawny but muscular,
-dressed in tunic and gym-shoes, had already appeared.</p>
-<p>
- 'Arms bending and stretching!' she rapped out. 'Take your
-time by me. One, two, three, four! One, two,
-three, four! Come on, comrades, put a bit of life into it!
-One, two, three four! One two, three, four! . .
-.'</p>
-<p>
- The pain of the coughing fit had not quite driven out of
-Winston's mind the impression made by his dream, and the
-rhythmic movements of the exercise restored it somewhat. As he
-mechanically shot his arms back and forth, wearing on his face
-the look of grim enjoyment which was considered proper during
-the Physical Jerks, he was struggling to think his way backward
-into the dim period of his early childhood. It was
-extraordinarily difficult. Beyond the late fifties everything
-faded. When there were no external records that you could refer
-to, even the outline of your own life lost its sharpness. You
-remembered huge events which had quite probably not happened,
-you remembered the detail of incidents without being able to
-recapture their atmosphere, and there were long blank periods
-to which you could assign nothing. Everything had been
-different then. Even the names of countries, and their shapes
-on the map, had been different. Airstrip One, for instance, had
-not been so called in those days: it had been called England or
-Britain, though London, he felt fairly certain, had always been
-called London.</p>
-<p>
- Winston could not definitely remember a time when his
-country had not been at war, but it was evident that there had
-been a fairly long interval of peace during his childhood,
-because one of his early memories was of an air raid which
-appeared to take everyone by surprise. Perhaps it was the time
-when the atomic bomb had fallen on Colchester. He did not
-remember the raid itself, but he did remember his father's hand
-clutching his own as they hurried down, down, down into some
-place deep in the earth, round and round a spiral staircase
-which rang under his feet and which finally so wearied his legs
-that he began whimpering and they had to stop and rest. His
-mother, in her slow, dreamy way, was following a long way
-behind them. She was carrying his baby sister -- or perhaps it
-was only a bundle of blankets that she was carrying: he was not
-certain whether his sister had been born then. Finally they had
-emerged into a noisy, crowded place which he had realized to be
-a Tube station.</p>
-<p>
- There were people sitting all over the stone-flagged
-floor, and other people, packed tightly together, were sitting
-on metal bunks, one above the other. Winston and his mother and
-father found themselves a place on the floor, and near them an
-old man and an old woman were sitting side by side on a bunk.
-The old man had on a decent dark suit and a black cloth cap
-pushed back from very white hair: his face was scarlet and his
-eyes were blue and full of tears. He reeked of gin. It seemed
-to breathe out of his skin in place of sweat, and one could
-have fancied that the tears welling from his eyes were pure
-gin. But though slightly drunk he was also suffering under some
-grief that was genuine and unbearable. In his childish way
-Winston grasped that some terrible thing, something that was
-beyond forgiveness and could never be remedied, had just
-happened. It also seemed to him that he knew what it was.
-Someone whom the old man loved -- a little granddaughter,
-perhaps had been killed. Every few minutes the old man kept
-repeating:</p>
-<p>
- 'We didn't ought to 'ave trusted 'em. I said so, Ma,
-didn't I? That's what comes of trusting 'em. I said so all
-along. We didn't ought to 'ave trusted the buggers.</p>
-<p>
- But which buggers they didn't ought to have trusted
-Winston could not now remember.</p>
-<p>
- Since about that time, war had been literally continuous,
-though strictly speaking it had not always been the same war.
-For several months during his childhood there had been confused
-street fighting in London itself, some of which he remembered
-vividly. But to trace out the history of the whole period, to
-say who was fighting whom at any given moment, would have been
-utterly impossible, since no written record, and no spoken
-word, ever made mention of any other alignment than the
-existing one. At this moment, for example, in 1984 (if it was
-1984), Oceania was at war with Eurasia and in alliance with
-Eastasia. In no public or private utterance was it ever
-admitted that the three powers had at any time been grouped
-along different lines. Actually, as Winston well knew, it was
-only four years since Oceania had been at war with Eastasia and
-in alliance with Eurasia. But that was merely a piece of
-furtive knowledge which he happened to possess because his
-memory was not satisfactorily under control. Officially the
-change of partners had never happened. Oceania was at war with
-Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia.
-The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and
-it followed that any past or future agreement with him was
-impossible.</p>
-<p>
- The frightening thing, he reflected for the ten thousandth
-time as he forced his shoulders painfully backward (with hands
-on hips, they were gyrating their bodies from the waist, an
-exercise that was supposed to be good for the back muscles) --
-the frightening thing was that it might all be true. If the
-Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or
-that event, it never happened -- that, surely, was more
-terrifying than mere torture and death?</p>
-<p>
- The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance
-with Eurasia. He, Winston Smith, knew that Oceania had been in
-alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four years ago. But
-where did that knowledge exist? Only in his own consciousness,
-which in any case must soon be annihilated. And if all others
-accepted the lie which the Party imposed -if all records told
-the same tale -- then the lie passed into history and became
-truth. 'Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls
-the future: who controls the present controls the past.' And
-yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been
-altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to
-everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was an
-unending series of victories over your own memory. 'Reality
-control', they called it: in Newspeak, 'doublethink'</p>
-<p>
- 'Stand easy!' barked the instructress, a little more
-genially.</p>
-<p>
- Winston sank his arms to his sides and slowly refilled his
-lungs with air. His mind slid away into the labyrinthine world
-of doublethink. To know and not to know, to be conscious of
-complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies,
-to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out,
-knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them,
-to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying
-claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that
-the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it
-was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again
-at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget
-it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the
-process itself. That was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to
-induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become
-unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even
-to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of
-doublethink.</p>
-<p>
- The instructress had called them to attention again. 'And
-now let's see which of us can touch our toes!' she said
-enthusiastically. 'Right over from the hips, please, comrades.
-One-two! One-two! ...'</p>
-<p>
- Winston loathed this exercise, which sent shooting pains
-all the way from his heels to his buttocks and often ended by
-bringing on another coughing fit. The half-pleasant quality
-went out of his meditations. The past, he reflected, had not
-merely been altered, it had been actually destroyed. For how
-could you establish even the most obvious fact when there
-existed no record outside your own memory? He tried to remember
-in what year he had first heard mention of Big Brother. He
-thought it must have been at some time in the sixties, but it
-was impossible to be certain. In the Party histories, of
-course, Big Brother figured as the leader and guardian of the
-Revolution since its very earliest days. His exploits had been
-gradually pushed backwards in time until already they extended
-into the fabulous world of the forties and the thirties, when
-the capitalists in their strange cylindrical hats still rode
-through the streets of London in great gleaming motor-cars or
-horse carriages with glass sides. There was no knowing how much
-of this legend was true and how much invented. Winston could
-not even remember at what date the Party itself had come into
-existence. He did not believe he had ever heard the word Ingsoc
-before 1960, but it was possible that in its Oldspeak
-form-'English Socialism', that is to say -- it had been current
-earlier. Everything melted into mist. Sometimes, indeed, you
-could put your finger on a definite lie. It was not true, for
-example, as was claimed in the Party history books, that the
-Party had invented aeroplanes. He remembered aeroplanes since
-his earliest childhood. But you could prove nothing. There was
-never any evidence. Just once in his whole life he had held in
-his hands unmistakable documentary proof of the falsification
-of an historical fact. And on that occasion</p>
-<p>
- 'Smith!' screamed the shrewish voice from the telescreen.
-'6079 Smith W.! Yes, you! Bend lower, please! You can do
-better than that. You're not trying. Lower, please!
-That's better, comrade. Now stand at ease, the whole
-squad, and watch me.'</p>
-<p>
- A sudden hot sweat had broken out all over Winston's body.
-His face remained completely inscrutable. Never show dismay!
-Never show resentment! A single flicker of the eyes could give
-you away. He stood watching while the instructress raised her
-arms above her head and -- one could not say gracefully, but
-with remarkable neatness and efficiency -- bent over and tucked
-the first joint of her fingers under her toes.</p>
-<p>
- 'There, comrades! That's how I want to see
-you doing it. Watch me again. I'm thirty-nine and I've had four
-children. Now look.' She bent over again. 'You see my knees
-aren't bent. You can all do it if you want to,' she added as
-she straightened herself up. 'Anyone under forty-five is
-perfectly capable of touching his toes. We don't all have the
-privilege of fighting in the front line, but at least we can
-all keep fit. Remember our boys on the Malabar front! And the
-sailors in the Floating Fortresses! Just think what they
-have to put up with. Now try again. That's better, comrade,
-that's much better,' she added encouragingly as Winston,
-with a violent lunge, succeeded in touching his toes with knees
-unbent, for the first time in several years.</p>
-<H1><a name="4">IV</a></H1>
-<p class="no-indent">
- With the deep, unconscious sigh which not even the
-nearness of the telescreen could prevent him from uttering when
-his day's work started, Winston pulled the speakwrite towards
-him, blew the dust from its mouthpiece, and put on his
-spectacles. Then he unrolled and clipped together four small
-cylinders of paper which had already flopped out of the
-pneumatic tube on the right-hand side of his desk.</p>
-<p>
- In the walls of the cubicle there were three orifices. To
-the right of the speakwrite, a small pneumatic tube for written
-messages, to the left, a larger one for newspapers; and in the
-side wall, within easy reach of Winston's arm, a large oblong
-slit protected by a wire grating. This last was for the
-disposal of waste paper. Similar slits existed in thousands or
-tens of thousands throughout the building, not only in every
-room but at short intervals in every corridor. For some reason
-they were nicknamed memory holes. When one knew that any
-document was due for destruction, or even when one saw a scrap
-of waste paper lying about, it was an automatic action to lift
-the flap of the nearest memory hole and drop it in, whereupon
-it would be whirled away on a current of warm air to the
-enormous furnaces which were hidden somewhere in the recesses
-of the building.</p>
-<p>
- Winston examined the four slips of paper which he had
-unrolled. Each contained a message of only one or two lines, in
-the abbreviated jargon -- not actually Newspeak, but consisting
-largely of Newspeak words -- which was used in the Ministry for
-internal purposes. They ran:</p>
-<p class="quote">
- times 17.3.84 bb speech malreported africa rectify<br>
- times 19.12.83 forecasts 3 yp 4th quarter 83 misprints
-verify current issue<br>
- times 14.2.84 miniplenty malquoted chocolate rectify<br>
- times 3.12.83 reporting bb dayorder doubleplusungood refs
-unpersons rewrite fullwise upsub antefiling</p>
-<p>
- With a faint feeling of satisfaction Winston laid the
-fourth message aside. It was an intricate and responsible job
-and had better be dealt with last. The other three were routine
-matters, though the second one would probably mean some tedious
-wading through lists of figures.</p>
-<p>
- Winston dialled 'back numbers' on the telescreen and
-called for the appropriate issues of The Times, which
-slid out of the pneumatic tube after only a few minutes' delay.
-The messages he had received referred to articles or news items
-which for one reason or another it was thought necessary to
-alter, or, as the official phrase had it, to rectify. For
-example, it appeared from The Times of the seventeenth
-of March that Big Brother, in his speech of the previous day,
-had predicted that the South Indian front would remain quiet
-but that a Eurasian offensive would shortly be launched in
-North Africa. As it happened, the Eurasian Higher Command had
-launched its offensive in South India and left North Africa
-alone. It was therefore necessary to rewrite a paragraph of Big
-Brother's speech, in such a way as to make him predict the
-thing that had actually happened. Or again, The Times of
-the nineteenth of December had published the official forecasts
-of the output of various classes of consumption goods in the
-fourth quarter of 1983, which was also the sixth quarter of the
-Ninth Three-Year Plan. Today's issue contained a statement of
-the actual output, from which it appeared that the forecasts
-were in every instance grossly wrong. Winston's job was to
-rectify the original figures by making them agree with the
-later ones. As for the third message, it referred to a very
-simple error which could be set right in a couple of minutes.
-As short a time ago as February, the Ministry of Plenty had
-issued a promise (a 'categorical pledge' were the official
-words) that there would be no reduction of the chocolate ration
-during 1984. Actually, as Winston was aware, the chocolate
-ration was to be reduced from thirty grammes to twenty at the
-end of the present week. All that was needed was to substitute
-for the original promise a warning that it would probably be
-necessary to reduce the ration at some time in April.</p>
-<p>
- As soon as Winston had dealt with each of the messages, he
-clipped his speakwritten corrections to the appropriate copy of
-The Times and pushed them into the pneumatic
-tube. Then, with a movement which was as nearly as possible
-unconscious, he crumpled up the original message and any notes
-that he himself had made, and dropped them into the memory hole
-to be devoured by the flames.</p>
-<p>
- What happened in the unseen labyrinth to which the
-pneumatic tubes led, he did not know in detail, but he did know
-in general terms. As soon as all the corrections which happened
-to be necessary in any particular number of The Times
-had been assembled and collated, that number would be
-reprinted, the original copy destroyed, and the corrected copy
-placed on the files in its stead. This process of continuous
-alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books,
-periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound-tracks,
-cartoons, photographs -- to every kind of literature or
-documentation which might conceivably hold any political or
-ideological significance. Day by day and almost minute by
-minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every
-prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary
-evidence to have been correct, nor was any item of news, or any
-expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the
-moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a
-palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as
-was necessary. In no case would it have been possible, once the
-deed was done, to prove that any falsification had taken place.
-The largest section of the Records Department, far larger than
-the one on which Winston worked, consisted simply of persons
-whose duty it was to track down and collect all copies of
-books, newspapers, and other documents which had been
-superseded and were due for destruction. A number of The
-Times which might, because of changes in political
-alignment, or mistaken prophecies uttered by Big Brother, have
-been rewritten a dozen times still stood on the files bearing
-its original date, and no other copy existed to contradict it.
-Books, also, were recalled and rewritten again and again, and
-were invariably reissued without any admission that any
-alteration had been made. Even the written instructions which
-Winston received, and which he invariably got rid of as soon as
-he had dealt with them, never stated or implied that an act of
-forgery was to be committed: always the reference was to slips,
-errors, misprints, or misquotations which it was necessary to
-put right in the interests of accuracy.</p>
-<p>
- But actually, he thought as he re-adjusted the Ministry of
-Plenty's figures, it was not even forgery. It was merely the
-substitution of one piece of nonsense for another. Most of the
-material that you were dealing with had no connexion with
-anything in the real world, not even the kind of connexion that
-is contained in a direct lie. Statistics were just as much a
-fantasy in their original version as in their rectified
-version. A great deal of the time you were expected to make
-them up out of your head. For example, the Ministry of Plenty's
-forecast had estimated the output of boots for the quarter at
-145 million pairs. The actual output was given as sixty-two
-millions. Winston, however, in rewriting the forecast, marked
-the figure down to fifty-seven millions, so as to allow for the
-usual claim that the quota had been overfulfilled. In any case,
-sixty-two millions was no nearer the truth than fifty-seven
-millions, or than 145 millions. Very likely no boots had been
-produced at all. Likelier still, nobody knew how many had been
-produced, much less cared. All one knew was that every quarter
-astronomical numbers of boots were produced on paper, while
-perhaps half the population of Oceania went barefoot. And so it
-was with every class of recorded fact, great or small.
-Everything faded away into a shadow-world in which, finally,
-even the date of the year had become uncertain.</p>
-<p>
- Winston glanced across the hall. In the corresponding
-cubicle on the other side a small, precise-looking, dark-
-chinned man named Tillotson was working steadily away, with a
-folded newspaper on his knee and his mouth very close to the
-mouthpiece of the speakwrite. He had the air of trying to keep
-what he was saying a secret between himself and the telescreen.
-He looked up, and his spectacles darted a hostile flash in
-Winston's direction.</p>
-<p>
- Winston hardly knew Tillotson, and had no idea what work
-he was employed on. People in the Records Department did not
-readily talk about their jobs. In the long, windowless hall,
-with its double row of cubicles and its endless rustle of
-papers and hum of voices murmuring into speakwrites, there were
-quite a dozen people whom Winston did not even know by name,
-though he daily saw them hurrying to and fro in the corridors
-or gesticulating in the Two Minutes Hate. He knew that in the
-cubicle next to him the little woman with sandy hair toiled day
-in day out, simply at tracking down and deleting from the Press
-the names of people who had been vaporized and were therefore
-considered never to have existed. There was a certain fitness
-in this, since her own husband had been vaporized a couple of
-years earlier. And a few cubicles away a mild, ineffectual,
-dreamy creature named Ampleforth, with very hairy ears and a
-surprising talent for juggling with rhymes and metres, was
-engaged in producing garbled versions -- definitive texts, they
-were called -- of poems which had become ideologically
-offensive, but which for one reason or another were to be
-retained in the anthologies. And this hall, with its fifty
-workers or thereabouts, was only one sub-section, a single
-cell, as it were, in the huge complexity of the Records
-Department. Beyond, above, below, were other swarms of workers
-engaged in an unimaginable multitude of jobs. There were the
-huge printing-shops with their sub-editors, their typography
-experts, and their elaborately equipped studios for the faking
-of photographs. There was the tele-programmes section with its
-engineers, its producers, and its teams of actors specially
-chosen for their skill in imitating voices. There were the
-armies of reference clerks whose job was simply to draw up
-lists of books and periodicals which were due for recall. There
-were the vast repositories where the corrected documents were
-stored, and the hidden furnaces where the original copies were
-destroyed. And somewhere or other, quite anonymous, there were
-the directing brains who co-ordinated the whole effort and laid
-down the lines of policy which made it necessary that this
-fragment of the past should be preserved, that one falsified,
-and the other rubbed out of existence.</p>
-<p>
- And the Records Department, after all, was itself only a
-single branch of the Ministry of Truth, whose primary job was
-not to reconstruct the past but to supply the citizens of
-Oceania with newspapers, films, textbooks, telescreen
-programmes, plays, novels -- with every conceivable kind of
-information, instruction, or entertainment, from a statue to a
-slogan, from a lyric poem to a biological treatise, and from a
-child's spelling-book to a Newspeak dictionary. And the
-Ministry had not only to supply the multifarious needs of the
-party, but also to repeat the whole operation at a lower level
-for the benefit of the proletariat. There was a whole chain of
-separate departments dealing with proletarian literature,
-
-music, drama, and entertainment generally. Here were produced
-rubbishy newspapers containing almost nothing except sport,
-crime and astrology, sensational five-cent novelettes, films
-oozing with sex, and sentimental songs which were composed
-entirely by mechanical means on a special kind of kaleidoscope
-known as a versificator. There was even a whole sub-section --
-Pornosec, it was called in Newspeak -- engaged in
-producing the lowest kind of pornography, which was sent out in
-sealed packets and which no Party member, other than those who
-worked on it, was permitted to look at.</p>
-<p>
- Three messages had slid out of the pneumatic tube while
-Winston was working, but they were simple matters, and he had
-disposed of them before the Two Minutes Hate interrupted him.
-When the Hate was over he returned to his cubicle, took the
-Newspeak dictionary from the shelf, pushed the speakwrite to
-one side, cleaned his spectacles, and settled down to his main
-job of the morning.</p>
-<p>
- Winston's greatest pleasure in life was in his work. Most
-of it was a tedious routine, but included in it there were also
-jobs so difficult and intricate that you could lose yourself in
-them as in the depths of a mathematical problem -- delicate
-pieces of forgery in which you had nothing to guide you except
-your knowledge of the principles of Ingsoc and your estimate of
-what the Party wanted you to say. Winston was good at this kind
-of thing. On occasion he had even been entrusted with the
-rectification of The Times leading articles, which were
-written entirely in Newspeak. He unrolled the message that he
-had set aside earlier. It ran:</p>
-<p>
-
- times 3.12.83 reporting bb dayorder doubleplusungood refs
-unpersons rewrite fullwise upsub antefiling</p>
-<p>
-
- In Oldspeak (or standard English) this might be rendered:
-The reporting of Big Brother's Order for the Day in The Times
-of December 3rd 1983 is extremely unsatisfactory and makes
-references to non-existent persons. Rewrite it in full and
-submit your draft to higher authority before filing.</p>
-<p>
- Winston read through the offending article. Big Brother's
-Order for the Day, it seemed, had been chiefly devoted to
-praising the work of an organization known as FFCC, which
-supplied cigarettes and other comforts to the sailors in the
-Floating Fortresses. A certain Comrade Withers, a prominent
-member of the Inner Party, had been singled out for special
-mention and awarded a decoration, the Order of Conspicuous
-Merit, Second Class.</p>
-<p>
- Three months later FFCC had suddenly been dissolved with
-no reasons given. One could assume that Withers and his
-associates were now in disgrace, but there had been no report
-of the matter in the Press or on the telescreen. That was to be
-expected, since it was unusual for political offenders to be
-put on trial or even publicly denounced. The great purges
-involving thousands of people, with public trials of traitors
-and thought-criminals who made abject confession of their
-crimes and were afterwards executed, were special show-pieces
-not occurring oftener than once in a couple of years. More
-commonly, people who had incurred the displeasure of the Party
-simply disappeared and were never heard of again. One never had
-the smallest clue as to what had happened to them. In some
-cases they might not even be dead. Perhaps thirty people
-personally known to Winston, not counting his parents, had
-disappeared at one time or another.</p>
-<p>
- Winston stroked his nose gently with a paper-clip. In the
-cubicle across the way Comrade Tillotson was still crouching
-secretively over his speakwrite. He raised his head for a
-moment: again the hostile spectacle-flash. Winston wondered
-whether Comrade Tillotson was engaged on the same job as
-himself. It was perfectly possible. So tricky a piece of work
-would never be entrusted to a single person: on the other hand,
-to turn it over to a committee would be to admit openly that an
-act of fabrication was taking place. Very likely as many as a
-dozen people were now working away on rival versions of what
-Big Brother had actually said. And presently some master brain
-in the Inner Party would select this version or that, would
-re-edit it and set in motion the complex processes of
-cross-referencing that would be required, and then the chosen
-lie would pass into the permanent records and become truth.</p>
-<p>
- Winston did not know why Withers had been disgraced.
-Perhaps it was for corruption or incompetence. Perhaps Big
-Brother was merely getting rid of a too-popular subordinate.
-Perhaps Withers or someone close to him had been suspected of
-heretical tendencies. Or perhaps -- what was likeliest of all
--- the thing had simply happened because purges and
-vaporizations were a necessary part of the mechanics of
-government. The only real clue lay in the words 'refs
-unpersons', which indicated that Withers was already dead. You
-could not invariably assume this to be the case when people
-were arrested. Sometimes they were released and allowed to
-remain at liberty for as much as a year or two years before
-being executed. Very occasionally some person whom you had
-believed dead long since would make a ghostly reappearance at
-some public trial where he would implicate hundreds of others
-by his testimony before vanishing, this time for ever. Withers,
-however, was already an unperson. He did not exist: he
-had never existed. Winston decided that it would not be enough
-simply to reverse the tendency of Big Brother's speech. It was
-better to make it deal with something totally unconnected with
-its original subject.</p>
-<p>
- He might turn the speech into the usual denunciation of
-traitors and thought-criminals, but that was a little too
-obvious, while to invent a victory at the front, or some
-triumph of over-production in the Ninth Three-Year Plan, might
-complicate the records too much. What was needed was a piece of
-pure fantasy. Suddenly there sprang into his mind, ready made
-as it were, the image of a certain Comrade Ogilvy, who had
-recently died in battle, in heroic circumstances. There were
-occasions when Big Brother devoted his Order for the Day to
-commemorating some humble, rank-and-file Party member whose life
-and death he held up as an example worthy to be followed. Today
-he should commemorate Comrade Ogilvy. It was true that there
-was no such person as Comrade Ogilvy, but a few lines of print
-and a couple of faked photographs would soon bring him into
-existence.</p>
-<p>
- Winston thought for a moment, then pulled the speakwrite
-towards him and began dictating in Big Brother's familiar
-style: a style at once military and pedantic, and, because of a
-trick of asking questions and then promptly answering them
-('What lessons do we learn from this fact, comrades? The
-lesson -- which is also one of the fundamental principles of
-Ingsoc -- that,' etc., etc.), easy to imitate.</p>
-<p>
- At the age of three Comrade Ogilvy had refused all toys
-except a drum, a sub-machine gun, and a model helicopter. At
-six -- a year early, by a special relaxation of the rules -- he
-had joined the Spies, at nine he had been a troop leader. At
-eleven he had denounced his uncle to the Thought Police after
-overhearing a conversation which appeared to him to have
-criminal tendencies. At seventeen he had been a district
-organizer of the Junior Anti-Sex League. At nine teen he had
-designed a hand-grenade which had been adopted by the Ministry
-of Peace and which, at its first trial, had killed thirty-one
-Eurasian prisoners in one burst. At twenty-three he had
-perished in action. Pursued by enemy jet planes while flying
-over the Indian Ocean with important despatches, he had
-weighted his body with his machine gun and leapt out of the
-helicopter into deep water, despatches and all -- an end, said
-Big Brother, which it was impossible to contemplate without
-feelings of envy. Big Brother added a few remarks on the purity
-and single-mindedness of Comrade Ogilvy's life. He was a total
-abstainer and a nonsmoker, had no recreations except a daily
-hour in the gymnasium, and had taken a vow of celibacy,
-believing marriage and the care of a family to be incompatible
-with a twenty-four-hour-a-day devotion to duty. He had no
-subjects of conversation except the principles of Ingsoc, and
-no aim in life except the defeat of the Eurasian enemy and the
-hunting-down of spies, saboteurs, thoughtcriminals, and
-traitors generally.</p>
-<p>
- Winston debated with himself whether to award Comrade
-Ogilvy the Order of Conspicuous Merit: in the end he decided
-against it because of the unnecessary cross-referencing that it
-would entail.</p>
-<p>
- Once again he glanced at his rival in the opposite
-cubicle. Something seemed to tell him with certainty that
-Tillotson was busy on the same job as himself. There was no way
-of knowing whose job would finally be adopted, but he felt a
-profound conviction that it would be his own. Comrade Ogilvy,
-unimagined an hour ago, was now a fact. It struck him as
-curious that you could create dead men but not living ones.
-Comrade Ogilvy, who had never existed in the present, now
-existed in the past, and when once the act of forgery was
-forgotten, he would exist just as authentically, and upon the
-same evidence, as Charlemagne or Julius Caesar.</p>
-<H1><a name="5">V</a></H1>
-<p class="no-indent">
- In the low-ceilinged canteen, deep underground, the lunch
-queue jerked slowly forward. The room was already very full and
-deafeningly noisy. From the grille at the counter the steam of
-stew came pouring forth, with a sour metallic smell which did
-not quite overcome the fumes of Victory Gin. On the far side of
-the room there was a small bar, a mere hole in the wall, where
-gin could be bought at ten cents the large nip.</p>
-<p>
- 'Just the man I was looking for,' said a voice at
-Winston's back.</p>
-<p>
- He turned round. It was his friend Syme, who worked in the
-Research Department. Perhaps 'friend' was not exactly the right
-word. You did not have friends nowadays, you had comrades: but
-there were some comrades whose society was pleasanter than that
-of others. Syme was a philologist, a specialist in Newspeak.
-Indeed, he was one of the enormous team of experts now engaged
-in compiling the Eleventh Edition of the Newspeak Dictionary.
-He was a tiny creature, smaller than Winston, with dark hair
-and large, protuberant eyes, at once mournful and derisive,
-which seemed to search your face closely while he was speaking
-to you.</p>
-<p>
- 'I wanted to ask you whether you'd got any razor blades,'
-he said.</p>
-<p>
- 'Not one!' said Winston with a sort of guilty haste. 'I've
-tried all over the place. They don't exist any longer.'</p>
-<p>
- Everyone kept asking you for razor blades. Actually he had
-two unused ones which he was hoarding up. There had been a
-famine of them for months past. At any given moment there was
-some necessary article which the Party shops were unable to
-supply. Sometimes it was buttons, sometimes it was darning
-wool, sometimes it was shoelaces; at present it was razor
-blades. You could only get hold of them, if at all, by
-scrounging more or less furtively on the 'free' market.</p>
-<p>
- 'I've been using the same blade for six weeks,' he added
-untruthfully.</p>
-<p>
- The queue gave another jerk forward. As they halted he
-turned and faced Syme again. Each of them took a greasy metal
-tray from a pile at the end of the counter.</p>
-<p>
- 'Did you go and see the prisoners hanged yesterday?' said
-Syme.</p>
-<p>
- 'I was working,' said Winston indifferently. 'I shall see
-it on the flicks, I suppose.'</p>
-<p>
- 'A very inadequate substitute,' said Syme.</p>
-<p>
- His mocking eyes roved over Winston's face. 'I know you,'
-the eyes seemed to say, 'I see through you. I know very well
-why you didn't go to see those prisoners hanged.' In an
-intellectual way, Syme was venomously orthodox. He would talk
-with a disagreeable gloating satisfaction of helicopter raids
-on enemy villages, and trials and confessions of
-thought-criminals, the executions in the cellars of the
-Ministry of Love. Talking to him was largely a matter of
-getting him away from such subjects and entangling him, if
-possible, in the technicalities of Newspeak, on which he was
-authoritative and interesting. Winston turned his head a little
-aside to avoid the scrutiny of the large dark eyes.</p>
-<p>
- 'It was a good hanging,' said Syme reminiscently. 'I think
-it spoils it when they tie their feet together. I like to see
-them kicking. And above all, at the end, the tongue sticking
-right out, and blue a quite bright blue. That's the detail that
-appeals to me.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Nex', please!' yelled the white-aproned prole with the
-ladle.</p>
-<p>
- Winston and Syme pushed their trays beneath the grille. On
-to each was dumped swiftly the regulation lunch -- a metal
-pannikin of pinkish-grey stew, a hunk of bread, a cube of
-cheese, a mug of milkless Victory Coffee, and one saccharine
-tablet.</p>
-<p>
- 'There's a table over there, under that telescreen,' said
-Syme. 'Let's pick up a gin on the way.'</p>
-<p>
- The gin was served out to them in handleless china mugs.
-They threaded their way across the crowded room and unpacked
-their trays on to the metal-topped table, on one corner of
-which someone had left a pool of stew, a filthy liquid mess
-that had the appearance of vomit. Winston took up his mug of
-gin, paused for an instant to collect his nerve, and gulped the
-oily-tasting stuff down. When he had winked the tears out of
-his eyes he suddenly discovered that he was hungry. He began
-swallowing spoonfuls of the stew, which, in among its general
-sloppiness, had cubes of spongy pinkish stuff which was
-probably a preparation of meat. Neither of them spoke again
-till they had emptied their pannikins. From the table at
-Winston's left, a little behind his back, someone was talking
-rapidly and continuously, a harsh gabble almost like the
-quacking of a duck, which pierced the general uproar of the
-room.</p>
-<p>
- 'How is the Dictionary getting on?' said Winston, raising
-his voice to overcome the noise.</p>
-<p>
- 'Slowly,' said Syme. 'I'm on the adjectives. It's
-fascinating.'</p>
-<p>
- He had brightened up immediately at the mention of
-Newspeak. He pushed his pannikin aside, took up his hunk of
-bread in one delicate hand and his cheese in the other, and
-leaned across the table so as to be able to speak without
-shouting.</p>
-<p>
- 'The Eleventh Edition is the definitive edition,' he said.
-'We're getting the language into its final shape -- the shape
-it's going to have when nobody speaks anything else. When we've
-finished with it, people like you will have to learn it all
-over again. You think, I dare say, that our chief job is
-inventing new words. But not a bit of it! We're destroying
-words -- scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We're
-cutting the language down to the bone. The Eleventh Edition
-won't contain a single word that will become obsolete before
-the year 2050.'</p>
-<p>
- He bit hungrily into his bread and swallowed a couple of
-mouthfuls, then continued speaking, with a sort of pedant's
-passion. His thin dark face had become animated, his eyes had
-lost their mocking expression and grown almost dreamy.</p>
-<p>
- 'It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of
-course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but
-there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It
-isn't only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms. After
-all, what justification is there for a word which is simply the
-opposite of some other word? A word contains its opposite in
-itself. Take "good", for instance. If you have a word like
-"good", what need is there for a word like "bad"? "Ungood" will
-do just as well -- better, because it's an exact opposite,
-which the other is not. Or again, if you want a stronger
-version of "good", what sense is there in having a whole string
-of vague useless words like "excellent" and "splendid" and all
-the rest of them? "Plusgood" covers the meaning, or "
-doubleplusgood" if you want something stronger still. Of course
-we use those forms already. but in the final version of
-Newspeak there'll be nothing else. In the end the whole notion
-of goodness and badness will be covered by only six words -- in
-reality, only one word. Don't you see the beauty of that,
-Winston? It was B.B.'s idea originally, of course,' he added as
-an afterthought.</p>
-<p>
- A sort of vapid eagerness flitted across Winston's face at
-the mention of Big Brother. Nevertheless Syme immediately
-detected a certain lack of enthusiasm.</p>
-<p>
- 'You haven't a real appreciation of Newspeak, Winston,' he
-said almost sadly. 'Even when you write it you're still
-thinking in Oldspeak. I've read some of those pieces that you
-write in The Times occasionally. They're good
-enough, but they're translations. In your heart you'd prefer to
-stick to Oldspeak, with all its vagueness and its useless
-shades of meaning. You don't grasp the beauty of the
-destruction of words. Do you know that Newspeak is the only
-language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every
-year?'</p>
-<p>
- Winston did know that, of course. He smiled,
-sympathetically he hoped, not trusting himself to speak. Syme
-bit off another fragment of the dark-coloured bread, chewed it
-briefly, and went on:</p>
-<p>
- 'Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow
-the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime
-literally impossible, because there will be no words in which
-to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed, will be
-expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly
-defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and
-forgotten. Already, in the Eleventh Edition, we're not far from
-that point. But the process will still be continuing long after
-you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the
-range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now, of
-course, there's no reason or excuse for committing
-thoughtcrime. It's merely a question of self-discipline,
-reality-control. But in the end there won't be any need even
-for that. The Revolution will be complete when the language is
-perfect. Newspeak is Ingsoc and Ingsoc is Newspeak,' he added
-with a sort of mystical satisfaction. 'Has it ever occurred to
-you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a
-single human being will be alive who could understand such a
-conversation as we are having now?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Except-' began Winston doubtfully, and he stopped.</p>
-<p>
- It had been on the tip of his tongue to say 'Except the
-proles,' but he checked himself, not feeling fully certain that
-this remark was not in some way unorthodox. Syme, however, had
-divined what he was about to say.</p>
-<p>
- 'The proles are not human beings,' he said carelessly. '
-By 2050 earlier, probably -- all real knowledge of Oldspeak
-will have disappeared. The whole literature of the past will
-have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron --
-they'll exist only in Newspeak versions, not merely changed
-into something different, but actually changed into something
-contradictory of what they used to be. Even the literature of
-the Party will change. Even the slogans will change. How could
-you have a slogan like "freedom is slavery" when the concept of
-freedom has been abolished? The whole climate of thought will
-be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we
-understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking -- not needing
-to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.'</p>
-<p>
- One of these days, thought Winston with sudden deep
-conviction, Syme will be vaporized. He is too intelligent. He
-sees too clearly and speaks too plainly. The Party does not
-like such people. One day he will disappear. It is written in
-his face.</p>
-<p>
- Winston had finished his bread and cheese. He turned a
-little sideways in his chair to drink his mug of coffee. At the
-table on his left the man with the strident voice was still
-talking remorselessly away. A young woman who was perhaps his
-secretary, and who was sitting with her back to Winston, was
-listening to him and seemed to be eagerly agreeing with
-everything that he said. From time to time Winston caught some
-such remark as 'I think you're so right, I do so
-agree with you', uttered in a youthful and rather silly
-feminine voice. But the other voice never stopped for an
-instant, even when the girl was speaking. Winston knew the man
-by sight, though he knew no more about him than that he held
-some important post in the Fiction Department. He was a man of
-about thirty, with a muscular throat and a large, mobile mouth.
-His head was thrown back a little, and because of the angle at
-which he was sitting, his spectacles caught the light and
-presented to Winston two blank discs instead of eyes. What was
-slightly horrible, was that from the stream of sound that
-poured out of his mouth it was almost impossible to distinguish
-a single word. Just once Winston caught a phrase-'complete and
-final elimination of Goldsteinism'- jerked out very rapidly
-and, as it seemed, all in one piece, like a line of type cast
-solid. For the rest it was just a noise, a quack-quack-quacking.
-And yet, though you could not actually hear what the man was
-saying, you could not be in any doubt about its general nature.
-He might be denouncing Goldstein and demanding sterner measures
-against thought-criminals and saboteurs, he might be
-fulminating against the atrocities of the Eurasian army, he
-might be praising Big Brother or the heroes on the Malabar
-front-it made no difference. Whatever it was, you could be
-certain that every word of it was pure orthodoxy, pure Ingsoc.
-As he watched the eyeless face with the jaw moving rapidly up
-and down, Winston had a curious feeling that this was not a
-real human being but some kind of dummy. It was not the man's
-brain that was speaking, it was his larynx. The stuff that was
-coming out of him consisted of words, but it was not speech in
-the true sense: it was a noise uttered in unconsciousness, like
-the quacking of a duck.</p>
-<p>
- Syme had fallen silent for a moment, and with the handle
-of his spoon was tracing patterns in the puddle of stew. The
-voice from the other table quacked rapidly on, easily audible
-in spite of the surrounding din.</p>
-<p>
- 'There is a word in Newspeak,' said Syme, 'I don't know
-whether you know it: duckspeak, to quack like a duck. It
-is one of those interesting words that have two contradictory
-meanings. Applied to an opponent, it is abuse, applied to
-someone you agree with, it is praise.'</p>
-<p>
- Unquestionably Syme will be vaporized, Winston thought
-again. He thought it with a kind of sadness, although well
-knowing that Syme despised him and slightly disliked him, and
-was fully capable of denouncing him as a thought-criminal if
-he saw any reason for doing so. There was something subtly
-wrong with Syme. There was something that he lacked:
-discretion, aloofness, a sort of saving stupidity. You could
-not say that he was unorthodox. He believed in the principles
-of Ingsoc, he venerated Big Brother, he rejoiced over
-victories, he hated heretics, not merely with sincerity but
-with a sort of restless zeal, an up-to-dateness of information,
-which the ordinary Party member did not approach. Yet a faint
-air of disreputability always clung to him. He said things that
-would have been better unsaid, he had read too many books, he
-frequented the Chestnut Tree Café, haunt of painters and
-musicians. There was no law, not even an unwritten law, against
-frequenting the Chestnut Tree Café, yet the place was somehow
-ill-omened. The old, discredited leaders of the Party had been
-used to gather there before they were finally purged. Goldstein
-himself, it was said, had sometimes been seen there, years and
-decades ago. Syme's fate was not difficult to foresee. And yet
-it was a fact that if Syme grasped, even for three seconds, the
-nature of his, Winston's, secret opinions, he would betray him
-instantly to the Thought police. So would anybody else, for
-that matter: but Syme more than most. Zeal was not enough.
-Orthodoxy was unconsciousness.</p>
-<p>
- Syme looked up. 'Here comes Parsons,' he said.</p>
-<p>
- Something in the tone of his voice seemed to add, 'that
-bloody fool'. Parsons, Winston's fellow-tenant at Victory
-Mansions, was in fact threading his way across the room -- a
-tubby, middle-sized man with fair hair and a froglike face. At
-thirty-five he was already putting on rolls of fat at neck and
-waistline, but his movements were brisk and boyish. His whole
-appearance was that of a little boy grown large, so much so
-that although he was wearing the regulation overalls, it was
-almost impossible not to think of him as being dressed in the
-blue shorts, grey shirt, and red neckerchief of the Spies. In
-visualizing him one saw always a picture of dimpled knees and
-sleeves rolled back from pudgy forearms. Parsons did, indeed,
-invariably revert to shorts when a community hike or any other
-physical activity gave him an excuse for doing so. He greeted
-them both with a cheery 'Hullo, hullo!' and sat down at the
-table, giving off an intense smell of sweat. Beads of moisture
-stood out all over his pink face. His powers of sweating were
-extraordinary. At the Community Centre you could always tell
-when he had been playing table-tennis by the dampness of the
-bat handle. Syme had produced a strip of paper on which there
-was a long column of words, and was studying it with an
-ink-pencil between his fingers.</p>
-<p>
- 'Look at him working away in the lunch hour,' said
-Parsons, nudging Winston. 'Keenness, eh? What's that you've got
-there, old boy? Something a bit too brainy for me, I expect.
-Smith, old boy, I'll tell you why I'm chasing you. It's that
-sub you forgot to give me.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Which sub is that? said Winston, automatically feeling
-for money. About a quarter of one's salary had to be earmarked
-for voluntary subscriptions, which were so numerous that it was
-difficult to keep track of them.</p>
-<p>
- 'For Hate Week. You know -- the house-by-house fund. I'm
-treasurer for our block. We're making an all-out effort --
-going to put on a tremendous show. I tell you, it won't be my
-fault if old Victory Mansions doesn't have the biggest outfit
-of flags in the whole street. Two dollars you promised me.'</p>
-<p>
- Winston found and handed over two creased and filthy
-notes, which Parsons entered in a small notebook, in the neat
-handwriting of the illiterate.</p>
-<p>
- 'By the way, old boy,' he said. 'I hear that little beggar
-of mine let fly at you with his catapult yesterday. I gave him
-a good dressing-down for it. In fact I told him I'd take the
-catapult away if he does it again.</p>
-<p>
- 'I think he was a little upset at not going to the
-execution,' said Winston.</p>
-<p>
- ' Ah, well -- what I mean to say, shows the right spirit,
-doesn't it? Mischievous little beggars they are, both of them,
-but talk about keenness! All they think about is the Spies, and
-the war, of course. D'you know what that little girl of mine
-did last Saturday, when her troop was on a hike out Berkhamsted
-way? She got two other girls to go with her, slipped off from
-the hike, and spent the whole afternoon following a strange
-man. They kept on his tail for two hours, right through the
-woods, and then, when they got into Amersham, handed him over
-to the patrols.'</p>
-<p>
- 'What did they do that for?' said Winston, somewhat taken
-aback. Parsons went on triumphantly:</p>
-<p>
- 'My kid made sure he was some kind of enemy agent -- might
-have been dropped by parachute, for instance. But here's the
-point, old boy. What do you think put her on to him in the
-first place? She spotted he was wearing a funny kind of shoes
--- said she'd never seen anyone wearing shoes like that before.
-So the chances were he was a foreigner. Pretty smart for a
-nipper of seven, eh?'</p>
-<p>
- 'What happened to the man?' said Winston.</p>
-<p>
- 'Ah, that I couldn't say, of course. But I wouldn't be
-altogether surprised if-' Parsons made the motion of aiming a
-rifle, and clicked his tongue for the explosion.</p>
-<p>
- 'Good,' said Syme abstractedly, without looking up from
-his strip of paper.</p>
-<p>
- 'Of course we can't afford to take chances,' agreed
-Winston dutifully.</p>
-<p>
- 'What I mean to say, there is a war on,' said Parsons.</p>
-<p>
- As though in confirmation of this, a trumpet call floated
-from the telescreen just above their heads. However, it was not
-the proclamation of a military victory this time, but merely an
-announcement from the Ministry of Plenty.</p>
-<p>
- 'Comrades!' cried an eager youthful voice. 'Attention,
-comrades! We have glorious news for you. We have won the battle
-for production! Returns now completed of the output of all
-classes of consumption goods show that the standard of living
-has risen by no less than 20 per cent over the past year. All
-over Oceania this morning there were irrepressible spontaneous
-demonstrations when workers marched out of factories and
-offices and paraded through the streets with banners voicing
-their gratitude to Big Brother for the new, happy life which
-his wise leadership has bestowed upon us. Here are some of the
-completed figures. Foodstuffs-'</p>
-<p>
- The phrase 'our new, happy life' recurred several times.
-It had been a favourite of late with the Ministry of Plenty.
-Parsons, his attention caught by the trumpet call, sat
-listening with a sort of gaping solemnity, a sort of edified
-boredom. He could not follow the figures, but he was aware that
-they were in some way a cause for satisfaction. He had lugged
-out a huge and filthy pipe which was already half full of
-charred tobacco. With the tobacco ration at 100 grammes a week
-it was seldom possible to fill a pipe to the top. Winston was
-smoking a Victory Cigarette which he held carefully horizontal.
-The new ration did not start till tomorrow and he had only four
-cigarettes left. For the moment he had shut his ears to the
-remoter noises and was listening to the stuff that streamed out
-of the telescreen. It appeared that there had even been
-demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate
-ration to twenty grammes a week. And only yesterday, he
-reflected, it had been announced that the ration was to be
-reduced to twenty grammes a week. Was it possible that
-they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes,
-they swallowed it. Parsons swallowed it easily, with the
-stupidity of an animal. The eyeless creature at the other table
-swallowed it fanatically, passionately, with a furious desire
-to track down, denounce, and vaporize anyone who should suggest
-that last week the ration had been thirty grammes. Syme, too-in
-some more complex way, involving doublethink, Syme swallowed
-it. Was he, then, alone in the possession of a memory?</p>
-<p>
- The fabulous statistics continued to pour out of the
-telescreen. As compared with last year there was more food,
-more clothes, more houses, more furniture, more cooking-pots,
-more fuel, more ships, more helicopters, more books, more
-babies -- more of everything except disease, crime, and
-insanity. Year by year and minute by minute, everybody and
-everything was whizzing rapidly upwards. As Syme had done
-earlier Winston had taken up his spoon and was dabbling in the
-pale-coloured gravy that dribbled across the table, drawing a
-long streak of it out into a pattern. He meditated resentfully
-on the physical texture of life. Had it always been like this?
-Had food always tasted like this? He looked round the canteen.
-A low-ceilinged, crowded room, its walls grimy from the contact
-of innumerable bodies; battered metal tables and chairs, placed
-so close together that you sat with elbows touching; bent
-spoons, dented trays, coarse white mugs; all surfaces greasy,
-grime in every crack; and a sourish, composite smell of bad gin
-and bad coffee and metallic stew and dirty clothes. Always in
-your stomach and in your skin there was a sort of protest, a
-feeling that you had been cheated of something that you had a
-right to. It was true that he had no memories of anything
-greatly different. In any time that he could accurately
-remember, there had never been quite enough to eat, one had
-never had socks or underclothes that were not full of holes,
-furniture had always been battered and rickety, rooms
-underheated, tube trains crowded, houses falling to pieces,
-bread dark-coloured, tea a rarity, coffee filthy-tasting,
-cigarettes insufficient -- nothing cheap and plentiful except
-synthetic gin. And though, of course, it grew worse as one's
-body aged, was it not a sign that this was not the
-natural order of things, if one's heart sickened at the
-discomfort and dirt and scarcity, the interminable winters, the
-stickiness of one's socks, the lifts that never worked, the
-cold water, the gritty soap, the cigarettes that came to
-pieces, the food with its strange evil tastes? Why should one
-feel it to be intolerable unless one had some kind of ancestral
-memory that things had once been different?</p>
-<p>
- He looked round the canteen again. Nearly everyone was
-ugly, and would still have been ugly even if dressed otherwise
-than in the uniform blue overalls. On the far side of the room,
-sitting at a table alone, a small, curiously beetle-like man
-was drinking a cup of coffee, his little eyes darting
-suspicious glances from side to side. How easy it was, thought
-Winston, if you did not look about you, to believe that the
-physical type set up by the Party as an ideal-tall muscular
-youths and deep-bosomed maidens, blond-haired, vital, sunburnt,
-carefree -- existed and even predominated. Actually, so far as
-he could judge, the majority of people in Airstrip One were
-small, dark, and ill-favoured. It was curious how that
-beetle-like type proliferated in the Ministries: little dumpy
-men, growing stout very early in life, with short legs, swift
-scuttling movements, and fat inscrutable faces with very small
-eyes. It was the type that seemed to flourish best under the
-dominion of the Party.</p>
-<p>
- The announcement from the Ministry of Plenty ended on
-another trumpet call and gave way to tinny music. Parsons,
-stirred to vague enthusiasm by the bombardment of figures, took
-his pipe out of his mouth.</p>
-<p>
- 'The Ministry of Plenty's certainly done a good job this
-year,' he said with a knowing shake of his head. 'By the way,
-Smith old boy, I suppose you haven't got any razor blades you
-can let me have?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Not one,' said Winston. 'I've been using the same blade
-for six weeks myself.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Ah, well -- just thought I'd ask you, old boy.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Sorry,' said Winston.</p>
-<p>
- The quacking voice from the next table, temporarily
-silenced during the Ministry's announcement, had started up
-again, as loud as ever. For some reason Winston suddenly found
-himself thinking of Mrs Parsons, with her wispy hair and the
-dust in the creases of her face. Within two years those
-children would be denouncing her to the Thought Police. Mrs
-Parsons would be vaporized. Syme would be vaporized. Winston
-would be vaporized. O'Brien would be vaporized. Parsons, on the
-other hand, would never be vaporized. The eyeless creature with
-the quacking voice would never be vaporized. The little
-beetle-like men who scuttle so nimbly through the labyrinthine
-corridors of Ministries they, too, would never be vaporized.
-And the girl with dark hair, the girl from the Fiction
-Department -- she would never be vaporized either. It seemed to
-him that he knew instinctively who would survive and who would
-perish: though just what it was that made for survival, it was
-not easy to say.</p>
-<p>
- At this moment he was dragged out of his reverie with a
-violent jerk. The girl at the next table had turned partly
-round and was looking at him. It was the girl with dark hair.
-She was looking at him in a sidelong way, but with curious
-intensity. The instant she caught his eye she looked away
-again.</p>
-<p>
- The sweat started out on Winston's backbone. A horrible
-pang of terror went through him. It was gone almost at once,
-but it left a sort of nagging uneasiness behind. Why was she
-watching him? Why did she keep following him about?
-Unfortunately he could not remember whether she had already
-been at the table when he arrived, or had come there
-afterwards. But yesterday, at any rate, during the Two Minutes
-Hate, she had sat immediately behind him when there was no
-apparent need to do so. Quite likely her real object had been
-to listen to him and make sure whether he was shouting loudly
-enough.</p>
-<p>
- His earlier thought returned to him: probably she was not
-actually a member of the Thought Police, but then it was
-precisely the amateur spy who was the greatest danger of all.
-He did not know how long she had been looking at him, but
-perhaps for as much as five minutes, and it was possible that
-his features had not been perfectly under control. It was
-terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in
-any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest
-thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look
-of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself -- anything that
-carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having
-something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression
-on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced,
-for example) was itself a punishable offence. There was even a
-word for it in Newspeak: facecrime, it was called.</p>
-<p>
- The girl had turned her back on him again. Perhaps after
-all she was not really following him about, perhaps it was
-coincidence that she had sat so close to him two days running.
-His cigarette had gone out, and he laid it carefully on the
-edge of the table. He would finish smoking it after work, if he
-could keep the tobacco in it. Quite likely the person at the
-next table was a spy of the Thought Police, and quite likely he
-would be in the cellars of the Ministry of Love within three
-days, but a cigarette end must not be wasted. Syme had folded
-up his strip of paper and stowed it away in his pocket. Parsons
-had begun talking again.</p>
-<p>
- 'Did I ever tell you, old boy,' he said, chuckling round
-the stem of his pipe, 'about the time when those two nippers of
-mine set fire to the old market-woman's skirt because they saw
-her wrapping up sausages in a poster of B.B.? Sneaked up behind
-her and set fire to it with a box of matches. Burned her quite
-badly, I believe. Little beggars, eh? But keen as mustard!
-That's a first-rate training they give them in the Spies
-nowadays -- better than in my day, even. What d'you think's the
-latest thing they've served them out with? Ear trumpets for
-listening through keyholes! My little girl brought one home
-the other night -- tried it out on our sitting-room door, and
-reckoned she could hear twice as much as with her ear to the
-hole. Of course it's only a toy, mind you. Still, gives 'em the
-right idea, eh?'</p>
-<p>
- At this moment the telescreen let out a piercing whistle.
-It was the signal to return to work. All three men sprang to
-their feet to join in the struggle round the lifts, and the
-remaining tobacco fell out of Winston's cigarette.</p>
-<h1><a name="6">VI</a></h1>
-<p class="no-indent">
- Winston was writing in his diary:</p>
-<p>
- It was three years ago. It was on a dark evening, in a
-narrow side-street near one of the big railway stations. She
-was standing near a doorway in the wall, under a street lamp
-that hardly gave any light. She had a young face, painted very
-thick. It was really the paint that appealed to me, the
-whiteness of it, like a mask, and the bright red lips. Party
-women never paint their faces. There was nobody else in the
-street, and no telescreens. She said two dollars. I</p>
-<p>
- For the moment it was too difficult to go on. He shut his
-eyes and pressed his fingers against them, trying to squeeze
-out the vision that kept recurring. He had an almost
-overwhelming temptation to shout a string of filthy words at
-the top of his voice. Or to bang his head against the wall, to
-kick over the table, and hurl the inkpot through the window --
-to do any violent or noisy or painful thing that might black
-out the memory that was tormenting him.</p>
-<p>
- Your worst enemy, he reflected, was your own nervous
-system. At any moment the tension inside you was liable to
-translate itself into some visible symptom. He thought of a man
-whom he had passed in the street a few weeks back; a quite
-ordinary-looking man, a Party member, aged thirty-five to
-forty, tallish and thin, carrying a brief-case. They were a few
-metres apart when the left side of the man's face was suddenly
-contorted by a sort of spasm. It happened again just as they
-were passing one another: it was only a twitch, a quiver, rapid
-as the clicking of a camera shutter, but obviously habitual. He
-remembered thinking at the time: That poor devil is done for.
-And what was frightening was that the action was quite possibly
-unconscious. The most deadly danger of all was talking in your
-sleep. There was no way of guarding against that, so far as he
-could see.</p>
-<p>
- He drew his breath and went on writing:</p>
-<p>
- I went with her through the doorway and across a
-backyard into a basement kitchen. There was a bed against the
-wall, and a lamp on the table, turned down very low. She</p>
-<p>
- His teeth were set on edge. He would have liked to spit.
-Simultaneously with the woman in the basement kitchen he
-thought of Katharine, his wife. Winston was married -- had been
-married, at any rate: probably he still was married, so far as
-he knew his wife was not dead. He seemed to breathe again the
-warm stuffy odour of the basement kitchen, an odour compounded
-of bugs and dirty clothes and villainous cheap scent, but
-nevertheless alluring, because no woman of the Party ever used
-scent, or could be imagined as doing so. Only the proles used
-scent. In his mind the smell of it was inextricably mixed up
-with fornication.</p>
-<p>
- When he had gone with that woman it had been his first
-lapse in two years or thereabouts. Consorting with prostitutes
-was forbidden, of course, but it was one of those rules that
-you could occasionally nerve yourself to break. It was
-dangerous, but it was not a life-and-death matter. To be caught
-with a prostitute might mean five years in a forced-labour
-camp: not more, if you had committed no other offence. And it
-was easy enough, provided that you could avoid being caught in
-the act. The poorer quarters swarmed with women who were ready
-to sell themselves. Some could even be purchased for a bottle
-of gin, which the proles were not supposed to drink. Tacitly
-the Party was even inclined to encourage prostitution, as an
-outlet for instincts which could not be altogether suppressed.
-Mere debauchery did not matter very much, so long as it was
-furtive and joyless and only involved the women of a submerged
-and despised class. The unforgivable crime was promiscuity
-between Party members. But -- though this was one of the crimes
-that the accused in the great purges invariably confessed to --
-it was difficult to imagine any such thing actually happening.</p>
-<p>
- The aim of the Party was not merely to prevent men and
-women from forming loyalties which it might not be able to
-control. Its real, undeclared purpose was to remove all
-pleasure from the sexual act. Not love so much as eroticism was
-the enemy, inside marriage as well as outside it. All marriages
-between Party members had to be approved by a committee
-appointed for the purpose, and -- though the principle was
-never clearly stated -- permission was always refused if the
-couple concerned gave the impression of being physically
-attracted to one another. The only recognized purpose of
-marriage was to beget children for the service of the Party.
-Sexual intercourse was to be looked on as a slightly disgusting
-minor operation, like having an enema. This again was never put
-into plain words, but in an indirect way it was rubbed into
-every Party member from childhood onwards. There were even
-organizations such as the Junior Anti-Sex League, which
-advocated complete celibacy for both sexes. All children were
-to be begotten by artificial insemination (artsem, it
-was called in Newspeak) and brought up in public institutions.
-This, Winston was aware, was not meant altogether seriously,
-but somehow it fitted in with the general ideology of the
-Party. The Party was trying to kill the sex instinct, or, if it
-could not be killed, then to distort it and dirty it. He did
-not know why this was so, but it seemed natural that it should
-be so. And as far as the women were concerned, the Party's
-efforts were largely successful.</p>
-<p>
- He thought again of Katharine. It must be nine, ten --
-nearly eleven years since they had parted. It was curious how
-seldom he thought of her. For days at a time he was capable of
-forgetting that he had ever been married. They had only been
-together for about fifteen months. The Party did not permit
-divorce, but it rather encouraged separation in cases where
-there were no children.</p>
-<p>
- Katharine was a tall, fair-haired girl, very straight,
-with splendid movements. She had a bold, aquiline face, a face
-that one might have called noble until one discovered that
-there was as nearly as possible nothing behind it. Very early
-in her married life he had decided -- though perhaps it was
-only that he knew her more intimately than he knew most people
--- that she had without exception the most stupid, vulgar,
-empty mind that he had ever encountered. She had not a thought
-in her head that was not a slogan, and there was no imbecility,
-absolutely none that she was not capable of swallowing if the
-Party handed it out to her. 'The human sound-track' he
-nicknamed her in his own mind. Yet he could have endured living
-with her if it had not been for just one thing -- sex.</p>
-<p>
- As soon as he touched her she seemed to wince and stiffen.
-To embrace her was like embracing a jointed wooden image. And
-what was strange was that even when she was clasping him
-against her he had the feeling that she was simultaneously
-pushing him away with all her strength. The rigidlty of her
-muscles managed to convey that impression. She would lie there
-with shut eyes, neither resisting nor co-operating but
-submitting. It was extraordinarily embarrassing, and,
-after a while, horrible. But even then he could have borne
-living with her if it had been agreed that they should remain
-celibate. But curiously enough it was Katharine who refused
-this. They must, she said, produce a child if they could. So
-the performance continued to happen, once a week quite
-regulariy, whenever it was not impossible. She even used to
-remind him of it in the morning, as something which had to be
-done that evening and which must not be forgotten. She had two
-names for it. One was 'making a baby', and the other was 'our
-duty to the Party' (yes, she had actually used that phrase).
-Quite soon he grew to have a feeling of positive dread when the
-appointed day came round. But luckily no child appeared, and in
-the end she agreed to give up trying, and soon afterwards they
-parted.</p>
-<p>
- Winston sighed inaudibly. He picked up his pen again and
-wrote:</p>
-<p>
- She threw herself down on the bed, and at once, without
-any kind of preliminary in the most coarse, horrible way you
-can imagine, pulled up her skirt. I</p>
-<p>
- He saw himself standing there in the dim lamplight, with
-the smell of bugs and cheap scent in his nostrils, and in his
-heart a feeling of defeat and resentment which even at that
-moment was mixed up with the thought of Katharine's white body,
-frozen for ever by the hypnotic power of the Party. Why did it
-always have to be like this? Why could he not have a woman of
-his own instead of these filthy scuffles at intervals of years?
-But a real love affair was an almost unthinkable event. The
-women of the Party were all alike. Chastity was as deep
-ingrained in them as Party loyalty. By careful early
-conditioning, by games and cold water, by the rubbish that was
-dinned into them at school and in the Spies and the Youth
-League, by lectures, parades, songs, slogans, and martial
-music, the natural feeling had been driven out of them. His
-reason told him that there must be exceptions, but his heart
-did not believe it. They were all impregnable, as the Party
-intended that they should be. And what he wanted, more even
-than to be loved, was to break down that wall of virtue, even
-if it were only once in his whole life. The sexual act,
-successfully performed, was rebellion. Desire was thoughtcrime.
-Even to have awakened Katharine, if he could have achieved it,
-would have been like a seduction, although she was his wife.</p>
-<p>
- But the rest of the story had got to be written down. He
-wrote:</p>
-<p>
- I turned up the lamp. When I saw her in the light</p>
-<p>
- After the darkness the feeble light of the paraffin lamp
-had seemed very bright. For the first time he could see the
-woman properly. He had taken a step towards her and then
-halted, full of lust and terror. He was painfully conscious of
-the risk he had taken in coming here. It was perfectly possible
-that the patrols would catch him on the way out: for that
-matter they might be waiting outside the door at this moment.
-If he went away without even doing what he had come here to do
--- !</p>
-<p>
- It had got to be written down, it had got to be confessed.
-What he had suddenly seen in the lamplight was that the woman
-was old. The paint was plastered so thick on her face
-that it looked as though it might crack like a cardboard mask.
-There were streaks of white in her hair; but the truly dreadful
-detail was that her mouth had fallen a little open, revealing
-nothing except a cavernous blackness. She had no teeth at all.</p>
-<p>
- He wrote hurriedly, in scrabbling handwriting:</p>
-<p>
- When I saw her in the light she was quite an old woman,
-fifty years old at least. But I went ahead and did it just the
-same.</p>
-<p>
- He pressed his fingers against his eyelids again. He had
-written it down at last, but it made no difference. The therapy
-had not worked. The urge to shout filthy words at the top of
-his voice was as strong as ever.</p>
-<h1><a name="7">VII</a></h1>
-<p class="no-indent">
- If there is hope, wrote Winston, it lies in the
-proles.</p>
-<p>
- If there was hope, it must lie in the proles,
-because only there in those swarming disregarded masses, 85 per
-cent of the population of Oceania, could the force to destroy
-the Party ever be generated. The Party could not be overthrown
-from within. Its enemies, if it had any enemies, had no way of
-coming together or even of identifying one another. Even if the
-legendary Brotherhood existed, as just possibly it might, it
-was inconceivable that its members could ever assemble in
-larger numbers than twos and threes. Rebellion meant a look in
-the eyes, an inflexion of the voice, at the most, an occasional
-whispered word. But the proles, if only they could somehow
-become conscious of their own strength. would have no need to
-conspire. They needed only to rise up and shake themselves like
-a horse shaking off flies. If they chose they could blow the
-Party to pieces tomorrow morning. Surely sooner or later it
-must occur to them to do it? And yet-!</p>
-<p>
- He remembered how once he had been walking down a crowded
-street when a tremendous shout of hundreds of voices women's
-voices -- had burst from a side-street a little way ahead. It
-was a great formidable cry of anger and despair, a deep, loud
-'Oh-o-o-o-oh!' that went humming on like the reverberation of a
-bell. His heart had leapt. It's started! he had thought. A
-riot! The proles are breaking loose at last! When he had
-reached the spot it was to see a mob of two or three hundred
-women crowding round the stalls of a street market, with faces
-as tragic as though they had been the doomed passengers on a
-sinking ship. But at this moment the general despair broke down
-into a multitude of individual quarrels. It appeared that one
-of the stalls had been selling tin saucepans. They were
-wretched, flimsy things, but cooking-pots of any kind were
-always difficult to get. Now the supply had unexpectedly given
-out. The successful women, bumped and jostled by the rest, were
-trying to make off with their saucepans while dozens of others
-clamoured round the stall, accusing the stall-keeper of
-favouritism and of having more saucepans somewhere in reserve.
-There was a fresh outburst of yells. Two bloated women, one of
-them with her hair coming down, had got hold of the same
-saucepan and were trying to tear it out of one another's hands.
-For a moment they were both tugging, and then the handle came
-off. Winston watched them disgustedly. And yet, just for a
-moment, what almost frightening power had sounded in that cry
-from only a few hundred throats! Why was it that they could
-never shout like that about anything that mattered?</p>
-<p>
- He wrote:</p>
-<p>
- Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and
-until after they have rebelled they cannot become
-conscious.</p>
-<p>
- That, he reflected, might almost have been a transcription
-from one of the Party textbooks. The Party claimed, of course,
-to have liberated the proles from bondage. Before the
-Revolution they had been hideously oppressed by the
-capitalists, they had been starved and flogged, women had been
-forced to work in the coal mines (women still did work in the
-coal mines, as a matter of fact), children had been sold into
-the factories at the age of six. But simultaneously, true to
-the Principles of doublethink, the Party taught that the proles
-were natural inferiors who must be kept in subjection, like
-animals, by the application of a few simple rules. In reality
-very little was known about the proles. It was not necessary to
-know much. So long as they continued to work and breed, their
-other activities were without importance. Left to themselves,
-like cattle turned loose upon the plains of Argentina, they had
-reverted to a style of life that appeared to be natural to
-them, a sort of ancestral pattern. They were born, they grew up
-in the gutters, they went to work at twelve, they passed
-through a brief blossoming-period of beauty and sexual desire,
-they married at twenty, they were middle-aged at thirty, they
-died, for the most part, at sixty. Heavy physical work, the
-care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbours,
-films, football, beer, and above all, gambling, filled up the
-horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not
-difficult. A few agents of the Thought Police moved always
-among them, spreading false rumours and marking down and
-eliminating the few individuals who were judged capable of
-becoming dangerous; but no attempt was made to indoctrinate
-them with the ideology of the Party. It was not desirable that
-the proles should have strong political feelings. All that was
-required of them was a primitive patriotism which could be
-appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept
-longer working-hours or shorter rations. And even when they
-became discontented, as they sometimes did, their discontent
-led nowhere, because being without general ideas, they could
-only focus it on petty specific grievances. The larger evils
-invariably escaped their notice. The great majority of proles
-did not even have telescreens in their homes. Even the civil
-police interfered with them very little. There was a vast
-amount of criminality in London, a whole world-within-a-world
-of thieves, bandits, prostitutes, drug-peddlers, and racketeers
-of every description; but since it all happened among the
-proles themselves, it was of no importance. In all questions of
-morals they were allowed to follow their ancestral code. The
-sexual puritanism of the Party was not imposed upon them.
-Promiscuity went unpunished, divorce was permitted. For that
-matter, even religious worship would have been permitted if the
-proles had shown any sign of needing or wanting it. They were
-beneath suspicion. As the Party slogan put it: 'Proles and
-animals are free.'</p>
-<p>
- Winston reached down and cautiously scratched his varicose
-ulcer. It had begun itching again. The thing you invariably
-came back to was the impossibility of knowing what life before
-the Revolution had really been like. He took out of the drawer
-a copy of a children's history textbook which he had borrowed
-from Mrs Parsons, and began copying a passage into the diary:</p>
-<p>
- In the old days (it ran), before the glorious
-Revolution, London was not the beautiful city that we know
-today. It was a dark, dirty, miserable place where hardly
-anybody had enough to eat and where hundreds and thousands of
-poor people had no boots on their feet and not even a roof to
-sleep under. Children no older than you had to work twelve
-hours a day for cruel masters who flogged them with whips if
-they worked too slowly and fed them on nothing but stale
-breadcrusts and water.</p>
-<p>
- But in among all this terrible poverty there were just
-a few great big beautiful houses that were lived in by rich men
-who had as many as thirty servants to look after them. These
-rich men were called capitalists. They were fat, ugly men with
-wicked faces, like the one in the picture on the opposite page.
-You can see that he is dressed in a long black coat which was
-called a frock coat, and a queer, shiny hat shaped like a
-stovepipe, which was called a top hat. This was the uniform of
-the capitalists, and no one else was allowed to wear it.
-The capitalists owned everything in the world, and everyone
-else was their slave. They owned all the land, all the houses,
-all the factories, and all the money. If anyone disobeyed them
-they could throw them into prison, or they could take his job
-away and starve him to death. When any ordinary person spoke to
-a capitalist he had to cringe and bow to him, and take off his
-cap and address him as 'Sir'. The chief of all the capitalists
-was called the King. and</p>
-<p>
- But he knew the rest of the catalogue. There would be
-mention of the bishops in their lawn sleeves, the judges in
-their ermine robes, the pillory, the stocks, the treadmill, the
-cat-o'-nine tails, the Lord Mayor's Banquet, and the practice
-of kissing the Pope's toe. There was also something called the
-jus primae noctis, which would probably not be mentioned
-in a textbook for children. It was the law by which every
-capitalist had the right to sleep with any woman working in one
-of his factories.</p>
-<p>
- How could you tell how much of it was lies? It
-might be true that the average human being was better
-off now than he had been before the Revolution. The only
-evidence to the contrary was the mute protest in your own
-bones, the instinctive feeling that the conditions you lived in
-were intolerable and that at some other time they must have
-been different. It struck him that the truly characteristic
-thing about modern life was not its cruelty and insecurity, but
-simply its bareness, its dinginess, its listlessness. Life, if
-you looked about you, bore no resemblance not only to the lies
-that streamed out of the telescreens, but even to the ideals
-that the Party was trying to achieve. Great areas of it, even
-for a Party member, were neutral and non-political, a matter of
-slogging through dreary jobs, fighting for a place on the Tube,
-darning a worn-out sock, cadging a saccharine tablet, saving a
-cigarette end. The ideal set up by the Party was something
-huge, terrible, and glittering -- a world of steel and
-concrete, of monstrous machines and terrifying weapons -- a
-nation of warriors and fanatics, marching forward in perfect
-unity, all thinking the same thoughts and shouting the same
-slogans, perpetually working, fighting, triumphing, persecuting
--- three hundred million people all with the same face. The
-reality was decaying, dingy cities where underfed people
-shuffled to and fro in leaky shoes, in patched-up
-nineteenth-century houses that smelt always of cabbage and bad
-lavatories. He seemed to see a vision of London, vast and
-ruinous, city of a million dustbins, and mixed up with it was a
-picture of Mrs Parsons, a woman with lined face and wispy hair,
-fiddling helplessly with a blocked waste-pipe.</p>
-<p>
- He reached down and scratched his ankle again. Day and
-night the telescreens bruised your ears with statistics proving
-that people today had more food, more clothes, better houses,
-better recreations -- that they lived longer, worked shorter
-hours, were bigger, healthier, stronger, happier, more
-intelligent, better educated, than the people of fifty years
-ago. Not a word of it could ever be proved or disproved. The
-Party claimed, for example, that today 40 per cent of adult
-proles were literate: before the Revolution, it was said, the
-number had only been 15 per cent. The Party claimed that the
-infant mortality rate was now only 160 per thousand, whereas
-before the Revolution it had been 300 -- and so it went on. It
-was like a single equation with two unknowns. It might very
-well be that literally every word in the history books, even
-the things that one accepted without question, was pure
-fantasy. For all he knew there might never have been any such
-law as the jus primae noctis, or any such creature as a
-capitalist, or any such garment as a top hat.</p>
-<p>
- Everything faded into mist. The past was erased, the
-erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth. Just once in his
-life he had possessed -- after the event: that was what
-counted -- concrete, unmistakable evidence of an act of
-falsification. He had held it between his fingers for as long
-as thirty seconds. In 1973, it must have been -- at any rate,
-
-
-it was at about the time when he and Katharine had parted. But
-the really relevant date was seven or eight years earlier.</p>
-<p>
- The story really began in the middle sixties, the period
-of the great purges in which the original leaders of the
-Revolution were wiped out once and for all. By 1970 none of
-them was left, except Big Brother himself. All the rest had by
-that time been exposed as traitors and counter-
-revolutionaries. Goldstein had fled and was hiding no one knew
-where, and of the others, a few had simply disappeared, while
-the majority had been executed after spectacular public trials
-at which they made confession of their crimes. Among the last
-survivors were three men named Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford.
-It must have been in 1965 that these three had been arrested.
-As often happened, they had vanished for a year or more, so
-that one did not know whether they were alive or dead, and then
-had suddenly been brought forth to incriminate themselves in
-the usual way. They had confessed to intelligence with the
-enemy (at that date, too, the enemy was Eurasia), embezzlement
-of public funds, the murder of various trusted Party members,
-intrigues against the leadership of Big Brother which had
-started long before the Revolution happened, and acts of
-sabotage causing the death of hundreds of thousands of people.
-After confessing to these things they had been pardoned,
-reinstated in the Party, and given posts which were in fact
-sinecures but which sounded important. All three had written
-long, abject articles in The Times, analysing the
-reasons for their defection and promising to make amends.</p>
-<p>
- Some time after their release Winston had actually seen
-all three of them in the Chestnut Tree Café. He remembered the
-sort of terrified fascination with which he had watched them
-out of the corner of his eye. They were men far older than
-himself, relics of the ancient world, almost the last great
-figures left over from the heroic days of the Party. The
-glamour of the underground struggle and the civil war still
-faintly clung to them. He had the feeling, though already at
-that time facts and dates were growing blurry, that he had
-known their names years earlier than he had known that of Big
-Brother. But also they were outlaws, enemies, untouchables,
-doomed with absolute certainty to extinction within a year or
-two. No one who had once fallen into the hands of the Thought
-Police ever escaped in the end. They were corpses waiting to be
-sent back to the grave.</p>
-<p>
- There was no one at any of the tables nearest to them. It
-was not wise even to be seen in the neighbourhood of such
-people. They were sitting in silence before glasses of the gin
-flavoured with cloves which was the speciality of the café. Of
-the three, it was Rutherford whose appearance had most
-impressed Winston. Rutherford had once been a famous
-caricaturist, whose brutal cartoons had helped to inflame
-popular opinion before and during the Revolution. Even now, at
-long intervals, his cartoons were appearing in The
-Times. They were simply an imitation of his earlier manner,
-and curiously lifeless and unconvincing. Always they were a
-rehashing of the ancient themes -- slum tenements, starving
-children, street battles, capitalists in top hats -- even on
-the barricades the capitalists still seemed to cling to their
-top hats an endless, hopeless effort to get back into the past.
-He was a monstrous man, with a mane of greasy grey hair, his
-face pouched and seamed, with thick negroid lips. At one time
-he must have been immensely strong; now his great body was
-sagging, sloping, bulging, falling away in every direction. He
-seemed to be breaking up before one's eyes, like a mountain
-crumbling.</p>
-<p>
- It was the lonely hour of fifteen. Winston could not now
-
-remember how he had come to be in the café at such a time. The
-place was almost empty. A tinny music was trickling from the
-telescreens. The three men sat in their corner almost
-motionless, never speaking. Uncommanded, the waiter brought
-fresh glasses of gin. There was a chessboard on the table
-beside them, with the pieces set out but no game started. And
-then, for perhaps half a minute in all, something happened to
-the telescreens. The tune that they were playing changed, and
-the tone of the music changed too. There came into it -- but it
-was something hard to describe. It was a peculiar, cracked,
-braying, jeering note: in his mind Winston called it a yellow
-note. And then a voice from the telescreen was singing:</p>
-<p class="quote">
- Under the spreading chestnut tree<br>
- I sold you and you sold me:<br>
- There lie they, and here lie we<br>
- Under the spreading chestnut tree.</p>
-<p>
-
- The three men never stirred. But when Winston glanced
-again at Rutherford's ruinous face, he saw that his eyes were
-full of tears. And for the first time he noticed, with a kind
-of inward shudder, and yet not knowing at what he
-shuddered, that both Aaronson and Rutherford had broken noses.</p>
-<p>
- A little later all three were re-arrested. It appeared
-that they had engaged in fresh conspiracies from the very
-moment of their release. At their second trial they confessed
-to all their old crimes over again, with a whole string of new
-ones. They were executed, and their fate was recorded in the
-Party histories, a warning to posterity. About five years after
-this, in 1973, Winston was unrolling a wad of documents which
-had just flopped out of the pneumatic tube on to his desk when
-he came on a fragment of paper which had evidently been slipped
-in among the others and then forgotten. The instant he had
-flattened it out he saw its significance. It was a half-page
-torn out of The Times of about ten years earlier -- the
-top half of the page, so that it included the date -- and it
-contained a photograph of the delegates at some Party function
-in New York. Prominent in the middle of the group were Jones,
-Aaronson, and Rutherford. There was no mistaking them, in any
-case their names were in the caption at the bottom.</p>
-<p>
- The point was that at both trials all three men had
-confessed that on that date they had been on Eurasian soil.
-They had flown from a secret airfield in Canada to a rendezvous
-somewhere in Siberia, and had conferred with members of the
-Eurasian General Staff, to whom they had betrayed important
-military secrets. The date had stuck in Winston's memory
-because it chanced to be midsummer day; but the whole story
-must be on record in countless other places as well. There was
-only one possible conclusion: the confessions were lies.</p>
-<p>
- Of course, this was not in itself a discovery. Even at
-that time Winston had not imagined that the people who were
-wiped out in the purges had actually committed the crimes that
-they were accused of. But this was concrete evidence; it was a
-fragment of the abolished past, like a fossil bone which turns
-up in the wrong stratum and destroys a geological theory. It
-was enough to blow the Party to atoms, if in some way it could
-have been published to the world and its significance made
-known.</p>
-<p>
- He had gone straight on working. As soon as he saw what
-the photograph was, and what it meant, he had covered it up
-with another sheet of paper. Luckily, when he unrolled it, it
-had been upside-down from the point of view of the telescreen.</p>
-<p>
- He took his scribbling pad on his knee and pushed back his
-chair so as to get as far away from the telescreen as possible.
-To keep your face expressionless was not difficult, and even
-your breathing could be controlled, with an effort: but you
-could not control the beating of your heart, and the telescreen
-was quite delicate enough to pick it up. He let what he judged
-to be ten minutes go by, tormented all the while by the fear
-that some accident -- a sudden draught blowing across his desk,
-for instance -- would betray him. Then, without uncovering it
-again, he dropped the photograph into the memory hole, along
-with some other waste papers. Within another minute, perhaps,
-it would have crumbled into ashes.</p>
-<p>
- That was ten -- eleven years ago. Today, probably, he
-would have kept that photograph. It was curious that the fact
-of having held it in his fingers seemed to him to make a
-difference even now, when the photograph itself, as well as the
-event it recorded, was only memory. Was the Party's hold upon
-the past less strong, he wondered, because a piece of evidence
-which existed no longer had once existed?</p>
-<p>
- But today, supposing that it could be somehow resurrected
-from its ashes, the photograph might not even be evidence.
-Already, at the time when he made his discovery, Oceania was no
-longer at war with Eurasia, and it must have been to the agents
-of Eastasia that the three dead men had betrayed their country.
-Since then there had been other changes -- two, three, he could
-not remember how many. Very likely the confessions had been
-rewritten and rewritten until the original facts and dates no
-longer had the smallest significance. The past not only
-changed, but changed continuously. What most afflicted him with
-the sense of nightmare was that he had never clearly understood
-why the huge imposture was undertaken. The immediate advantages
-of falsifying the past were obvious, but the ultimate motive
-was mysterious. He took up his pen again and wrote:</p>
-<p>
- I understand HOW: I do not understand WHY.</p>
-<p>
- He wondered, as he had many times wondered before, whether
-he himself was a lunatic. Perhaps a lunatic was simply a
-minority of one. At one time it had been a sign of madness to
-believe that the earth goes round the sun; today, to believe
-that the past is inalterable. He might be alone in
-holding that belief, and if alone, then a lunatic. But the
-thought of being a lunatic did not greatly trouble him: the
-horror was that he might also be wrong.</p>
-<p>
- He picked up the children's history book and looked at the
-portrait of Big Brother which formed its frontispiece. The
-hypnotic eyes gazed into his own. It was as though some huge
-force were pressing down upon you -- something that penetrated
-inside your skull, battering against your brain, frightening
-you out of your beliefs, persuading you, almost, to deny the
-evidence of your senses. In the end the Party would announce
-that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it.
-It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or
-later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the
-validity of experience, but the very existence of external
-reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of
-heresies was common sense. And what was terrifying was not that
-they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might
-be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make
-four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is
-unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist
-only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable what
-then?</p>
-<p>
- But no! His courage seemed suddenly to stiffen of its own
-accord. The face of O'Brien, not called up by any obvious
-association, had floated into his mind. He knew, with more
-certainty than before, that O'Brien was on his side. He was
-writing the diary for O'Brien -- to O'Brien: it was like
-an interminable letter which no one would ever read, but which
-was addressed to a particular person and took its colour from
-that fact.</p>
-<p>
- The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and
-ears. It was their final, most essential command. His heart
-sank as he thought of the enormous power arrayed against him,
-the ease with which any Party intellectual would overthrow him
-in debate, the subtle arguments which he would not be able to
-understand, much less answer. And yet he was in the right! They
-were wrong and he was right. The obvious, the silly, and the
-true had got to be defended. Truisms are true, hold on to that!
-The solid world exists, its laws do not change. Stones are
-hard, water is wet, objects unsupported fall towards the
-earth's centre. With the feeling that he was speaking to
-O'Brien, and also that he was setting forth an important axiom,
-he wrote:</p>
-<p>
- Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make
-four. If that is granted, all else follows.</p>
-<h1><a name="8">VIII</a></h1>
-<p class="no-indent">
- From somewhere at the bottom of a passage the smell of
-roasting coffee -- real coffee, not Victory Coffee -- came
-floating out into the street. Winston paused involuntarily. For
-perhaps two seconds he was back in the half-forgotten world of
-his childhood. Then a door banged, seeming to cut off the smell
-as abruptly as though it had been a sound.</p>
-<p>
- He had walked several kilometres over pavements, and his
-varicose ulcer was throbbing. This was the second time in three
-weeks that he had missed an evening at the Community Centre: a
-rash act, since you could be certain that the number of your
-attendances at the Centre was carefully checked. In principle a
-Party member had no spare time, and was never alone except in
-bed. It was assumed that when he was not working, eating, or
-sleeping he would be taking part in some kind of communal
-recreation: to do anything that suggested a taste for solitude,
-even to go for a walk by yourself, was always slightly
-dangerous. There was a word for it in Newspeak: ownlife,
-it was called, meaning individualism and eccentricity. But this
-evening as he came out of the Ministry the balminess of the
-April air had tempted him. The sky was a warmer blue than he
-had seen it that year, and suddenly the long, noisy evening at
-the Centre, the boring, exhausting games, the lectures, the
-creaking camaraderie oiled by gin, had seemed intolerable. On
-impulse he had turned away from the bus-stop and wandered off
-into the labyrinth of London, first south, then east, then
-north again, losing himself among unknown streets and hardly
-bothering in which direction he was going.</p>
-<p>
- 'If there is hope,' he had written in the diary, 'it lies
-in the proles.' The words kept coming back to him, statement of
-a mystical truth and a palpable absurdity. He was somewhere in
-the vague, brown-coloured slums to the north and east of what
-had once been Saint Pancras Station. He was walking up a
-cobbled street of little two-storey houses with battered
-doorways which gave straight on the pavement and which were
-somehow curiously suggestive of ratholes. There were puddles of
-filthy water here and there among the cobbles. In and out of
-the dark doorways, and down narrow alley-ways that branched off
-on either side, people swarmed in astonishing numbers -- girls
-in full bloom, with crudely lipsticked mouths, and youths who
-chased the girls, and swollen waddling women who showed you
-what the girls would be like in ten years' time, and old bent
-creatures shuffling along on splayed feet, and ragged
-barefooted children who played in the puddles and then
-scattered at angry yells from their mothers. Perhaps a quarter
-of the windows in the street were broken and boarded up. Most
-of the people paid no attention to Winston; a few eyed him with
-a sort of guarded curiosity. Two monstrous women with brick-red
-forearms folded across thelr aprons were talking outside a
-doorway. Winston caught scraps of conversation as he
-approached.</p>
-<p>
- ' "Yes," I says to 'er, "that's all very well," I says.
-"But if you'd of been in my place you'd of done the same as
-what I done. It's easy to criticize," I says, "but you ain't
-got the same problems as what I got." '</p>
-<p>
- 'Ah,' said the other, 'that's jest it. That's jest where
-it is.'</p>
-<p>
- The strident voices stopped abruptly. The women studied
-him in hostile silence as he went past. But it was not
-hostility, exactly; merely a kind of wariness, a momentary
-stiffening, as at the passing of some unfamiliar animal. The
-blue overalls of the Party could not be a common sight in a
-street like this. Indeed, it was unwise to be seen in such
-places, unless you had definite business there. The patrols
-might stop you if you happened to run into them. 'May I see
-your papers, comrade? What are you doing here? What time did
-you leave work? Is this your usual way home?' -- and so on and
-so forth. Not that there was any rule against walking home by
-an unusual route: but it was enough to draw attention to you if
-the Thought Police heard about it.</p>
-<p>
- Suddenly the whole street was in commotion. There were
-yells of warning from all sides. People were shooting into the
-doorways like rabbits. A young woman leapt out of a doorway a
-little ahead of Winston, grabbed up a tiny child playing in a
-puddle, whipped her apron round it, and leapt back again, all
-in one movement. At the same instant a man in a concertina-like
-black suit, who had emerged from a side alley, ran towards
-Winston, pointing excitedly to the sky.</p>
-<p>
- 'Steamer!' he yelled. 'Look out, guv'nor! Bang over'ead!
-Lay down quick!'</p>
-<p>
- 'Steamer' was a nickname which, for some reason, the
-proles applied to rocket bombs. Winston promptly flung himself
-on his face. The proles were nearly always right when they gave
-you a warning of this kind. They seemed to possess some kind of
-instinct which told them several seconds in advance when a
-rocket was coming, although the rockets supposedly travelled
-faster than sound. Winston clasped his forearms above his head.
-There was a roar that seemed to make the pavement heave; a
-shower of light objects pattered on to his back. When he stood
-up he found that he was covered with fragments of glass from
-the nearest window.</p>
-<p>
- He walked on. The bomb had demolished a group of houses
-200 metres up the street. A black plume of smoke hung in the
-sky, and below it a cloud of plaster dust in which a crowd was
-already forming around the ruins. There was a little pile of
-plaster lying on the pavement ahead of him, and in the middle
-of it he could see a bright red streak. When he got up to it he
-saw that it was a human hand severed at the wrist. Apart from
-the bloody stump, the hand was so completely whitened as to
-resemble a plaster cast.</p>
-<p>
- He kicked the thing into the gutter, and then, to avoid
-the crowd, turned down a side-street to the right. Within three
-or four minutes he was out of the area which the bomb had
-affected, and the sordid swarming life of the streets was going
-on as though nothing had happened. It was nearly twenty hours,
-and the drinking-shops which the proles frequented ('pubs',
-they called them) were choked with customers. From their grimy
-swing doors, endlessly opening and shutting, there came forth a
-smell of urine, sawdust, and sour beer. In an angle formed by a
-projecting house-front three men were standing very close
-together, the middle one of them holding a folded-up newspaper
-which the other two were studying over his shoulder. Even
-before he was near enough to make out the expression on their
-faces, Winston could see absorption in every line of their
-bodies. It was obviously some serious piece of news that they
-were reading. He was a few paces away from them when suddenly
-the group broke up and two of the men were in violent
-altercation. For a moment they seemed almost on the point of
-blows.</p>
-<p>
- 'Can't you bleeding well listen to what I say? I tell you
-no number ending in seven ain't won for over fourteen months!'</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes, it 'as, then!'</p>
-<p>
- 'No, it 'as not! Back 'ome I got the 'ole lot of 'em for
-over two years wrote down on a piece of paper. I takes 'em down
-reg'lar as the clock. An' I tell you, no number ending in
-seven-'</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes, a seven 'as won! I could pretty near tell you
-the bleeding number. Four oh seven, it ended in. It were in
-February -- second week in February.'</p>
-<p>
- 'February your grandmother! I got it all down in black and
-white. An' I tell you, no number-'</p>
-<p>
- 'Oh, pack it in!' said the third man.</p>
-<p>
- They were talking about the Lottery. Winston looked back
-when he had gone thirty metres. They were still arguing, with
-vivid, passionate faces. The Lottery, with its weekly pay-out
-of enormous prizes, was the one public event to which the
-proles paid serious attention. It was probable that there were
-some millions of proles for whom the Lottery was the principal
-if not the only reason for remaining alive. It was their
-delight, their folly, their anodyne, their intellectual
-stimulant. Where the Lottery was concerned, even people who
-could barely read and write seemed capable of intricate
-calculations and staggering feats of memory. There was a whole
-tribe of men who made a living simply by selling systems,
-forecasts, and lucky amulets. Winston had nothing to do with
-the running of the Lottery, which was managed by the Ministry
-of Plenty, but he was aware (indeed everyone in the party was
-aware) that the prizes were largely imaginary. Only small sums
-were actually paid out, the winners of the big prizes being
-non-existent persons. In the absence of any real
-intercommunication between one part of Oceania and another,
-this was not difficult to arrange.</p>
-<p>
- But if there was hope, it lay in the proles. You had to
-cling on to that. When you put it in words it sounded
-reasonable: it was when you looked at the human beings passing
-you on the pavement that it became an act of faith. The street
-into which he had turned ran downhill. He had a feeling that he
-had been in this neighbourhood before, and that there was a
-main thoroughfare not far away. From somewhere ahead there came
-a din of shouting voices. The street took a sharp turn and then
-ended in a flight of steps which led down into a sunken alley
-where a few stall-keepers were selling tired-looking vegetables.
-At this moment Winston remembered where he was. The alley led
-out into the main street, and down the next turning, not five
-minutes away, was the junk-shop where he had bought the blank
-book which was now his diary. And in a small stationer's shop
-not far away he had bought his penholder and his bottle of ink.</p>
-<p>
- He paused for a moment at the top of the steps. On the
-opposite side of the alley there was a dingy little pub whose
-windows appeared to be frosted over but in reality were merely
-coated with dust. A very old man, bent but active, with white
-moustaches that bristled forward like those of a prawn, pushed
-open the swing door and went in. As Winston stood watching, it
-occurred to him that the old man, who must be eighty at the
-least, had already been middle-aged when the Revolution
-happened. He and a few others like him were the last links that
-now existed with the vanished world of capitalism. In the Party
-itself there were not many people left whose ideas had been
-formed before the Revolution. The older generation had mostly
-been wiped out in the great purges of the fifties and sixties,
-and the few who survived had long ago been terrified into
-complete intellectual surrender. If there was any one still
-alive who could give you a truthful account of conditions in
-the early part of the century, it could only be a prole.
-Suddenly the passage from the history book that he had copied
-into his diary came back into Winston's mind, and a lunatic
-impulse took hold of him. He would go into the pub, he would
-scrape acquaintance with that old man and question him. He
-would say to him: 'Tell me about your life when you were a boy.
-What was it like in those days? Were things better than they
-are now, or were they worse?'</p>
-<p>
- Hurriedly, lest he should have time to become frightened,
-he descended the steps and crossed the narrow street. It was
-madness of course. As usual, there was no definite rule against
-talking to proles and frequenting their pubs, but it was far
-too unusual an action to pass unnoticed. If the patrols
-appeared he might plead an attack of faintness, but it was not
-likely that they would believe him. He pushed open the door,
-and a hideous cheesy smell of sour beer hit him in the face. As
-he entered the din of voices dropped to about half its volume.
-Behind his back he could feel everyone eyeing his blue
-overalls. A game of darts which was going on at the other end
-of the room interrupted itself for perhaps as much as thirty
-seconds. The old man whom he had followed was standing at the
-bar, having some kind of altercation with the barman, a large,
-stout, hook-nosed young man with enormous forearms. A knot of
-others, standing round with glasses in their hands, were
-watching the scene.</p>
-<p>
- 'I arst you civil enough, didn't I?' said the old man,
-straightening his shoulders pugnaciously. 'You telling me you
-ain't got a pint mug in the 'ole bleeding boozer?'</p>
-<p>
- 'And what in hell's name is a pint?' said the barman,
-leaning forward with the tips of his fingers on the counter.</p>
-<p>
- 'Ark at 'im! Calls 'isself a barman and don't know what a
-pint is! Why, a pint's the 'alf of a quart, and there's four
-quarts to the gallon. 'Ave to teach you the A, B, C next.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Never heard of 'em,' said the barman shortly. 'Litre and
-half litre -- that's all we serve. There's the glasses on the
-shelf in front of you.</p>
-<p>
- 'I likes a pint,' persisted the old man. 'You could 'a
-drawed me off a pint easy enough. We didn't 'ave these bleeding
-litres when I was a young man.'</p>
-<p>
- 'When you were a young man we were all living in the
-treetops,' said the barman, with a glance at the other
-customers.</p>
-<p>
- There was a shout of laughter, and the uneasiness caused
-by Winston's entry seemed to disappear. The old man's
-whitestubbled face had flushed pink. He turned away, muttering
-to himself, and bumped into Winston. Winston caught him gently
-by the arm.</p>
-<p>
- 'May I offer you a drink?' he said.</p>
-<p>
- 'You're a gent,' said the other, straightening his
-shoulders again. He appeared not to have noticed Winston's blue
-overalls. 'Pint!' he added aggressively to the barman. 'Pint of
-wallop.'</p>
-<p>
- The barman swished two half-litres of dark-brown beer into
-thick glasses which he had rinsed in a bucket under the
-counter. Beer was the only drink you could get in prole pubs.
-The proles were supposed not to drink gin, though in practice
-they could get hold of it easily enough. The game of darts was
-in full swing again, and the knot of men at the bar had begun
-talking about lottery tickets. Winston's presence was forgotten
-for a moment. There was a deal table under the window where he
-and the old man could talk without fear of being overheard. It
-was horribly dangerous, but at any rate there was no telescreen
-in the room, a point he had made sure of as soon as he came in.</p>
-<p>
- "E could 'a drawed me off a pint,' grumbled the old man as
-he settled down behind a glass. 'A 'alf litre ain't enough. It
-don't satisfy. And a 'ole litre's too much. It starts my
-bladder running. Let alone the price.'</p>
-<p>
- 'You must have seen great changes since you were a young
-man,' said Winston tentatively.</p>
-<p>
- The old man's pale blue eyes moved from the darts board to
-the bar, and from the bar to the door of the Gents, as though
-it were in the bar-room that he expected the changes to have
-occurred.</p>
-<p>
- 'The beer was better,' he said finally. 'And cheaper! When
-I was a young man, mild beer -- wallop we used to call it --
-was fourpence a pint. That was before the war, of course.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Which war was that?' said Winston.</p>
-<p>
- 'It's all wars,' said the old man vaguely. He took up his
-glass, and his shoulders straightened again. "Ere's wishing you
-the very best of 'ealth!'</p>
-<p>
- In his lean throat the sharp-pointed Adam's apple made a
-surprisingly rapid up-and-down movement, and the beer vanished.
-Winston went to the bar and came back with two more
-half-litres. The old man appeared to have forgotten his
-prejudice against drinking a full litre.</p>
-<p>
- 'You are very much older than I am,' said Winston. 'You
-must have been a grown man before I was born. You can remember
-what it was like in the old days, before the Revolution. People
-of my age don't really know anything about those times. We can
-only read about them in books, and what it says in the books
-may not be true. I should like your opinion on that. The
-history books say that life before the Revolution was
-completely different from what it is now. There was the most
-terrible oppression, injustice, poverty worse than anything we
-can imagine. Here in London, the great mass of the people never
-had enough to eat from birth to death. Half of them hadn't even
-boots on their feet. They worked twelve hours a day, they left
-school at nine, they slept ten in a room. And at the same time
-there were a very few people, only a few thousands -- the
-capitalists, they were called -- who were rich and powerful.
-They owned everything that there was to own. They lived in
-great gorgeous houses with thirty servants, they rode about in
-motor-cars and four-horse carriages, they drank champagne, they
-wore top hats-'</p>
-<p>
- The old man brightened suddenly.</p>
-<p>
- 'Top 'ats!' he said. 'Funny you should mention 'em. The
-same thing come into my 'ead only yesterday, I dono why. I was
-jest thinking, I ain't seen a top 'at in years. Gorn right out,
-they 'ave. The last time I wore one was at my sister-in-law's
-funeral. And that was -- well, I couldn't give you the date,
-but it must'a been fifty years ago. Of course it was only 'ired
-for the occasion, you understand.'</p>
-<p>
- 'It isn't very important about the top hats,' said Winston
-patiently. 'The point is, these capitalists -- they and a few
-lawyers and priests and so forth who lived on them -- were the
-lords of the earth. Everything existed for their benefit. You
--- the ordinary people, the workers -- were their slaves. They
-could do what they liked with you. They could ship you off to
-Canada like cattle. They could sleep with your daughters if
-they chose. They could order you to be flogged with something
-called a cat-o'-nine tails. You had to take your cap off when
-you passed them. Every capitalist went about with a gang of
-lackeys who-'</p>
-<p>
- The old man brightened again.</p>
-<p>
- 'Lackeys!' he said. 'Now there's a word I ain't 'eard
-since ever so long. Lackeys! That reg'lar takes me back, that
-does. I recollect oh, donkey's years ago -- I used to sometimes
-go to 'Yde Park of a Sunday afternoon to 'ear the blokes making
-speeches. Salvation Army, Roman Catholics, Jews, Indians -- all
-sorts there was. And there was one bloke -- well, I couldn't
-give you 'is name, but a real powerful speaker 'e was. 'E
-didn't 'alf give it 'em! "Lackeys!" 'e says, "lackeys of the
-bourgeoisie! Flunkies of the ruling class!" Parasites -- that
-was another of them. And 'yenas -- 'e definitely called 'em
-'yenas. Of course 'e was referring to the Labour Party, you
-understand.'</p>
-<p>
- Winston had the feeling that they were talking at
-cross-purposes.</p>
-<p>
- 'What I really wanted to know was this,' he said. 'Do you
-feel that you have more freedom now than you had in those days?
-Are you treated more like a human being? In the old days, the
-rich people, the people at the top-'</p>
-<p>
- 'The 'Ouse of Lords,' put in the old man reminiscently.</p>
-<p>
- 'The House of Lords, if you like. What I am asking is,
-were these people able to treat you as an inferior, simply
-because they were rich and you were poor? Is it a fact, for
-instance, that you had to call them "Sir" and take off your cap
-when you passed them?'</p>
-<p>
- The old man appeared to think deeply. He drank off about a
-quarter of his beer before answering.</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes,' he said. 'They liked you to touch your cap to 'em.
-It showed respect, like. I didn't agree with it, myself, but I
-done it often enough. Had to, as you might say.'</p>
-<p>
- 'And was it usual -- I'm only quoting what I've read in
-history books -- was it usual for these people and their
-servants to push you off the pavement into the gutter?'</p>
-<p>
- 'One of 'em pushed me once,' said the old man. 'I
-recollect it as if it was yesterday. It was Boat Race night --
-terribly rowdy they used to get on Boat Race night -- and I
-bumps into a young bloke on Shaftesbury Avenue. Quite a gent,
-'e was -- dress shirt, top 'at, black overcoat. 'E was kind of
-zig-zagging across the pavement, and I bumps into 'im
-accidental-like. 'E says, "Why can't you look where you're
-going?" 'e says. I say, "Ju think you've bought the bleeding
-pavement?" 'E says, "I'll twist your bloody 'ead off if you get
-fresh with me." I says, "You're drunk. I'll give you in charge
-in 'alf a minute," I says. An' if you'll believe me, 'e puts
-'is 'and on my chest and gives me a shove as pretty near sent
-me under the wheels of a bus. Well, I was young in them days,
-and I was going to 'ave fetched 'im one, only-'</p>
-<p>
- A sense of helplessness took hold of Winston. The old
-man's memory was nothing but a rubbish-heap of details. One
-could question him all day without getting any real
-information. The party histories might still be true, after a
-fashion: they might even be completely true. He made a last
-attempt.</p>
-<p>
- 'Perhaps I have not made myself clear,' he said. 'What I'm
-trying to say is this. You have been alive a very long time;
-you lived half your life before the Revolution. In 1925, for
-instance, you were already grown up. Would you say from what
-you can remember, that life in 1925 was better than it is now,
-or worse? If you could choose, would you prefer to live then or
-now?'</p>
-<p>
- The old man looked meditatively at the darts board. He
-finished up his beer, more slowly than before. When he spoke it
-was with a tolerant philosophical air, as though the beer had
-mellowed him.</p>
-<p>
- 'I know what you expect me to say,' he said. 'You expect
-me to say as I'd sooner be young again. Most people'd say
-they'd sooner be young, if you arst' 'em. You got your 'ealth
-and strength when you're young. When you get to my time of life
-you ain't never well. I suffer something wicked from my feet,
-and my bladder's jest terrible. Six and seven times a night it
-'as me out of bed. On the other 'and, there's great advantages
-in being a old man. You ain't got the same worries. No truck
-with women, and that's a great thing. I ain't 'ad a woman for
-near on thirty year, if you'd credit it. Nor wanted to, what's
-more.'</p>
-<p>
- Winston sat back against the window-sill. It was no use
-going on. He was about to buy some more beer when the old man
-suddenly got up and shuffled rapidly into the stinking urinal
-at the side of the room. The extra half-litre was already
-working on him. Winston sat for a minute or two gazing at his
-empty glass, and hardly noticed when his feet carried him out
-into the street again. Within twenty years at the most, he
-reflected, the huge and simple question, 'Was life better
-before the Revolution than it is now?' would have ceased once
-and for all to be answerable. But in effect it was unanswerable
-even now, since the few scattered survivors from the ancient
-world were incapable of comparing one age with another. They
-remembered a million useless things, a quarrel with a workmate,
-a hunt for a lost bicycle pump, the expression on a long-dead
-sister's face, the swirls of dust on a windy morning seventy
-years ago: but all the relevant facts were outside the range of
-their vision. They were like the ant, which can see small
-objects but not large ones. And when memory failed and written
-records were falsified -- when that happened, the claim of the
-Party to have improved the conditions of human life had got to
-be accepted, because there did not exist, and never again could
-exist, any standard against which it could be tested.</p>
-<p>
- At this moment his train of thought stopped abruptly. He
-halted and looked up. He was in a narrow street, with a few
-dark little shops, interspersed among dwelling-houses.
-Immediately above his head there hung three discoloured metal
-balls which looked as if they had once been gilded. He seemed
-to know the place. Of course! He was standing outside the
-junk-shop where he had bought the diary.</p>
-<p>
- A twinge of fear went through him. It had been a
-sufficiently rash act to buy the book in the beginning, and he
-had sworn never to come near the place again. And yet the
-instant that he allowed his thoughts to wander, his feet had
-brought him back here of their own accord. It was precisely
-against suicidal impulses of this kind that he had hoped to
-guard himself by opening the diary. At the same time he noticed
-that although it was nearly twenty-one hours the shop was still
-open. With the feeling that he would be less conspicuous inside
-than hanging about on the pavement, he stepped through the
-doorway. If questioned, he could plausibly say that he was
-trying to buy razor blades.</p>
-<p>
- The proprietor had just lighted a hanging oil lamp which
-gave off an unclean but friendly smell. He was a man of perhaps
-sixty, frail and bowed, with a long, benevolent nose, and mild
-eyes distorted by thick spectacles. His hair was almost white,
-but his eyebrows were bushy and still black. His spectacles,
-his gentle, fussy movements, and the fact that he was wearing
-an aged jacket of black velvet, gave him a vague air of
-intellectuality, as though he had been some kind of literary
-man, or perhaps a musician. His voice was soft, as though
-faded, and his accent less debased than that of the majority of
-proles.</p>
-<p>
- 'I recognized you on the pavement,' he said immediately.
-'You're the gentleman that bought the young lady's keepsake
-album. That was a beautiful bit of paper, that was. Cream-
-laid, it used to be called. There's been no paper like that
-made for -- oh, I dare say fifty years.' He peered at Winston
-over the top of his spectacles. 'Is there anything special I
-can do for you? Or did you just want to look round?'</p>
-<p>
- 'I was passing,' said Winston vaguely. 'I just looked in.
-I don't want anything in particular.'</p>
-<p>
- 'It's just as well,' said the other, 'because I don't
-suppose I could have satisfied you.' He made an apologetic
-gesture with his softpalmed hand. 'You see how it is; an empty
-shop, you might say. Between you and me, the antique trade's
-just about finished. No demand any longer, and no stock either.
-Furniture, china, glass it's all been broken up by degrees. And
-of course the metal stuff's mostly been melted down. I haven't
-seen a brass candlestick in years.'</p>
-<p>
- The tiny interior of the shop was in fact uncomfortably
-full, but there was almost nothing in it of the slightest
-value. The floorspace was very restricted, because all round
-the walls were stacked innumerable dusty picture-frames. In the
-window there were trays of nuts and bolts, worn-out chisels,
-penknives with broken blades, tarnished watches that did not
-even pretend to be in going order, and other miscellaneous
-rubbish. Only on a small table in the corner was there a litter
-of odds and ends -- lacquered snuffboxes, agate brooches, and
-the like -- which looked as though they might include something
-interesting. As Winston wandered towards the table his eye was
-caught by a round, smooth thing that gleamed softly in the
-lamplight, and he picked it up.</p>
-<p>
- It was a heavy lump of glass, curved on one side, flat on
-the other, making almost a hemisphere. There was a peculiar
-softness, as of rainwater, in both the colour and the texture
-of the glass. At the heart of it, magnified by the curved
-surface, there was a strange, pink, convoluted object that
-recalled a rose or a sea anemone.</p>
-<p>
- 'What is it?' said Winston, fascinated.</p>
-<p>
- 'That's coral, that is,' said the old man. 'It must have
-come from the Indian Ocean. They used to kind of embed it in
-the glass. That wasn't made less than a hundred years ago.
-More, by the look of it.'</p>
-<p>
- 'It's a beautiful thing,' said Winston.</p>
-<p>
- 'It is a beautiful thing,' said the other appreciatively.
-'But there's not many that'd say so nowadays.' He coughed.
-'Now, if it so happened that you wanted to buy it, that'd cost
-you four dollars. I can remember when a thing like that would
-have fetched eight pounds, and eight pounds was -- well, I
-can't work it out, but it was a lot of money. But who cares
-about genuine antiques nowadays even the few that's left?'</p>
-<p>
- Winston immediately paid over the four dollars and slid
-the coveted thing into his pocket. What appealed to him about
-it was not so much its beauty as the air it seemed to possess
-of belonging to an age quite different from the present one.
-The soft, rainwatery glass was not like any glass that he had
-ever seen. The thing was doubly attractive because of its
-apparent uselessness, though he could guess that it must once
-have been intended as a paperweight. It was very heavy in his
-pocket, but fortunately it did not make much of a bulge. It was
-a queer thing, even a compromising thing, for a Party member to
-have in his possession. Anything old, and for that matter
-anything beautiful, was always vaguely suspect. The old man had
-grown noticeably more cheerful after receiving the four
-dollars. Winston realized that he would have accepted three or
-even two.</p>
-<p>
- 'There's another room upstairs that you might care to take
-a look at,' he said. 'There's not much in it. Just a few
-pieces. We'll do with a light if we're going upstairs.'</p>
-<p>
- He lit another lamp, and, with bowed back, led the way
-slowly up the steep and worn stairs and along a tiny passage,
-into a room which did not give on the street but looked out on
-a cobbled yard and a forest of chimney-pots. Winston noticed
-that the furniture was still arranged as though the room were
-meant to be lived in. There was a strip of carpet on the floor,
-a picture or two on the walls, and a deep, slatternly arm-chair
-drawn up to the fireplace. An old-fashioned glass clock with a
-twelve-hour face was ticking away on the mantelpiece. Under the
-window, and occupying nearly a quarter of the room, was an
-enormous bed with the mattress still on it.</p>
-<p>
- 'We lived here till my wife died,' said the old man half
-apologetically. 'I'm selling the furniture off by little and
-little. Now that's a beautiful mahogany bed, or at least it
-would be if you could get the bugs out of it. But I dare say
-you'd find it a little bit cumbersome.</p>
-<p>
- He was holdlng the lamp high up, so as to illuminate the
-whole room, and in the warm dim light the place looked
-curiously inviting. The thought flitted through Winston's mind
-that it would probably be quite easy to rent the room for a few
-dollars a week, if he dared to take the risk. It was a wild,
-impossible notion, to be abandoned as soon as thought of; but
-the room had awakened in him a sort of nostalgia, a sort of
-ancestral memory. It seemed to him that he knew exactly what it
-felt like to sit in a room like this, in an arm-chair beside an
-open fire with your feet in the fender and a kettle on the hob;
-utterly alone, utterly secure, with nobody watching you, no
-voice pursuing you, no sound except the singing of the kettle
-and the friendly ticking of the clock.</p>
-<p>
- 'There's no telescreen!' he could not help murmuring.</p>
-<p>
- 'Ah,' said the old man, 'I never had one of those things.
-Too expensive. And I never seemed to feel the need of it,
-somehow. Now that's a nice gateleg table in the corner there.
-Though of course you'd have to put new hinges on it if you
-wanted to use the flaps.'</p>
-<p>
- There was a small bookcase in the other corner, and
-Winston had already gravitated towards it. It contained nothing
-but rubbish. The hunting-down and destruction of books had been
-done with the same thoroughness in the prole quarters as
-everywhere else. It was very unlikely that there existed
-anywhere in Oceania a copy of a book printed earlier than 1960.
-The old man, still carrying the lamp, was standing in front of
-a picture in a rosewood frame which hung on the other side of
-the fireplace, opposite the bed.</p>
-<p>
- 'Now, if you happen to be interested in old prints at all
--' he began delicately.</p>
-<p>
- Winston came across to examine the picture. It was a steel
-engraving of an oval building with rectangular windows, and a
-small tower in front. There was a railing running round the
-building, and at the rear end there was what appeared to be a
-statue. Winston gazed at it for some moments. It seemed vaguely
-familiar, though he did not remember the statue.</p>
-<p>
- 'The frame's fixed to the wall,' said the old man, 'but I
-could unscrew it for you, I dare say.'</p>
-<p>
- 'I know that building,' said Winston finally. 'It's a ruin
-now. It's in the middle of the street outside the Palace of
-Justice.'</p>
-<p>
- 'That's right. Outside the Law Courts. It was bombed in --
-oh, many years ago. It was a church at one time, St Clement's
-Danes, its name was.' He smiled apologetically, as though
-conscious of saying something slightly ridiculous, and added:
-'Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clement's!'</p>
-<p>
- 'What's that?' said Winston.</p>
-<p>
- 'Oh-"Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clement's."
-That was a rhyme we had when I was a little boy. How it goes on
-I don't remember, but I do know it ended up, "Here comes a
-candle to light you to bed, Here comes a chopper to chop off
-your head." It was a kind of a dance. They held out their arms
-for you to pass under, and when they came to "Here comes a
-chopper to chop off your head" they brought their arms down and
-caught you. It was just names of churches. All the London
-churches were in it -- all the principal ones, that is.'</p>
-<p>
- Winston wondered vaguely to what century the church
-belonged. It was always difficult to determine the age of a
-London building. Anything large and impressive, if it was
-reasonably new in appearance, was automatically claimed as
-having been built since the Revolution, while anything that was
-obviously of earlier date was ascribed to some dim period
-called the Middle Ages. The centuries of capitalism were held
-to have produced nothing of any value. One could not learn
-history from architecture any more than one could learn it from
-books. Statues, inscriptions, memorial stones, the names of
-streets -- anything that might throw light upon the past had
-been systematically altered.</p>
-<p>
- 'I never knew it had been a church,' he said.</p>
-<p>
- 'There's a lot of them left, really,' said the old man,
-'though they've been put to other uses. Now, how did that rhyme
-go? Ah! I've got it!</p>
-<p class="quote">
- "Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clement's,<br>
- You owe me three farthings, say the bells of St Martin's</p>
-<p>
- -- "there, now, that's as far as I can get.
- A farthing, that was a small copper coin,
- looked something like a cent.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Where was St Martin's?' said Winston.</p>
-<p>
- 'St Martin's ? That's still standing. It's in Victory
-Square, alongside the picture gallery. A building with a kind
-of a triangular porch and pillars in front, and a big flight of
-steps.'</p>
-<p>
- Winston knew the place well. It was a museum used for
-propaganda displays of various kinds -- scale models of rocket
-bombs and Floating Fortresses, waxwork tableaux illustrating
-enemy atrocities, and the like.</p>
-<p>
- 'St Martin's-in-the-Fields it used to be called,'
-supplemented the old man, 'though I don't recollect any fields
-anywhere in those parts.'</p>
-<p>
- Winston did not buy the picture. It would have been an
-even more incongruous possession than the glass paperweight,
-and impossible to carry home, unless it were taken out of its
-frame. But he lingered for some minutes more, talking to the
-old man, whose name, he discovered, was not Weeks-as one might
-have gathered from the inscription over the shop-front -- but
-Charrington. Mr Charrington, it seemed, was a widower aged
-sixty-three and had inhabited this shop for thirty years.
-Throughout that time he had been intending to alter the name
-over the window, but had never quite got to the point of doing
-it. All the while that they were talking the half-remembered
-rhyme kept running through Winston's head. Oranges and lemons
-say the bells of St Clement's, You owe me three farthings, say
-the bells of St Martin's! It was curious, but when you said it
-to yourself you had the illusion of actually hearing bells, the
-bells of a lost London that still existed somewhere or other,
-disguised and forgotten. From one ghostly steeple after another
-he seemed to hear them pealing forth. Yet so far as he could
-remember he had never in real life heard church bells ringing.</p>
-<p>
- He got away from Mr Charrington and went down the stairs
-alone, so as not to let the old man see him reconnoitring the
-street before stepping out of the door. He had already made up
-his mind that after a suitable interval -- a month, say -- he
-would take the risk of visiting the shop again. It was perhaps
-not more dangerous than shirking an evening at the Centre. The
-serious piece of folly had been to come back here in the first
-place, after buying the diary and without knowing whether the
-proprietor of the shop could be trusted. However-!</p>
-<p>
- Yes, he thought again, he would come back. He would buy
-further scraps of beautiful rubbish. He would buy the engraving
-of St Clement Danes, take it out of its frame, and carry it
-home concealed under the jacket of his overalls. He would drag
-the rest of that poem out of Mr Charrington's memory. Even the
-lunatic project of renting the room upstairs flashed
-momentarily through his mind again. For perhaps five seconds
-exaltation made him careless, and he stepped out on to the
-pavement without so much as a preliminary glance through the
-window. He had even started humming to an improvised tune</p>
-<p class="quote">
- Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clement's,
- You owe me three farthings, say the</p>
-<p>
- Suddenly his heart seemed to turn to ice and his bowels
-to water. A figure in blue overalls was coming down the
-pavement, not ten metres away. It was the girl from the Fiction
-Department, the girl with dark hair. The light was failing, but
-there was no difficulty in recognizing her. She looked him
-straight in the face, then walked quickly on as though she had
-not seen him.</p>
-<p>
- For a few seconds Winston was too paralysed to move. Then
-he turned to the right and walked heavily away, not noticing
-for the moment that he was going in the wrong direction. At any
-rate, one question was settled. There was no doubting any
-longer that the girl was spying on him. She must have followed
-him here, because it was not credible that by pure chance she
-should have happened to be walking on the same evening up the
-same obscure backstreet, kilometres distant from any quarter
-where Party members lived. It was too great a coincidence.
-Whether she was really an agent of the Thought Police, or
-simply an amateur spy actuated by officiousness, hardly
-mattered. It was enough that she was watching him. Probably she
-had seen him go into the pub as well.</p>
-<p>
- It was an effort to walk. The lump of glass in his pocket
-banged against his thigh at each step, and he was half minded
-to take it out and throw it away. The worst thing was the pain
-in his belly. For a couple of minutes he had the feeling that
-he would die if he did not reach a lavatory soon. But there
-would be no public lavatories in a quarter like this. Then the
-spasm passed, leaving a dull ache behind.</p>
-<p>
- The street was a blind alley. Winston halted, stood for
-several seconds wondering vaguely what to do, then turned round
-and began to retrace his steps. As he turned it occurred to him
-that the girl had only passed him three minutes ago and that by
-running he could probably catch up with her. He could keep on
-her track till they were in some quiet place, and then smash
-her skull in with a cobblestone. The piece of glass in his
-pocket would be heavy enough for the job. But he abandoned the
-idea immediately, because even the thought of making any
-physical effort was unbearable. He could not run, he could not
-strike a blow. Besides, she was young and lusty and would
-defend herself. He thought also of hurrying to the Community
-Centre and staying there till the place closed, so as to
-establish a partial alibi for the evening. But that too was
-impossible. A deadly lassitude had taken hold of him. All he
-wanted was to get home quickly and then sit down and be quiet.</p>
-<p>
- It was after twenty-two hours when he got back to the
-flat. The lights would be switched off at the main at
-twenty-three thirty. He went into the kitchen and swallowed
-nearly a teacupful of Victory Gin. Then he went to the table in
-the alcove, sat down, and took the diary out of the drawer. But
-he did not open it at once. From the telescreen a brassy female
-voice was squalling a patriotic song. He sat staring at the
-marbled cover of the book, trying without success to shut the
-voice out of his consciousness.</p>
-<p>
- It was at night that they came for you, always at night.
-The proper thing was to kill yourself before they got you.
-Undoubtedly some people did so. Many of the disappearances were
-actually suicides. But it needed desperate courage to kill
-yourself in a world where firearms, or any quick and certain
-poison, were completely unprocurable. He thought with a kind of
-astonishment of the biological uselessness of pain and fear,
-the treachery of the human body which always freezes into
-inertia at exactly the moment when a special effort is needed.
-He might have silenced the dark-haired girl if only he had
-acted quickly enough: but precisely because of the extremity of
-his danger he had lost the power to act. It struck him that in
-moments of crisis one is never fighting against an external
-enemy, but always against one's own body. Even now, in spite of
-the gin, the dull ache in his belly made consecutive thought
-impossible. And it is the same, he perceived, in all seemingly
-heroic or tragic situations. On the battlefield, in the torture
-chamber, on a sinking ship, the issues that you are fighting
-for are always forgotten, because the body swells up until it
-fills the universe, and even when you are not paralysed by
-fright or screaming with pain, life is a moment-to-moment
-struggle against hunger or cold or sleeplessness, against a
-sour stomach or an aching tooth.</p>
-<p>
- He opened the diary. It was important to write something
-down. The woman on the telescreen had started a new song. Her
-voice seemed to stick into his brain like jagged splinters of
-glass. He tried to think of O'Brien, for whom, or to whom, the
-diary was written, but instead he began thinking of the things
-that would happen to him after the Thought Police took him
-away. It would not matter if they killed you at once. To be
-killed was what you expected. But before death (nobody spoke of
-such things, yet everybody knew of them) there was the routine
-of confession that had to be gone through: the grovelling on
-the floor and screaming for mercy, the crack of broken bones,
-the smashed teeth, and bloody clots of hair.</p>
-<p>
- Why did you have to endure it, since the end was always
-the same? Why was it not possible to cut a few days or weeks
-out of your life? Nobody ever escaped detection, and nobody
-ever failed to confess. When once you had succumbed to
-thoughtcrime it was certain that by a given date you would be
-dead. Why then did that horror, which altered nothing, have to
-lie embedded in future time?</p>
-<p>
- He tried with a little more success than before to summon
-up the image of O'Brien. 'We shall meet in the place where
-there is no darkness,' O'Brien had said to him. He knew what it
-meant, or thought he knew. The place where there is no darkness
-was the imagined future, which one would never see, but which,
-by foreknowledge, one could mystically share in. But with the
-voice from the telescreen nagging at his ears he could not
-follow the train of thought further. He put a cigarette in his
-mouth. Half the tobacco promptly fell out on to his tongue, a
-bitter dust which was difficult to spit out again. The face of
-Big Brother swam into his mind, displacing that of O'Brien.
-Just as he had done a few days earlier, he slid a coin out of
-his pocket and looked at it. The face gazed up at him, heavy,
-calm, protecting: but what kind of smile was hidden beneath the
-dark moustache? Like a leaden knell the words came back at him:</p>
-<p class="quote">
- WAR IS PEACE<br>
- FREEDOM IS SLAVERY<br>
- IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH</p>
-<H1><a name="9">IX</a></H1>
-<p class="no-indent">
- It was the middle of the morning, and Winston had left the
-cubicle to go to the lavatory.</p>
-<p>
- A solitary figure was coming towards him from the other
-end of the long, brightly-lit corridor. It was the girl with
-dark hair. Four days had gone past since the evening when he
-had run into her outside the junk-shop. As she came nearer he
-saw that her right arm was in a sling, not noticeable at a
-distance because it was of the same colour as her overalls.
-Probably she had crushed her hand while swinging round one of
-the big kaleidoscopes on which the plots of novels were
-'roughed in'. It was a common accident in the Fiction
-Department.</p>
-<p>
- They were perhaps four metres apart when the girl stumbled
-and fell almost flat on her face. A sharp cry of pain was wrung
-out of her. She must have fallen right on the injured arm.
-Winston stopped short. The girl had risen to her knees. Her
-face had turned a milky yellow colour against which her mouth
-stood out redder than ever. Her eyes were fixed on his, with an
-appealing expression that looked more like fear than pain.</p>
-<p>
- A curious emotion stirred in Winston's heart. In front of
-him was an enemy who was trying to kill him: in front of him,
-also, was a human creature, in pain and perhaps with a broken
-bone. Already he had instinctively started forward to help her.
-In the moment when he had seen her fall on the bandaged arm, it
-had been as though he felt the pain in his own body.</p>
-<p>
- 'You're hurt?' he said.</p>
-<p>
- 'It's nothing. My arm. It'll be all right in a second.'</p>
-<p>
- She spoke as though her heart were fluttering. She had
-certainly turned very pale.</p>
-<p>
- 'You haven't broken anything?'</p>
-<p>
- 'No, I'm all right. It hurt for a moment, that's all.'</p>
-<p>
- She held out her free hand to him, and he helped her up.
-She had regained some of her colour, and appeared very much
-better.</p>
-<p>
- 'It's nothing,' she repeated shortly. 'I only gave my
-wrist a bit of a bang. Thanks, comrade!'</p>
-<p>
- And with that she walked on in the direction in which she
-had been going, as briskly as though it had really been
-nothing. The whole incident could not have taken as much as
-half a minute. Not to let one's feelings appear in one's face
-was a habit that had acquired the status of an instinct, and in
-any case they had been standing straight in front of a
-telescreen when the thing happened. Nevertheless it had been
-very difficult not to betray a momentary surprise, for in the
-two or three seconds while he was helping her up the girl had
-slipped something into his hand. There was no question that she
-had done it intentionally. It was something small and flat. As
-he passed through the lavatory door he transferred it to his
-pocket and felt it with the tips of his fingers. It was a scrap
-of paper folded into a square.</p>
-<p>
- While he stood at the urinal he managed, with a little
-more fingering, to get it unfolded. Obviously there must be a
-message of some kind written on it. For a moment he was tempted
-to take it into one of the water-closets and read it at once.
-But that would be shocking folly, as he well knew. There was no
-place where you could be more certain that the telescreens were
-watched continuously.</p>
-<p>
- He went back to his cubicle, sat down, threw the fragment
-of paper casually among the other papers on the desk, put on
-his spectacles and hitched the speakwrite towards him. 'five
-minutes,' he told himself, 'five minutes at the very least!'
-His heart bumped in his breast with frightening loudness.
-Fortunately the piece of work he was engaged on was mere
-routine, the rectification of a long list of figures, not
-needing close attention.</p>
-<p>
- Whatever was written on the paper, it must have some kind
-of political meaning. So far as he could see there were two
-possibilities. One, much the more likely, was that the girl was
-an agent of the Thought Police, just as he had feared. He did
-not know why the Thought Police should choose to deliver their
-messages in such a fashion, but perhaps they had their reasons.
-The thing that was written on the paper might be a threat, a
-summons, an order to commit suicide, a trap of some
-description. But there was another, wilder possibility that
-kept raising its head, though he tried vainly to suppress it.
-This was, that the message did not come from the Thought Police
-at all, but from some kind of underground organization. Perhaps
-the Brotherhood existed after all! Perhaps the girl was part of
-it! No doubt the idea was absurd, but it had sprung into his
-mind in the very instant of feeling the scrap of paper in his
-hand. It was not till a couple of minutes later that the other,
-more probable explanation had occurred to him. And even now,
-though his intellect told him that the message probably meant
-death -- still, that was not what he believed, and the
-unreasonable hope persisted, and his heart banged, and it was
-with difficulty that he kept his voice from trembling as he
-murmured his figures into the speakwrite.</p>
-<p>
- He rolled up the completed bundle of work and slid it into
-the pneumatic tube. Eight minutes had gone by. He re-adjusted
-his spectacles on his nose, sighed, and drew the next batch of
-work towards him, with the scrap of paper on top of it. He
-flattened it out. On it was written, in a large unformed
-handwriting:</p>
-<p>
- I love you.</p>
-<p>
- For several seconds he was too stunned even to throw the
-incriminating thing into the memory hole. When he did so,
-although he knew very well the danger of showing too much
-interest, he could not resist reading it once again, just to
-make sure that the words were really there.</p>
-<p>
- For the rest of the morning it was very difficult to work.
-What was even worse than having to focus his mind on a series
-of niggling jobs was the need to conceal his agitation from the
-telescreen. He felt as though a fire were burning in his belly.
-Lunch in the hot, crowded, noise-filled canteen was torment.
-He had hoped to be alone for a little while during the lunch
-hour, but as bad luck would have it the imbecile Parsons
-flopped down beside him, the tang of his sweat almost defeating
-the tinny smell of stew, and kept up a stream of talk about the
-preparations for Hate Week. He was particularly enthusiastic
-about a papier-mâché model of Big Brother's head, two metres
-wide, which was being made for the occasion by his daughter's
-troop of Spies. The irritating thing was that in the racket of
-voices Winston could hardly hear what Parsons was saying, and
-was constantly having to ask for some fatuous remark to be
-repeated. Just once he caught a glimpse of the girl, at a table
-with two other girls at the far end of the room. She appeared
-not to have seen him, and he did not look in that direction
-again.</p>
-<p>
- The afternoon was more bearable. Immediately after lunch
-there arrived a delicate, difficult piece of work which would
-take several hours and necessitated putting everything else
-aside. It consisted in falsifying a series of production
-reports of two years ago, in such a way as to cast discredit on
-a prominent member of the Inner Party, who was now under a
-cloud. This was the kind of thing that Winston was good at, and
-for more than two hours he succeeded in shutting the girl out
-of his mind altogether. Then the memory of her face came back,
-and with it a raging, intolerable desire to be alone. Until he
-could be alone it was impossible to think this new development
-out. Tonight was one of his nights at the Community Centre. He
-wolfed another tasteless meal in the canteen, hurried off to
-the Centre, took part in the solemn foolery of a 'discussion
-group', played two games of table tennis, swallowed several
-glasses of gin, and sat for half an hour through a lecture
-entitled 'Ingsoc in relation to chess'. His soul writhed with
-boredom, but for once he had had no impulse to shirk his
-evening at the Centre. At the sight of the words I love
-you the desire to stay alive had welled up in him, and the
-taking of minor risks suddenly seemed stupid. It was not till
-twenty-three hours, when he was home and in bed -- in the
-darkness, where you were safe even from the telescreen so long
-as you kept silent -- that he was able to think continuously.</p>
-<p>
- It was a physical problem that had to be solved: how to
-get in touch with the girl and arrange a meeting. He did not
-consider any longer the possibility that she might be laying
-some kind of trap for him. He knew that it was not so, because
-of her unmistakable agitation when she handed him the note.
-Obviously she had been frightened out of her wits, as well she
-might be. Nor did the idea of refusing her advances even cross
-his mind. Only five nights ago he had contemplated smashing her
-skull in with a cobblestone, but that was of no importance. He
-thought of her naked, youthful body, as he had seen it in his
-dream. He had imagined her a fool like all the rest of them,
-her head stuffed with lies and hatred, her belly full of ice. A
-kind of fever seized him at the thought that he might lose her,
-the white youthful body might slip away from him! What he
-feared more than anything else was that she would simply change
-her mind if he did not get in touch with her quickly. But the
-physical difficulty of meeting was enormous. It was like trying
-to make a move at chess when you were already mated. Whichever
-way you turned, the telescreen faced you. Actually, all the
-possible ways of communicating with her had occurred to him
-within five minutes of reading the note; but now, with time to
-think, he went over them one by one, as though laying out a row
-of instruments on a table.</p>
-<p>
- Obviously the kind of encounter that had happened this
-morning could not be repeated. If she had worked in the Records
-Department it might have been comparatively simple, but he had
-only a very dim idea whereabouts in the building the Fiction
-Departrnent lay, and he had no pretext for going there. If he
-had known where she lived, and at what time she left work, he
-could have contrived to meet her somewhere on her way home; but
-to try to follow her home was not safe, because it would mean
-loitering about outside the Ministry, which was bound to be
-noticed. As for sending a letter through the mails, it was out
-of the question. By a routine that was not even secret, all
-letters were opened in transit. Actually, few people ever wrote
-letters. For the messages that it was occasionally necessary to
-send, there were printed postcards with long lists of phrases,
-and you struck out the ones that were inapplicable. In any case
-he did not know the girl's name, let alone her address. Finally
-he decided that the safest place was the canteen. If he could
-get her at a table by herself, somewhere in the middle of the
-room, not too near the telescreens, and with a sufficient buzz
-of conversation all round -- if these conditions endured for,
-say, thirty seconds, it might be possible to exchange a few
-words.</p>
-<p>
- For a week after this, life was like a restless dream. On
-the next day she did not appear in the canteen until he was
-leaving it, the whistle having already blown. Presumably she
-had been changed on to a later shift. They passed each other
-without a glance. On the day after that she was in the canteen
-at the usual time, but with three other girls and immediately
-under a telescreen. Then for three dreadful days she did not
-appear at all. His whole mind and body seemed to be afflicted
-with an unbearable sensitivity, a sort of transparency, which
-made every movement, every sound, every contact, every word
-that he had to speak or listen to, an agony. Even in sleep he
-could not altogether escape from her image. He did not touch
-the diary during those days. If there was any relief, it was in
-his work, in which he could sometimes forget himself for ten
-minutes at a stretch. He had absolutely no clue as to what had
-happened to her. There was no enquiry he could make. She might
-have been vaporized, she might have committed suicide, she
-might have been transferred to the other end of Oceania: worst
-and likeliest of all, she might simply have changed her mind
-and decided to avoid him.</p>
-<p>
- The next day she reappeared. Her arm was out of the sling
-and she had a band of sticking-plaster round her wrist. The
-relief of seeing her was so great that he could not resist
-staring directly at her for several seconds. On the following
-day he very nearly succeeded in speaking to her. When he came
-into the canteen she was sitting at a table well out from the
-wall, and was quite alone. It was early, and the place was not
-very full. The queue edged forward till Winston was almost at
-the counter, then was held up for two minutes because someone
-in front was complaining that he had not received his tablet of
-saccharine. But the girl was still alone when Winston secured
-his tray and began to make for her table. He walked casually
-towards her, his eyes searching for a place at some table
-beyond her. She was perhaps three metres away from him. Another
-two seconds would do it. Then a voice behind him called,
-'Smith!' He pretended not to hear. 'Smith!' repeated the
-voice, more loudly. It was no use. He turned round. A
-blond-headed, silly-faced young man named Wilsher, whom he
-barely knew, was inviting him with a smile to a vacant place at
-his table. It was not safe to refuse. After having been
-recognized, he could not go and sit at a table with an
-unattended girl. It was too noticeable. He sat down with a
-friendly smile. The silly blond face beamed into his. Winston
-had a hallucination of himself smashing a pick-axe right into
-the middle of it. The girl's table filled up a few minutes
-later.</p>
-<p>
- But she must have seen him coming towards her, and perhaps
-she would take the hint. Next day he took care to arrive early.
-Surely enough, she was at a table in about the same place, and
-again alone. The person immediately ahead of him in the queue
-was a small, swiftly-moving, beetle-like man with a flat face
-and tiny, suspicious eyes. As Winston turned away from the
-counter with his tray, he saw that the little man was making
-straight for the girl's table. His hopes sank again. There was
-a vacant place at a table further away, but something in the
-little man's appearance suggested that he would be sufficiently
-attentive to his own comfort to choose the emptiest table. With
-ice at his heart Winston followed. It was no use unless he
-could get the girl alone. At this moment there was a tremendous
-crash. The little man was sprawling on all fours, his tray had
-gone flying, two streams of soup and coffee were flowing across
-the floor. He started to his feet with a malignant glance at
-Winston, whom he evidently suspected of having tripped him up.
-But it was all right. Five seconds later, with a thundering
-heart, Winston was sitting at the girl's table.</p>
-<p>
- He did not look at her. He unpacked his tray and promptly
-began eating. It was all-important to speak at once, before
-anyone else came, but now a terrible fear had taken possession
-of him. A week had gone by since she had first approached him.
-She would have changed her mind, she must have changed her
-mind! It was impossible that this affair should end
-successfully; such things did not happen in real life. He might
-have flinched altogether from speaking if at this moment he had
-not seen Ampleforth, the hairy-eared poet, wandering limply
-round the room with a tray, looking for a place to sit down. In
-his vague way Ampleforth was attached to Winston, and would
-certainly sit down at his table if he caught sight of him.
-There was perhaps a minute in which to act. Both Winston and
-the girl were eating steadily. The stuff they were eating was a
-thin stew, actually a soup, of haricot beans. In a low murmur
-Winston began speaking. Neither of them looked up; steadily
-they spooned the watery stuff into their mouths, and between
-spoonfuls exchanged the few necessary words in low
-expressionless voices.</p>
-<p>
- 'What time do you leave work?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Eighteen-thirty.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Where can we meet?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Victory Square, near the monument.</p>
-<p>
- 'It's full of telescreens.'</p>
-<p>
- 'It doesn't matter if there's a crowd.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Any signal?'</p>
-<p>
- 'No. Don't come up to me until you see me among a lot of
-people. And don't look at me. Just keep somewhere near me.'</p>
-<p>
- 'What time?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Nineteen hours.'</p>
-<p>
- 'All right.'</p>
-<p>
- Ampleforth failed to see Winston and sat down at another
-table. They did not speak again, and, so far as it was possible
-for two people sitting on opposite sides of the same table,
-they did not look at one another. The girl finished her lunch
-quickly and made off, while Winston stayed to smoke a
-cigarette.</p>
-<p>
- Winston was in Victory Square before the appointed time.
-He wandered round the base of the enormous fluted column, at
-the top of which Big Brother's statue gazed southward towards
-the skies where he had vanquished the Eurasian aeroplanes (the
-Eastasian aeroplanes, it had been, a few years ago) in the
-Battle of Airstrip One. In the street in front of it there was
-a statue of a man on horseback which was supposed to represent
-Oliver Cromwell. At five minutes past the hour the girl had
-still not appeared. Again the terrible fear seized upon
-Winston. She was not coming, she had changed her mind! He
-walked slowly up to the north side of the square and got a sort
-of pale-coloured pleasure from identifying St Martin's Church,
-whose bells, when it had bells, had chimed 'You owe me three
-farthings.' Then he saw the girl standing at the base of the
-monument, reading or pretending to read a poster which ran
-spirally up the column. It was not safe to go near her until
-some more people had accumulated. There were telescreens all
-round the pediment. But at this moment there was a din of
-shouting and a zoom of heavy vehicles from somewhere to the
-left. Suddenly everyone seemed to be running across the square.
-The girl nipped nimbly round the lions at the base of the
-monument and joined in the rush. Winston followed. As he ran,
-he gathered from some shouted remarks that a convoy of Eurasian
-prisoners was passing.</p>
-<p>
- Already a dense mass of people was blocking the south side
-of the square. Winston, at normal times the kind of person who
-gravitates to the outer edge of any kind of scrimmage, shoved,
-butted, squirmed his way forward into the heart of the crowd.
-Soon he was within arm's length of the girl, but the way was
-blocked by an enormous prole and an almost equally enormous
-woman, presumably his wife, who seemed to form an impenetrable
-wall of flesh. Winston wriggled himself sideways, and with a
-violent lunge managed to drive his shoulder between them. For a
-moment it felt as though his entrails were being ground to pulp
-between the two muscular hips, then he had broken through,
-sweating a little. He was next to the girl. They were shoulder
-to shoulder, both staring fixedly in front of them.</p>
-<p>
- A long line of trucks, with wooden-faced guards armed with
-sub-machine guns standing upright in each corner, was passing
-slowly down the street. In the trucks little yellow men in
-shabby greenish uniforms were squatting, jammed close together.
-Their sad, Mongolian faces gazed out over the sides of the
-trucks utterly incurious. Occasionally when a truck jolted
-there was a clank-clank of metal: all the prisoners were wearing
-leg-irons. Truck-load after truck-load of the sad faces passed.
-Winston knew they were there but he saw them only
-intermittently. The girl's shoulder, and her arm right down to
-the elbow, were pressed against his. Her cheek was almost near
-enough for him to feel its warmth. She had immediately taken
-charge of the situation, just as she had done in the canteen.
-She began speaking in the same expressionless voice as before,
-with lips barely moving, a mere murmur easily drowned by the
-din of voices and the rumbling of the trucks.</p>
-<p>
- 'Can you hear me?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Can you get Sunday afternoon off?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Then listen carefully. You'll have to remember this. Go
-to Paddington Station-'</p>
-<p>
- With a sort of military precision that astonished him, she
-outlined the route that he was to follow. A half-hour railway
-journey; turn left outside the station; two kilometres along
-the road: a gate with the top bar missing; a path across a
-field; a grass-grown lane; a track between bushes; a dead tree
-with moss on it. It was as though she had a map inside her
-head. 'Can you remember all that?' she murmured finally.</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes.'</p>
-<p>
- 'You turn left, then right, then left again. And the
-gate's got no top bar.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes. What time?'</p>
-<p>
- 'About fifteen. You may have to wait. I'll get there by
-another way. Are you sure you remember everything?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Then get away from me as quick as you can.'</p>
-<p>
- She need not have told him that. But for the moment they
-could not extricate themselves from the crowd. The trucks were
-still filing post, the people still insatiably gaping. At the
-start there had been a few boos and hisses, but it came only
-from the Party members among the crowd, and had soon stopped.
-The prevailing emotion was simply curiosity. Foreigners,
-whether from Eurasia or from Eastasia, were a kind of strange
-animal. One literally never saw them except in the guise of
-prisoners, and even as prisoners one never got more than a
-momentary glimpse of them. Nor did one know what became of
-them, apart from the few who were hanged as war-criminals: te
-others simply vanished, presumably into forced-labour camps.
-The round Mogol faces had given way to faces of a more European
-type, dirty, bearded and exhausted. From over scrubby
-cheekbones eyes looked into Winston's, sometimes with strange
-intensity, and flashed away again. The convoy was drawing to an
-end. In the last truck he could see an aged man, his face a
-mass of grizzled hair, standing upright with wrists crossed in
-front of him, as though he were used to having them bound
-together. It was almost time for Winston and the girl to part.
-But at the last moment, while the crowd still hemmed them in,
-her hand felt for his and gave it a fleeting squeeze.</p>
-<p>
- It could not have been ten seconds, and yet it seemed a
-long time that their hands were clasped together. He had time
-to learn every detail of her hand. He explored the long
-fingers, the shapely nails, the work-hardened palm with its row
-of callouses, the smooth flesh under the wrist. Merely from
-feeling it he would have known it by sight. In the same instant
-it occurred to him that he did not know what colour the girl's
-eyes were. They were probably brown, but people with dark hair
-sometimes had blue eyes. To turn his head and look at her would
-have been inconceivable folly. With hands locked together,
-invisible among the press of bodies, they stared steadily in
-front of them, and instead of the eyes of the girl, the eyes of
-the aged prisoner gazed mournfully at Winston out of nests of
-hair.</p>
-<h1><a name="10">X</a></h1>
-<p class="no-indent">
- Winston picked his way up the lane through dappled light
-and shade, stepping out into pools of gold wherever the boughs
-parted. Under the trees to the left of him the ground was misty
-with bluebells. The air seemed to kiss one's skin. It was the
-second of May. From somewhere deeper in the heart of the wood
-came the droning of ring doves.</p>
-<p>
- He was a bit early. There had been no difficulties about
-the journey, and the girl was so evidently experienced that he
-was less frightened than he would normally have been.
-Presumably she could be trusted to find a safe place. In
-general you could not assume that you were much safer in the
-country than in London. There were no telescreens, of course,
-but there was always the danger of concealed microphones by
-which your voice might be picked up and recognized; besides, it
-was not easy to make a journey by yourself without attracting
-attention. For distances of less than 100 kilometres it was not
-necessary to get your passport endorsed, but sometimes there
-were patrols hanging about the railway stations, who examined
-the papers of any Party member they found there and asked
-awkward questions. However, no patrols had appeared, and on the
-walk from the station he had made sure by cautious backward
-glances that he was not being followed. The train was full of
-proles, in holiday mood because of the summery weather. The
-wooden-seated carriage in which he travelled was filled to
-overflowing by a single enormous family. ranging from a
-toothless great-grandmother to a month-old baby, going out to
-spend an afternoon with 'in-laws' in the country, and, as they
-freely explained to Winston, to get hold of a little
-blackmarket butter.</p>
-<p>
- The lane widened, and in a minute he came to the footpath
-she had told him of, a mere cattle-track which plunged between
-the bushes. He had no watch, but it could not be fifteen yet.
-The bluebells were so thick underfoot that it was impossible
-not to tread on them. He knelt down and began picking some
-partly to pass the time away, but also from a vague idea that
-he would like to have a bunch of flowers to offer to the girl
-when they met. He had got together a big bunch and was smelling
-their faint sickly scent when a sound at his back froze him,
-the unmistakable crackle of a foot on twigs. He went on picking
-bluebells. It was the best thing to do. It might be the girl,
-or he might have been followed after all. To look round was to
-show guilt. He picked another and another. A hand fell lightly
-on his shoulder.</p>
-<p>
- He looked up. It was the girl. She shook her head,
-evidently as a warning that he must keep silent, then parted
-the bushes and quickly led the way along the narrow track into
-the wood. Obviously she had been that way before, for she
-dodged the boggy bits as though by habit. Winston followed,
-still clasping his bunch of flowers. His first feeling was
-relief, but as he watched the strong slender body moving in
-front of him, with the scarlet sash that was just tight enough
-to bring out the curve of her hips, the sense of his own
-inferiority was heavy upon him. Even now it seemed quite likely
-that when she turned round and looked at him she would draw
-back after all. The sweetness of the air and the greenness of
-the leaves daunted him. Already on the walk from the station
-the May sunshine had made him feel dirty and etiolated, a
-creature of indoors, with the sooty dust of London in the pores
-of his skin. It occurred to him that till now she had probably
-never seen him in broad daylight in the open. They came to the
-fallen tree that she had spoken of. The girl hopped over and
-forced apart the bushes, in which there did not seem to be an
-opening. When Winston followed her, he found that they were in
-a natural clearing, a tiny grassy knoll surrounded by tall
-saplings that shut it in completely. The girl stopped and
-turned.</p>
-<p>
- 'Here we are,' she said.</p>
-<p>
- He was facing her at several paces' distance. As yet he
-did not dare move nearer to her.</p>
-<p>
- 'I didn't want to say anything in the lane,' she went on,
-'in case there's a mike hidden there. I don't suppose there is,
-but there could be. There's always the chance of one of those
-swine recognizing your voice. We're all right here.'</p>
-<p>
- He still had not the courage to approach her. 'We're all
-right here?' he repeated stupidly.</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes. Look at the trees.' They were small ashes, which at
-some time had been cut down and had sprouted up again into a
-forest of poles, none of them thicker than one's wrist.
-'There's nothing big enough to hide a mike in. Besides, I've
-been here before.'</p>
-<p>
- They were only making conversation. He had managed to move
-closer to her now. She stood before him very upright, with a
-smile on her face that looked faintly ironical, as though she
-were wondering why he was so slow to act. The bluebells had
-cascaded on to the ground. They seemed to have fallen of their
-own accord. He took her hand.</p>
-<p>
- 'Would you believe,' he said, 'that till this moment I
-didn't know what colour your eyes were?' They were brown, he
-noted, a rather light shade of brown, with dark lashes. 'Now
-that you've seen what I'm really like, can you still bear to
-look at me?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes, easily.'</p>
-<p>
- 'I'm thirty-nine years old. I've got a wife that I can't
-get rid of. I've got varicose veins. I've got five false
-teeth.'</p>
-<p>
- 'I couldn't care less,' said the girl.</p>
-<p>
- The next moment, it was hard to say by whose act, she was
-in his his arms. At the beginning he had no feeling except
-sheer incredulity. The youthful body was strained against his
-own, the mass of dark hair was against his face, and yes!
-actually she had turned her face up and he was kissing the wide
-red mouth. She had clasped her arms about his neck, she was
-calling him darling, precious one, loved one. He had pulled her
-down on to the ground, she was utterly unresisting, he could do
-what he liked with her. But the truth was that he had no
-physical sensation, except that of mere contact. All he felt
-was incredulity and pride. He was glad that this was happening,
-but he had no physical desire. It was too soon, her youth and
-prettiness had frightened him, he was too much used to living
-without women -- he did not know the reason. The girl picked
-herself up and pulled a bluebell out of her hair. She sat
-against him, putting her arm round his waist.</p>
-<p>
- 'Never mind, dear. There's no hurry. We've got the whole
-afternoon. Isn't this a splendid hide-out? I found it when I
-got lost once on a community hike. If anyone was coming you
-could hear them a hundred metres away.'</p>
-<p>
- 'What is your name?' said Winston.</p>
-<p>
- 'Julia. I know yours. It's Winston -- Winston Smith.'</p>
-<p>
- 'How did you find that out?'</p>
-<p>
- 'I expect I'm better at finding things out than you are,
-dear. Tell me, what did you think of me before that day I gave
-you the note?'</p>
-<p>
- He did not feel any temptation to tell lies to her. It was
-even a sort of love-offering to start off by telling the worst.</p>
-<p>
- 'I hated the sight of you,' he said. 'I wanted to rape you
-and then murder you afterwards. Two weeks ago I thought
-seriously of smashing your head in with a cobblestone. If you
-really want to know, I imagined that you had something to do
-with the Thought Police.'</p>
-<p>
- The girl laughed delightedly, evidently taking this as a
-tribute to the excellence of her disguise.</p>
-<p>
- 'Not the Thought Police! You didn't honestly think that?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Well, perhaps not exactly that. But from your general
-appearance -- merely because you're young and fresh and
-healthy, you understand -- I thought that probably-'</p>
-<p>
- 'You thought I was a good Party member. Pure in word and
-deed. Banners, processions, slogans, games, community hikes all
-that stuff. And you thought that if I had a quarter of a chance
-I'd denounce you as a thought-criminal and get you killed off?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes, something of that kind. A great many young girls are
-like that, you know.'</p>
-<p>
- 'It's this bloody thing that does it,' she said, ripping
-off the scarlet sash of the Junior Anti-Sex League and flinging
-it on to a bough. Then, as though touching her waist had
-reminded her of something, she felt in the pocket of her
-overalls and produced a small slab of chocolate. She broke it
-in half and gave one of the pieces to Winston. Even before he
-had taken it he knew by the smell that it was very unusual
-chocolate. It was dark and shiny, and was wrapped in silver
-paper. Chocolate normally was dull-brown crumbly stuff that
-tasted, as nearly as one could describe it, like the smoke of a
-rubbish fire. But at some time or another he had tasted
-chocolate like the piece she had given him. The first whiff of
-its scent had stirred up some memory which he could not pin
-down, but which was powerful and troubling.</p>
-<p>
- 'Where did you get this stuff?' he said.</p>
-<p>
- 'Black market,' she said indifferently. 'Actually I am
-that sort of girl, to look at. I'm good at games. I was a
-troop-leader in the Spies. I do voluntary work three evenings a
-week for the Junior Anti-Sex League. Hours and hours I've spent
-pasting their bloody rot all over London. I always carry one
-end of a banner in the processions. I always Iook cheerful and
-I never shirk anything. Always yell with the crowd, that's what
-I say. It's the only way to be safe.'</p>
-<p>
- The first fragment of chocolate had melted on Winston's
-tongue. The taste was delightful. But there was still that
-memory moving round the edges of his consciousness, something
-strongly felt but not reducible to definite shape, like an
-object seen out of the corner of one's eye. He pushed it away
-from him, aware only that it was the memory of some action
-which he would have liked to undo but could not.</p>
-<p>
- 'You are very young,' he said. 'You are ten or fifteen
-years younger than I am. What could you see to attract you in a
-man like me?'</p>
-<p>
- 'It was something in your face. I thought I'd take a
-chance. I'm good at spotting people who don't belong. As soon
-as I saw you I knew you were against them.'</p>
-<p>
- Them, it appeared, meant the Party, and above all
-the Inner Party, about whom she talked with an open jeering
-hatred which made Winston feel uneasy, although he knew that
-they were safe here if they could be safe anywhere. A thing
-that astonished him about her was the coarseness of her
-language. Party members were supposed not to swear, and Winston
-himself very seldom did swear, aloud, at any rate. Julia,
-however, seemed unable to mention the Party, and especially the
-Inner Party, without using the kind of words that you saw
-chalked up in dripping alley-ways. He did not dislike it. It
-was merely one symptom of her revolt against the Party and all
-its ways, and somehow it seemed natural and healthy, like the
-sneeze of a horse that smells bad hay. They had left the
-clearing and were wandering again through the chequered shade,
-with their arms round each other's waists whenever it was wide
-enough to walk two abreast. He noticed how much softer her
-waist seemed to feel now that the sash was gone. They did not
-speak above a whisper. Outside the clearing, Julia said, it was
-better to go quietly. Presently they had reached the edge of
-the little wood. She stopped him.</p>
-<p>
- 'Don't go out into the open. There might be someone
-watching. We're all right if we keep behind the boughs.'</p>
-<p>
- They were standing in the shade of hazel bushes. The
-sunlight, filtering through innumerable leaves, was still hot
-on their faces. Winston looked out into the field beyond, and
-underwent a curious, slow shock of recognition. He knew it by
-sight. An old, closebitten pasture, with a footpath wandering
-across it and a molehill here and there. In the ragged hedge on
-the opposite side the boughs of the elm trees swayed just
-perceptibly in the breeze, and their leaves stirred faintly in
-dense masses like women's hair. Surely somewhere nearby, but
-out of sight, there must be a stream with green pools where
-dace were swimming?</p>
-<p>
- 'Isn't there a stream somewhere near here?' he whispered.</p>
-<p>
- 'That's right, there is a stream. It's at the edge of the
-next field, actually. There are fish in it, great big ones. You
-can watch them lying in the pools under the willow trees,
-waving their tails.'</p>
-<p>
- 'It's the Golden Country -- almost,' he murmured.</p>
-<p>
- 'The Golden Country?'</p>
-<p>
- 'It's nothing, really. A landscape I've seen sometimes in
-a dream.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Look!' whispered Julia.</p>
-<p>
- A thrush had alighted on a bough not five metres away,
-almost at the level of their faces. Perhaps it had not seen
-them. It was in the sun, they in the shade. It spread out its
-wings, fitted them carefully into place again, ducked its head
-for a moment, as though making a sort of obeisance to the sun,
-and then began to pour forth a torrent of song. In the
-afternoon hush the volume of sound was startling. Winston and
-Julia clung together, fascinated. The music went on and on,
-minute after minute, with astonishing variations, never once
-repeating itself, almost as though the bird were deliberately
-showing off its virtuosity. Sometimes it stopped for a few
-seconds, spread out and resettled its wings, then swelled its
-speckled breast and again burst into song. Winston watched it
-with a sort of vague reverence. For whom, for what, was that
-bird singing? No mate, no rival was watching it. What made it
-sit at the edge of the lonely wood and pour its music into
-nothingness? He wondered whether after all there was a
-microphone hidden somewhere near. He and Julia had spoken only
-in low whispers, and it would not pick up what they had said,
-but it would pick up the thrush. Perhaps at the other end of
-the instrument some small, beetle-like man was listening
-intently -- listening to that. But by degrees the flood
-of music drove all speculations out of his mind. It was as
-though it were a kind of liquid stuff that poured all over him
-and got mixed up with the sunlight that filtered through the
-leaves. He stopped thinking and merely felt. The girl's waist
-in the bend of his arm was soft and warm. He pulled her round
-so that they were breast to breast; her body seemed to melt
-into his. Wherever his hands moved it was all as yielding as
-water. Their mouths clung together; it was quite different from
-the hard kisses they had exchanged earlier. When they moved
-their faces apart again both of them sighed deeply. The bird
-took fright and fled with a clatter of wings.</p>
-<p>
- Winston put his lips against her ear. 'Now,' he
-whispered.</p>
-<p>
- 'Not here,' she whispered back. 'Come back to the hide-
-out. It's safer.'</p>
-<p>
- Quickly, with an occasional crackle of twigs, they
-threaded their way back to the clearing. When they were once
-inside the ring of saplings she turned and faced him. They were
-both breathing fast. but the smile had reappeared round the
-corners of her mouth. She stood looking at him for an instant,
-then felt at the zipper of her overalls. And, yes! it was
-almost as in his dream. Almost as swiftly as he had imagined
-it, she had torn her clothes off, and when she flung them aside
-it was with that same magnificent gesture by which a whole
-civilization seemed to be annihilated. Her body gleamed white
-in the sun. But for a moment he did not look at her body; his
-eyes were anchored by the freckled face with its faint, bold
-smile. He knelt down before her and took her hands in his</p>
-<p>
- 'Have you done this before?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Of course. Hundreds of times -- well scores of times
-anyway
- 'With Party members.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes, always with Party members.'</p>
-<p>
- 'With members of the Inner Party?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Not with those swine, no. But there's plenty that
-would if they got half a chance. They're not so holy as
-they make out.'</p>
-<p>
- His heart leapt. Scores of times she had done it: he
-wished it had been hundreds -- thousands. Anything that hinted
-at corruption always filled him with a wild hope. Who knew,
-perhaps the Party was rotten under the surface, its cult of
-strenuousness and self-denial simply a sham concealing iniquity.
-If he could have infected the whole lot of them with leprosy or
-syphilis, how gladly he would have done so! Anything to rot, to
-weaken, to undermine! He pulled her down so that they were
-kneeling face to face.</p>
-<p>
- 'Listen. The more men you've had, the more I love you. Do
-you understand that?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes, perfectly.'</p>
-<p>
- 'I hate purity, I hate goodness! I don't want any virtue
-to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones.</p>
-<p>
- 'Well then, I ought to suit you, dear. I'm corrupt to the
-bones.'</p>
-<p>
- 'You like doing this? I don't mean simply me: I mean the
-thing in itself?'</p>
-<p>
- 'I adore it.'</p>
-<p>
- That was above all what he wanted to hear. Not merely the
-love of one person but the animal instinct, the simple
-undifferentiated desire: that was the force that would tear the
-Party to pieces. He pressed her down upon the grass, among the
-fallen bluebells. This time there was no difficulty. Presently
-the rising and falling of their breasts slowed to normal speed,
-and in a sort of pleasant helplessness they fell apart. The sun
-seemed to have grown hotter. They were both sleepy. He reached
-out for the discarded overalls and pulled them partly over her.
-Almost immediately they fell asleep and slept for about half an
-hour.</p>
-<p>
- Winston woke first. He sat up and watched the freckled
-face, still peacefully asleep, pillowed on the palm of her
-hand. Except for her mouth, you could not call her beautiful.
-There was a line or two round the eyes, if you looked closely.
-The short dark hair was extraordinarily thick and soft. It
-occurred to him that he still did not know her surname or where
-she lived.</p>
-<p>
- The young, strong body, now helpless in sleep, awoke in
-him a pitying, protecting feeling. But the mindless tenderness
-that he had felt under the hazel tree, while the thrush was
-singing, had not quite come back. He pulled the overalls aside
-and studied her smooth white flank. In the old days, he
-thought, a man looked at a girl's body and saw that it was
-desirable, and that was the end of the story. But you could not
-have pure love or pure lust nowadays. No emotion was pure,
-because everything was mixed up with fear and hatred. Their
-embrace had been a battle, the climax a victory. It was a blow
-struck against the Party. It was a political act.</p>
-<h1><a name="11">XI</a></h1>
-<p class="no-indent">
- 'We can come here once again,' said Julia. 'It's generally
-safe to use any hide-out twice. But not for another month or
-two, of course.'</p>
-<p>
- As soon as she woke up her demeanour had changed. She
-became alert and business-like, put her clothes on, knotted the
-scarlet sash about her waist, and began arranging the details
-of the journey home. It seemed natural to leave this to her.
-She obviously had a practical cunning which Winston lacked, and
-she seemed also to have an exhaustive knowledge of the
-countryside round London, stored away from innumerable
-community hikes. The route she gave him was quite different
-from the one by which he had come, and brought him out at a
-different railway station. 'Never go home the same way as you
-went out,' she said, as though enunciating an important general
-principle. She would leave first, and Winston was to wait half
-an hour before following her.</p>
-<p>
- She had named a place where they could meet after work,
-four evenings hence. It was a street in one of the poorer
-quarters, where there was an open market which was generally
-crowded and noisy. She would be hanging about among the stalls,
-pretending to be in search of shoelaces or sewing-thread. If
-she judged that the coast was clear she would blow her nose
-when he approached; otherwise he was to walk past her without
-recognition. But with luck, in the middle of the crowd, it
-would be safe to talk for a quarter of an hour and arrange
-another meeting.</p>
-<p>
- 'And now I must go,' she said as soon as he had mastered
-his instructions. 'I'm due back at nineteen-thirty. I've got to
-put in two hours for the Junior Anti-Sex League, handing out
-leaflets, or something. Isn't it bloody? Give me a brush-down,
-would you? Have I got any twigs in my hair? Are you sure? Then
-good-bye, my love, good-bye!'</p>
-<p>
- She flung herself into his arms, kissed him almost
-violently, and a moment later pushed her way through the
-saplings and disappeared into the wood with very little noise.
-Even now he had not found out her surname or her address.
-However, it made no difference, for it was inconceivable that
-they could ever meet indoors or exchange any kind of written
-communication.</p>
-<p>
- As it happened, they never went back to the clearing in
-the wood. During the month of May there was only one further
-occasion on which they actually succeeded in making love. That
-was in another hidlng-place known to Julia, the belfry of a
-ruinous church in an almost-deserted stretch of country where
-an atomic bomb had fallen thirty years earlier. It was a good
-hiding-place when once you got there, but the getting there was
-very dangerous. For the rest they could meet only in the
-streets, in a different place every evening and never for more
-than half an hour at a time. In the street it was usually
-possible to talk, after a fashion. As they drifted down the
-crowded pavements, not quite abreast and never looking at one
-another, they carried on a curious, intermittent conversation
-which flicked on and off like the beams of a lighthouse,
-suddenly nipped into silence by the approach of a Party uniform
-or the proximity of a telescreen, then taken up again minutes
-later in the middle of a sentence, then abruptly cut short as
-they parted at the agreed spot, then continued almost without
-introduction on the following day. Julia appeared to be quite
-used to this kind of conversation, which she called 'talking by
-instalments'. She was also surprisingly adept at speaking
-without moving her lips. Just once in almost a month of nightly
-meetings they managed to exchange a kiss. They were passing in
-silence down a side-street (Julia would never speak when they
-were away from the main streets) when there was a deafening
-roar, the earth heaved, and the air darkened, and Winston found
-himself lying on his side, bruised and terrified. A rocket bomb
-must have dropped quite near at hand. Suddenly he became aware
-of Julia's face a few centimetres from his own, deathly white,
-as white as chalk. Even her lips were white. She was dead! He
-clasped her against him and found that he was kissing a live
-warm face. But there was some powdery stuff that got in the way
-of his lips. Both of their faces were thickly coated with
-plaster.</p>
-<p>
- There were evenings when they reached their rendezvous and
-then had to walk past one another without a sign, because a
-patrol had just come round the corner or a helicopter was
-hovering overhead. Even if it had been less dangerous, it would
-still have been difficult to find time to meet. Winston's
-working week was sixty hours, Julia's was even longer, and
-their free days varied according to the pressure of work and
-did not often coincide. Julia, in any case, seldom had an
-evening completely free. She spent an astonishing amount of
-time in attending lectures and demonstrations, distributing
-literature for the junior Anti-Sex League, preparing banners
-for Hate Week, making collections for the savings campaign, and
-such-like activities. It paid, she said, it was camouflage. If
-you kept the small rules, you could break the big ones. She
-even induced Winston to mortgage yet another of his evenings by
-enrolling himself for the part-time munition work which was
-done voluntarily by zealous Party members. So, one evening
-every week, Winston spent four hours of paralysing boredom,
-screwing together small bits of metal which were probably parts
-of bomb fuses, in a draughty, ill-lit workshop where the
-knocking of hammers mingled drearily with the music of the
-telescreens.</p>
-<p>
- When they met in the church tower the gaps in their
-fragmentary conversation were filled up. It was a blazing
-afternoon. The air in the little square chamber above the bells
-was hot and stagnant, and smelt overpoweringly of pigeon dung.
-They sat talking for hours on the dusty, twig-littered floor,
-one or other of them getting up from time to time to cast a
-glance through the arrowslits and make sure that no one was
-coming.</p>
-<p>
- Julia was twenty-six years old. She lived in a hostel with
-thirty other girls ('Always in the stink of women! How I hate
-women!' she said parenthetically), and she worked, as he had
-guessed, on the novel-writing machines in the Fiction
-Department. She enjoyed her work, which consisted chiefly in
-running and servicing a powerful but tricky electric motor. She
-was 'not clever', but was fond of using her hands and felt at
-home with machinery. She could describe the whole process of
-composing a novel, from the general directive issued by the
-Planning Committee down to the final touching-up by the Rewrite
-Squad. But she was not interested in the finished product. She
-'didn't much care for reading,' she said. Books were just a
-commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.</p>
-<p>
- She had no memories of anything before the early sixties
-and the only person she had ever known who talked frequently of
-the days before the Revolution was a grandfather who had
-disappeared when she was eight. At school she had been captain
-of the hockey team and had won the gymnastics trophy two years
-running. She had been a troop-leader in the Spies and a branch
-secretary in the Youth League before joining the Junior
-Anti-Sex League. She had always borne an excellent character.
-She had even (an infallible mark of good reputation) been
-picked out to work in Pornosec, the sub-section of the Fiction
-Department which turned out cheap pornography for distribution
-among the proles. It was nicknamed Muck House by the people who
-worked in it, she remarked. There she had remained for a year,
-helping to produce booklets in sealed packets with titles like
-Spanking Stories or One Night in a Girls'
-School, to be bought furtively by proletarian youths who
-were under the impression that they were buying something
-illegal.</p>
-<p>
- 'What are these books like?' said Winston curiously.</p>
-<p>
- 'Oh, ghastly rubbish. They're boring, really. They only
-have six plots, but they swap them round a bit. Of course I was
-only on the kaleidoscopes. I was never in the Rewrite Squad.
-I'm not literary, dear -- not even enough for that.'</p>
-<p>
- He learned with astonishment that all the workers in
-Pornosec, except the heads of the departments, were girls. The
-theory was that men, whose sex instincts were less controllable
-than those of women, were in greater danger of being corrupted
-by the filth they handled.</p>
-<p>
- 'They don't even like having married women there,' she
-added. Girls are always supposed to be so pure. Here's one who
-isn't, anyway.</p>
-<p>
- She had had her first love-affair when she was sixteen,
-with a Party member of sixty who later committed suicide to
-avoid arrest. 'And a good job too,' said Julia, 'otherwise
-they'd have had my name out of him when he confessed.' Since
-then there had been various others. Life as she saw it was
-quite simple. You wanted a good time; 'they', meaning the
-Party, wanted to stop you having it; you broke the rules as
-best you couId. She seemed to think it just as natural that
-'they' should want to rob you of your pleasures as that you
-should want to avoid being caught. She hated the Party, and
-said so in the crudest words, but she made no general criticism
-of it. Except where it touched upon her own life she had no
-interest in Party doctrine. He noticed that she never used
-Newspeak words except the ones that had passed into everyday
-use. She had never heard of the Brotherhood, and refused to
-believe in its existence. Any kind of organized revolt against
-the Party, which was bound to be a failure, struck her as
-stupid. The clever thing was to break the rules and stay alive
-all the same. He wondered vaguely how many others like her
-there might be in the younger generation people who had grown
-up in the world of the Revolution, knowing nothing else,
-accepting the Party as something unalterable, like the sky, not
-rebelling against its authority but simply evading it, as a
-rabbit dodges a dog.</p>
-<p>
- They did not discuss the possibility of getting married.
-It was too remote to be worth thinking about. No imaginable
-committee would ever sanction such a marriage even if
-Katharine, Winston's wife, could somehow have been got rid of.
-It was hopeless even as a daydream.</p>
-<p>
- 'What was she like, your wife?' said Julia.</p>
-<p>
- 'She was -- do you know the Newspeak word
-goodthinkful? Meaning naturally orthodox, incapable of
-thinking a bad thought?'</p>
-<p>
- 'No, I didn't know the word, but I know the kind of
-person, right enough.'</p>
-<p>
- He began telling her the story of his married life, but
-curiously enough she appeared to know the essential parts of it
-already. She described to him, almost as though she had seen or
-felt it, the stiffening of Katharine's body as soon as he
-touched her, the way in which she still seemed to be pushing
-him from her with all her strength, even when her arms were
-clasped tightly round him. With Julia he felt no difficulty in
-talking about such things: Katharine, in any case, had long
-ceased to be a painful memory and became merely a distasteful
-one.</p>
-<p>
- 'I could have stood it if it hadn't been for one thing,'
-he said. He toId her about the frigid little ceremony that
-Katharine had forced him to go through on the same night every
-week. 'She hated it, but nothing would make her stop doing it.
-She used to call it -- but you'll never guess.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Our duty to the Party,' said Julia promptly.</p>
-<p>
- 'How did you know that?'</p>
-<p>
- 'I've been at school too, dear. Sex talks once a month for
-the over-sixteens. And in the Youth Movement. They rub it into
-you for years. I dare say it works in a lot of cases. But of
-course you can never tell; people are such hypocrites.'</p>
-<p>
- She began to enlarge upon the subject. With Julia,
-everything came back to her own sexuality. As soon as this was
-touched upon in any way she was capable of great acuteness.
-Unlike Winston, she had grasped the inner meaning of the
-Party's sexual puritanism. It was not merely that the sex
-instinct created a world of its own which was outside the
-Party's control and which therefore had to be destroyed if
-possible. What was more important was that sexual privation
-induced hysteria, which was desirable because it could be
-transformed into war-fever and leader-worship. The way she put
-it was:</p>
-<p>
- 'When you make love you're using up energy; and afterwards
-you feel happy and don't give a damn for anything. They can't
-bear you to feel like that. They want you to be bursting with
-energy all the time. All this marching up and down and cheering
-and waving flags is simply sex gone sour. If you're happy
-inside yourself, why should you get excited about Big Brother
-and the Three-Year Plans and the Two Minutes Hate and all the
-rest of their bloody rot?'</p>
-<p>
- That was very true, he thought. There was a direct
-intimate connexion between chastity and political orthodoxy.
-For how could the fear, the hatred, and the lunatic credulity
-which the Party needed in its members be kept at the right
-pitch, except by bottling down some powerful instinct and using
-it as a driving force? The sex impulse was dangerous to the
-Party, and the Party had turned it to account. They had played
-a similar trick with the instinct of parenthood. The family
-could not actually be abolished, and, indeed, people were
-encouraged to be fond of their children, in almost the
-old-fashioned way. The children, on the other hand, were
-systematically turned against their parents and taught to spy
-on them and report their deviations. The family had become in
-effect an extension of the Thought Police. It was a device by
-means of which everyone could be surrounded night and day by
-informers who knew him intimately.</p>
-<p>
- Abruptly his mind went back to Katharine. Katharine would
-unquestionably have denounced him to the Thought Police if she
-had not happened to be too stupid to detect the unorthodoxy of
-his opinions. But what really recalled her to him at this
-moment was the stifling heat of the afternoon, which had
-brought the sweat out on his forehead. He began telling Julia
-of something that had happened, or rather had failed to happen,
-on another sweltering summer afternoon, eleven years ago.</p>
-<p>
- It was three or four months after they were married. They
-had lost their way on a community hike somewhere in Kent. They
-had only lagged behind the others for a couple of minutes, but
-they took a wrong turning, and presently found themselves
-pulled up short by the edge of an old chalk quarry. It was a
-sheer drop of ten or twenty metres, with boulders at the
-bottom. There was nobody of whom they could ask the way. As
-soon as she realized that they were lost Katharine became very
-uneasy. To be away from the noisy mob of hikers even for a
-moment gave her a feeling of wrong-doing. She wanted to hurry
-back by the way they had come and start searching in the other
-direction. But at this moment Winston noticed some tufts of
-loosestrife growing in the cracks of the cliff beneath them.
-One tuft was of two colours, magenta and brick-red, apparently
-growing on the same root. He had never seen anything of the
-kind before, and he called to Katharine to come and look at it.</p>
-<p>
- 'Look, Katharine! Look at those flowers. That clump down
-near the bottom. Do you see they're two different colours?'</p>
-<p>
- She had already turned to go, but she did rather fretfully
-come back for a moment. She even leaned out over the cliff face
-to see where he was pointing. He was standing a little behind
-her, and he put his hand on her waist to steady her. At this
-moment it suddenly occurred to him how completely alone they
-were. There was not a human creature anywhere, not a leaf
-stirring, not even a bird awake. In a place like this the
-danger that there would be a hidden microphone was very small,
-and even if there was a microphone it would only pick up
-sounds. It was the hottest sleepiest hour of the afternoon. The
-sun blazed down upon them, the sweat tickled his face. And the
-thought struck him ...</p>
-<p>
- 'Why didn't you give her a good shove?' said Julia. 'I
-would have.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes, dear, you would have. I would, if I'd been the same
-person then as I am now. Or perhaps I would -- I'm not
-certain.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Are you sorry you didn't?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes. On the whole I'm sorry I didn't.'</p>
-<p>
- They were sitting side by side on the dusty floor. He
-pulled her closer against him. Her head rested on his shoulder,
-the pleasant smell of her hair conquering the pigeon dung. She
-was very young, he thought, she still expected something from
-life, she did not understand that to push an inconvenient
-person over a cliff solves nothing.</p>
-<p>
- 'Actually it would have made no difference,' he said.</p>
-<p>
- 'Then why are you sorry you didn't do it?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Only because I prefer a positive to a negative. In this
-game that we're playing, we can't win. Some kinds of failure
-are better than other kinds, that's all.'</p>
-<p>
- He felt her shoulders give a wriggle of dissent. She
-always contradicted him when he said anything of this kind. She
-would not accept it as a law of nature that the individual is
-always defeated. In a way she realized that she herself was
-doomed, that sooner or later the Thought Police would catch her
-and kill her, but with another part of her mind she believed
-that it was somehow possible to construct a secret world in
-which you could live as you chose. All you needed was luck and
-cunning and boldness. She did not understand that there was no
-such thing as happiness, that the only victory lay in the far
-future, long after you were dead, that from the moment of
-declaring war on the Party it was better to think of yourself
-as a corpse.</p>
-<p>
- 'We are the dead,' he said.</p>
-<p>
- 'We're not dead yet,' said Julia prosaically.</p>
-<p>
- 'Not physically. Six months, a year -- five years,
-conceivably. I am afraid of death. You are young, so presumably
-you're more afraid of it than I am. Obviously we shall put it
-off as long as we can. But it makes very little difference. So
-long as human beings stay human, death and life are the same
-thing.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Oh, rubbish! Which would you sooner sleep with, me or a
-skeleton? Don't you enjoy being alive? Don't you like feeling:
-This is me, this is my hand, this is my leg, I'm real, I'm
-solid, I'm alive! Don't you like this?'</p>
-<p>
- She twisted herself round and pressed her bosom against
-him. He could feel her breasts, ripe yet firm, through her
-overalls. Her body seemed to be pouring some of its youth and
-vigour into his.</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes, I like that,' he said.</p>
-<p>
- 'Then stop talking about dying. And now listen, dear,
-we've got to fix up about the next time we meet. We may as well
-go back to the place in the wood. We've given it a good long
-rest. But you must get there by a different way this time. I've
-got it all planned out. You take the train -- but look, I'll
-draw it out for you.'</p>
-<p>
- And in her practical way she scraped together a small
-square of dust, and with a twig from a pigeon's nest began
-drawing a map on the floor.</p>
-<h1><a name="12">XII</a></h1>
-<p class="no-indent">
- Winston looked round the shabby little room above Mr
-Charrington's shop. Beside the window the enormous bed was made
-up, with ragged blankets and a coverless bolster. The
-old-fashioned clock with the twelve-hour face was ticking away
-on the mantelpiece. In the corner, on the gateleg table, the
-glass paperweight which he had bought on his last visit gleamed
-softly out of the half-darkness.</p>
-<p>
- In the fender was a battered tin oilstove, a saucepan, and
-two cups, provided by Mr Charrington. Winston lit the burner
-and set a pan of water to boil. He had brought an envelope full
-of Victory Coffee and some saccharine tablets. The clock's
-hands said seventeen-twenty: it was nineteen-twenty really.
-She was coming at nineteen-thirty.</p>
-<p>
- Folly, folly, his heart kept saying: conscious,
-gratuitous, suicidal folly. Of all the crimes that a Party
-member could commit, this one was the least possible to
-conceal. Actually the idea had first floated into his head in
-the form of a vision, of the glass paperweight mirrored by the
-surface of the gateleg table. As he had foreseen, Mr
-Charrington had made no difficulty about letting the room. He
-was obviously glad of the few dollars that it would bring him.
-Nor did he seem shocked or become offensively knowing when it
-was made clear that Winston wanted the room for the purpose of
-a love-affair. Instead he looked into the middle distance and
-spoke in generalities, with so delicate an air as to give the
-impression that he had become partly invisible. Privacy, he
-said, was a very valuable thing. Everyone wanted a place where
-they could be alone occasionally. And when they had such a
-place, it was only common courtesy in anyone else who knew of
-it to keep his knowledge to himself. He even, seeming almost to
-fade out of existence as he did so, added that there were two
-entries to the house, one of them through the back yard, which
-gave on an alley.</p>
-<p>
- Under the window somebody was singing. Winston peeped out,
-secure in the protection of the muslin curtain. The June sun
-was still high in the sky, and in the sun-filled court below, a
-monstrous woman, solid as a Norman pillar, with brawny red
-forearms and a sacking apron strapped about her middle, was
-stumping to and fro between a washtub and a clothes line,
-pegging out a series of square white things which Winston
-recognized as babies' diapers. Whenever her mouth was not
-corked with clothes pegs she was singing in a powerful
-contralto:</p>
-<p class="quote">
- It was only an 'opeless fancy.<br>
- It passed like an Ipril dye,<br>
- But a look an' a word an' the dreams they stirred!<br>
- They 'ave stolen my 'eart awye!</p>
-<p>
-
- The tune had been haunting London for weeks past. It was
-one of countless similar songs published for the benefit of the
-proles by a sub-section of the Music Department. The words of
-these songs were composed without any human intervention
-whatever on an instrument known as a versificator. But the
-woman sang so tunefully as to turn the dreadful rubbish into an
-almost pleasant sound. He could hear the woman singing and the
-scrape of her shoes on the flagstones, and the cries of the
-children in the street, and somewhere in the far distance a
-faint roar of traffic, and yet the room seemed curiously
-silent, thanks to the absence of a telescreen.</p>
-<p>
- Folly, folly, folly! he thought again. It was
-inconceivable that they could frequent this place for more than
-a few weeks without being caught. But the temptation of having
-a hiding-place that was truly their own, indoors and near at
-hand, had been too much for both of them. For some time after
-their visit to the church belfry it had been impossible to
-arrange meetings. Working hours had been drastically increased
-in anticipation of Hate Week. It was more than a month distant,
-but the enormous, complex preparations that it entailed were
-throwing extra work on to everybody. Finally both of them
-managed to secure a free afternoon on the same day. They had
-agreed to go back to the clearing in the wood. On the evening
-beforehand they met briefly in the street. As usual, Winston
-hardly looked at Julia as they drifted towards one another in
-the crowd, but from the short glance he gave her it seemed to
-him that she was paler than usual.</p>
-<p>
- 'It's all off,' she murmured as soon as she judged it safe
-to speak. 'Tomorrow, I mean.'</p>
-<p>
- 'What?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Tomorrow afternoon. I can't come.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Why not?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Oh, the usual reason. It's started early this time.'</p>
-<p>
- For a moment he was violently angry. During the month that
-he had known her the nature of his desire for her had changed.
-At the beginning there had been little true sensuality in it.
-Their first love-making had been simply an act of the will. But
-after the second time it was different. The smell of her hair,
-the taste of her mouth, the feeling of her skin seemed to have
-got inside him, or into the air all round him. She had become a
-physical necessity, something that he not only wanted but felt
-that he had a right to. When she said that she could not come,
-he had the feeling that she was cheating him. But just at this
-moment the crowd pressed them together and their hands
-accidentally met. She gave the tips of his fingers a quick
-squeeze that seemed to invite not desire but affection. It
-struck him that when one lived with a woman this particular
-disappointment must be a normal, recurring event; and a deep
-tenderness, such as he had not felt for her before, suddenly
-took hold of him. He wished that they were a married couple of
-ten years' standing. He wished that he were walking through the
-streets with her just as they were doing now but openly and
-without fear, talking of trivialities and buying odds and ends
-for the household. He wished above all that they had some place
-where they could be alone together without feeling the
-obligation to make love every time they met. It was not
-actually at that moment, but at some time on the following day,
-that the idea of renting Mr Charrington's room had occurred to
-him. When he suggested it to Julia she had agreed with
-unexpected readiness. Both of them knew that it was lunacy. It
-was as though they were intentionally stepping nearer to their
-graves. As he sat waiting on the edge of the bed he thought
-again of the cellars of the Ministry of Love. It was curious
-how that predestined horror moved in and out of one's
-consciousness. There it lay, fixed in future times, preceding
-death as surely as 99 precedes 100. One could not avoid it, but
-one could perhaps postpone it: and yet instead, every now and
-again, by a conscious, wilful act, one chose to shorten the
-interval before it happened.</p>
-<p>
- At this moment there was a quick step on the stairs. Julia
-burst into the room. She was carrying a tool-bag of coarse
-brown canvas, such as he had sometimes seen her carrying to and
-fro at the Ministry. He started forward to take her in his
-arms, but she disengaged herself rather hurriedly, partly
-because she was still holding the tool-bag.</p>
-<p>
- 'Half a second,' she said. 'Just let me show you what I've
-brought. Did you bring some of that filthy Victory Coffee? I
-thought you would. You can chuck it away again, because we
-shan't be needing it. Look here.'</p>
-<p>
- She fell on her knees, threw open the bag, and tumbled out
-some spanners and a screwdriver that filled the top part of it.
-Underneath were a number of neat paper packets. The first
-packet that she passed to Winston had a strange and yet vaguely
-
-
-familiar feeling. It was filled with some kind of heavy,
-sand-like stuff which yielded wherever you touched it.</p>
-<p>
- 'It isn't sugar?' he said.</p>
-<p>
- 'Real sugar. Not saccharine, sugar. And here's a loaf of
-bread proper white bread, not our bloody stuff -- and a little
-pot of jam. And here's a tin of milk -- but look! This is the
-one I'm really proud of. I had to wrap a bit of sacking round
-it, because-'</p>
-<p>
- But she did not need to tell him why she had wrapped it
-up. The smell was already filling the room, a rich hot smell
-which seemed like an emanation from his early childhood, but
-which one did occasionally meet with even now, blowing down a
-passage-way before a door slammed, or diffusing itself
-mysteriously in a crowded street, sniffed for an instant and
-then lost again.</p>
-<p>
- 'It's coffee,' he murmured, 'real coffee.'</p>
-<p>
- 'It's Inner Party coffee. There's a whole kilo here, she
-said.</p>
-<p>
- 'How did you manage to get hold of all these things?'</p>
-<p>
- 'It's all Inner Party stuff. There's nothing those swine
-don't have, nothing. But of course waiters and servants and
-people pinch things, and -- look, I got a little packet of tea
-as well.'</p>
-<p>
- Winston had squatted down beside her. He tore open a
-corner of the packet.</p>
-<p>
- 'It's real tea. Not blackberry leaves.'</p>
-<p>
- 'There's been a lot of tea about lately. They've captured
-India, or something,' she said vaguely. 'But listen, dear. I
-want you to turn your back on me for three minutes. Go and sit
-on the other side of the bed. Don't go too near the window. And
-don't turn round till I tell you.'</p>
-<p>
- Winston gazed abstractedly through the muslin curtain.
-Down in the yard the red-armed woman was still marching to and
-fro between the washtub and the line. She took two more pegs
-out of her mouth and sang with deep feeling:</p>
-<p class="quote">
- They sye that time 'eals all things,<br>
- They sye you can always forget;<br>
- But the smiles an' the tears acrorss the years<br>
- They twist my 'eart-strings yet!</p>
-<p>
-
- She knew the whole drivelling song by heart, it seemed.
-Her voice floated upward with the sweet summer air, very
-tuneful, charged with a sort of happy melancholy. One had the
-feeling that she would have been perfectly content, if the June
-evening had been endless and the supply of clothes
-inexhaustible, to remain there for a thousand years, pegging
-out diapers and singing rubbish. It struck him as a curious
-fact that he had never heard a member of the Party singing
-alone and spontaneously. It would even have seemed slightly
-unorthodox, a dangerous eccentricity, like talking to oneself.
-Perhaps it was only when people were somewhere near the
-starvation level that they had anything to sing about.</p>
-<p>
- 'You can turn round now,' said Julia.</p>
-<p>
- He turned round, and for a second almost failed to
-recognize her. What he had actually expected was to see her
-naked. But she was not naked. The transformation that had
-happened was much more surprising than that. She had painted
-her face.</p>
-<p>
- She must have slipped into some shop in the proletarian
-quarters and bought herself a complete set of make-up
-materials. Her lips were deeply reddened, her cheeks rouged,
-her nose powdered; there was even a touch of something under
-the eyes to make them brighter. It was not very skilfully done,
-but Winston's standards in such matters were not high. He had
-never before seen or imagined a woman of the Party with
-cosmetics on her face. The improvement in her appearance was
-startling. With just a few dabs of colour in the right places
-she had become not only very much prettier, but, above all, far
-more feminine. Her short hair and boyish overalls merely added
-to the effect. As he took her in his arms a wave of synthetic
-violets flooded his nostrils. He remembered the half-darkness
-of a basement kitchen, and a woman's cavernous mouth. It was
-the very same scent that she had used; but at the moment it did
-not seem to matter.</p>
-<p>
- 'Scent too!' he said.</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes, dear, scent too. And do you know what I'm going to
-do next? I'm going to get hold of a real woman's frock from
-somewhere and wear it instead of these bloody trousers. I'll
-wear silk stockings and high-heeled shoes! In this room I'm
-going to be a woman, not a Party comrade.'</p>
-<p>
- They flung their clothes off and climbed into the huge
-mahogany bed. It was the first time that he had stripped
-himself naked in her presence. Until now he had been too much
-ashamed of his pale and meagre body, with the varicose veins
-standing out on his calves and the discoloured patch over his
-ankle. There were no sheets, but the blanket they lay on was
-threadbare and smooth, and the size and springiness of the bed
-astonished both of them. 'It's sure to be full of bugs, but who
-cares?' said Julia. One never saw a double bed nowadays, except
-in the homes of the proles. Winston had occasionally slept in
-one in his boyhood: Julia had never been in one before, so far
-as she could remember.</p>
-<p>
- Presently they fell asleep for a little while. When
-Winston woke up the hands of the clock had crept round to
-nearly nine. He did not stir, because Julia was sleeping with
-her head in the crook of his arm. Most of her make-up had
-transferred itself to his own face or the bolster, but a light
-stain of rouge still brought out the beauty of her cheekbone. A
-yellow ray from the sinking sun fell across the foot of the bed
-and lighted up the fireplace, where the water in the pan was
-boiling fast. Down in the yard the woman had stopped singing,
-but the faint shouts of children floated in from the street. He
-wondered vaguely whether in the abolished past it had been a
-normal experience to lie in bed like this, in the cool of a
-summer evening, a man and a woman with no clothes on, making
-love when they chose, talking of what they chose, not feeling
-any compulsion to get up, simply lying there and listening to
-peaceful sounds outside. Surely there could never have been a
-time when that seemed ordinary? Julia woke up, rubbed her eyes,
-and raised herself on her elbow to look at the oilstove.</p>
-<p>
- 'Half that water's boiled away,' she said. 'I'll get up
-and make some coffee in another moment. We've got an hour. What
-time do they cut the lights off at your flats?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Twenty-three thirty.'</p>
-<p>
- 'It's twenty-three at the hostel. But you have to get in
-earlier than that, because -- Hi! Get out, you filthy brute!'</p>
-<p>
- She suddenly twisted herself over in the bed, seized a
-shoe from the floor, and sent it hurtling into the corner with
-a boyish jerk of her arm, exactly as he had seen her fling the
-dictionary at Goldstein, that morning during the Two Minutes
-Hate.</p>
-<p>
- 'What was it?' he said in surprise.</p>
-<p>
- 'A rat. I saw him stick his beastly nose out of the
-wainscoting. There's a hole down there. I gave him a good
-fright, anyway.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Rats!' murmured Winston. 'In this room!'</p>
-<p>
- 'They're all over the place,' said Julia indifferently as
-she lay down again. 'We've even got them in the kitchen at the
-hostel. Some parts of London are swarming with them. Did you
-know they attack children? Yes, they do. In some of these
-streets a woman daren't leave a baby alone for two minutes.
-It's the great huge brown ones that do it. And the nasty thing
-is that the brutes always-'</p>
-<p>
- 'Don't go on!' said Winston, with his eyes tightly
-shut.</p>
-<p>
- 'Dearest! You've gone quite pale. What's the matter? Do
-they make you feel sick?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Of all horrors in the world -- a rat!'</p>
-<p>
- She pressed herself against him and wound her limbs round
-him, as though to reassure him with the warmth of her body. He
-did not reopen his eyes immediately. For several moments he had
-had the feeling of being back in a nightmare which had recurred
-from time to time throughout his life. It was always very much
-the same. He was standing in front of a wall of darkness, and
-on the other side of it there was something unendurable,
-something too dreadful to be faced. In the dream his deepest
-feeling was always one of self-deception, because he did in
-fact know what was behind the wall of darkness. With a deadly
-effort, like wrenching a piece out of his own brain, he could
-even have dragged the thing into the open. He always woke up
-without discovering what it was: but somehow it was connected
-with what Julia had been saying when he cut her short.</p>
-<p>
- 'I'm sorry,' he said, 'it's nothing. I don't like rats,
-that's all.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Don't worry, dear, we're not going to have the filthy
-brutes in here. I'll stuff the hole with a bit of sacking
-before we go. And next time we come here I'll bring some
-plaster and bung it up properly.'</p>
-<p>
- Already the black instant of panic was half-forgotten.
-Feeling slightly ashamed of himself, he sat up against the
-bedhead. Julia got out of bed, pulled on her overalls, and made
-the coffee. The smell that rose from the saucepan was so
-powerful and exciting that they shut the window lest anybody
-outside should notice it and become inquisitive. What was even
-better than the taste of the coffee was the silky texture given
-to it by the sugar, a thing Winston had almost forgotten after
-years of saccharine. With one hand in her pocket and a piece of
-bread and jam in the other, Julia wandered about the room,
-glancing indifferently at the bookcase, pointing out the best
-way of repairing the gateleg table, plumping herself down in
-the ragged arm-chair to see if it was comfortable, and
-examining the absurd twelve-hour clock with a sort of tolerant
-amusement. She brought the glass paperweight over to the bed to
-have a look at it in a better light. He took it out of her
-hand, fascinated, as always, by the soft, rainwatery appearance
-of the glass.</p>
-<p>
- 'What is it, do you think?' said Julia.</p>
-<p>
- 'I don't think it's anything-I mean, I don't think it was
-ever put to any use. That's what I like about it. It's a little
-chunk of history that they've forgotten to alter. It's a
-message from a hundred years ago, if one knew how to read it.'</p>
-<p>
- 'And that picture over there' -- she nodded at the
-engraving on the opposite wall-'would that be a hundred years
-old?'</p>
-<p>
- 'More. Two hundred, I dare say. One can't tell. It's
-impossible to discover the age of anything nowadays.'</p>
-<p>
- She went over to look at it. 'Here's where that brute
-stuck his nose out,' she said, kicking the wainscoting
-immediately below the picture. 'What is this place? I've seen
-it before somewhere.'</p>
-<p>
- 'It's a church, or at least it used to be. St Clement's
-Danes its name was.' The fragment of rhyme that Mr Charrington
-had taught him came back into his head, and he added
-half-nostalgically: "Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St
-Clement's!"</p>
-<p>
- To his astonishment she capped the line:</p>
-<p class="quote">
- 'You owe me three farthings, say the bells of St Martin's,<br>
- When will you pay me? say the bells of Old Bailey -- '</p>
-<p>
-
- 'I can't remember how it goes on after that. But anyway I
-remember it ends up, "Here comes a candle to light you to bed,
-here comes a chopper to chop off your head!"</p>
-<p>
- It was like the two halves of a countersign. But there
-must be another line after 'the bells of Old Bailey'. Perhaps
-it could be dug out of Mr Charrington's memory, if he were
-suitably prompted.</p>
-<p>
- 'Who taught you that?' he said.</p>
-<p>
- 'My grandfather. He used to say it to me when I was a
-little girl. He was vaporized when I was eight -- at any rate,
-he disappeared. I wonder what a lemon was,' she added
-inconsequently. 'I've seen oranges. They're a kind of round
-yellow fruit with a thick skin.'</p>
-<p>
- 'I can remember lemons,' said Winston. 'They were quite
-common in the fifties. They were so sour that it set your teeth
-on edge even to smell them.'</p>
-<p>
- 'I bet that picture's got bugs behind it,' said Julia.
-'I'll take it down and give it a good clean some day. I suppose
-it's almost time we were leaving. I must start washing this
-paint off. What a bore! I'll get the lipstick off your face
-afterwards.'</p>
-<p>
- Winston did not get up for a few minutes more. The room
-was darkening. He turned over towards the light and lay gazing
-into the glass paperweight. The inexhaustibly interesting thing
-was not the fragment of coral but the interior of the glass
-itself. There was such a depth of it, and yet it was almost as
-transparent as air. It was as though the surface of the glass
-had been the arch of the sky, enclosing a tiny world with its
-atmosphere complete. He had the feeling that he could get
-inside it, and that in fact he was inside it, along with the
-mahogany bed and the gateleg table, and the clock and the steel
-engraving and the paperweight itself. The paperweight was the
-room he was in, and the coral was Julia's life and his own,
-fixed in a sort of eternity at the heart of the crystal.</p>
-<h1><a name="13">XIII</a></h1>
-<p class="no-indent">
- Syme had vanished. A morning came, and he was missing from
-work: a few thoughtless people commented on his absence. On the
-next day nobody mentioned him. On the third day Winston went
-into the vestibule of the Records Department to look at the
-notice-board. One of the notices carried a printed list of the
-members of the Chess Committee, of whom Syme had been one. It
-looked almost exactly as it had looked before -- nothing had
-been crossed out -- but it was one name shorter. It was enough.
-Syme had ceased to exist: he had never existed.</p>
-<p>
- The weather was baking hot. In the labyrinthine Ministry
-the windowless, air-conditioned rooms kept their normal
-temperature, but outside the pavements scorched one's feet and
-the stench of the Tubes at the rush hours was a horror. The
-preparations for Hate Week were in full swing, and the staffs
-of all the Ministries were working overtime. Processions,
-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.</p>
-<p>
- 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 still-popular 'It was only a hopeless
-fancy'. The Parsons children played it at all hours of the
-night and day, unbearably, on a comb and a piece of toilet
-paper. Winston's evenings were fuller than ever. Squads of
-volunteers, organized by Parsons, were preparing the street for
-Hate Week, stitching banners, painting posters, erecting
-flagstaffs on the roofs, and perilously slinging wires across
-the street for the reception of streamers. Parsons boasted that
-Victory Mansions alone would display four hundred metres of
-bunting. He was in his native element and as happy as a lark.
-The heat and the manual work had even given him a pretext for
-reverting to shorts and an open shirt in the evenings. He was
-everywhere at once, pushing, pulling, sawing, hammering,
-improvising, jollying everyone along with comradely
-exhortations and giving out from every fold of his body what
-seemed an inexhaustible supply of acrid-smelling sweat.</p>
-<p>
- A new poster had suddenly appeared all over London. It had
-no caption, and represented simply the monstrous figure of a
-Eurasian soldier, three or four metres high, striding forward
-with expressionless Mongolian face and enormous boots, a
-submachine gun pointed from his hip. From whatever angle you
-looked at the poster, the muzzle of the gun, magnified by the
-foreshortening, seemed to be pointed straight at you. The thing
-had been plastered on every blank space on every wall, even
-outnumbering the portraits of Big Brother. The proles, normally
-apathetic about the war, were being lashed into one of their
-periodical frenzies of patriotism. As though to harmonize with
-the general mood, the rocket bombs had been killing larger
-numbers of people than usual. One fell on a crowded film
-theatre in Stepney, burying several hundred victims among the
-ruins. The whole population of the neighbourhood turned out for
-a long, trailing funeral which went on for hours and was in
-effect an indignation meeting. Another bomb fell on a piece of
-waste ground which was used as a playground and several dozen
-children were blown to pieces. There were further angry
-demonstrations, Goldstein was burned in effigy, hundreds of
-copies of the poster of the Eurasian soldier were torn down and
-added to the flames, and a number of shops were looted in the
-turmoil; then a rumour flew round that spies were directing the
-rocket bombs by means of wireless waves, and an old couple who
-were suspected of being of foreign extraction had their house
-set on fire and perished of suffocation.</p>
-<p>
- In the room over Mr Charrington's shop, when they could
-get there, Julia and Winston lay side by side on a stripped bed
-under the open window, naked for the sake of coolness. The rat
-had never come back, but the bugs had multiplied hideously in
-the heat. It did not seem to matter. Dirty or clean, the room
-was paradise. As soon as they arrived they would sprinkle
-everything with pepper bought on the black market, tear off
-their clothes, and make love with sweating bodies, then fall
-asleep and wake to find that the bugs had rallied and were
-massing for the counter-attack.</p>
-<p>
- Four, five, six -- seven times they met during the month
-of June. Winston had dropped his habit of drinking gin at all
-hours. He seemed to have lost the need for it. He had grown
-fatter, his varicose ulcer had subsided, leaving only a brown
-stain on the skin above his ankle, his fits of coughing in the
-early morning had stopped. The process of life had ceased to be
-intolerable, he had no longer any impulse to make faces at the
-telescreen or shout curses at the top of his voice. Now that
-they had a secure hiding-place, almost a home, it did not even
-seem a hardship that they could only meet infrequently and for
-a couple of hours at a time. What mattered was that the room
-over the junk-shop should exist. To know that it was there,
-inviolate, was almost the same as being in it. The room was a
-world, a pocket of the past where extinct animals could walk.
-Mr Charrington, thought Winston, was another extinct animal. He
-usually stopped to talk with Mr Charrington for a few minutes
-on his way upstairs. The old man seemed seldom or never to go
-out of doors, and on the other hand to have almost no
-customers. He led a ghostlike existence between the tiny, dark
-shop, and an even tinier back kitchen where he prepared his
-meals and which contained, among other things, an unbelievably
-ancient gramophone with an enormous horn. He seemed glad of the
-opportunity to talk. Wandering about among his worthless stock,
-with his long nose and thick spectacles and his bowed shoulders
-in the velvet jacket, he had always vaguely the air of being a
-collector rather than a tradesman. With a sort of faded
-enthusiasm he would finger this scrap of rubbish or that -- a
-china bottle-stopper, the painted lid of a broken snuffbox, a
-pinchbeck locket containing a strand of some long-dead baby's
-hair -- never asking that Winston should buy it, merely that he
-should admire it. To talk to him was like listening to the
-tinkling of a worn-out musical-box. He had dragged out from the
-corners of his memory some more fragments of forgotten rhymes.
-There was one about four and twenty blackbirds, and another
-about a cow with a crumpled horn, and another about the death
-of poor Cock Robin. 'It just occurred to me you might be
-interested,' he would say with a deprecating little laugh
-whenever he produced a new fragment. But he could never recall
-more than a few lines of any one rhyme.</p>
-<p>
- Both of them knew-in a way, it was never out of their
-minds that what was now happening could not last long. There
-were times when the fact of impending death seemed as palpable
-as the bed they lay on, and they would cling together with a
-sort of despairing sensuality, like a damned soul grasping at
-his last morsel of pleasure when the clock is within five
-minutes of striking. But there were also times when they had
-the illusion not only of safety but of permanence. So long as
-they were actually in this room, they both felt, no harm could
-come to them. Getting there was difficult and dangerous, but
-the room itself was sanctuary. It was as when Winston had gazed
-into the heart of the paperweight, with the feeling that it
-would be possible to get inside that glassy world, and that
-once inside it time could be arrested. Often they gave
-themselves up to daydreams of escape. Their luck would hold
-indefinitely, and they would carry on their intrigue, just like
-this, for the remainder of their natural lives. Or Katharine
-would die, and by subtle manoeuvrings Winston and Julia would
-succeed in getting married. Or they would commit suicide
-together. Or they would disappear, alter themselves out of
-recognition, learn to speak with proletarian accents, get jobs
-in a factory and live out their lives undetected in a
-back-street. It was all nonsense, as they both knew. In reality
-there was no escape. Even the one plan that was practicable,
-suicide, they had no intention of carrying out. To hang on from
-day to day and from week to week, spinning out a present that
-had no future, seemed an unconquerable instinct, just as one's
-lungs will always draw the next breath so long as there is air
-available.</p>
-<p>
- Sometimes, too, they talked of engaging in active
-rebellion against the Party, but with no notion of how to take
-the first step. Even if the fabulous Brotherhood was a reality,
-there still remained the difficulty of finding one's way into
-it. He told her of the strange intimacy that existed, or seemed
-to exist, between himself and O'Brien, and of the impulse he
-sometimes felt, simply to walk into O'Brien's presence,
-announce that he was the enemy of the Party, and demand his
-help. Curiously enough, this did not strike her as an
-impossibly rash thing to do. She was used to judging people by
-their faces, and it seemed natural to her that Winston should
-believe O'Brien to be trustworthy on the strength of a single
-flash of the eyes. Moreover she took it for granted that
-everyone, or nearly everyone, secretly hated the Party and
-would break the rules if he thought it safe to do so. But she
-refused to believe that widespread, organized opposition
-existed or could exist. The tales about Goldstein and his
-underground army, she said, were simply a lot of rubbish which
-the Party had invented for its own purposes and which you had
-to pretend to believe in. Times beyond number, at Party rallies
-and spontaneous demonstrations, she had shouted at the top of
-her voice for the execution of people whose names she had never
-heard and in whose supposed crimes she had not the faintest
-belief. When public trials were happening she had taken her
-place in the detachments from the Youth League who surrounded
-the courts from morning to night, chanting at intervals 'Death
-to the traitors!' During the Two Minutes Hate she always
-excelled all others in shouting insults at Goldstein. Yet she
-had only the dimmest idea of who Goldstein was and what
-doctrines he was supposed to represent. She had grown up since
-the Revolution and was too young to remember the ideological
-battles of the fifties and sixties. Such a thing as an
-independent political movement was outside her imagination: and
-in any case the Party was invincible. It would always exist,
-and it would always be the same. You could only rebel against
-it by secret disobedience or, at most, by isolated acts of
-violence such as killing somebody or blowing something up.</p>
-<p>
- In some ways she was far more acute than Winston, and far
-less susceptible to Party propaganda. Once when he happened in
-some connexion to mention the war against Eurasia, she startled
-him by saying casually that in her opinion the war was not
-happening. The rocket bombs which fell daily on London were
-probably fired by the Government of Oceania itself, 'just to
-keep people frightened'. This was an idea that had literally
-never occurred to him. She also stirred a sort of envy in him
-by telling him that during the Two Minutes Hate her great
-difficulty was to avoid bursting out laughing. But she only
-questioned the teachings of the Party when they in some way
-touched upon her own life. Often she was ready to accept the
-official mythology, simply because the difference between truth
-and falsehood did not seem important to her. She believed, for
-instance, having learnt it at school, that the Party had
-invented aeroplanes. (In his own schooldays, Winston
-remembered, in the late fifties, it was only the helicopter
-that the Party claimed to have invented; a dozen years later,
-when Julia was at school, it was already claiming the
-aeroplane; one generation more, and it would be claiming the
-steam engine.) And when he told her that aeroplanes had been in
-existence before he was born and long before the Revolution,
-the fact struck her as totally uninteresting. After all, what
-did it matter who had invented aeroplanes? It was rather more
-of a shock to him when he discovered from some chance remark
-that she did not remember that Oceania, four years ago, had
-been at war with Eastasia and at peace with Eurasia. It was
-true that she regarded the whole war as a sham: but apparently
-she had not even noticed that the name of the enemy had
-changed. 'I thought we'd always been at war with Eurasia,' she
-said vaguely. It frightened him a little. The invention of
-aeroplanes dated from long before her birth, but the switchover
-in the war had happened only four years ago, well after she was
-grown up. He argued with her about it for perhaps a quarter of
-an hour. In the end he succeeded in forcing her memory back
-until she did dimly recall that at one time Eastasia and not
-Eurasia had been the enemy. But the issue still struck her as
-unimportant. 'Who cares?' she said impatiently. 'It's always
-one bloody war after another, and one knows the news is all
-lies anyway.</p>
-<p>
- Sometimes he talked to her of the Records Department and
-the impudent forgeries that he committed there. Such things did
-not appear to horrify her. She did not feel the abyss opening
-beneath her feet at the thought of lies becoming truths. He
-told her the story of Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford and the
-momentous slip of paper which he had once held between his
-fingers. It did not make much impression on her. At first,
-indeed, she failed to grasp the point of the story.</p>
-<p>
- 'Were they friends of yours?' she said.</p>
-<p>
- 'No, I never knew them. They were Inner Party members.
-Besides, they were far older men than I was. They belonged to
-the old days, before the Revolution. I barely knew them by
-sight.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Then what was there to worry about? People are being
-killed off all the time, aren't they?'</p>
-<p>
- He tried to make her understand. 'This was an exceptional
-case. It wasn't just a question of somebody being killed. Do
-you realize that the past, starting from yesterday, has been
-actually abolished? If it survives anywhere, it's in a few
-solid objects with no words attached to them, like that lump of
-glass there. Already we know almost literally nothing about the
-Revolution and the years before the Revolution. Every record
-has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten,
-every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and
-building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And
-that process is continuing day by day and minute by minute.
-History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present
-in which the Party is always right. I know, of course,
-that the past is falsified, but it would never be possible for
-me to prove it, even when I did the falsification myself. After
-the thing is done, no evidence ever remains. The only evidence
-is inside my own mind, and I don't know with any certainty that
-any other human being shares my memories. Just in that one
-instance, in my whole life, I did possess actual concrete
-evidence after the event -- years after it.'</p>
-<p>
- 'And what good was that?'</p>
-<p>
- 'It was no good, because I threw it away a few minutes
-later. But if the same thing happened today, I should keep it.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Well, I wouldn't!' said Julia. 'I'm quite ready to take
-risks, but only for something worth while, not for bits of old
-newspaper. What could you have done with it even if you had
-kept it?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Not much, perhaps. But it was evidence. It might have
-planted a few doubts here and there, supposing that I'd dared
-to show it to anybody. I don't imagine that we can alter
-anything in our own lifetime. But one can imagine little knots
-of resistance springing up here and there -- small groups of
-people banding themselves together, and gradually growing, and
-even leaving a few records behind, so that the next generations
-can carry on where we leave off.'</p>
-<p>
- 'I'm not interested in the next generation, dear. I'm
-interested in us.</p>
-<p>
- 'You're only a rebel from the waist downwards,' he told
-her.</p>
-<p>
- She thought this brilliantly witty and flung her arms
-round him in delight.</p>
-<p>
- In the ramifications of party doctrine she had not the
-faintest interest. Whenever he began to talk of the principles
-of Ingsoc, doublethink, the mutability of the past, and the
-denial of objective reality, and to use Newspeak words, she
-became bored and confused and said that she never paid any
-attention to that kind of thing. One knew that it was all
-rubbish, so why let oneself be worried by it? She knew when to
-cheer and when to boo, and that was all one needed. If he
-persisted in talking of such subjects, she had a disconcerting
-habit of falling asleep. She was one of those people who can go
-to sleep at any hour and in any position. Talking to her, he
-realized how easy it was to present an appearance of orthodoxy
-while having no grasp whatever of what orthodoxy meant. In a
-way, the world-view of the Party imposed itself most
-successfully on people incapable of understanding it. They
-could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of
-reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what
-was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in
-public events to notice what was happening. By lack of
-understanding they remained sane. They simply swallowed
-everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm, because
-it left no residue behind, just as a grain of corn will pass
-undigested through the body of a bird.</p>
-<h1><a name="14">XIV</a></h1>
-<p class="no-indent">
- It had happened at last. The expected message had come.
-All his life, it seemed to him, he had been waiting for this to
-happen.</p>
-<p>
- He was walking down the long corridor at the Ministry and
-he was almost at the spot where Julia had slipped the note into
-his hand when he became aware that someone larger than himself
-was walking just behind him. The person, whoever it was, gave a
-small cough, evidently as a prelude to speaking. Winston
-stopped abruptly and turned. It was O'Brien.</p>
-<p>
- At last they were face to face, and it seemed that his
-only impulse was to run away. His heart bounded violently. He
-would have been incapable of speaking. O'Brien, however, had
-continued forward in the same movement, laying a friendly hand
-for a moment on Winston's arm, so that the two of them were
-walking side by side. He began speaking with the peculiar grave
-courtesy that differentiated him from the majority of Inner
-Party members.</p>
-<p>
- 'I had been hoping for an opportunity of talking to you,'
-he said. 'I was reading one of your Newspeak articles in The
-Times the other day. You take a scholarly interest in
-Newspeak, I believe?'</p>
-<p>
- Winston had recovered part of his self-possession. 'Hardly
-scholarly,' he said. 'I'm only an amateur. It's not my subject.
-I have never had anything to do with the actual construction of
-the language.'</p>
-<p>
- 'But you write it very elegantly,' said O'Brien. 'That is
-not only my own opinion. I was talking recently to a friend of
-yours who is certainly an expert. His name has slipped my
-memory for the moment.'</p>
-<p>
- Again Winston's heart stirred painfully. It was
-inconceivable that this was anything other than a reference to
-Syme. But Syme was not only dead, he was abolished, an
-unperson. Any identifiable reference to him would have
-been mortally dangerous. O'Brien's remark must obviously have
-been intended as a signal, a codeword. By sharing a small act
-of thoughtcrime he had turned the two of them into accomplices.
-They had continued to stroll slowly down the corridor, but now
-O'Brien halted. With the curious, disarming friendliness that
-he always managed to put in to the gesture he resettled his
-spectacles on his nose. Then he went on:</p>
-<p>
- 'What I had really intended to say was that in your
-article I noticed you had used two words which have become
-obsolete. But they have only become so very recently. Have you
-seen the tenth edition of the Newspeak Dictionary?'</p>
-<p>
- 'No,' said Winston. 'I didn't think it had been issued
-yet. We are still using the ninth in the Records Department.'</p>
-<p>
- 'The tenth edition is not due to appear for some months, I
-believe. But a few advance copies have been circulated. I have
-one myself. It might interest you to look at it, perhaps?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Very much so,' said Winston, immediately seeing where
-this tended.</p>
-<p>
- 'Some of the new developments are most ingenious. The
-reduction in the number of verbs -- that is the point that will
-appeal to you, I think. Let me see, shall I send a messenger to
-you with the dictionary? But I am afraid I invariably forget
-anything of that kind. Perhaps you could pick it up at my flat
-at some time that suited you? Wait. Let me give you my
-address.'</p>
-<p>
- They were standing in front of a telescreen. Somewhat
-absentmindedly O'Brien felt two of his pockets and then
-produced a small leather-covered notebook and a gold
-ink-pencil. Immediately beneath the telescreen, in such a position
-that anyone who was watching at the other end of the instrument
-could read what he was writing, he scribbled an address, tore
-out the page and handed it to Winston.</p>
-<p>
- 'I am usually at home in the evenings,' he said. 'If not,
-my servant will give you the dictionary.'</p>
-<p>
- He was gone, leaving Winston holding the scrap of paper,
-which this time there was no need to conceal. Nevertheless he
-carefully memorized what was written on it, and some hours
-later dropped it into the memory hole along with a mass of
-other papers.</p>
-<p>
- They had been talking to one another for a couple of
-minutes at the most. There was only one meaning that the
-episode could possibly have. It had been contrived as a way of
-letting Winston know O'Brien's address. This was necessary,
-because except by direct enquiry it was never possible to
-discover where anyone lived. There were no directories of any
-kind. 'If you ever want to see me, this is where I can be
-found,' was what O'Brien had been saying to him. Perhaps there
-would even be a message concealed somewhere in the dictionary.
-But at any rate, one thing was certain. The conspiracy that he
-had dreamed of did exist, and he had reached the outer edges of
-it.</p>
-<p>
- He knew that sooner or later he would obey O'Brien's
-summons. Perhaps tomorrow, perhaps after a long delay -- he was
-not certain. What was happening was only the working-out of a
-process that had started years ago. The first step had been a
-secret, involuntary thought, the second had been the opening of
-the diary. He had moved from thoughts to words, and now from
-words to actions. The last step was something that would happen
-in the Ministry of Love. He had accepted it. The end was
-contained in the beginning. But it was frightening: or, more
-exactly, it was like a foretaste of death, like being a little
-less alive. Even while he was speaking to O'Brien, when the
-meaning of the words had sunk in, a chilly shuddering feeling
-had taken possession of his body. He had the sensation of
-stepping into the dampness of a grave, and it was not much
-better because he had always known that the grave was there and
-waiting for him.</p>
-<h1><a name="15">XV</a></h1>
-<p class="no-indent">
- Winston had woken up with his eyes full of tears. Julia
-rolled sleepily against him, murmuring something that might
-have been 'What's the matter?'</p>
-<p>
- 'I dreamt-' he began, and stopped short. It was too
-complex to be put into words. There was the dream itself, and
-there was a memory connected with it that had swum into his
-mind in the few seconds after waking.</p>
-<p>
- He lay back with his eyes shut, still sodden in the
-atmosphere of the dream. It was a vast, luminous dream in which
-his whole life seemed to stretch out before him like a
-landscape on a summer evening after rain. It had all occurred
-inside the glass paperweight, but the surface of the glass was
-the dome of the sky, and inside the dome everything was flooded
-with clear soft light in which one could see into interminable
-distances. The dream had also been comprehended by -- indeed,
-in some sense it had consisted in -- a gesture of the arm made
-by his mother, and made again thirty years later by the Jewish
-woman he had seen on the news film, trying to shelter the small
-boy from the bullets, before the helicopter blew them both to
-pieces.</p>
-<p>
- 'Do you know,' he said, 'that until this moment I believed
-I had murdered my mother?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Why did you murder her?' said Julia, almost asleep.</p>
-<p>
- 'I didn't murder her. Not physically.'</p>
-<p>
- In the dream he had remembered his last glimpse of his
-mother, and within a few moments of waking the cluster of small
-events surrounding it had all come back. It was a memory that
-he must have deliberately pushed out of his consciousness over
-many years. He was not certain of the date, but he could not
-have been less than ten years old, possibly twelve, when it had
-happened.</p>
-<p>
- His father had disappeared some time earlier, how much
-earlier he could not remember. He remembered better the
-rackety, uneasy circumstances of the time: the periodical
-panics about air-raids and the sheltering in Tube stations, the
-piles of rubble everywhere, the unintelligible proclamations
-posted at street corners, the gangs of youths in shirts all the
-same colour, the enormous queues outside the bakeries, the
-intermittent machine-gun fire in the distance -- above all, the
-fact that there was never enough to eat. He remembered long
-afternoons spent with other boys in scrounging round dustbins
-and rubbish heaps, picking out the ribs of cabbage leaves,
-potato peelings, sometimes even scraps of stale breadcrust from
-which they carefully scraped away the cinders; and also in
-waiting for the passing of trucks which travelled over a
-certain route and were known to carry cattle feed, and which,
-when they jolted over the bad patches in the road, sometimes
-spilt a few fragments of oil-cake.</p>
-<p>
- When his father disappeared, his mother did not show any
-surprise or any violent grief, but a sudden change came over
-her. She seemed to have become completely spiritless. It was
-evident even to Winston that she was waiting for something that
-she knew must happen. She did everything that was needed --
-cooked, washed, mended, made the bed, swept the floor, dusted
-the mantelpiece -- always very slowly and with a curious lack
-of superfluous motion, like an artist's lay-figure moving of
-its own accord. Her large shapely body seemed to relapse
-naturally into stillness. For hours at a time she would sit
-almost immobile on the bed, nursing his young sister, a tiny,
-ailing, very silent child of two or three, with a face made
-simian by thinness. Very occasionally she would take Winston in
-her arms and press him against her for a long time without
-saying anything. He was aware, in spite of his youthfulness and
-selfishness, that this was somehow connected with the
-never-mentioned thing that was about to happen.</p>
-<p>
- He remembered the room where they lived, a dark,
-closesmelling room that seemed half filled by a bed with a
-white counterpane. There was a gas ring in the fender, and a
-shelf where food was kept, and on the landing outside there was
-a brown earthenware sink, common to several rooms. He
-remembered his mother's statuesque body bending over the gas
-ring to stir at something in a saucepan. Above all he
-remembered his continuous hunger, and the fierce sordid battles
-at mealtimes. He would ask his mother naggingly, over and over
-again, why there was not more food, he would shout and storm at
-her (he even remembered the tones of his voice, which was
-beginning to break prematurely and sometimes boomed in a
-peculiar way), or he would attempt a snivelling note of pathos
-in his efforts to get more than his share. His mother was quite
-ready to give him more than his share. She took it for granted
-that he, 'the boy', should have the biggest portion; but
-however much she gave him he invariably demanded more. At every
-meal she would beseech him not to be selfish and to remember
-that his little sister was sick and also needed food, but it
-was no use. He would cry out with rage when she stopped
-ladling, he would try to wrench the saucepan and spoon out of
-her hands, he would grab bits from his sister's plate. He knew
-that he was starving the other two, but he could not help it;
-he even felt that he had a right to do it. The clamorous hunger
-in his belly seemed to justify him. Between meals, if his
-mother did not stand guard, he was constantly pilfering at the
-wretched store of food on the shelf.</p>
-<p>
- One day a chocolate-ration was issued. There had been no
-such issue for weeks or months past. He remembered quite
-clearly that precious little morsel of chocolate. It was a
-two-ounce slab (they still talked about ounces in those days)
-between the three of them. It was obvious that it ought to be
-divided into three equal parts. Suddenly, as though he were
-listening to somebody else, Winston heard himself demanding in
-a loud booming voice that he should be given the whole piece.
-His mother told him not to be greedy. There was a long, nagging
-argument that went round and round, with shouts, whines, tears,
-remonstrances, bargainings. His tiny sister, clinging to her
-mother with both hands, exactly like a baby monkey, sat looking
-over her shoulder at him with large, mournful eyes. In the end
-his mother broke off three-quarters of the chocolate and gave
-it to Winston, giving the other quarter to his sister. The
-little girl took hold of it and looked at it dully, perhaps not
-knowing what it was. Winston stood watching her for a moment.
-Then with a sudden swift spring he had snatched the piece of
-chocolate out of his sister's hand and was fleeing for the
-door.</p>
-<p>
- 'Winston, Winston!' his mother called after him. 'Come
-back! Give your sister back her chocolate!'</p>
-<p>
- He stopped, but did not come back. His mother's anxious
-eyes were fixed on his face. Even now he was thinking about the
-thing, he did not know what it was that was on the point of
-happening. His sister, conscious of having been robbed of
-something, had set up a feeble wail. 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.</p>
-<p>
- He never saw his mother again. After he had devoured the
-chocolate he felt somewhat ashamed of himself and hung about in
-the streets for several hours, until hunger drove him home.
-When he came back his mother had disappeared. This was already
-becoming normal at that time. Nothing was gone from the room
-except his mother and his sister. They had not taken any
-clothes, not even his mother's overcoat. To this day he did not
-know with any certainty that his mother was dead. It was
-perfectly possible that she had merely been sent to a
-forced-labour camp. As for his sister, she might have been
-removed, like Winston himself, to one of the colonies for
-homeless children (Reclamation Centres, they were called) which
-had grown up as a result of the civil war, or she might have
-been sent to the labour camp along with his mother, or simply
-left somewhere or other to die.</p>
-<p>
- The dream was still vivid in his mind, especially the
-enveloping protecting gesture of the arm in which its whole
-meaning seemed to be contained. His mind went back to another
-dream of two months ago. Exactly as his mother had sat on the
-dingy whitequilted bed, with the child clinging to her, so she
-had sat in the sunken ship, far underneath him, and drowning
-deeper every minute, but still looking up at him through the
-darkening water.</p>
-<p>
- He told Julia the story of his mother's disappearance.
-Without opening her eyes she rolled over and settled herself
-into a more comfortable position.</p>
-<p>
- 'I expect you were a beastly little swine in those days,'
-she said indistinctly. 'All children are swine.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes. But the real point of the story-'</p>
-<p>
- From her breathing it was evident that she was going off
-to sleep again. He would have liked to continue talking about
-his mother. He did not suppose, from what he could remember of
-her, that she had been an unusual woman, still less an
-intelligent one; and yet she had possessed a kind of nobility,
-a kind of purity, simply because the standards that she obeyed
-were private ones. Her feelings were her own, and could not be
-altered from outside. It would not have occurred to her that an
-action which is ineffectual thereby becomes meaningless. If you
-loved someone, you loved him, and when you had nothing else to
-give, you still gave him love. When the last of the chocolate
-was gone, his mother had clasped the child in her arms. It was
-no use, it changed nothing, it did not produce more chocolate,
-it did not avert the child's death or her own; but it seemed
-natural to her to do it. The refugee woman in the boat had also
-covered the little boy with her arm, which was no more use
-against the bullets than a sheet of paper. The terrible thing
-that the Party had done was to persuade you that mere impulses,
-mere feelings, were of no account, while at the same time
-robbing you of all power over the material world. When once you
-were in the grip of the Party, what you felt or did not feel,
-what you did or refrained from doing, made literally no
-difference. Whatever happened you vanished, and neither you nor
-your actions were ever heard of again. You were lifted clean
-out of the stream of history. And yet to the people of only two
-generations ago this would not have seemed all-important,
-because they were not attempting to alter history. They were
-governed by private loyalties which they did not question. What
-mattered were individual relationships, and a completely
-helpless gesture, an embrace, a tear, a word spoken to a dying
-man, could have value in itself. The proles, it suddenly
-occurred to him, had remained in this condition. They were not
-loyal to a party or a country or an idea, they were loyal to
-one another. For the first time in his life he did not despise
-the proles or think of them merely as an inert force which
-would one day spring to life and regenerate the world. The
-proles had stayed human. They had not become hardened inside.
-They had held on to the primitive emotions which he himself had
-to re-learn by conscious effort. And in thinking this he
-remembered, without apparent relevance, how a few weeks ago he
-had seen a severed hand lying on the pavement and had kicked it
-into the gutter as though it had been a cabbage-stalk.</p>
-<p>
- 'The proles are human beings,' he said aloud. 'We are not
-human.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Why not?' said Julia, who had woken up again.</p>
-<p>
- He thought for a little while. 'Has it ever occurred to
-you. he said, 'that the best thing for us to do would be simply
-to walk out of here before it's too late, and never see each
-other again?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes, dear, it has occurred to me, several times. But I'm
-not going to do it, all the same.'</p>
-<p>
- 'We've been lucky,' he said 'but it can't last much
-longer. You're young. You look normal and innocent. If you keep
-clear of people like me, you might stay alive for another fifty
-years.'</p>
-<p>
- 'No. I've thought it all out. What you do, I'm going to
-do. And don't be too downhearted. I'm rather good at staying
-alive.'</p>
-<p>
- 'We may be together for another six months -- a year --
-there's no knowing. At the end we're certain to be apart. Do
-you realize how utterly alone we shall be? When once they get
-hold of us there will be nothing, literally nothing, that
-either of us can do for the other. If I confess, they'll shoot
-you, and if I refuse to confess, they'll shoot you just the
-same. Nothing that I can do or say, or stop myself from saying,
-will put off your death for as much as five minutes. Neither of
-us will even know whether the other is alive or dead. We shall
-be utterly without power of any kind. The one thing that
-matters is that we shouldn't betray one another, although even
-that can't make the slightest difference.'</p>
-<p>
- 'If you mean confessing,' she said, 'we shall do that,
-right enough. Everybody always confesses. You can't help it.
-They torture you.'</p>
-<p>
- 'I don't mean confessing. Confession is not betrayal. What
-you say or do doesn't matter: only feelings matter. If they
-could make me stop loving you -- that would be the real
-betrayal.'</p>
-<p>
- She thought it over. 'They can't do that,' she said
-finally. 'It's the one thing they can't do. They can make you
-say anything -- anything -- but they can't make you believe it.
-They can't get inside you.'</p>
-<p>
- 'No,' he said a little more hopefully, 'no; that's quite
-true. They can't get inside you. If you can feel that
-staying human is worth while, even when it can't have any
-result whatever, you've beaten them.'</p>
-<p>
- He thought of the telescreen with its never-sleeping ear.
-They could spy upon you night and day, but if you kept your
-head you could still outwit them. With all their cleverness
-they had never mastered the secret of finding out what another
-human being was thinking. Perhaps that was less true when you
-were actually in their hands. One did not know what happened
-inside the Ministry of Love, but it was possible to guess:
-tortures, drugs, delicate instruments that registered your
-nervous reactions, gradual wearing-down by sleeplessness and
-solitude and persistent questioning. Facts, at any rate, could
-not be kept hidden. They could be tracked down by enquiry, they
-could be squeezed out of you by torture. But if the object was
-not to stay alive but to stay human, what difference did it
-ultimately make? They could not alter your feelings: for that
-matter you could not alter them yourself, even if you wanted
-to. They could lay bare in the utmost detail everything that
-you had done or said or thought; but the inner heart, whose
-workings were mysterious even to yourself, remained
-impregnable.</p>
-<h1><a name="16">XVI</a></h1>
-<p class="no-indent">
- They had done it, they had done it at last!</p>
-<p>
- The room they were standing in was long-shaped and softly
-lit. The telescreen was dimmed to a low murmur; the richness of
-the dark-blue carpet gave one the impression of treading on
-velvet. At the far end of the room O'Brien was sitting at a
-table under a green-shaded lamp, with a mass of papers on
-either side of him. He had not bothered to look up when the
-servant showed Julia and Winston in.</p>
-<p>
- Winston's heart was thumping so hard that he doubted
-whether he would be able to speak. They had done it, they had
-done it at last, was all he could think. It had been a rash act
-to come here at all, and sheer folly to arrive together; though
-it was true that they had come by different routes and only met
-on O'Brien's doorstep. But merely to walk into such a place
-needed an effort of the nerve. It was only on very rare
-occasions that one saw inside the dwelling-places of the Inner
-Party, or even penetrated into the quarter of the town where
-they lived. The whole atmosphere of the huge block of flats,
-the richness and spaciousness of everything, the unfamiliar
-smells of good food and good tobacco, the silent and incredibly
-rapid lifts sliding up and down, the white-jacketed servants
-hurrying to and fro -- everything was intimidating. Although he
-had a good pretext for coming here, he was haunted at every
-step by the fear that a black-uniformed guard would suddenly
-appear from round the corner, demand his papers, and order him
-to get out. O'Brien's servant, however, had admitted the two of
-them without demur. He was a small, dark-haired man in a white
-jacket, with a diamond-shaped, completely expressionless face
-which might have been that of a Chinese. The passage down which
-he led them was softly carpeted, with cream-papered walls and
-white wainscoting, all exquisitely clean. That too was
-intimidating. Winston could not remember ever to have seen a
-passageway whose walls were not grimy from the contact of human
-bodies.</p>
-<p>
- O'Brien had a slip of paper between his fingers and seemed
-to be studying it intently. His heavy face, bent down so that
-one could see the line of the nose, looked both formidable and
-intelligent. For perhaps twenty seconds he sat without
-stirring. Then he pulled the speakwrite towards him and rapped
-out a message in the hybrid jargon of the Ministries:</p>
-<p>
- 'Items one comma five comma seven approved fullwise stop
-suggestion contained item six doubleplus ridiculous verging
-crimethink cancel stop unproceed constructionwise antegetting
-plusfull estimates machinery overheads stop end message.'</p>
-<p>
- He rose deliberately from his chair and came towards them
-across the soundless carpet. A little of the official
-atmosphere seemed to have fallen away from him with the
-Newspeak words, but his expression was grimmer than usual, as
-though he were not pleased at being disturbed. The terror that
-Winston already felt was suddenly shot through by a streak of
-ordinary embarrassment. It seemed to him quite possible that he
-had simply made a stupid mistake. For what evidence had he in
-reality that O'Brien was any kind of political conspirator?
-Nothing but a flash of the eyes and a single equivocal remark:
-beyond that, only his own secret imaginings, founded on a
-dream. He could not even fall back on the pretence that he had
-come to borrow the dictionary, because in that case Julia's
-presence was impossible to explain. As O'Brien passed the
-telescreen a thought seemed to strike him. He stopped, turned
-aside and pressed a switch on the wall. There was a sharp snap.
-The voice had stopped.</p>
-<p>
- Julia uttered a tiny sound, a sort of squeak of surprise.
-Even in the midst of his panic, Winston was too much taken
-aback to be able to hold his tongue.</p>
-<p>
- 'You can turn it off!' he said.</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes,' said O'Brien, 'we can turn it off. We have that
-privilege.'</p>
-<p>
- He was opposite them now. His solid form towered over the
-pair of them, and the expression on his face was still
-indecipherable. He was waiting, somewhat sternly, for Winston
-to speak, but about what? Even now it was quite conceivable
-that he was simply a busy man wondering irritably why he had
-been interrupted. Nobody spoke. After the stopping of the
-telescreen the room seemed deadly silent. The seconds marched
-past, enormous. With difficulty Winston continued to keep his
-eyes fixed on O'Brien's. Then suddenly the grim face broke down
-into what might have been the beginnings of a smile. With his
-characteristic gesture O'Brien resettled his spectacles on his
-nose.</p>
-<p>
- 'Shall I say it, or will you?' he said.</p>
-<p>
- 'I will say it,' said Winston promptly. 'That thing is
-really turned off?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes, everything is turned off. We are alone.'</p>
-<p>
- 'We have come here because-'</p>
-<p>
- He paused, realizing for the first time the vagueness of
-his own motives. Since he did not in fact know what kind of
-help he expected from O'Brien, it was not easy to say why he
-had come here. He went on, conscious that what he was saying
-must sound both feeble and pretentious:</p>
-<p>
- 'We believe that there is some kind of conspiracy, some
-kind of secret organization working against the Party, and that
-you are involved in it. We want to join it and work for it. We
-are enemies of the Party. We disbelieve in the principles of
-Ingsoc. We are thought-criminals. We are also adulterers. I
-tell you this because we want to put ourselves at your mercy.
-If you want us to incriminate ourselves in any other way, we
-are ready.'</p>
-<p>
- He stopped and glanced over his shoulder, with the feeling
-that the door had opened. Sure enough, the little yellow-faced
-servant had come in without knocking. Winston saw that he was
-carrying a tray with a decanter and glasses.</p>
-<p>
- 'Martin is one of us,' said O'Brien impassively. 'Bring
-the drinks over here, Martin. Put them on the round table. Have
-we enough chairs? Then we may as well sit down and talk in
-comfort. Bring a chair for yourself, Martin. This is business.
-You can stop being a servant for the next ten minutes.'</p>
-<p>
- The little man sat down, quite at his ease, and yet still
-with a servant-like air, the air of a valet enjoying a
-privilege. Winston regarded him out of the corner of his eye.
-It struck him that the man's whole life was playing a part, and
-that he felt it to be dangerous to drop his assumed personality
-even for a moment. O'Brien took the decanter by the neck and
-filled up the glasses with a dark-red liquid. It aroused in
-Winston dim memories of something seen long ago on a wall or a
-hoarding -- a vast bottle composed of electric lights which
-seemed to move up and down and pour its contents into a glass.
-Seen from the top the stuff looked almost black, but in the
-decanter it gleamed like a ruby. It had a sour-sweet smell. He
-saw Julia pick up her glass and sniff at it with frank
-curiosity.</p>
-<p>
- 'It is called wine,' said O'Brien with a faint smile. 'You
-will have read about it in books, no doubt. Not much of it gets
-to the Outer Party, I am afraid.' His face grew solemn again,
-and he raised his glass: 'I think it is fitting that we should
-begin by drinking a health. To our Leader: To Emmanuel
-Goldstein.'</p>
-<p>
- Winston took up his glass with a certain eagerness. Wine
-was a thing he had read and dreamed about. Like the glass
-paperweight or Mr Charrington's half-remembered rhymes, it
-belonged to the vanished, romantic past, the olden time as he
-liked to call it in his secret thoughts. For some reason he had
-always thought of wine as having an intensely sweet taste, like
-that of blackberry jam and an immediate intoxicating effect.
-Actually, when he came to swallow it, the stuff was distinctly
-disappointing. The truth was that after years of gin-drinking
-he could barely taste it. He set down the empty glass.</p>
-<p>
- 'Then there is such a person as Goldstein?' he said.</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes, there is such a person, and he is alive. Where, I do
-not know.'</p>
-<p>
- 'And the conspiracy -- the organization? Is it real? It is
-not simply an invention of the Thought Police?'</p>
-<p>
- 'No, it is real. The Brotherhood, we call it. You will
-never learn much more about the Brotherhood than that it exists
-and that you belong to it. I will come back to that presently.'
-He looked at his wrist-watch. 'It is unwise even for members of
-the Inner Party to turn off the telescreen for more than half
-an hour. You ought not to have come here together, and you will
-have to leave separately. You, comrade' -- he bowed his head to
-Julia -- 'will leave first. We have about twenty minutes at our
-disposal. You will understand that I must start by asking you
-certain questions. In general terms, what are you prepared to
-do?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Anything that we are capable of,' said Winston.</p>
-<p>
- O'Brien had turned himself a little in his chair so that
-he was facing Winston. He almost ignored Julia, seeming to take
-it for granted that Winston could speak for her. For a moment
-the lids flitted down over his eyes. He began asking his
-questions in a low, expressionless voice, as though this were a
-routine, a sort of catechism, most of whose answers were known
-to him already.</p>
-<p>
- 'You are prepared to give your lives?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes.'</p>
-<p>
- 'You are prepared to commit murder?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes.'</p>
-<p>
- 'To commit acts of sabotage which may cause the death of
-hundreds of innocent people?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes.'</p>
-<p>
- 'To betray your country to foreign powers?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes.'</p>
-<p>
- 'You are prepared to cheat, to forge, to blackmail, to
-corrupt the minds of children, to distribute habit-forming
-drugs, to encourage prostitution, to disseminate venereal
-diseases -- to do anything which is likely to cause
-demoralization and weaken the power of the Party?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes.'</p>
-<p>
- 'If, for example, it would somehow serve our interests to
-throw sulphuric acid in a child's face -- are you prepared to
-do that?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes.'</p>
-<p>
- 'You are prepared to lose your identity and live out the
-rest of your life as a waiter or a dock-worker?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes.'</p>
-<p>
- 'You are prepared to commit suicide, if and when we order
-you to do so?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes.'</p>
-<p>
- 'You are prepared, the two of you, to separate and never
-see one another again?'</p>
-<p>
- 'No!' broke in Julia.</p>
-<p>
- It appeared to Winston that a long time passed before he
-answered. For a moment he seemed even to have been deprived of
-the power of speech. His tongue worked soundlessly, forming the
-opening syllables first of one word, then of the other, over
-and over again. Until he had said it, he did not know which
-word he was going to say. 'No,' he said finally.</p>
-<p>
- 'You did well to tell me,' said O'Brien. 'It is necessary
-for us to know everything.'</p>
-<p>
- He turned himself toward Julia and added in a voice with
-somewhat more expression in it:</p>
-<p>
- 'Do you understand that even if he survives, it may be as
-a different person? We may be obliged to give him a new
-identity. His face, his movements, the shape of his hands, the
-colour of his hair -- even his voice would be different. And
-you yourself might have become a different person. Our surgeons
-can alter people beyond recognition. Sometimes it is necessary.
-Sometimes we even amputate a limb.'</p>
-<p>
- Winston could not help snatching another sidelong glance
-at Martin's Mongolian face. There were no scars that he could
-see. Julia had turned a shade paler, so that her freckles were
-showing, but she faced O'Brien boldly. She murmured something
-that seemed to be assent.</p>
-<p>
- 'Good. Then that is settled.'</p>
-<p>
- There was a silver box of cigarettes on the table. With a
-rather absent-minded air O'Brien pushed them towards the
-others, took one himself, then stood up and began to pace
-slowly to and fro, as though he could think better standing.
-They were very good cigarettes, very thick and well-packed,
-with an unfamiliar silkiness in the paper. O'Brien looked at
-his wrist-watch again.</p>
-<p>
- 'You had better go back to your Pantry, Martin,' he said.
-'I shall switch on in a quarter of an hour. Take a good look at
-these comrades' faces before you go. You will be seeing them
-again. I may not.</p>
-<p>
- Exactly as they had done at the front door, the little
-man's dark eyes flickered over their faces. There was not a
-trace of friendliness in his manner. He was memorizing their
-appearance, but he felt no interest in them, or appeared to
-feel none. It occurred to Winston that a synthetic face was
-perhaps incapable of changing its expression. Without speaking
-or giving any kind of salutation, Martin went out, closing the
-door silently behind him. O'Brien was strolling up and down,
-one hand in the pocket of his black overalls, the other holding
-his cigarette.</p>
-<p>
- 'You understand,' he said, 'that you will be fighting in
-the dark. You will always be in the dark. You will receive
-orders and you will obey them, without knowing why. Later I
-shall send you a book from which you will learn the true nature
-of the society we live in, and the strategy by which we shall
-destroy it. When you have read the book, you will be full
-members of the Brotherhood. But between the general aims that
-we are fighting for and the immediate tasks of the moment, you
-will never know anything. I tell you that the Brotherhood
-exists, but I cannot tell you whether it numbers a hundred
-members, or ten million. From your personal knowledge you will
-never be able to say that it numbers even as many as a dozen.
-You will have three or four contacts, who will be renewed from
-time to time as they disappear. As this was your first contact,
-it will be preserved. When you receive orders, they will come
-from me. If we find it necessary to communicate with you, it
-will be through Martin. When you are finally caught, you will
-confess. That is unavoidable. But you will have very little to
-confess, other than your own actions. You will not be able to
-betray more than a handful of unimportant people. Probably you
-will not even betray me. By that time I may be dead, or I shall
-have become a different person, with a different face.'</p>
-<p>
- He continued to move to and fro over the soft carpet. In
-spite of the bulkiness of his body there was a remarkable grace
-in his movements. It came out even in the gesture with which he
-thrust a hand into his pocket, or manipulated a cigarette. More
-even than of strength, he gave an impression of confidence and
-of an understanding tinged by irony. However much in earnest he
-might be, he had nothing of the single-mindedness that belongs
-to a fanatic. When he spoke of murder, suicide, venereal
-disease, amputated limbs, and altered faces, it was with a
-faint air of persiflage. 'This is unavoidable,' his voice
-seemed to say; 'this is what we have got to do, unflinchingly.
-But this is not what we shall be doing when life is worth
-living again.' A wave of admiration, almost of worship, flowed
-out from Winston towards O'Brien. For the moment he had
-forgotten the shadowy figure of Goldstein. When you looked at
-O'Brien's powerful shoulders and his blunt-featured face, so
-ugly and yet so civilized, it was impossible to believe that he
-could be defeated. There was no stratagem that he was not equal
-to, no danger that he could not foresee. Even Julia seemed to
-be impressed. She had let her cigarette go out and was
-listening intently. O'Brien went on:</p>
-<p>
- 'You will have heard rumours of the existence of the
-Brotherhood. No doubt you have formed your own picture of it.
-You have imagined, probably, a huge underworld of conspirators,
-meeting secretly in cellars, scribbling messages on walls,
-recognizing one another by codewords or by special movements of
-the hand. Nothing of the kind exists. The members of the
-Brotherhood have no way of recognizing one another, and it is
-impossible for any one member to be aware of the identity of
-more than a few others. Goldstein himself, if he fell into the
-hands of the Thought Police, could not give them a complete
-list of members, or any information that would lead them to a
-complete list. No such list exists. The Brotherhood cannot be
-wiped out because it is not an organization in the ordinary
-sense. Nothing holds it together except an idea which is
-indestructible. You will never have anything to sustain you,
-except the idea. You will get no comradeship and no
-encouragement. When finally you are caught, you will get no
-help. We never help our members. At most, when it is absolutely
-necessary that someone should be silenced, we are occasionally
-able to smuggle a razor blade into a prisoner's cell. You will
-have to get used to living without results and without hope.
-You will work for a while, you will be caught, you will
-confess, and then you will die. Those are the only results that
-you will ever see. There is no possibility that any perceptible
-change will happen within our own lifetime. We are the dead.
-Our only true life is in the future. We shall take part in it
-as handfuls of dust and splinters of bone. But how far away
-that future may be, there is no knowing. It might be a thousand
-years. At present nothing is possible except to extend the area
-of sanity little by little. We cannot act collectively. We can
-only spread our knowledge outwards from individual to
-individual, generation after generation. In the face of the
-Thought Police there is no other way.'</p>
-<p>
- He halted and looked for the third time at his
-wrist-watch.</p>
-<p>
- 'It is almost time for you to leave, comrade,' he said to
-Julia. 'Wait. The decanter is still half full.'</p>
-<p>
- He filled the glasses and raised his own glass by the
-stem.</p>
-<p>
- 'What shall it be this time?' he said, still with the same
-faint suggestion of irony. 'To the confusion of the Thought
-Police? To the death of Big Brother? To humanity? To the
-future?'</p>
-<p>
- 'To the past,' said Winston.</p>
-<p>
- 'The past is more important,' agreed O'Brien gravely.</p>
-<p>
- They emptied their glasses, and a moment later Julia stood
-up to go. O'Brien took a small box from the top of a cabinet
-and handed her a flat white tablet which he told her to place
-on her tongue. It was important, he said, not to go out
-smelling of wine: the lift attendants were very observant. As
-soon as the door had shut behind her he appeared to forget her
-existence. He took another pace or two up and down, then
-stopped.</p>
-<p>
- 'There are details to be settled,' he said. 'I assume that
-you have a hiding-place of some kind?'</p>
-<p>
- Winston explained about the room over Mr Charrington's
-shop.</p>
-<p>
- 'That will do for the moment. Later we will arrange
-something else for you. It is important to change one's
-hiding-place frequently. Meanwhile I shall send you a copy of
-the book' -- even O'Brien, Winston noticed, seemed to
-pronounce the words as though they were in italics-
-'Goldstein's book, you understand, as soon as possible. It may
-be some days before I can get hold of one. There are not many
-in existence, as you can imagine. The Thought Police hunt them
-down and destroy them almost as fast as we can produce them. It
-makes very little difference. The book is indestructible. If
-the last copy were gone, we could reproduce it almost word for
-word. Do you carry a brief-case to work with you?' he added.</p>
-<p>
- 'As a rule, yes.'</p>
-<p>
- 'What is it like?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Black, very shabby. With two straps.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Black, two straps, very shabby -- good. One day in the
-fairly near future-I cannot give a date -- one of the messages
-among your morning's work will contain a misprinted word, and
-you will have to ask for a repeat. On the following day you
-will go to work without your brief-case. At some time during
-the day, in the street, a man will touch you on the arm and say
-"I think you have dropped your brief-case." The one he gives
-you will contain a copy of Goldstein's book. You will return it
-within fourteen days.'</p>
-<p>
- They were silent for a moment.</p>
-<p>
- 'There are a couple of minutes before you need go,' said
-O'Brien. 'We shall meet again -- if we do meet again-'</p>
-<p>
- Winston looked up at him. 'In the place where there is no
-darkness?' he said hesitantly.</p>
-<p>
- O'Brien nodded without appearance of surprise. 'In the
-place where there is no darkness,' he said, as though he had
-recognized the allusion. 'And in the meantime, is there
-anything that you wish to say before you leave? Any message?
-Any question?.'</p>
-<p>
- Winston thought. There did not seem to be any further
-question that he wanted to ask: still less did he feel any
-impulse to utter high-sounding generalities. Instead of
-anything directly connected with O'Brien or the Brotherhood,
-there came into his mind a sort of composite picture of the
-dark bedroom where his mother had spent her last days, and the
-little room over Mr Charrington's shop, and the glass
-paperweight, and the steel engraving in its rosewood frame.
-Almost at random he said:</p>
-<p>
- 'Did you ever happen to hear an old rhyme that begins
-"Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clement's"?'</p>
-<p>
- Again O'Brien nodded. With a sort of grave courtesy he
-completed the stanza:</p>
-<p class="quote">
- 'Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clement's,<br>
- You owe me three farthings, say the bells of St Martin's,<br>
- When will you pay me? say the bells of Old Bailey<br>
- When I grow rich, say the bells of Shoreditch.'</p>
-<p>
- 'You knew the last line!' said Winston.</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes, I knew the last line. And now, I am afraid, it is
-time for you to go. But wait. You had better let me give you
-one of these tablets.'</p>
-<p>
- As Winston stood up O'Brien held out a hand. His powerful
-grip crushed the bones of Winston's palm. At the door Winston
-looked back, but O'Brien seemed already to be in process of
-putting him out of mind. He was waiting with his hand on the
-switch that controlled the telescreen. Beyond him Winston could
-see the writing-table with its green- shaded lamp and the
-speakwrite and the wire baskets deep- laden with papers. The
-incident was closed. Within thirty seconds, it occurred to him,
-O'Brien would be back at his interrupted and important work on
-behalf of the Party.</p>
-<h1><a name="17">XVII</a></h1>
-<p class="no-indent">
- Winston was gelatinous with fatigue. Gelatinous was the
-right word. It had come into his head spontaneously. His body
-seemed to have not only the weakness of a jelly, but its
-translucency. He felt that if he held up his hand he would be
-able to see the light through it. All the blood and lymph had
-been drained out of him by an enormous debauch of work, leaving
-only a frail structure of nerves, bones, and skin. All
-sensations seemed to be magnified. His overalls fretted his
-shoulders, the pavement tickled his feet, even the opening and
-closing of a hand was an effort that made his joints creak.</p>
-<p>
- He had worked more than ninety hours in five days. So had
-everyone else in the Ministry. Now it was all over, and he had
-literally nothing to do, no Party work of any description,
-until tomorrow morning. He could spend six hours in the
-hiding-place and another nine in his own bed. Slowly, in mild
-afternoon sunshine, he walked up a dingy street in the
-direction of Mr Charrington's shop, keeping one eye open for
-the patrols, but irrationally convinced that this afternoon
-there was no danger of anyone interfering with him. The heavy
-brief-case that he was carrying bumped against his knee at each
-step, sending a tingling sensation up and down the skin of his
-leg. Inside it was the book, which he had now had in his
-possession for six days and had not yet opened, nor even looked
-at.</p>
-<p>
- On the sixth day of Hate Week, after the processions, the
-speeches, the shouting, the singing, the banners, the posters,
-the films, the waxworks, the rolling of drums and squealing of
-trumpets, the tramp of marching feet, the grinding of the
-caterpillars of tanks, the roar of massed planes, the booming
-of guns -- after six days of this, when the great orgasm was
-quivering to its climax and the general hatred of Eurasia had
-boiled up into such delirium that if the crowd could have got
-their hands on the 2,000 Eurasian war-criminals who were to be
-publicly hanged on the last day of the proceedings, they would
-unquestionably have torn them to pieces -- at just this moment
-it had been announced that Oceania was not after all at war
-with Eurasia. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Eurasia was an
-ally.</p>
-<p>
- There was, of course, no admission that any change had
-taken place. Merely it became known, with extreme suddenness
-and everywhere at once, that Eastasia and not Eurasia was the
-enemy. Winston was taking part in a demonstration in one of the
-central London squares at the moment when it happened. It was
-night, and the white faces and the scarlet banners were luridly
-floodlit. The square was packed with several thousand people,
-including a block of about a thousand schoolchildren in the
-uniform of the Spies. On a scarlet-draped platform an orator of
-the Inner Party, a small lean man with disproportionately long
-arms and a large bald skull over which a few lank locks
-straggled, was haranguing the crowd. A little Rumpelstiltskin
-figure, contorted with hatred, he gripped the neck of the
-microphone with one hand while the other, enormous at the end
-of a bony arm, clawed the air menacingly above his head. His
-voice, made metallic by the amplifiers, boomed forth an endless
-catalogue of atrocities, massacres, deportations, lootings,
-rapings, torture of prisoners, bombing of civilians, lying
-propaganda, unjust aggressions, broken treaties. It was almost
-impossible to listen to him without being first convinced and
-then maddened. At every few moments the fury of the crowd
-boiled over and the voice of the speaker was drowned by a wild
-beast-like roaring that rose uncontrollably from thousands of
-throats. The most savage yells of all came from the
-schoolchildren. The speech had been proceeding for perhaps
-twenty minutes when a messenger hurried on to the platform and
-a scrap of paper was slipped into the speaker's hand. He
-unrolled and read it without pausing in his speech. Nothing
-altered in his voice or manner, or in the content of what he
-was saying, but suddenly the names were different. Without
-words said, a wave of understanding rippled through the crowd.
-Oceania was at war with Eastasia! The next moment there was a
-tremendous commotion. The banners and posters with which the
-square was decorated were all wrong! Quite half of them had the
-wrong faces on them. It was sabotage! The agents of Goldstein
-had been at work! There was a riotous interlude while posters
-were ripped from the walls, banners torn to shreds and trampled
-underfoot. The Spies performed prodigies of activity in
-clambering over the rooftops and cutting the streamers that
-fluttered from the chimneys. But within two or three minutes it
-was all over. The orator, still gripping the neck of the
-microphone, his shoulders hunched forward, his free hand
-clawing at the air, had gone straight on with his speech. One
-minute more, and the feral roars of rage were again bursting
-from the crowd. The Hate continued exactly as before, except
-that the target had been changed.</p>
-<p>
- The thing that impressed Winston in looking back was that
-the speaker had switched from one line to the other actually in
-midsentence, not only without a pause, but without even
-breaking the syntax. But at the moment he had other things to
-preoccupy him. It was during the moment of disorder while the
-posters were being torn down that a man whose face he did not
-see had tapped him on the shoulder and said, 'Excuse me, I
-think you've dropped your brief-case.' He took the brief-case
-abstractedly, without speaking. He knew that it would be days
-before he had an opportunity to look inside it. The instant
-that the demonstration was over he went straight to the
-Ministry of Truth, though the time was now nearly twenty-three
-hours. The entire staff of the Ministry had done likewise. The
-orders already issuing from the telescreen, recalling them to
-their posts, were hardly necessary.</p>
-<p>
- Oceania was at war with Eastasia: Oceania had always been
-at war with Eastasia. A large part of the political literature
-of five years was now completely obsolete. Reports and records
-of all kinds, newspapers, books, pamphlets, films,
-sound-tracks, photographs -- all had to be rectified at
-lightning speed. Although no directive was ever issued, it was
-known that the chiefs of the Department intended that within
-one week no reference to the war with Eurasia, or the alliance
-with Eastasia, should remain in existence anywhere. The work
-was overwhelming, all the more so because the processes that it
-involved could not be called by their true names. Everyone in
-the Records Department worked eighteen hours in the
-twenty-four, with two three-hour snatches of sleep. Mattresses
-were brought up from the cellars and pitched all over the
-corridors: meals consisted of sandwiches and Victory Coffee
-wheeled round on trolleys by attendants from the canteen. Each
-time that Winston broke off for one of his spells of sleep he
-tried to leave his desk clear of work, and each time that he
-crawled back sticky-eyed and aching, it was to find that
-another shower of paper cylinders had covered the desk like a
-snowdrift, halfburying the speakwrite and overflowing on to the
-floor, so that the first job was always to stack them into a
-neat enough pile to give him room to work. What was worst of
-all was that the work was by no means purely mechanical. Often
-it was enough merely to substitute one name for another, but
-any detailed report of events demanded care and imagination.
-Even the geographical knowledge that one needed in transferring
-the war from one part of the world to another was considerable.
-</p>
- <p>By the third day his eyes ached unbearably and his
-spectacles needed wiping every few minutes. It was like
-struggling with some crushing physical task, something which
-one had the right to refuse and which one was nevertheless
-neurotically anxious to accomplish. In so far as he had time to
-remember it, he was not troubled by the fact that every word he
-murmured into the speakwrite, every stroke of his ink-pencil,
-was a deliberate lie. He was as anxious as anyone else in the
-Department that the forgery should be perfect. On the morning
-of the sixth day the dribble of cylinders slowed down. For as
-much as half an hour nothing came out of the tube; then one
-more cylinder, then nothing. Everywhere at about the same time
-the work was easing off. A deep and as it were secret sigh went
-through the Department. A mighty deed, which could never be
-mentioned, had been achieved. It was now impossible for any
-human being to prove by documentary evidence that the war with
-Eurasia had ever happened. At twelve hundred it was
-unexpectedly announced that all workers in the Ministry were
-free till tomorrow morning. Winston, still carrying the
-brief-case containing the book, which had remained
-between his feet while he worked and under his body while he
-slept, went home, shaved himself, and almost fell asleep in his
-bath, although the water was barely more than tepid.</p>
-<p>
- With a sort of voluptuous creaking in his joints he
-climbed the stair above Mr Charrington's shop. He was tired,
-but not sleepy any longer. He opened the window, lit the dirty
-little oilstove and put on a pan of water for coffee. Julia
-would arrive presently: meanwhile there was the book. He
-sat down in the sluttish armchair and undid the straps of the
-brief-case.</p>
-<p>
- A heavy black volume, amateurishly bound, with no name or
-title on the cover. The print also looked slightly irregular.
-The pages were worn at the edges, and fell apart, easily, as
-though the book had passed through many hands. The inscription
-on the title-page ran:</p>
-<p class="quote">
- THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF
- OLIGARCHICAL COLLECTIVISM<br>
- by<br>
- Emmanuel Goldstein</p>
-<p>
-
- Winston began reading:</p>
-<p class="quote">
- Chapter I
- Ignorance is Strength</p>
-<p>
-
- Throughout recorded time, and probably since the end of
-the Neolithic Age, there have been three kinds of people in the
-world, the High, the Middle, and the Low. They have been
-subdivided in many ways, they have borne countless different
-names, and their relative numbers, as well as their attitude
-towards one another, have varied from age to age: but the
-essential structure of society has never altered. Even after
-enormous upheavals and seemingly irrevocable changes, the same
-pattern has always reasserted itself, just as a gyroscope will
-always return to equilibrium, however far it is pushed one way
-or the other.</p>
-<p>
- The aims of these groups are entirely irreconcilable...</p>
-<p>
- Winston stopped reading, chiefly in order to appreciate
-the fact that he was reading, in comfort and safety. He
-was alone: no telescreen, no ear at the keyhole, no nervous
-impulse to glance over his shoulder or cover the page with his
-hand. The sweet summer air played against his cheek. From
-somewhere far away there floated the faint shouts of children:
-in the room itself there was no sound except the insect voice
-of the clock. He settled deeper into the arm-chair and put his
-feet up on the fender. It was bliss, it was etemity. Suddenly,
-as one sometimes does with a book of which one knows that one
-will ultimately read and re-read every word, he opened it at a
-different place and found himself at Chapter III. He went on
-reading:</p>
-<p>
-
- Chapter III<br>
- War is Peace</p>
-<p>
-
- The splitting up of the world into three great
-super-states was an event which could be and indeed was
-foreseen before the middle of the twentieth century. With the
-absorption of Europe by Russia and of the British Empire by the
-United States, two of the three existing powers, Eurasia and
-Oceania, were already effectively in being. The third,
-Eastasia, only emerged as a distinct unit after another decade
-of confused fighting. The frontiers between the three
-super-states are in some places arbitrary, and in others they
-fluctuate according to the fortunes of war, but in general they
-follow geographical lines. Eurasia comprises the whole of the
-northern part of the European and Asiatic land-mass, from
-Portugal to the Bering Strait. Oceania comprises the Americas,
-the Atlantic islands including the British Isles, Australasia,
-and the southern portion of Africa. Eastasia, smaller than the
-others and with a less definite western frontier, comprises
-China and the countries to the south of it, the Japanese
-islands and a large but fluctuating portion of Manchuria,
-Mongolia, and Tibet.</p>
-<p>
- In one combination or another, these three super-states
-are permanently at war, and have been so for the past
-twenty-five years. War, however, is no longer the desperate,
-annihilating struggle that it was in the early decades of the
-twentieth centary. It is a warfare of limited aims between
-combatants who are unable to destroy one another, have no
-material cause for fighting and are not divided by any genuine
-ideological difference. This is not to say that either the
-conduct of war, or the prevailing attitude towards it, has
-become less bloodthirsty or more chivalrous. On the contrary,
-war hysteria is continuous and universal in all countries, and
-such acts as raping, looting, the slaughter of children, the
-reduction of whole populations to slavery, and reprisals
-against prisoners which extend even to boiling and burying
-alive, are looked upon as normal, and, when they are committed
-by one's own side and not by the enemy, meritorious. But in a
-physical sense war involves very small numbers of people,
-mostly highly-trained specialists, and causes comparatively few
-casualties. The fighting, when there is any, takes place on the
-vague frontiers whose whereabouts the average man can only
-guess at, or round the Floating Fortresses which guard
-strategic spots on the sea lanes. In the centres of
-civilization war means no more than a continuous shortage of
-consumption goods, and the occasional crash of a rocket bomb
-which may cause a few scores of deaths. War has in fact changed
-its character. More exactly, the reasons for which war is waged
-have changed in their order of importance. Motives which were
-already present to some small extent in the great wars of the
-early twentieth centuary have now become dominant and are
-consciously recognized and acted upon.</p>
-<p>
- To understand the nature of the present war -- for in
-spite of the regrouping which occurs every few years, it is
-always the same war -- one must realize in the first place that
-it is impossible for it to be decisive. None of the three
-super-states could be definitively conquered even by the other
-two in combination. They are too evenly matched, and their
-natural defences are too formidable. Eurasia is protected by
-its vast land spaces. Oceania by the width of the Atlantic and
-the Pacific, Eastasia by the fecundity and industriousness of
-its inhabitants. Secondly, there is no longer, in a material
-sense, anything to fight about. With the establishment of
-self-contained economies, in which production and consumption
-are geared to one another, the scramble for markets which was a
-main cause of previous wars has come to an end, while the
-competition for raw materials is no longer a matter of life and
-death. In any case each of the three super-states is so vast
-that it can obtain almost all the materials that it needs
-within its own boundaries. In so far as the war has a direct
-economic purpose, it is a war for labour power. Between the
-frontiers of the super-states, and not permanently in the
-possession of any of them, there lies a rough quadrilateral
-with its corners at Tangier, Brazzaville, Darwin, and Hong
-Kong, containing within it about a fifth of the population of
-the earth. It is for the possession of these thickly-populated
-regions, and of the northern ice-cap, that the three powers are
-constantly struggling. In practice no one power ever controls
-the whole of the disputed area. Portions of it are constantly
-changing hands, and it is the chance of seizing this or that
-fragment by a sudden stroke of treachery that dictates the
-endless changes of alignment.</p>
-<p>
- All of the disputed territories contain valuable minerals,
-and some of them yield important vegetable products such as
-rubber which in colder climates it is necessary to synthesize
-by comparatively expensive methods. But above all they contain
-a bottomless reserve of cheap labour. Whichever power controls
-equatorial Africa, or the countries of the Middle East, or
-Southern India, or the Indonesian Archipelago, disposes also of
-the bodies of scores or hundreds of millions of ill-paid and
-hard-working coolies. The inhabitants of these areas, reduced
-more or less openly to the status of slaves, pass continually
-from conqueror to conqueror, and are expended like so much coal
-or oil in the race to turn out more armaments, to capture more
-territory, to control more labour power, to turn out more
-armaments, to capture more territory, and so on indefinitely.
-It should be noted that the fighting never really moves beyond
-the edges of the disputed areas. The frontiers of Eurasia flow
-back and forth between the basin of the Congo and the northern
-shore of the Mediterranean; the islands of the Indian Ocean and
-the Pacific are constantly being captured and recaptured by
-Oceania or by Eastasia; in Mongolia the dividing line between
-Eurasia and Eastasia is never stable; round the Pole all three
-powers lay claim to enormous territories which in fact are
-largely unihabited and unexplored: but the balance of power
-always remains roughly even, and the territory which forms the
-heartland of each super-state always remains inviolate.
-Moreover, the labour of the exploited peoples round the Equator
-is not really necessary to the world's economy. They add
-nothing to the wealth of the world, since whatever they produce
-is used for purposes of war, and the object of waging a war is
-always to be in a better position in which to wage another war.
-By their labour the slave populations allow the tempo of
-continuous warfare to be speeded up. But if they did not exist,
-the structure of world society, and the process by which it
-maintains itself, would not be essentially different.</p>
-<p>
- The primary aim of modern warfare (in accordance with the
-principles of doublethink, this aim is simultaneously
-recognized and not recognized by the directing brains of the
-Inner Party) is to use up the products of the machine without
-raising the general standard of living. Ever since the end of
-the nineteenth century, the problem of what to do with the
-surplus of consumption goods has been latent in industrial
-society. At present, when few human beings even have enough to
-eat, this problem is obviously not urgent, and it might not
-have become so, even if no artificial processes of destruction
-had been at work. The world of today is a bare, hungry,
-dilapidated place compared with the world that existed before
-1914, and still more so if compared with the imaginary future
-to which the people of that period looked forward. In the early
-twentieth century, the vision of a future society unbelievably
-rich, leisured, orderly, and efficient -- a glittering
-antiseptic world of glass and steel and snow-white concrete --
-was part of the consciousness of nearly every literate person.
-Science and technology were developing at a prodigious speed,
-and it seemed natural to assume that they would go on
-developing. This failed to happen, partly because of the
-impoverishment caused by a long series of wars and revolutions,
-partly because scientific and technical progress depended on
-the empirical habit of thought, which could not survive in a
-strictly regimented society. As a whole the world is more
-primitive today than it was fifty years ago. Certain backward
-areas have advanced, and various devices, always in some way
-connected with warfare and police espionage, have been
-developed, but experiment and invention have largely stopped,
-and the ravages of the atomic war of the nineteen-fifties have
-never been fully repaired. Nevertheless the dangers inherent in
-the machine are still there. From the moment when the machine
-first made its appearance it was clear to all thinking people
-that the need for human drudgery, and therefore to a great
-extent for human inequality, had disappeared. If the machine
-were used deliberately for that end, hunger, overwork, dirt,
-illiteracy, and disease could be eliminated within a few
-generations. And in fact, without being used for any such
-purpose, but by a sort of automatic process -- by producing
-wealth which it was sometimes impossible not to distribute --
-the machine did raise the living standards of the average
-humand being very greatly over a period of about fifty years at
-the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth
-centuries.</p>
-<p>
- But it was also clear that an all-round increase in wealth
-threatened the destruction -- indeed, in some sense was the
-destruction -- of a hierarchical society. In a world in which
-everyone worked short hours, had enough to eat, lived in a
-house with a bathroom and a refrigerator, and possessed a
-motor-car or even an aeroplane, the most obvious and perhaps
-the most important form of inequality would already have
-disappeared. If it once became general, wealth would confer no
-distinction. It was possible, no doubt, to imagine a society in
-which wealth, in the sense of personal possessions and
-luxuries, should be evenly distributed, while power
-remained in the hands of a small privileged caste. But in
-practice such a society could not long remain stable. For if
-leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass
-of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would
-become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and
-when once they had done this, they would sooner or later
-realize that the privileged minority had no function, and they
-would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society
-was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance. To
-return to the agricultural past, as some thinkers about the
-beginning of the twentieth century dreamed of doing, was not a
-practicable solution. It conflicted with the tendency towards
-mechanization which had become quasi-instinctive throughout
-almost the whole world, and moreover, any country which
-remained industrially backward was helpless in a military sense
-and was bound to be dominated, directly or indirectly, by its
-more advanced rivals.</p>
-<p>
- Nor was it a satisfactory solution to keep the masses in
-poverty by restricting the output of goods. This happened to a
-great extent during the final phase of capitalism, roughly
-between 1920 and 1940. The economy of many countries was
-allowed to stagnate, land went out of cultivation, capital
-equipment was not added to, great blocks of the population were
-prevented from working and kept half alive by State charity.
-But this, too, entailed military weakness, and since the
-privations it inflicted were obviously unnecessary, it made
-opposition inevitable. The problem was how to keep the wheels
-of industry turning without increasing the real wealth of the
-world. Goods must be produced, but they must not be
-distributed. And in practice the only way of achieving this was
-by continuous warfare.</p>
-<p>
- The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily
-of human lives, but of the products of human labour. War is a
-way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere,
-or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might
-otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and
-hence, in the long run, too intelligent. Even when weapons of
-war are not actually destroyed, their manufacture is still a
-convenient way of expending labour power without producing
-anything that can be consumed. A Floating Fortress, for
-example, has locked up in it the labour that would build
-several hundred cargo-ships. Ultimately it is scrapped as
-obsolete, never having brought any material benefit to anybody,
-and with further enormous labours another Floating Fortress is
-built. In principle the war effort is always so planned as to
-eat up any surplus that might exist after meeting the bare
-needs of the population. In practice the needs of the
-population are always underestimated, with the result that
-there is a chronic shortage of half the necessities of life;
-but this is looked on as an advantage. It is deliberate policy
-to keep even the favoured groups somewhere near the brink of
-hardship, because a general state of scarcity increases the
-importance of small privileges and thus magnifies the
-distinction between one group and another. By the standards of
-the early twentieth century, even a member of the Inner Party
-lives an austere, laborious kind of life. Nevertheless, the few
-luxuries that he does enjoy his large, well-appointed flat, the
-better texture of his clothes, the better quality of his food
-and drink and tobacco, his two or three servants, his private
-motor-car or helicopter -- set him in a different world from a
-member of the Outer Party, and the members of the Outer Party
-have a similar advantage in comparison with the submerged
-masses whom we call 'the proles'. The social atmosphere is that
-of a besieged city, where the possession of a lump of
-horseflesh makes the difference between wealth and poverty. And
-at the same time the consciousness of being at war, and
-therefore in danger, makes the handing-over of all power to a
-small caste seem the natural, unavoidable condition of
-survival.</p>
-<p>
- War, it will be seen, accomplishes the necessary
-destruction, but accomplishes it in a psychologically
-acceptable way. In principle it would be quite simple to waste
-the surplus labour of the world by building temples and
-pyramids, by digging holes and filling them up again, or even
-by producing vast quantities of goods and then setting fire to
-them. But this would provide only the economic and not the
-emotional basis for a hierarchical society. What is concerned
-here is not the morale of masses, whose attitude is unimportant
-so long as they are kept steadily at work, but the morale of
-the Party itself. Even the humblest Party member is expected to
-be competent, industrious, and even intelligent within narrow
-limits, but it is also necessary that he should be a credulous
-and ignorant fanatic whose prevailing moods are fear, hatred,
-adulation, and orgiastic triumph. In other words it is
-necessary that he should have the mentality appropriate to a
-state of war. It does not matter whether the war is actually
-happening, and, since no decisive victory is possible, it does
-not matter whether the war is going well or badly. All that is
-needed is that a state of war should exist. The splitting of
-the intelligence which the Party requires of its members, and
-which is more easily achieved in an atmosphere of war, is now
-almost universal, but the higher up the ranks one goes, the
-more marked it becomes. It is precisely in the Inner Party that
-war hysteria and hatred of the enemy are strongest. In his
-capacity as an administrator, it is often necessary for a
-member of the Inner Party to know that this or that item of war
-news is untruthful, and he may often be aware that the entire
-war is spurious and is either not happening or is being waged
-for purposes quite other than the declared ones: but such
-knowledge is easily neutralized by the technique of
-doublethink. Meanwhile no Inner Party member wavers for
-an instant in his mystical belief that the war is real,
-and that it is bound to end victoriously, with Oceania the
-undisputed master of the entire world.</p>
-<p>
- All members of the Inner Party believe in this coming
-conquest as an article of faith. It is to be achieved either by
-gradually acquiring more and more territory and so building up
-an overwhelming preponderance of power, or by the discovery of
-some new and unanswerable weapon. The search for new weapons
-continues unceasingly, and is one of the very few remaining
-activities in which the inventive or speculative type of mind
-can find any outlet. In Oceania at the present day, Science, in
-the old sense, has almost ceased to exist. In Newspeak there is
-no word for 'Science'. The empirical method of thought, on
-which all the scientific achievements of the past were founded,
-is opposed to the most fundamental principles of Ingsoc. And
-even technological progress only happens when its products can
-in some way be used for the diminution of human liberty. In all
-the useful arts the world is either standing still or going
-backwards. The fields are cultivated with horse-ploughs while
-books are written by machinery. But in matters of vital
-importance -- meaning, in effect, war and police espionage --
-the empirical approach is still encouraged, or at least
-tolerated. The two aims of the Party are to conquer the whole
-surface of the earth and to extinguish once and for all the
-possibility of independent thought. There are therefore two
-great problems which the Party is concerned to solve. One is
-how to discover, against his will, what another human being is
-thinking, and the other is how to kill several hundred million
-people in a few seconds without giving warning beforehand. In
-so far as scientific research still continues, this is its
-subject matter. The scientist of today is either a mixture of
-psychologist and inquisitor, studying with real ordinary
-minuteness the meaning of facial expressions, gestures, and
-tones of voice, and testing the truth-producing effects of
-drugs, shock therapy, hypnosis, and physical torture; or he is
-chemist, physicist, or biologist concerned only with such
-branches of his special subject as are relevant to the taking
-of life. In the vast laboratories of the Ministry of Peace, and
-in the experimental stations hidden in the Brazilian forests,
-or in the Australian desert, or on lost islands of the
-Antarctic, the teams of experts are indefatigably at work. Some
-are concerned simply with planning the logistics of future
-wars; others devise larger and larger rocket bombs, more and
-more powerful explosives, and more and more impenetrable
-armour- plating; others search for new and deadlier gases, or
-for soluble poisons capable of being produced in such
-quantities as to destroy the vegetation of whole continents, or
-for breeds of disease germs immunized against all possible
-antibodies; others strive to produce a vehicle that shall bore
-its way under the soil like a submarine under the water, or an
-aeroplane as independent of its base as a sailing-ship; others
-explore even remoter possibilities such as focusing the sun's
-rays through lenses suspended thousands of kilometres away in
-space, or producing artificial earthquakes and tidal waves by
-tapping the heat at the earth's centre.</p>
-<p>
- But none of these projects ever comes anywhere near
-realization, and none of the three super-states ever gains a
-significant lead on the others. What is more remarkable is that
-all three powers already possess, in the atomic bomb, a weapon
-far more powerful than any that their present researches are
-likely to discover. Although the Party, according to its habit,
-claims the invention for itself, atomic bombs first appeared as
-early as the nineteen-forties, and were first used on a large
-scale about ten years later. At that time some hundreds of
-bombs were dropped on industrial centres, chiefly in European
-Russia, Western Europe, and North America. The effect was to
-convince the ruling groups of all countries that a few more
-atomic bombs would mean the end of organized society, and hence
-of their own power. Thereafter, although no formal agreement
-was ever made or hinted at, no more bombs were dropped. All
-three powers merely continue to produce atomic bombs and store
-them up against the decisive opportunity which they all believe
-will come sooner or later. And meanwhile the art of war has
-remained almost stationary for thirty or forty years.
-Helicopters are more used than they were formerly, bombing
-planes have been largely superseded by self-propelled
-projectiles, and the fragile movable battleship has given way
-to the almost unsinkable Floating Fortress; but otherwise there
-has been little development. The tank, the submarine, the
-torpedo, the machine gun, even the rifle and the hand grenade
-are still in use. And in spite of the endless slaughters
-reported in the Press and on the telescreens, the desperate
-battles of earlier wars, in which hundreds of thousands or even
-millions of men were often killed in a few weeks, have never
-been repeated.</p>
-<p>
- None of the three super-states ever attempts any manoeuvre
-which involves the risk of serious defeat. When any large
-operation is undertaken, it is usually a surprise attack
-against an ally. The strategy that all three powers are
-following, or pretend to themselves that they are following, is
-the same. The plan is, by a combination of fighting,
-bargaining, and well-timed strokes of treachery, to acquire a
-ring of bases completely encircling one or other of the rival
-states, and then to sign a pact of friendship with that rival
-and remain on peaceful terms for so many years as to lull
-suspicion to sleep. During this time rockets loaded with atomic
-bombs can be assembled at all the strategic spots; finally they
-will all be fired simultaneously, with effects so devastating
-as to make retaliation impossible. It will then be time to sign
-a pact of friendship with the remaining world-power, in
-preparation for another attack. This scheme, it is hardly
-necessary to say, is a mere daydream, impossible of
-realization. Moreover, no fighting ever occurs except in the
-disputed areas round the Equator and the Pole: no invasion of
-enemy territory is ever undertaken. This explains the fact that
-in some places the frontiers between the superstates are
-arbitrary. Eurasia, for example, could easily conquer the
-British Isles, which are geographically part of Europe, or on
-the other hand it would be possible for Oceania to push its
-frontiers to the Rhine or even to the Vistula. But this would
-violate the principle, followed on all sides though never
-formulated, of cultural integrity. If Oceania were to conquer
-the areas that used once to be known as France and Germany, it
-would be necessary either to exterminate the inhabitants, a
-task of great physical difficulty, or to assimilate a
-population of about a hundred million people, who, so far as
-technical development goes, are roughly on the Oceanic level.
-The problem is the same for all three super-states. It is
-absolutely necessary to their structure that there should be no
-contact with foreigners, except, to a limited extent, with war
-prisoners and coloured slaves. Even the official ally of the
-moment is always regarded with the darkest suspicion. War
-prisoners apart, the average citizen of Oceania never sets eyes
-on a citizen of either Eurasia or Eastasia, and he is forbidden
-the knowledge of foreign languages. If he were allowed contact
-with foreigners he would discover that they are creatures
-similar to himself and that most of what he has been told about
-them is lies. The sealed world in which he lives would be
-broken, and the fear, hatred, and self-righteousness on which
-his morale depends might evaporate. It is therefore realized on
-all sides that however often Persia, or Egypt, or Java, or
-Ceylon may change hands, the main frontiers must never be
-crossed by anything except bombs.</p>
-<p>
- Under this lies a fact never mentioned aloud, but tacitly
-understood and acted upon: namely, that the conditions of life
-in all three super-states are very much the same. In Oceania
-the prevailing philosophy is called Ingsoc, in Eurasia it is
-called Neo-Bolshevism, and in Eastasia it is called by a
-Chinese name usually translated as Death-Worship, but perhaps
-better rendered as Obliteration of the Self. The citizen of
-Oceania is not allowed to know anything of the tenets of the
-other two philosophies, but he is taught to execrate them as
-barbarous outrages upon morality and common sense. Actually the
-three philosophies are barely distinguishable, and the social
-systems which they support are not distinguishable at all.
-Everywhere there is the same pyramidal structure, the same
-worship of semi-divine leader, the same economy existing by and
-for continuous warfare. It follows that the three super-states
-not only cannot conquer one another, but would gain no
-advantage by doing so. On the contrary, so long as they remain
-in conflict they prop one another up, like three sheaves of
-corn. And, as usual, the ruling groups of all three powers are
-simultaneously aware and unaware of what they are doing. Their
-lives are dedicated to world conquest, but they also know that
-it is necessary that the war should continue everlastingly and
-without victory. Meanwhile the fact that there is no
-danger of conquest makes possible the denial of reality which
-is the special feature of Ingsoc and its rival systems of
-thought. Here it is necessary to repeat what has been said
-earlier, that by becoming continuous war has fundamentally
-changed its character.</p>
-<p>
- In past ages, a war, almost by definition, was something
-that sooner or later came to an end, usually in unmistakable
-victory or defeat. In the past, also, war was one of the main
-instruments by which human societies were kept in touch with
-physical reality. All rulers in all ages have tried to impose a
-false view of the world upon their followers, but they could
-not afford to encourage any illusion that tended to impair
-military efficiency. So long as defeat meant the loss of
-independence, or some other result generally held to be
-undesirable, the precautions against defeat had to be serious.
-Physical facts could not be ignored. In philosophy, or
-religion, or ethics, or politics, two and two might make five,
-but when one was designing a gun or an aeroplane they had to
-make four. Inefficient nations were always conquered sooner or
-later, and the struggle for efficiency was inimical to
-illusions. Moreover, to be efficient it was necessary to be
-able to learn from the past, which meant having a fairly
-accurate idea of what had happened in the past. Newspapers and
-history books were, of course, always coloured and biased, but
-falsification of the kind that is practised today would have
-been impossible. War was a sure safeguard of sanity, and so far
-as the ruling classes were concerned it was probably the most
-important of all safeguards. While wars could be won or lost,
-no ruling class could be completely irresponsible.</p>
-<p>
- But when war becomes literally continuous, it also ceases
-to be dangerous. When war is continuous there is no such thing
-as military necessity. Technical progress can cease and the
-most palpable facts can be denied or disregarded. As we have
-seen, researches that could be called scientific are still
-carried out for the purposes of war, but they are essentially a
-kind of daydreaming, and their failure to show results is not
-important. Efficiency, even military efficiency, is no longer
-needed. Nothing is efficient in Oceania except the Thought
-Police. Since each of the three super-states is unconquerable,
-each is in effect a separate universe within which almost any
-perversion of thought can be safely practised. Reality only
-exerts its pressure through the needs of everyday life -- the
-need to eat and drink, to get shelter and clothing, to avoid
-swallowing poison or stepping out of top-storey windows, and
-the like. Between life and death, and between physical pleasure
-and physical pain, there is still a distinction, but that is
-all. Cut off from contact with the outer world, and with the
-past, the citizen of Oceania is like a man in interstellar
-space, who has no way of knowing which direction is up and
-which is down. The rulers of such a state are absolute, as the
-Pharaohs or the Caesars could not be. They are obliged to
-prevent their followers from starving to death in numbers large
-enough to be inconvenient, and they are obliged to remain at
-the same low level of military technique as their rivals; but
-once that minimum is achieved, they can twist reality into
-whatever shape they choose.</p>
-<p>
- The war, therefore, if we judge it by the standards of
-previous wars, is merely an imposture. It is like the battles
-between certain ruminant animals whose horns are set at such an
-angle that they are incapable of hurting one another. But
-though it is unreal it is not meaningless. It eats up the
-surplus of consumable goods, and it helps to preserve the
-special mental atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs.
-War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair. In the
-past, the ruling groups of all countries, although they might
-recognize their common interest and therefore limit the
-destructiveness of war, did fight against one another, and the
-victor always plundered the vanquished. In our own day they are
-not fighting against one another at all. The war is waged by
-each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of
-the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but
-to keep the structure of society intact. The very word 'war',
-therefore, has become misleading. It would probably be accurate
-to say that by becoming continuous war has ceased to exist. The
-peculiar pressure that it exerted on human beings between the
-Neolithic Age and the early twentieth century has disappeared
-and been replaced by something quite different. The effect
-would be much the same if the three super-states, instead of
-fighting one another, should agree to live in perpetual peace,
-each inviolate within its own boundaries. For in that case each
-would still be a self-contained universe, freed for ever from
-the sobering influence of external danger. A peace that was
-truly permanent would be the same as a permanent war. This --
-although the vast majority of Party members understand it only
-in a shallower sense -- is the inner meaning of the Party
-slogan: War is Peace.</p>
-<p>
- Winston stopped reading for a moment. Somewhere in remote
-distance a rocket bomb thundered. The blissful feeling of being
-alone with the forbidden book, in a room with no telescreen,
-had not worn off. Solitude and safety were physical sensations,
-mixed up somehow with the tiredness of his body, the softness
-of the chair, the touch of the faint breeze from the window
-that played upon his cheek. The book fascinated him, or more
-exactly it reassured him. In a sense it told him nothing that
-was new, but that was part of the attraction. It said what he
-would have said, if it had been possible for him to set his
-scattered thoughts in order. It was the product of a mind
-similar to his own, but enormously more powerful, more
-systematic, less fear-ridden. The best books, he perceived, are
-those that tell you what you know already. He had just turned
-back to Chapter I when he heard Julia's footstep on the stair
-and started out of his chair to meet her. She dumped her brown
-tool-bag on the floor and flung herself into his arms. It was
-more than a week since they had seen one another.</p>
-<p>
- 'I've got the book,' he said as they disentangled
-themselves.</p>
-<p>
- 'Oh, you've got it? Good,' she said without much interest,
-and almost immediately knelt down beside the oilstove to make
-the coffee.</p>
-<p>
- They did not return to the subject until they had been in
-bed for half an hour. The evening was just cool enough to make
-it worth while to pull up the counterpane. From below came the
-familiar sound of singing and the scrape of boots on the
-flagstones. The brawny red-armed woman whom Winston had seen
-there on his first visit was almost a fixture in the yard.
-There seemed to be no hour of daylight when she was not
-marching to and fro between the washtub and the line,
-alternately gagging herself with clothes pegs and breaking
-forth into lusty song. Julia had settled down on her side and
-seemed to be already on the point of falling asleep. He reached
-out for the book, which was lying on the floor, and sat up
-against the bedhead.</p>
-<p>
- 'We must read it,' he said. 'You too. All members of the
-Brotherhood have to read it.'</p>
-<p>
- 'You read it,' she said with her eyes shut. 'Read it
-aloud. That's the best way. Then you can explain it to me as
-you go.'</p>
-<p>
- The clock's hands said six, meaning eighteen. They had
-three or four hours ahead of them. He propped the book against
-his knees and began reading:</p>
-<p>
-
- Chapter I<br>
- Ignorance is Strength</p>
-<p>
-
- Throughout recorded time, and probably since the end of
-the Neolithic Age, there have been three kinds of people in the
-world, the High, the Middle, and the Low. They have been
-subdivided in many ways, they have borne countless different
-names, and their relative numbers, as well as their attitude
-towards one another, have varied from age to age: but the
-essential structure of society has never altered. Even after
-enormous upheavals and seemingly irrevocable changes, the same
-pattern has always reasserted itself, just as a gyroscope will
-always return to equilibnum, however far it is pushed one way
-or the other</p>
-<p>
- 'Julia, are you awake?' said Winston.</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes, my love, I'm listening. Go on. It's marvellous.'</p>
-<p>
- He continued reading:</p>
-<p>
- The aims of these three groups are entirely
-irreconcilable. The aim of the High is to remain where they
-are. The aim of the Middle is to change places with the High.
-The aim of the Low, when they have an aim -- for it is an
-abiding characteristic of the Low that they are too much
-crushed by drudgery to be more than intermittently conscious of
-anything outside their daily lives -- is to abolish all
-distinctions and create a society in which all men shall be
-equal. Thus throughout history a struggle which is the same in
-its main outlines recurs over and over again. For long periods
-the High seem to be securely in power, but sooner or later
-there always comes a moment when they lose either their belief
-in themselves or their capacity to govern efficiently, or both.
-They are then overthrown by the Middle, who enlist the Low on
-their side by pretending to them that they are fighting for
-liberty and justice. As soon as they have reached their
-objective, the Middle thrust the Low back into their old
-position of servitude, and themselves become the High.
-Presently a new Middle group splits off from one of the other
-groups, or from both of them, and the struggle begins over
-again. Of the three groups, only the Low are never even
-temporarily successful in achieving their aims. It would be an
-exaggeration to say that throughout history there has been no
-progress of a material kind. Even today, in a period of
-decline, the average human being is physically better off than
-he was a few centuries ago. But no advance in wealth, no
-softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought
-human equality a millimetre nearer. From the point of view of
-the Low, no historic change has ever meant much more than a
-change in the name of their masters.</p>
-<p>
- By the late nineteenth century the recurrence of this
-pattern had become obvious to many observers. There then rose
-schools of thinkers who interpreted history as a cyclical
-process and claimed to show that inequality was the unalterable
-law of human life. This doctrine, of course, had always had its
-adherents, but in the manner in which it was now put forward
-there was a significant change. In the past the need for a
-hierarchical form of society had been the doctrine specifically
-of the High. It had been preached by kings and aristocrats and
-by the priests, lawyers, and the like who were parasitical upon
-them, and it had generally been softened by promises of
-compensation in an imaginary world beyond the grave. The
-Middle, so long as it was struggling for power, had always made
-use of such terms as freedom, justice, and fraternity. Now,
-however, the concept of human brotherhood began to be assailed
-by people who were not yet in positions of command, but merely
-hoped to be so before long. In the past the Middle had made
-revolutions under the banner of equality, and then had
-established a fresh tyranny as soon as the old one was overthrown.
-The new Middle groups in effect proclaimed their tyranny
-beforehand. Socialism, a theory which appeared in the early
-nineteenth century and was the last link in a chain of thought
-stretching back to the slave rebellions of antiquity, was still
-deeply infected by the Utopianism of past ages. But in each
-variant of Socialism that appeared from about 1900 onwards the
-aim of establishing liberty and equality was more and more
-openly abandoned. The new movements which appeared in the
-middle years of the century, Ingsoc in Oceania, Neo-Bolshevism
-in Eurasia, Death-Worship, as it is commonly called, in
-Eastasia, had the conscious aim of perpetuating unfreedom and
-inequality. These new movements, of course, grew out of the old
-ones and tended to keep their names and pay lip-service to
-their ideology. But the purpose of all of them was to arrest
-progress and freeze history at a chosen moment. The familiar
-pendulum swing was to happen once more, and then stop. As
-usual, the High were to be turned out by the Middle, who would
-then become the High; but this time, by conscious strategy, the
-High would be able to maintain their position permanently.</p>
-<p>
- The new doctrines arose partly because of the accumulation
-of historical knowledge, and the growth of the historical
-sense, which had hardly existed before the nineteenth century.
-The cyclical movement of history was now intelligible, or
-appeared to be so; and if it was intelligible, then it was
-alterable. But the principal, underlying cause was that, as
-early as the beginning of the twentieth century, human equality
-had become technically possible. It was still true that men
-were not equal in their native talents and that functions had
-to be specialized in ways that favoured some individuals
-against others; but there was no longer any real need for class
-distinctions or for large differences of wealth. In earlier
-ages, class distinctions had been not only inevitable but
-desirable. Inequality was the price of civilization. With the
-development of machine production, however, the case was
-altered. Even if it was still necessary for human beings to do
-different kinds of work, it was no longer necessary for them to
-live at different social or economic levels. Therefore, from
-the point of view of the new groups who were on the point of
-seizing power, human equality was no longer an ideal to be
-striven after, but a danger to be averted. In more primitive
-ages, when a just and peaceful society was in fact not
-possible, it had been fairly easy to believe it. The idea of an
-earthly paradise in which men should live together in a state
-of brotherhood, without laws and without brute labour, had
-haunted the human imagination for thousands of years. And this
-vision had had a certain hold even on the groups who actually
-profited by each historical change. The heirs of the French,
-English, and American revolutions had partly believed in their
-own phrases about the rights of man, freedom of speech,
-equality before the law, and the like, and have even allowed
-their conduct to be influenced by them to some extent. But by
-the fourth decade of the twentieth century all the main
-currents of political thought were authoritarian. The earthly
-paradise had been discredited at exactly the moment when it
-became realizable. Every new political theory, by whatever name
-it called itself, led back to hierarchy and regimentation. And
-in the general hardening of outlook that set in round about
-1930, practices which had been long abandoned, in some cases
-for hundreds of years -- imprisonment without trial, the use of
-war prisoners as slaves, public executions, torture to extract
-confessions, the use of hostages, and the deportation of whole
-populations-not only became common again, but were tolerated
-and even defended by people who considered themselves
-enlightened and progressive.</p>
-<p>
- It was only after a decade of national wars, civil wars,
-revolutions, and counter-revolutions in all parts of the world
-that Ingsoc and its rivals emerged as fully worked-out
-political theories. But they had been foreshadowed by the
-various systems, generally called totalitarian, which had
-appeared earlier in the century, and the main outlines of the
-world which would emerge from the prevailing chaos had long
-been obvious. What kind of people would control this world had
-been equally obvious. The new aristocracy was made up for the
-most part of bureaucrats, scientists, technicians, trade-union
-organizers, publicity experts, sociologists, teachers,
-journalists, and professional politicians. These people, whose
-origins lay in the salaried middle class and the upper grades
-of the working class, had been shaped and brought together by
-the barren world of monopoly industry and centralized
-government. As compared with their opposite numbers in past
-ages, they were less avaricious, less tempted by luxury,
-hungrier for pure power, and, above all, more conscious of what
-they were doing and more intent on crushing opposition. This
-last difference was cardinal. By comparison with that existing
-today, all the tyrannies of the past were half-hearted and
-inefficient. The ruling groups were always infected to some
-extent by liberal ideas, and were content to leave loose ends
-everywhere, to regard only the overt act and to be uninterested
-in what their subjects were thinking. Even the Catholic Church
-of the Middle Ages was tolerant by modern standards. Part of
-the reason for this was that in the past no government had the
-power to keep its citizens under constant surveillance. The
-invention of print, however, made it easier to manipulate
-public opinion, and the film and the radio carried the process
-further. With the development of television, and the technical
-advance which made it possible to receive and transmit
-simultaneously on the same instrument, private life came to an
-end. Every citizen, or at least every citizen important enough
-to be worth watching, could be kept for twentyfour hours a day
-under the eyes of the police and in the sound of official
-propaganda, with all other channels of communication closed.
-The possibility of enforcing not only complete obedience to the
-will of the State, but complete uniformity of opinion on all
-subjects, now existed for the first time.</p>
-<p>
- After the revolutionary period of the fifties and sixties,
-society regrouped itself, as always, into High, Middle, and
-Low. But the new High group, unlike all its forerunners, did
-not act upon instinct but knew what was needed to safeguard its
-position. It had long been realized that the only secure basis
-for oligarchy is collectivism. Wealth and privilege are most
-easily defended when they are possessed jointly. The so-called
-'abolition of private property' which took place in the middle
-years of the century meant, in effect, the concentration of
-property in far fewer hands than before: but with this
-difference, that the new owners were a group instead of a mass
-of individuals. Individually, no member of the Party owns
-anything, except petty personal belongings. Collectively, the
-Party owns everything in Oceania, because it controls
-everything, and disposes of the products as it thinks fit. In
-the years following the Revolution it was able to step into
-this commanding position almost unopposed, because the whole
-process was represented as an act of collectivization. It had
-always been assumed that if the capitalist class were
-expropriated, Socialism must follow: and unquestionably the
-capitalists had been expropriated. Factories, mines, land,
-houses, transport -- everything had been taken away from them:
-and since these things were no longer private property, it
-followed that they must be public property. Ingsoc, which grew
-out of the earlier Socialist movement and inherited its
-phraseology, has in fact carried out the main item in the
-Socialist programme; with the result, foreseen and intended
-beforehand, that economic inequality has been made permanent.</p>
-<p>
- But the problems of perpetuating a hierarchical society go
-deeper than this. There are only four ways in which a ruling
-group can fall from power. Either it is conquered from without,
-or it governs so inefficiently that the masses are stirred to
-revolt, or it allows a strong and discontented Middle group to
-come into being, or it loses its own self-confidence and
-willingness to govern. These causes do not operate singly, and
-as a rule all four of them are present in some degree. A ruling
-class which could guard against all of them would remain in
-power permanently. Ultimately the determining factor is the
-mental attitude of the ruling class itself.</p>
-<p>
- After the middle of the present century, the first danger
-had in reality disappeared. Each of the three powers which now
-divide the world is in fact unconquerable, and could only
-become conquerable through slow demographic changes which a
-government with wide powers can easily avert. The second
-danger, also, is only a theoretical one. The masses never
-revolt of their own accord, and they never revolt merely
-because they are oppressed. Indeed, so long as they are not
-permitted to have standards of comparison, they never even
-become aware that they are oppressed. The recurrent economic
-crises of past times were totally unnecessary and are not now
-permitted to happen, but other and equally large dislocations
-can and do happen without having political results, because
-there is no way in which discontent can become articulate. As
-fcr the problem of overproduction, which has been latent in our
-society since the development of machine technique, it is
-solved by the device of continuous warfare (see Chapter III),
-which is also useful in keying up public morale to the
-necessary pitch. From the point of view of our present rulers,
-therefore, the only genuine dangers are the splitting-off of a
-new group of able, under-employed, power-hungry people, and the
-growth of liberalism and scepticism in their own ranks. The
-problem, that is to say, is educational. It is a problem of
-continuously moulding the consciousness both of the directing
-group and of the larger executive group that lies immediately
-below it. The consciousness of the masses needs only to be
-influenced in a negative way.</p>
-<p>
- Given this background, one could infer, if one did not
-know it already, the general structure of Oceanic society. At
-the apex of the pyramid comes Big Brother. Big Brother is
-infallible and all-powerful. Every success, every achievement,
-every victory, every scientific discovery, all knowledge, all
-wisdom, all happiness, all virtue, are held to issue directly
-from his leadership and inspiration. Nobody has ever seen Big
-Brother. He is a face on the hoardings, a voice on the
-telescreen. We may be reasonably sure that he will never die,
-and there is already considerable uncertainty as to when he was
-born. Big Brother is the guise in which the Party chooses to
-exhibit itself to the world. His function is to act as a
-focusing point for love, fear, and reverence, emotions which
-are more easily felt towards an individual than towards an
-organization. Below Big Brother comes the Inner Party. its
-numbers limited to six millions, or something less than 2 per
-cent of the population of Oceania. Below the Inner Party comes
-the Outer Party, which, if the Inner Party is described as the
-brain of the State, may be justly likened to the hands. Below
-that come the dumb masses whom we habitually refer to as 'the
-proles', numbering perhaps 85 per cent of the population. In
-the terms of our earlier classification, the proles are the
-Low: for the slave population of the equatorial lands who pass
-constantly from conqueror to conqueror, are not a permanent or
-necessary part of the structure.</p>
-<p>
- In principle, membership of these three groups is not
-hereditary. The child of Inner Party parents is in theory not
-born into the Inner Party. Admission to either branch of the
-Party is by examination, taken at the age of sixteen. Nor is
-there any racial discrimination, or any marked domination of
-one province by another. Jews, Negroes, South Americans of pure
-Indian blood are to be found in the highest ranks of the Party,
-and the administrators of any area are always drawn from the
-inhabitants of that area. In no part of Oceania do the
-inhabitants have the feeling that they are a colonial
-population ruled from a distant capital. Oceania has no
-capital, and its titular head is a person whose whereabouts
-nobody knows. Except that English is its chief lingua
-franca and Newspeak its official language, it is not
-centralized in any way. Its rulers are not held together by
-blood-ties but by adherence to a common doctrine. It is true
-that our society is stratified, and very rigidly stratified, on
-
-what at first sight appear to be hereditary lines. There is far
-less to- and-fro movement between the different groups than
-happened under capitalism or even in the pre-industrial age.
-Between the two branches of the Party there is a certain amount
-of interchange, but only so much as will ensure that weaklings
-are excluded from the Inner Party and that ambitious members of
-the Outer Party are made harmless by allowing them to rise.
-Proletarians, in practice, are not allowed to graduate into the
-Party. The most gifted among them, who might possibly become
-nuclei of discontent, are simply marked down by the Thought
-Police and eliminated. But this state of affairs is not
-necessarily permanent, nor is it a matter of principle. The
-Party is not a class in the old sense of the word. It does not
-aim at transmitting power to its own children, as such; and if
-there were no other way of keeping the ablest people at the
-top, it would be perfectly prepared to recruit an entire new
-generation from the ranks of the proletariat. In the crucial
-years, the fact that the Party was not a hereditary body did a
-great deal to neutralize opposition. The older kind of
-Socialist, who had been trained to fight against something
-called 'class privilege' assumed that what is not hereditary
-cannot be permanent. He did not see that the continuity of an
-oligarchy need not be physical, nor did he pause to reflect
-that hereditary aristocracies have always been shortlived,
-whereas adoptive organizations such as the Catholic Church have
-sometimes lasted for hundreds or thousands of years. The
-essence of oligarchical rule is not father-to-son inheritance,
-but the persistence of a certain world-view and a certain way
-of life, imposed by the dead upon the living. A ruling group is
-a ruling group so long as it can nominate its successors. The
-Party is not concerned with perpetuating its blood but with
-perpetuating itself. Who wields power is not important,
-provided that the hierarchical structure remains always the
-same.</p>
-<p>
- All the beliefs, habits, tastes, emotions, mental
-attitudes that characterize our time are really designed to
-sustain the mystique of the Party and prevent the true nature
-of present-day society from being perceived. Physical
-rebellion, or any preliminary move towards rebellion, is at
-present not possible. From the proletarians nothing is to be
-feared. Left to themselves, they will continue from generation
-to generation and from century to century, working, breeding,
-and dying, not only without any impulse to rebel, but without
-the power of grasping that the world could be other than it is.
-They could only become dangerous if the advance of industrial
-technique made it necessary to educate them more highly; but,
-since military and commercial rivalry are no longer important,
-the level of popular education is actually declining. What
-opinions the masses hold, or do not hold, is looked on as a
-matter of indifference. They can be granted intellectual
-liberty because they have no intellect. In a Party member, on
-the other hand, not even the smallest deviation of opinion on
-the most unimportant subject can be tolerated.</p>
-<p>
- A Party member lives from birth to death under the eye of
-the Thought Police. Even when he is alone he can never be sure
-that he is alone. Wherever he may be, asleep or awake, working
-or resting, in his bath or in bed, he can be inspected without
-warning and without knowing that he is being inspected. Nothing
-that he does is indifferent. His friendships, his relaxations,
-his behaviour towards his wife and children, the expression of
-his face when he is alone, the words he mutters in sleep, even
-the characteristic movements of his body, are all jealously
-scrutinized. Not only any actual misdemeanour, but any
-eccentricity, however small, any change of habits, any nervous
-mannerism that could possibly be the symptom of an inner
-struggle, is certain to be detected. He has no freedom of
-choice in any direction whatever. On the other hand his actions
-are not regulated by law or by any clearly formulated code of
-behaviour. In Oceania there is no law. Thoughts and actions
-which, when detected, mean certain death are not formally
-forbidden, and the endless purges, arrests, tortures,
-imprisonments, and vaporizations are not inflicted as
-punishment for crimes which have actually been committed, but
-are merely the wiping-out of persons who might perhaps commit a
-crime at some time in the future. A Party member is required to
-have not only the right opinions, but the right instincts. Many
-of the beliefs and attitudes demanded of him are never plainly
-stated, and could not be stated without laying bare the
-contradictions inherent in Ingsoc. If he is a person naturally
-orthodox (in Newspeak a goodthinker), he will in all
-circumstances know, without taking thought, what is the true
-belief or the desirable emotion. But in any case an elaborate
-mental training, undergone in childhood and grouping itself
-round the Newspeak words crimestop, blackwhite, and
-doublethink, makes him unwilling and unable to think too
-deeply on any subject whatever.</p>
-<p>
- A Party member is expected to have no private emotions and
-no respites from enthusiasm. He is supposed to live in a
-continuous frenzy of hatred of foreign enemies and internal
-traitors, triumph over victories, and self-abasement before the
-power and wisdom of the Party. The discontents produced by his
-bare, unsatisfying life are deliberately turned outwards and
-dissipated by such devices as the Two Minutes Hate, and the
-speculations which might possibly induce a sceptical or
-rebellious attitude are killed in advance by his early acquired
-inner discipline. The first and simplest stage in the
-discipline, which can be taught even to young children, is
-called, in Newspeak, crimestop. Crimestop means the
-faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the
-threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of
-not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors,
-of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical
-to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of
-thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction.
-Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity. But
-stupidity is not enough. On the contrary, orthodoxy in the full
-sense demands a control over one's own mental processes as
-complete as that of a contortionist over his body. Oceanic
-society rests ultimately on the belief that Big Brother is
-omnipotent and that the Party is infallible. But since in
-reality Big Brother is not omnipotent and the party is not
-infallible, there is need for an unwearying, moment-to-moment
-flexibility in the treatment of facts. The keyword here is
-blackwhite. Like so many Newspeak words, this word has
-two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it
-means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in
-contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it
-means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party
-discipline demands this. But it means also the ability to
-believe that black is white, and more, to know
-that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed
-the contrary. This demands a continuous alteration of the past,
-made possible by the system of thought which really embraces
-all the rest, and which is known in Newspeak as
-doublethink.</p>
-<p>
- The alteration of the past is necessary for two reasons,
-one of which is subsidiary and, so to speak, precautionary. The
-subsidiary reason is that the Party member, like the
-proletarian, tolerates present-day conditions partly because he
-has no standards of comparison. He must be cut off from the
-past, just as he must be cut off from foreign countries,
-because it is necessary for him to believe that he is better
-off than his ancestors and that the average level of material
-comfort is constantly rising. But by far the more important
-reason for the readjustment of the past is the need to
-safeguard the infallibility of the Party. It is not merely that
-speeches, statistics, and records of every kind must be
-constantly brought up to date in order to show that the
-predictions of the Party were in all cases right. It is also
-that no change in doctrine or in political alignment can ever
-be admitted. For to change one's mind, or even one's policy, is
-a confession of weakness. If, for example, Eurasia or Eastasia
-(whichever it may be) is the enemy today, then that country
-must always have been the enemy. And if the facts say otherwise
-then the facts must be altered. Thus history is continuously
-rewritten. This day-to-day falsification of the past, carried
-out by the Ministry of Truth, is as necessary to the stability
-of the regime as the work of repression and espionage carried
-out by the Ministry of Love.</p>
-<p>
- The mutability of the past is the central tenet of Ingsoc.
-Past events, it is argued, have no objective existence, but
-survive only in written records and in human memories. The past
-is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. And since
-the Party is in full control of all records and in equally full
-control of the minds of its members, it follows that the past
-is whatever the Party chooses to make it. It also follows that
-though the past is alterable, it never has been altered in any
-specific instance. For when it has been recreated in whatever
-shape is needed at the moment, then this new version is
-the past, and no different past can ever have existed. This
-holds good even when, as often happens, the same event has to
-be altered out of recognition several times in the course of a
-year. At all times the Party is in possession of absolute
-truth, and clearly the absolute can never have been different
-from what it is now. It will be seen that the control of the
-past depends above all on the training of memory. To make sure
-that all written records agree with the orthodoxy of the moment
-is merely a mechanical act. But it is also necessary to
-remember that events happened in the desired manner. And
-if it is necessary to rearrange one's memories or to tamper
-with written records, then it is necessary to forget
-that one has done so. The trick of doing this can be learned
-like any other mental technique. It is learned by the
-majority of Party members, and certainly by all who are
-intelligent as well as orthodox. In Oldspeak it is called,
-quite frankly, 'reality control'. In Newspeak it is called
-doublethink, though doublethink comprises much
-else as well.</p>
-<p>
- Doublethink means the power of holding two
-contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and
-accepting both of them. The Party intellectual knows in which
-direction his memories must be altered; he therefore knows that
-he is playing tricks with reality; but by the exercise of
-doublethink he also satisfies himself that reality is
-not violated. The process has to be conscious, or it would not
-be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be
-unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and
-hence of guilt. Doublethink lies at the very heart of
-Ingsoc, since the essential act of the Party is to use
-conscious deception while retaining the firmness of purpose
-that goes with complete honesty. To tell deliberate lies while
-genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become
-inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to
-draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to
-deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to
-take account of the reality which one denies -- all this is
-indispensably necessary. Even in using the word
-doublethink it is necessary to exercise
-doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one
-is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink
-one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie
-always one leap ahead of the truth. Ultimately it is by means
-of doublethink that the Party has been able -- and may,
-for all we know, continue to be able for thousands of years --
-to arrest the course of history.</p>
-<p>
- All past oligarchies have fallen from power either because
-they ossified or because they grew soft. Either they became
-stupid and arrogant, failed to adjust themselves to changing
-circumstances, and were overthrown; or they became liberal and
-cowardly, made concessions when they should have used force,
-and once again were overthrown. They fell, that is to say,
-either through consciousness or through unconsciousness. It is
-the achievement of the Party to have produced a system of
-thought in which both conditions can exist simultaneously. And
-upon no other intellectual basis could the dominion of the
-Party be made permanent. If one is to rule, and to continue
-ruling, one must be able to dislocate the sense of reality. For
-the secret of rulership is to combine a belief in one's own
-infallibility with the Power to learn from past mistakes.</p>
-<p>
- It need hardly be said that the subtlest practitioners of
-doublethink are those who invented doublethink
-and know that it is a vast system of mental cheating. In our
-society, those who have the best knowledge of what is happening
-are also those who are furthest from seeing the world as it is.
-In general, the greater the understanding, the greater the
-delusion; the more intelligent, the less sane. One clear
-illustration of this is the fact that war hysteria increases in
-intensity as one rises in the social scale. Those whose
-attitude towards the war is most nearly rational are the
-subject peoples of the disputed territories. To these people
-the war is simply a continuous calamity which sweeps to and fro
-over their bodies like a tidal wave. Which side is winning is a
-matter of complete indifference to them. They are aware that a
-change of overlordship means simply that they will be doing the
-same work as before for new masters who treat them in the same
-manner as the old ones. The slightly more favoured workers whom
-we call 'the proles' are only intermittently conscious of the
-war. When it is necessary they can be prodded into frenzies of
-fear and hatred, but when left to themselves they are capable
-of forgetting for long periods that the war is happening. It is
-in the ranks of the Party, and above all of the Inner Party,
-that the true war enthusiasm is found. World-conquest is
-believed in most firmly by those who know it to be impossible.
-This peculiar linking-together of opposites -- knowledge with
-ignorance, cynicism with fanaticism-is one of the chief
-distinguishing marks of Oceanic society. The official ideology
-abounds with contradictions even when there is no practical
-reason for them. Thus, the Party rejects and vilifies every
-principle for which the Socialist movement originally stood,
-and it chooses to do this in the name of Socialism. It preaches
-a contempt for the working class unexampled for centuries past,
-and it dresses its members in a uniform which was at one time
-peculiar to manual workers and was adopted for that reason. It
-systematically undermines the solidarity of the family, and it
-calls its leader by a name which is a direct appeal to the
-sentiment of family loyalty. Even the names of the four
-Ministries by which we are governed exhibit a sort of impudence
-in their deliberate reversal of the facts. The Ministry of
-Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with
-lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of
-Plenty with starvation. These contradictions are not
-accidental, nor do they result from ordinary hypocrisy; they
-are deliberate exercises in doublethink. For it is only
-by reconciling contradictions that power can be retained
-indefinitely. In no other way could the ancient cycle be
-broken. If human equality is to be for ever averted -- if the
-High, as we have called them, are to keep their places
-permanently -- then the prevailing mental condition must be
-controlled insanity.</p>
-<p>
- But there is one question which until this moment we have
-almost ignored. It is; why should human equality be
-averted? Supposing that the mechanics of the process have been
-rightly described, what is the motive for this huge, accurately
-planned effort to freeze history at a particular moment of
-time?</p>
-<p>
- Here we reach the central secret. As we have seen. the
-mystique of the Party, and above all of the Inner Party,
-depends upon doublethink. But deeper than this lies the
-original motive, the never-questioned instinct that first led
-to the seizure of power and brought doublethink, the
-Thought Police, continuous warfare, and all the other necessary
-paraphernalia into existence afterwards. This motive really
-consists ... Winston became aware of silence, as one becomes
-aware of a new sound. It seemed to him that Julia had been very
-still for some time past. She was lying on her side, naked from
-the waist upwards, with her cheek pillowed on her hand and one
-dark lock tumbling across her eyes. Her breast rose and fell
-slowly and regularly.</p>
-<p>
- 'Julia.</p>
-<p>
- No answer.</p>
-<p>
- 'Julia, are you awake?'</p>
-<p>
- No answer. She was asleep. He shut the book, put it
-carefully on the floor, lay down, and pulled the coverlet over
-both of them.</p>
-<p>
- He had still, he reflected, not learned the ultimate
-secret. He understood how; he did not understand
-why. Chapter I, like Chapter III, had not actually told
-him anything that he did not know, it had merely systematized
-the knowledge that he possessed already. But after reading it
-he knew better than before that he was not mad. Being in a
-minority, even a minority of one, did not make you mad. There
-was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth
-even against the whole world, you were not mad. A yellow beam
-from the sinking sun slanted in through the window and fell
-across the pillow. He shut his eyes. The sun on his face and
-the girl's smooth body touching his own gave him a strong,
-sleepy, confident feeling. He was safe, everything was all
-right. He fell asleep murmuring 'Sanity is not statistical,'
-with the feeling that this remark contained in it a profound
-wisdom. When he woke it was with the sensation of having slept
-for a long time, but a glance at the old-fashioned clock told
-him that it was only twenty-thirty. He lay dozing for a while;
-then the usual deep-lunged singing struck up from the yard
-below;</p>
-<p class="quote">
- 'It was only an 'opeless fancy,<br>
- It passed like an Ipril dye,<br>
- But a look an' a word an' the dreams they stirred<br>
- They 'ave stolen my 'eart awye!'</p>
-<p>
- The driveling song seemed to have kept its popularity. You
-still heard it all over the place. It had outlived the Hate
-Song. Julia woke at the sound, stretched herself luxuriously,
-and got out of bed.</p>
-<p>
- 'I'm hungry,' she said. 'Let's make some more coffee.
-Damn! The stove's gone out and the water's cold.' She picked
-the stove up and shook it. 'There's no oil in it.'</p>
-<p>
- 'We can get some from old Charrington, I expect.'</p>
-<p>
- 'The funny thing is I made sure it was full. I'm going to
-put my clothes on,' she added. 'It seems to have got colder.'</p>
-<p>
- Winston also got up and dressed himself. The indefatigable
-voice sang on:</p>
-<p class="quote">
- 'They sye that time 'eals all things,<br>
- They sye you can always forget;<br>
- But the smiles an' the tears acrorss the years<br>
- They twist my 'eart-strings yet!'</p>
-<p>
-
- As he fastened the belt of his overalls he strolled across
-to the window. The sun must have gone down behind the houses;
-it was not shining into the yard any longer. The flagstones
-were wet as though they had just been washed, and he had the
-feeling that the sky had been washed too, so fresh and pale was
-the blue between the chimney-pots. Tirelessly the woman marched
-to and fro, corking and uncorking herself, singing and falling
-silent, and pegging out more diapers, and more and yet more. He
-wondered whether she took in washing for a living or was merely
-the slave of twenty or thirty grandchildren. Julia had come
-across to his side; together they gazed down with a sort of
-fascination at the sturdy figure below. As he looked at the
-woman in her characteristic attitude, her thick arms reaching
-up for the line, her powerful mare-like buttocks protruded, it
-struck him for the first time that she was beautiful. It had
-never before occurred to him that the body of a woman of fifty,
-blown up to monstrous dimensions by childbearing, then
-hardened, roughened by work till it was coarse in the grain
-like an over-ripe turnip, could be beautiful. But it was so,
-and after all, he thought, why not? The solid, contourless
-body, like a block of granite, and the rasping red skin, bore
-the same relation to the body of a girl as the rose-hip to the
-rose. Why should the fruit be held inferior to the flower?</p>
-<p>
- 'She's beautiful,' he murmured.</p>
-<p>
- 'She's a metre across the hips, easily,' said Julia.</p>
-<p>
- 'That is her style of beauty,' said Winston.</p>
-<p>
- He held Julia's supple waist easily encircled by his arm.
-From the hip to the knee her flank was against his. Out of
-their bodies no child would ever come. That was the one thing
-they could never do. Only by word of mouth, from mind to mind,
-could they pass on the secret. The woman down there had no
-mind, she had only strong arms, a warm heart, and a fertile
-belly. He wondered how many children she had given birth to. It
-might easily be fifteen. She had had her momentary flowering, a
-year, perhaps, of wild-rose beauty and then she had suddenly
-swollen like a fertilized fruit and grown hard and red and
-coarse, and then her life had been laundering, scrubbing,
-darning, cooking, sweeping, polishing, mending, scrubbing,
-laundering, first for children, then for grandchildren, over
-thirty unbroken years. At the end of it she was still singing.
-The mystical reverence that he felt for her was somehow mixed
-up with the aspect of the pale, cloudless sky, stretching away
-behind the chimney-pots into interminable distance. It was
-curious to think that the sky was the same for everybody, in
-Eurasia or Eastasia as well as here. And the people under the
-sky were also very much the same -- everywhere, all over the
-world, hundreds of thousands of millions of people just like
-this, people ignorant of one another's existence, held apart by
-walls of hatred and lies, and yet almost exactly the same --
-people who had never learned to think but who were storing up
-in their hearts and bellies and muscles the power that would
-one day overturn the world. If there was hope, it lay in the
-proles! Without having read to the end of the book, he
-knew that that must be Goldstein's final message. The future
-belonged to the proles. And could he be sure that when their
-time came the world they constructed would not be just as alien
-to him, Winston Smith, as the world of the Party? Yes, because
-at the least it would be a world of sanity. Where there is
-equality there can be sanity. Sooner or later it would happen,
-strength would change into consciousness. The proles were
-immortal, you could not doubt it when you looked at that
-valiant figure in the yard. In the end their awakening would
-come. And until that happened, though it might be a thousand
-years, they would stay alive against all the odds, like birds,
-passing on from body to body the vitality which the Party did
-not share and could not kill.</p>
-<p>
- 'Do you remember,' he said, 'the thrush that sang to us,
-that first day, at the edge of the wood?'</p>
-<p>
- 'He wasn't singing to us,' said Julia. 'He was singing to
-please himself. Not even that. He was just singing.'</p>
-<p>
- The birds sang, the proles sang. the Party did not sing.
-All round the world, in London and New York, in Africa and
-Brazil, and in the mysterious, forbidden lands beyond the
-frontiers, in the streets of Paris and Berlin, in the villages
-of the endless Russian plain, in the bazaars of China and Japan
--- everywhere stood the same solid unconquerable figure, made
-monstrous by work and childbearing, toiling from birth to death
-and still singing. Out of those mighty loins a race of
-conscious beings must one day come. You were the dead, theirs
-was the future. But you could share in that future if you kept
-alive the mind as they kept alive the body, and passed on the
-secret doctrine that two plus two make four.</p>
-<p>
- 'We are the dead,' he said.</p>
-<p>
- 'We are the dead,' echoed Julia dutifully.</p>
-<p>
- 'You are the dead,' said an iron voice behind them.</p>
-<p>
- They sprang apart. Winston's entrails seemed to have
-turned into ice. He could see the white all round the irises of
-Julia's eyes. Her face had turned a milky yellow. The smear of
-rouge that was still on each cheekbone stood out sharply,
-almost as though unconnected with the skin beneath.</p>
-<p>
- 'You are the dead,' repeated the iron voice.</p>
-<p>
- 'It was behind the picture,' breathed Julia.</p>
-<p>
- 'It was behind the picture,' said the voice. 'Remain
-exactly where you are. Make no movement until you are ordered.'</p>
-<p>
- It was starting, it was starting at last! They could do
-nothing except stand gazing into one another's eyes. To run for
-life, to get out of the house before it was too late -- no such
-thought occurred to them. Unthinkable to disobey the iron voice
-from the wall. There was a snap as though a catch had been
-turned back, and a crash of breaking glass. The picture had
-fallen to the floor uncovering the telescreen behind it.</p>
-<p>
- 'Now they can see us,' said Julia.</p>
-<p>
- ' Now we can see you,' said the voice. ' Stand out in the
-middle of the room. Stand back to back. Clasp your hands behind
-your heads. Do not touch one another.'</p>
-<p>
- They were not touching, but it seemed to him that he could
-feel Julia's body shaking. Or perhaps it was merely the shaking
-of his own. He could just stop his teeth from chattering, but
-his knees were beyond his control. There was a sound of
-trampling boots below, inside the house and outside. The yard
-seemed to be full of men. Something was being dragged across
-the stones. The woman's singing had stopped abruptly. There was
-a long, rolling clang, as though the washtub had been flung
-across the yard, and then a confusion of angry shouts which
-ended in a yell of pain.</p>
-<p>
- 'The house is surrounded,' said Winston.</p>
-<p>
- 'The house is surrounded,' said the voice.</p>
-<p>
- He heard Julia snap her teeth together. 'I suppose we may
-as well say good-bye,' she said.</p>
-<p>
- 'You may as well say good-bye,' said the voice. And then
-another quite different voice, a thin, cultivated voice which
-Winston had the impression of having heard before, struck in;
-'And by the way, while we are on the subject, "Here comes a
-candle to light you to bed, here comes a chopper to chop off
-your head"!'</p>
-<p>
- Something crashed on to the bed behind Winston's back. The
-head of a ladder had been thrust through the window and had
-burst in the frame. Someone was climbing through the window.
-There was a stampede of boots up the stairs. The room was full
-of solid men in black uniforms, with iron-shod boots on their
-feet and truncheons in their hands.</p>
-<p>
- Winston was not trembling any longer. Even his eyes he
-barely moved. One thing alone mattered; to keep still, to keep
-still and not give them an excuse to hit you! A man with a
-smooth prize-fighter's jowl in which the mouth was only a slit
-paused opposite him balancing his truncheon meditatively
-between thumb and forefinger. Winston met his eyes. The feeling
-of nakedness, with one's hands behind one's head and one's face
-and body all exposed, was almost unbearable. The man protruded
-the tip of a white tongue, licked the place where his lips
-should have been, and then passed on. There was another crash.
-Someone had picked up the glass paperweight from the table and
-smashed it to pieces on the hearth-stone.</p>
-<p>
- The fragment of coral, a tiny crinkle of pink like a sugar
-rosebud from a cake, rolled across the mat. How small, thought
-Winston, how small it always was! There was a gasp and a thump
-behind him, and he received a violent kick on the ankle which
-nearly flung him off his balance. One of the men had smashed
-his fist into Julia's solar plexus, doubling her up like a
-pocket ruler. She was thrashing about on the floor, fighting
-for breath. Winston dared not turn his head even by a
-millimetre, but sometimes her livid, gasping face came within
-the angle of his vision. Even in his terror it was as though he
-could feel the pain in his own body, the deadly pain which
-nevertheless was less urgent than the struggle to get back her
-breath. He knew what it was like; the terrible, agonizing pain
-which was there all the while but could not be suffered yet,
-because before all else it was necessary to be able to breathe.
-Then two of the men hoisted her up by knees and shoulders, and
-carried her out of the room like a sack. Winston had a glimpse
-of her face, upside down, yellow and contorted, with the eyes
-shut, and still with a smear of rouge on either cheek; and that
-was the last he saw of her.</p>
-<p>
- He stood dead still. No one had hit him yet. Thoughts
-which came of their own accord but seemed totally uninteresting
-began to flit through his mind. He wondered whether they had
-got Mr Charrington. He wondered what they had done to the woman
-in the yard. He noticed that he badly wanted to urinate, and
-felt a faint surprise, because he had done so only two or three
-hours ago. He noticed that the clock on the mantelpiece said
-nine, meaning twenty-one. But the light seemed too strong.
-Would not the light be fading at twenty-one hours on an August
-evening? He wondered whether after all he and Julia had
-mistaken the time -- had slept the clock round and thought it
-was twenty-thirty when really it was nought eight-thirty on the
-following morning. But he did not pursue the thought further.
-It was not interesting.</p>
-<p>
- There ws another, lighter step in the passage. Mr
-Charrington came into the room. The demeanour of the
-black-uniformed men suddenly became more subdued. Something had also
-changed in Mr Charrington's appearance. His eye fell on the
-fragments of the glass paperweight.</p>
-<p>
- 'Pick up those pieces,' he said sharply.</p>
-<p>
- A man stooped to obey. The cockney accent had disappeared;
-Winston suddenly realized whose voice it was that he had heard
-a few moments ago on the telescreen. Mr Charrington was still
-wearing his old velvet jacket, but his hair, which had been
-almost white, had turned black. Also he was not wearing his
-spectacles. He gave Winston a single sharp glance, as though
-verifying his identity, and then paid no more attention to him.
-He was still recognizable, but he was not the same person any
-longer. His body had straightened, and seemed to have grown
-bigger. His face had undergone only tiny changes that had
-nevertheless worked a complete transformation. The black
-eyebrows were less bushy, the wrinkles were gone, the whole
-lines of the face seemed to have altered; even the nose seemed
-shorter. It was the alert, cold face of a man of about
-five-and-thirty. It occurred to Winston that for the first time
-in his life he was looking, with knowledge, at a member of the
-Thought Police.</p>
-<h1><a name="18">XVIII</a></h1>
-<p class="no-indent">
- He did not know where he was. Presumably he was in the
-Ministry of Love, but there was no way of making certain. He
-was in a high-ceilinged windowless cell with walls of
-glittering white porcelain. Concealed lamps flooded it with
-cold light, and there was a low, steady humming sound which he
-supposed had something to do with the air supply. A bench, or
-shelf, just wide enough to sit on ran round the wall, broken
-only by the door and, at the end opposite the door, a lavatory
-pan with no wooden seat. There were four telescreens, one in
-each wall.</p>
-<p>
- There was a dull aching in his belly. It had been there
-ever since they had bundled him into the closed van and driven
-him away. But he was also hungry, with a gnawing, unwholesome
-kind of hunger. It might be twenty-four hours since he had
-eaten, it might be thirty-six. He still did not know, probably
-never would know, whether it had been morning or evening when
-they arrested him. Since he was arrested he had not been fed.</p>
-<p>
- He sat as still as he could on the narrow bench, with his
-hands crossed on his knee. He had already learned to sit still.
-If you made unexpected movements they yelled at you from the
-telescreen. But the craving for food was growing upon him. What
-he longed for above all was a piece of bread. He had an idea
-that there were a few breadcrumbs in the pocket of his
-overalls. It was even possible -- he thought this because from
-time to time something seemed to tickle his leg -- that there
-might be a sizeable bit of crust there. In the end the
-temptation to find out overcame his fear; he slipped a hand
-into his pocket.</p>
-<p>
- 'Smith!' yelled a voice from the telescreen. '6079 Smith
-W.! Hands out of pockets in the cells!'</p>
-<p>
- He sat still again, his hands crossed on his knee. Before
-being brought here he had been taken to another place which
-must have been an ordinary prison or a temporary lock-up used
-by the patrols. He did not know how long he had been there;
-some hours at any rate; with no clocks and no daylight it was
-hard to gauge the time. It was a noisy, evil-smelling place.
-They had put him into a cell similar to the one he was now in,
-but filthily dirty and at all times crowded by ten or fifteen
-people. The majority of them were common criminals, but there
-were a few political prisoners among them. He had sat silent
-against the wall, jostled by dirty bodies, too preoccupied by
-fear and the pain in his belly to take much interest in his
-surroundings, but still noticing the astonishing difference in
-demeanour between the Party prisoners and the others. The Party
-prisoners were always silent and terrified, but the ordinary
-criminals seemed to care nothing for anybody. They yelled
-insults at the guards, fought back fiercely when their
-belongings were impounded, wrote obscene words on the floor,
-ate smuggled food which they produced from mysterious
-hiding-places in their clothes, and even shouted down the
-telescreen when it tried to restore order. On the other hand
-some of them seemed to be on good terms with the guards, called
-them by nicknames, and tried to wheedle cigarettes through the
-spyhole in the door. The guards, too, treated the common
-criminals with a certain forbearance, even when they had to
-handle them roughly. There was much talk about the
-forced-labour camps to which most of the prisoners expected to
-be sent. It was 'all right' in the camps, he gathered, so long
-as you had good contacts and knew the ropes. There was bribery,
-favouritism, and racketeering of every kind, there was
-homosexuality and prostitution, there was even illicit alcohol
-distilled from potatoes. The positions of trust were given only
-to the common criminals, especially the gangsters and the
-murderers, who formed a sort of aristocracy. All the dirty jobs
-were done by the politicals.</p>
-<p>
- There was a constant come-and-go of prisoners of every
-description: drug-peddlers, thieves, bandits, black-marketeers,
-drunks, prostitutes. Some of the drunks were so violent
-that the other prisoners had to combine to suppress
-them. An enormous wreck of a woman, aged about sixty, with
-great tumbling breasts and thick coils of white hair which had
-come down in her struggles, was carried in, kicking and
-shouting, by four guards, who had hold of her one at each
-corner. They wrenched off the boots with which she had been
-trying to kick them, and dumped her down across Winston's lap,
-almost breaking his thigh-bones. The woman hoisted herself
-upright and followed them out with a yell of 'F-- bastards!'
-Then, noticing that she was sitting on something uneven, she
-slid off Winston's knees on to the bench.</p>
-<p>
- 'Beg pardon, dearie,' she said. 'I wouldn't 'a sat on you,
-only the buggers put me there. They dono 'ow to treat a lady,
-do they?' She paused, patted her breast, and belched. 'Pardon,'
-she said, 'I ain't meself, quite.'</p>
-<p>
- She leant forward and vomited copiously on the floor.</p>
-<p>
- 'Thass better,' she said, leaning back with closed eyes.
-'Never keep it down, thass what I say. Get it up while it's
-fresh on your stomach, like.'</p>
-<p>
- She revived, turned to have another look at Winston and
-seemed immediately to take a fancy to him. She put a vast arm
-round his shoulder and drew him towards her, breathing beer and
-vomit into his face.</p>
-<p>
- 'Wass your name, dearie?' she said.</p>
-<p>
- 'Smith,' said Winston.</p>
-<p>
- 'Smith?' said the woman. 'Thass funny. My name's Smith
-too. Why,' she added sentimentally, 'I might be your mother!'</p>
-<p>
- She might, thought Winston, be his mother. She was about
-the right age and physique, and it was probable that people
-changed somewhat after twenty years in a forced-labour camp.</p>
-<p>
- No one else had spoken to him. To a surprising extent the
-ordinary criminals ignored the Party prisoners. 'The polits,'
-they called them, with a sort of uninterested contempt. The
-Party prisoners seemed terrified of speaking to anybody, and
-above all of speaking to one another. Only once, when two Party
-members, both women, were pressed close together on the bench,
-he overheard amid the din of voices a few hurriedly-whispered
-words; and in particular a reference to something called 'room
-one-oh-one', which he did not understand.</p>
-<p>
- It might be two or three hours ago that they had brought
-him here. The dull pain in his belly never went away, but
-sometimes it grew better and sometimes worse, and his thoughts
-expanded or contracted accordingly. When it grew worse he
-thought only of the pain itself, and of his desire for food.
-When it grew better, panic took hold of him. There were moments
-when he foresaw the things that would happen to him with such
-actuality that his heart galloped and his breath stopped. He
-felt the smash of truncheons on his elbows and iron-shod boots
-on his shins; he saw himself grovelling on the floor, screaming
-for mercy through broken teeth. He hardly thought of Julia. He
-could not fix his mind on her. He loved her and would not
-betray her; but that was only a fact, known as he knew the
-rules of arithmetic. He felt no love for her, and he hardly
-even wondered what was happening to her. He thought oftener of
-O'Brien, with a flickering hope. O'Brien might know that he had
-been arrested. The Brotherhood, he had said, never tried to
-save its members. But there was the razor blade; they would
-send the razor blade if they could. There would be perhaps five
-seconds before the guard could rush into the cell. The blade
-would bite into him with a sort of burning coldness, and even
-the fingers that held it would be cut to the bone. Everything
-came back to his sick body, which shrank trembling from the
-smallest pain. He was not certain that he would use the razor
-blade even if he got the chance. It was more natural to exist
-from moment to moment, accepting another ten minutes' life even
-with the certainty that there was torture at the end of it.</p>
-<p>
- Sometimes he tried to calculate the number of porcelain
-bricks in the walls of the cell. It should have been easy, but
-he always lost count at some point or another. More often he
-wondered where he was, and what time of day it was. At one
-moment he felt certain that it was broad daylight outside, and
-at the next equally certain that it was pitch darkness. In this
-place, he knew instinctively, the lights would never be turned
-out. It was the place with no darkness: he saw now why O'Brien
-had seemed to recognize the allusion. In the Ministry of Love
-there were no windows. His cell might be at the heart of the
-building or against its outer wall; it might be ten floors
-below ground, or thirty above it. He moved himself mentally
-from place to place, and tried to determine by the feeling of
-his body whether he was perched high in the air or buried deep
-underground.</p>
-<p>
- There was a sound of marching boots outside. The steel
-door opened with a clang. A young officer, a trim
-black-uniformed figure who seemed to glitter all over with polished
-leather, and whose pale, straight-featured face was like a wax
-mask, stepped smartly through the doorway. He motioned to the
-guards outside to bring in the prisoner they were leading. The
-poet Ampleforth shambled into the cell. The door clanged shut
-again.</p>
-<p>
- Ampleforth made one or two uncertain movements from side
-to side, as though having some idea that there was another door
-to go out of, and then began to wander up and down the cell. He
-had not yet noticed Winston's presence. His troubled eyes were
-gazing at the wall about a metre above the level of Winston's
-head. He was shoeless; large, dirty toes were sticking out of
-the holes in his socks. He was also several days away from a
-shave. A scrubby beard covered his face to the cheekbones,
-giving him an air of ruffianism that went oddly with his large
-weak frame and nervous movements.</p>
-<p>
- Winston roused hirnself a little from his lethargy. He
-must speak to Ampleforth, and risk the yell from the
-telescreen. It was even conceivable that Ampleforth was the
-bearer of the razor blade.</p>
-<p>
- 'Ampleforth,' he said.</p>
-<p>
- There was no yell from the telescreen. Ampleforth paused,
-mildly startled. His eyes focused themselves slowly on Winston.</p>
-<p>
- 'Ah, Smith!' he said. 'You too!'</p>
-<p>
- 'What are you in for?'</p>
-<p>
- 'To tell you the truth -- ' He sat down awkwardly on the
-bench opposite Winston. 'There is only one offence, is there
-not?' he said.</p>
-<p>
- 'And have you committed it?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Apparently I have.'</p>
-<p>
- He put a hand to his forehead and pressed his temples for
-a moment, as though trying to remember something.</p>
-<p>
- 'These things happen,' he began vaguely. 'I have been able
-to recall one instance -- a possible instance. It was an
-indiscretion, undoubtedly. We were producing a definitive
-edition of the poems of Kipling. I allowed the word "God" to
-remain at the end of a line. I could not help it!' he added
-almost indignantly, raising his face to look at Winston. 'It
-was impossible to change the line. The rhyme was "rod". Do you
-realize that there are only twelve rhymes to "rod" in the
-entire language? For days I had racked my brains. There
-was no other rhyme.'</p>
-<p>
- The expression on his face changed. The annoyance passed
-out of it and for a moment he looked almost pleased. A sort of
-intellectual warmth, the joy of the pedant who has found out
-some useless fact, shone through the dirt and scrubby hair.</p>
-<p>
- 'Has it ever occurred to you,' he said, 'that the whole
-history of English poetry has been determined by the fact that
-the English language lacks rhymes?'</p>
-<p>
- No, that particular thought had never occurred to Winston.
-Nor, in the circumstances, did it strike him as very important
-or interesting.</p>
-<p>
- 'Do you know what time of day it is?' he said.</p>
-<p>
- Ampleforth looked startled again. 'I had hardly thought
-about it. They arrested me -- it could be two days ago --
-perhaps three.' His eyes flitted round the walls, as though he
-half expected to find a window somewhere. 'There is no
-difference between night and day in this place. I do not see
-how one can calculate the time.'</p>
-<p>
- They talked desultorily for some minutes, then, without
-apparent reason, a yell from the telescreen bade them be
-silent. Winston sat quietly, his hands crossed. Ampleforth, too
-large to sit in comfort on the narrow bench, fidgeted from side
-to side, clasping his lank hands first round one knee, then
-round the other. The telescreen barked at him to keep still.
-Time passed. Twenty minutes, an hour -- it was difficult to
-judge. Once more there was a sound of boots outside. Winston's
-entrails contracted. Soon, very soon, perhaps in five minutes,
-perhaps now, the tramp of boots would mean that his own turn
-had come.</p>
-<p>
- The door opened. The cold-faced young officer stepped into
-the cell. With a brief movement of the hand he indicated
-Ampleforth.</p>
-<p>
- 'Room 101,' he said.</p>
-<p>
- Ampleforth marched clumsily out between the guards, his
-face vaguely perturbed, but uncomprehending.</p>
-<p>
- What seemed like a long time passed. The pain in Winston's
-belly had revived. His mind sagged round and round on the same
-trick, like a ball falling again and again into the same series
-of slots. He had only six thoughts. The pain in his belly; a
-piece of bread; the blood and the screaming; O'Brien ; Julia;
-the razor blade. There was another spasm in his entrails, the
-heavy boots were approaching. As the door opened, the wave of
-air that it created brought in a powerful smell of cold sweat.
-Parsons walked into the cell. He was wearing khaki shorts and a
-sports-shirt.</p>
-<p>
- This time Winston was startled into self-forgetfulness.</p>
-<p>
- 'You here!' he said.</p>
-<p>
- Parsons gave Winston a glance in which there was neither
-interest nor surprise, but only misery. He began walking
-jerkily up and down, evidently unable to keep still. Each time
-he straightened his pudgy knees it was apparent that they were
-trembling. His eyes had a wide-open, staring look, as though he
-could not prevent himself from gazing at something in the
-middle distance.</p>
-<p>
- 'What are you in for?' said Winston.</p>
-<p>
- 'Thoughtcrime!' said Parsons, almost blubbering. The tone
-of his voice implied at once a complete admission of his guilt
-and a sort of incredulous horror that such a word could be
-applied to himself. He paused opposite Winston and began
-eagerly appealing to him: 'You don't think they'll shoot me, do
-you, old chap? They don't shoot you if you haven't actually
-done anything -- only thoughts, which you can't help? I know
-they give you a fair hearing. Oh, I trust them for that!
-They'll know my record, won't they? You know what kind of chap
-I was. Not a bad chap in my way. Not brainy, of course, but
-keen. I tried to do my best for the Party, didn't I? I'll get
-off with five years, don't you think? Or even ten years? A chap
-like me could make himself pretty useful in a labour-camp. They
-wouldn't shoot me for going off the rails just once?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Are you guilty?' said Winston.</p>
-<p>
- 'Of course I'm guilty!' cried Parsons with a servile
-glance at the telescreen. 'You don't think the Party would
-arrest an innocent man, do you?' His frog-like face grew
-calmer, and even took on a slightly sanctimonious expression.
-'Thoughtcrime is a dreadful thing, old man,' he said
-sententiously. 'It's insidious. It can get hold of you without
-your even knowing it. Do you know how it got hold of me? In my
-sleep! Yes, that's a fact. There I was, working away, trying to
-do my bit -- never knew I had any bad stuff in my mind at all.
-And then I started talking in my sleep. Do you know what they
-heard me saying?'</p>
-<p>
- He sank his voice, like someone who is obliged for medical
-reasons to utter an obscenity.</p>
-<p>
- "Down with Big Brother!" Yes, I said that! Said it over
-and over again, it seems. Between you and me, old man, I'm glad
-they got me before it went any further. Do you know what I'm
-going to say to them when I go up before the tribunal? "Thank
-you," I'm going to say, "thank you for saving me before it was
-too late."</p>
-<p>
- 'Who denounced you?' said Winston.</p>
-<p>
- 'It was my little daughter,' said Parsons with a sort of
-doleful pride. 'She listened at the keyhole. Heard what I was
-saying, and nipped off to the patrols the very next day. Pretty
-smart for a nipper of seven, eh? I don't bear her any grudge
-for it. In fact I'm proud of her. It shows I brought her up in
-the right spirit, anyway.'</p>
-<p>
- He made a few more jerky movements up and down, several
-times, casting a longing glance at the lavatory pan. Then he
-suddenly ripped down his shorts.
- 'Excuse me, old man,' he said. 'I can't help it. It's the
-waiting.'</p>
-<p>
- He plumped his large posterior into the lavatory pan.
-Winston covered his face with his hands.</p>
-<p>
- 'Smith!' yelled the voice from the telescreen. '6079 Smith
-W! Uncover your face. No faces covered in the cells.'</p>
-<p>
- Winston uncovered his face. Parsons used the lavatory,
-loudly and abundantly. It then turned out that the plug was
-defective and the cell stank abominably for hours afterwards.</p>
-<p>
- Parsons was removed. More prisoners came and went,
-mysteriously. One, a woman, was consigned to 'Room 101', and,
-Winston noticed, seemed to shrivel and turn a different colour
-when she heard the words. A time came when, if it had been
-morning when he was brought here, it would be afternoon; or if
-it had been afternoon, then it would be midnight. There were
-six prisoners in the cell, men and women. All sat very still.
-Opposite Winston there sat a man with a chinless, toothy face
-exactly like that of some large, harmless rodent. His fat,
-mottled cheeks were so pouched at the bottom that it was
-difficult not to believe that he had little stores of food
-tucked away there. His pale-grey eyes flitted timorously from
-face to face and turned quickly away again when he caught
-anyone's eye.</p>
-<p>
- The door opened, and another prisoner was brought in whose
-appearance sent a momentary chill through Winston. He was a
-commonplace, mean-looking man who might have been an engineer
-or technician of some kind. But what was startling was the
-emaciation of his face. It was like a skull. Because of its
-thinness the mouth and eyes looked disproportionately large,
-and the eyes seemed filled with a murderous, unappeasable
-hatred of somebody or something.</p>
-<p>
- The man sat down on the bench at a little distance from
-Winston. Winston did not look at him again, but the tormented,
-skull-like face was as vivid in his mind as though it had been
-straight in front of his eyes. Suddenly he realized what was
-the matter. The man was dying of starvation. The same thought
-seemed to occur almost simultaneously to everyone in the cell.
-There was a very faint stirring all the way round the bench.
-The eyes of the chinless man kept flitting towards the
-skull-faced man, then turning guiltily away, then being dragged
-back by an irresistible attraction. Presently he began to
-fidget on his seat. At last he stood up, waddled clumsily
-across the cell, dug down into the pocket of his overalls, and,
-with an abashed air, held out a grimy piece of bread to the
-skull- faced man.</p>
-<p>
- There was a furious, deafening roar from the telescreen.
-The chinless man jumped in his tracks. The skull-faced man had
-quickly thrust his hands behind his back, as though
-demonstrating to all the world that he refused the gift.</p>
-<p>
- 'Bumstead!' roared the voice. '2713 Bumstead J.! Let fall
-that piece of bread!'</p>
-<p>
- The chinless man dropped the piece of bread on the floor.</p>
-<p>
- 'Remain standing where you are,' said the voice. 'Face the
-door. Make no movement.'</p>
-<p>
- The chinless man obeyed. His large pouchy cheeks were
-quivering uncontrollably. The door clanged open. As the young
-officer entered and stepped aside, there emerged from behind
-him a short stumpy guard with enormous arms and shoulders. He
-took his stand opposite the chinless man, and then, at a signal
-from the officer, let free a frightful blow, with all the
-weight of his body behind it, full in the chinless man's mouth.
-The force of it seemed almost to knock him clear of the floor.
-His body was flung across the cell and fetched up against the
-base of the lavatory seat. For a moment he lay as though
-stunned, with dark blood oozing from his mouth and nose. A very
-faint whimpering or squeaking, which seemed unconscious, came
-out of him. Then he rolled over and raised himself unsteadily
-on hands and knees. Amid a stream of blood and saliva, the two
-halves of a dental plate fell out of his mouth.</p>
-<p>
- The prisoners sat very still, their hands crossed on their
-knees. The chinless man climbed back into his place. Down one
-side of his face the flesh was darkening. His mouth had swollen
-into a shapeless cherry-coloured mass with a black hole in the
-middle of it.</p>
-<p>
-
- From time to time a little blood dripped on to the breast
-of his overalls. His grey eyes still flitted from face to face,
-more guiltily than ever, as though he were trying to discover
-how much the others despised him for his humiliation.</p>
-<p>
-
- The door opened. With a small gesture the officer
-indicated the skull-faced man.</p>
-<p>
- 'Room 101,' he said.</p>
-<p>
- There was a gasp and a flurry at Winston's side. The man
-had actually flung himself on his knees on the floor, with his
-hand clasped together.</p>
-<p>
- 'Comrade! Officer!' he cried. 'You don't have to take me
-to that place! Haven't I told you everything already? What else
-is it you want to know? There's nothing I wouldn't confess,
-nothing! Just tell me what it is and I'll confess straight off.
-Write it down and I'll sign it -- anything! Not room 101!'</p>
-<p>
- 'Room 101,' said the officer.</p>
-<p>
- The man's face, already very pale, turned a colour Winston
-would not have believed possible. It was definitely,
-unmistakably, a shade of green.</p>
-<p>
- 'Do anything to me!' he yelled. 'You've been starving me
-for weeks. Finish it off and let me die. Shoot me. Hang me.
-Sentence me to twenty-five years. Is there somebody else you
-want me to give away? Just say who it is and I'll tell you
-anything you want. I don't care who it is or what you do to
-them. I've got a wife and three children. The biggest of them
-isn't six years old. You can take the whole lot of them and cut
-their throats in front of my eyes, and I'll stand by and watch
-it. But not Room 101!'</p>
-<p>
- 'Room 101,' said the officer.</p>
-<p>
- The man looked frantically round at the other prisoners,
-as though with some idea that he could put another victim in
-his own place. His eyes settled on the smashed face of the
-chinless man. He flung out a lean arm.</p>
-<p>
- 'That's the one you ought to be taking, not me!' he
-shouted. 'You didn't hear what he was saying after they bashed
-his face. Give me a chance and I'll tell you every word of it.
-He's the one that's against the Party, not me.' The
-guards stepped forward. The man's voice rose to a shriek. 'You
-didn't hear him!' he repeated. 'Something went wrong with the
-telescreen. He's the one you want. Take him, not me!'</p>
-<p>
- The two sturdy guards had stooped to take him by the arms.
-But just at this moment he flung himself across the floor of
-the cell and grabbed one of the iron legs that supported the
-bench. He had set up a wordless howling, like an animal. The
-guards took hold of him to wrench him loose, but he clung on
-with astonishing strength. For perhaps twenty seconds they were
-hauling at him. The prisoners sat quiet, their hands crossed on
-their knees, looking straight in front of them. The howling
-stopped; the man had no breath left for anything except hanging
-on. Then there was a different kind of cry. A kick from a
-guard's boot had broken the fingers of one of his hands. They
-dragged him to his feet.</p>
-<p>
- 'Room 101,' said the officer.</p>
-<p>
- The man was led out, walking unsteadily, with head sunken,
-nursing his crushed hand, all the fight had gone out of him.</p>
-<p>
- A long time passed. If it had been midnight when the
-skull-faced man was taken away, it was morning: if morning, it
-was afternoon. Winston was alone, and had been alone for hours.
-The pain of sitting on the narrow bench was such that often he
-got up and walked about, unreproved by the telescreen. The
-piece of bread still lay where the chinless man had dropped it.
-At the beginning it needed a hard effort not to look at it, but
-presently hunger gave way to thirst. His mouth was sticky and
-evil-tasting. The humming sound and the unvarying white light
-induced a sort of faintness, an empty feeling inside his head.
-He would get up because the ache in his bones was no longer
-bearable, and then would sit down again almost at once because
-he was too dizzy to make sure of staying on his feet. Whenever
-his physical sensations were a little under control the terror
-returned. Sometimes with a fading hope he thought of O'Brien
-and the razor blade. It was thinkable that the razor blade
-might arrive concealed in his food, if he were ever fed. More
-dimly he thought of Julia. Somewhere or other she was suffering
-perhaps far worse than he. She might be screaming with pain at
-this moment. He thought: 'If I could save Julia by doubling my
-own pain, would I do it? Yes, I would.' But that was merely an
-intellectual decision, taken because he knew that he ought to
-take it. He did not feel it. In this place you could not feel
-anything, except pain and foreknowledge of pain. Besides, was
-it possible, when you were actually suffering it, to wish for
-any reason that your own pain should increase? But that
-question was not answerable yet.</p>
-<p>
- The boots were approaching again. The door opened. O'Brien
-came in.</p>
-<p>
- Winston started to his feet. The shock of the sight had
-driven all caution out of him. For the first time in many years
-he forgot the presence of the telescreen.</p>
-<p>
- 'They've got you too!' he cried.</p>
-<p>
- 'They got me a long time ago,' said O'Brien with a mild,
-almost regretful irony. He stepped aside. from behind him there
-emerged a broad-chested guard with a long black truncheon in
-his hand.</p>
-<p>
- 'You know him, Winston,' said O'Brien. 'Don't deceive
-yourself. You did know it -- you have always known it.'</p>
-<p>
- Yes, he saw now, he had always known it. But there was no
-time to think of that. All he had eyes for was the truncheon in
-the guard's hand. It might fall anywhere; on the crown, on the
-tip of the ear, on the upper arm, on the elbow-</p>
-<p>
- The elbow! He had slumped to his knees, almost paralysed,
-clasping the stricken elbow with his other hand. Everything had
-exploded into yellow light. Inconceivable, inconceivable that
-one blow could cause such pain! The light cleared and he could
-see the other two looking down at him. The guard was laughing
-at his contortions. One question at any rate was answered.
-Never, for any reason on earth, could you wish for an increase
-of pain. Of pain you could wish only one thing: that it should
-stop. Nothing in the world was so bad as physical pain. In the
-face of pain there are no heroes, no heroes, he thought over
-and over as he writhed on the floor, clutching uselessly at his
-disabled left arm.</p>
-<h1><a name="19">XIX</a></h1>
-<p class="no-indent">
- He was lying on something that felt like a camp bed,
-except that it was higher off the ground and that he was fixed
-down in some way so that he could not move. Light that seemed
-stronger than usual was falling on his face. O'Brien was
-standing at his side, looking down at him intently. At the
-other side of him stood a man in a white coat, holding a
-hypodermic syringe.</p>
-<p>
- Even after his eyes were open he took in his surroundings
-only gradually. He had the impression of swimming up into this
-room from some quite different world, a sort of underwater
-world far beneath it. How long he had been down there he did
-not know. Since the moment when they arrested him he had not
-seen darkness or daylight. Besides, his memories were not
-continuous. There had been times when consciousness, even the
-sort of consciousness that one has in sleep, had stopped dead
-and started again after a blank interval. But whether the
-intervals were of days or weeks or only seconds, there was no
-way of knowing.</p>
-<p>
- With that first blow on the elbow the nightmare had
-started. Later he was to realize that all that then happened
-was merely a preliminary, a routine interrogation to which
-nearly all prisoners were subjected. There was a long range of
-crimes -- espionage, sabotage, and the like -- to which
-everyone had to confess as a matter of course. The confession
-was a formality, though the torture was real. How many times he
-had been beaten, how long the beatings had continued, he could
-not remember. Always there were five or six men in black
-uniforms at him simultaneously. Sometimes it was fists,
-sometimes it was truncheons, sometimes it was steel rods,
-sometimes it was boots. There were times when he rolled about
-the floor, as shameless as an animal, writhing his body this
-way and that in an endless, hopeless effort to dodge the kicks,
-and simply inviting more and yet more kicks, in his ribs, in
-his belly, on his elbows, on his shins, in his groin, in his
-testicles, on the bone at the base of his spine. There were
-times when it went on and on until the cruel, wicked,
-unforgivable thing seemed to him not that the guards continued
-to beat him but that he could not force hirnself into losing
-consciousness. There were times when his nerve so forsook him
-that he began shouting for mercy even before the beating began,
-when the mere sight of a fist drawn back for a blow was enough
-to make him pour forth a confession of real and imaginary
-crimes. There were other times when he started out with the
-resolve of confessing nothing, when every word had to be forced
-out of him between gasps of pain, and there were times when he
-feebly tried to compromise, when he said to himself: 'I will
-confess, but not yet. I must hold out till the pain becomes
-unbearable. Three more kicks, two more kicks, and then I will
-tell them what they want.' Sometimes he was beaten till he
-could hardly stand, then flung like a sack of potatoes on to
-the stone floor of a cell, left to recuperate for a few hours,
-and then taken out and beaten again. There were also longer
-periods of recovery. He remembered them dimly, because they
-were spent chiefly in sleep or stupor. He remembered a cell
-with a plank bed, a sort of shelf sticking out from the wall,
-and a tin wash-basin, and meals of hot soup and bread and
-sometimes coffee. He remembered a surly barber arriving to
-scrape his chin and crop his hair, and businesslike,
-unsympathetic men in white coats feeling his pulse, tapping his
-reflexes, turning up his eyelids, running harsh fingers over
-him in search for broken bones, and shooting needles into his
-arm to make him sleep.</p>
-<p>
- The beatings grew less frequent, and became mainly a
-threat, a horror to which he could be sent back at any moment
-when his answers were unsatisfactory. His questioners now were
-not ruffians in black uniforms but Party intellectuals, little
-rotund men with quick movements and flashing spectacles, who
-worked on him in relays over periods which lasted -- he
-thought, he could not be sure -- ten or twelve hours at a
-stretch. These other questioners saw to it that he was in
-constant slight pain, but it was not chiefly pain that they
-relied on. They slapped his face, wrung his ears. pulled his
-hair, made him stand on one leg, refused him leave to urinate,
-shone glaring lights in his face until his eyes ran with water;
-but the aim of this was simply to humiliate him and destroy his
-power of arguing and reasoning. Their real weapon was the
-merciless questioning that went on and on, hour after hour,
-tripping him up, laying traps for him, twisting everything that
-he said, convicting him at every step of lies and
-self-contradiction until he began weeping as much from shame as
-from nervous fatigue Sometimes he would weep half a dozen times
-in a single session. Most of the time they screamed abuse at
-him and threatened at every hesitation to deliver him over to
-the guards again; but sometimes they would suddenly change
-their tune, call him comrade, appeal to him in the name of
-Ingsoc and Big Brother, and ask him sorrowfully whether even
-now he had not enough loyalty to the Party left to make him
-wish to undo the evil he had done. When his nerves were in rags
-after hours of questioning, even this appeal could reduce him
-to snivelling tears. In the end the nagging voices broke him
-down more completely than the boots and fists of the guards. He
-became simply a mouth that uttered, a hand that signed,
-whatever was demanded of him. His sole concern was to find out
-what they wanted him to confess, and then confess it quickly,
-before the bullying started anew. He confessed to the
-assassination of eminent Party members, the distribution of
-seditious pamphlets, embezzlement of public funds, sale of
-military secrets, sabotage of every kind. He confessed that he
-had been a spy in the pay of the Eastasian government as far
-back as 1968. He confessed that he was a religious believer, an
-admirer of capitalism, and a sexual pervert. He confessed that
-he had murdered his wife, although he knew, and his questioners
-must have known, that his wife was still alive. He confessed
-that for years he had been in personal touch with Goldstein and
-had been a member of an underground organization which had
-included almost every human being he had ever known. It was
-easier to confess everything and implicate everybody. Besides,
-in a sense it was all true. It was true that he had been the
-enemy of the Party, and in the eyes of the Party there was no
-distinction between the thought and the deed.</p>
-<p>
- There were also memories of another kind. They stood out
-in his mind disconnectedly, like pictures with blackness all
-round them.</p>
-<p>
- He was in a cell which might have been either dark or
-light, because he could see nothing except a pair of eyes. Near
-at hand some kind of instrument was ticking slowly and
-regularly. The eyes grew larger and more luminous. Suddenly he
-floated out of his seat, dived into the eyes, and was swallowed
-up.</p>
-<p>
- He was strapped into a chair surrounded by dials, under
-dazzling lights. A man in a white coat was reading the dials.
-There was a tramp of heavy boots outside. The door clanged
-open. The waxed-faced officer marched in, followed by two
-guards.</p>
-<p>
- 'Room 101,' said the officer.</p>
-<p>
- The man in the white coat did not turn round. He did not
-look at Winston either; he was looking only at the dials.</p>
-<p>
- He was rolling down a mighty corridor, a kilometre wide,
-full of glorious, golden light, roaring with laughter and
-shouting out confessions at the top of his voice. He was
-confessing everything, even the things he had succeeded in
-holding back under the torture. He was relating the entire
-history of his life to an audience who knew it already. With
-him were the guards, the other questioners, the men in white
-coats, O'Brien, Julia, Mr Charrington, all rolling down the
-corridor together and shouting with laughter. Some dreadful
-thing which had lain embedded in the future had somehow been
-skipped over and had not happened. Everything was all right,
-there was no more pain, the last detail of his life was laid
-bare, understood, forgiven.</p>
-<p>
- He was starting up from the plank bed in the
-half-certainty that he had heard O'Brien's voice. All through his
-interrogation, although he had never seen him, he had had the
-feeling that O'Brien was at his elbow, just out of sight. It
-was O'Brien who was directing everything. It was he who set the
-guards on to Winston and who prevented them from killing him.
-It was he who decided when Winston should scream with pain,
-when he should have a respite, when he should be fed, when he
-should sleep, when the drugs should be pumped into his arm. It
-was he who asked the questions and suggested the answers. He
-was the tormentor, he was the protector, he was the inquisitor,
-he was the friend. And once -- Winston could not remember
-whether it was in drugged sleep, or in normal sleep, or even in
-a moment of wakefulness -- a voice murmured in his ear: 'Don't
-worry, Winston; you are in my keeping. For seven years I have
-watched over you. Now the turning-point has come. I shall save
-you, I shall make you perfect.' He was not sure whether it was
-O'Brien's voice; but it was the same voice that had said to
-him, 'We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness,'
-in that other dream, seven years ago.</p>
-<p>
- He did not remember any ending to his interrogation. There
-was a period of blackness and then the cell, or room, in which
-he now was had gradually materialized round him. He was almost
-flat on his back, and unable to move. His body was held down at
-every essential point. Even the back of his head was gripped in
-some manner. O'Brien was looking down at him gravely and rather
-sadly. His face, seen from below, looked coarse and worn, with
-pouches under the eyes and tired lines from nose to chin. He
-was older than Winston had thought him; he was perhaps
-forty-eight or fifty. Under his hand there was a dial with a
-lever on top and figures running round the face.</p>
-<p>
- 'I told you,' said O'Brien, 'that if we met again it would
-be here.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes,' said Winston.</p>
-<p>
- Without any warning except a slight movement of O'Brien's
-hand, a wave of pain flooded his body. It was a frightening
-pain, because he could not see what was happening, and he had
-the feeling that some mortal injury was being done to him. He
-did not know whether the thing was really happening, or whether
-the effect was electrically produced; but his body was being
-wrenched out of shape, the joints were being slowly torn apart.
-Although the pain had brought the sweat out on his forehead,
-the worst of all was the fear that his backbone was about to
-snap. He set his teeth and breathed hard through his nose,
-trying to keep silent as long as possible.</p>
-<p>
- 'You are afraid,' said O'Brien, watching his face, 'that
-in another moment something is going to break. Your especial
-fear is that it will be your backbone. You have a vivid mental
-picture of the vertebrae snapping apart and the spinal fluid
-dripping out of them. That is what you are thinking, is it not,
-Winston?'</p>
-<p>
- Winston did not answer. O'Brien drew back the lever on the
-dial. The wave of pain receded almost as quickly as it had
-come.</p>
-<p>
- 'That was forty,' said O'Brien. 'You can see that the
-numbers on this dial run up to a hundred. Will you please
-remember, throughout our conversation, that I have it in my
-power to inflict pain on you at any moment and to whatever
-degree I choose? If you tell me any lies, or attempt to
-prevaricate in any way, or even fall below your usual level of
-intelligence, you will cry out with pain, instantly. Do you
-understand that?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes,' said Winston.</p>
-<p>
- O'Brien's manner became less severe. He resettled his
-spectacles thoughtfully, and took a pace or two up and down.
-When he spoke his voice was gentle and patient. He had the air
-of a doctor, a teacher, even a priest, anxious to explain and
-persuade rather than to punish.</p>
-<p>
- 'I am taking trouble with you, Winston,' he said, 'because
-you are worth trouble. You know perfectly well what is the
-matter with you. You have known it for years, though you have
-fought against the knowledge. You are mentally deranged. You
-suffer from a defective memory. You are unable to remember real
-events and you persuade yourself that you remember other events
-which never happened. Fortunately it is curable. You have never
-cured yourself of it, because you did not choose to. There was
-a small effort of the will that you were not ready to make.
-Even now, I am well aware, you are clinging to your disease
-under the impression that it is a virtue. Now we will take an
-example. At this moment, which power is Oceania at war with?'</p>
-<p>
- 'When I was arrested, Oceania was at war with Eastasia.</p>
-<p>
- 'With Eastasia. Good. And Oceania has always been at war
-with Eastasia, has it not?'</p>
-<p>
- Winston drew in his breath. He opened his mouth to speak
-and then did not speak. He could not take his eyes away from
-the dial.</p>
-<p>
- 'The truth, please, Winston. Your truth. Tell me
-what you think you remember.'</p>
-<p>
- 'I remember that until only a week before I was arrested,
-we were not at war with Eastasia at all. We were in alliance
-with them. The war was against Eurasia. That had lasted for
-four years. Before that -- '</p>
-<p>
- O'Brien stopped him with a movement of the hand.</p>
-<p>
- 'Another example,' he said. 'Some years ago you had a very
-serious delusion indeed. You believed that three men, three
-one-time Party members named Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford men
-who were executed for treachery and sabotage after making the
-fullest possible confession -- were not guilty of the crimes
-they were charged with. You believed that you had seen
-unmistakable documentary evidence proving that their
-confessions were false. There was a certain photograph about
-which you had a hallucination. You believed that you had
-actually held it in your hands. It was a photograph something
-like this.'</p>
-<p>
- An oblong slip of newspaper had appeared between O'Brien's
-fingers. For perhaps five seconds it was within the angle of
-Winston's vision. It was a photograph, and there was no
-question of its identity. It was the photograph. It was
-another copy of the photograph of Jones, Aaronson, and
-Rutherford at the party function in New York, which he had
-chanced upon eleven years ago and promptly destroyed. For only
-an instant it was before his eyes, then it was out of sight
-again. But he had seen it, unquestionably he had seen it! He
-made a desperate, agonizing effort to wrench the top half of
-his body free. It was impossible to move so much as a
-centimetre in any direction. For the moment he had even
-forgotten the dial. All he wanted was to hold the photograph in
-his fingers again, or at least to see it.</p>
-<p>
- 'It exists!' he cried.</p>
-<p>
- 'No,' said O'Brien.</p>
-<p>
- He stepped across the room. There was a memory hole in the
-opposite wall. O'Brien lifted the grating. Unseen, the frail
-slip of paper was whirling away on the current of warm air; it
-was vanishing in a flash of flame. O'Brien turned away from the
-wall.</p>
-<p>
- 'Ashes,' he said. 'Not even identifiable ashes. Dust. It
-does not exist. It never existed.'</p>
-<p>
- 'But it did exist! It does exist! It exists in memory. I
-remember it. You remember it.'</p>
-<p>
- 'I do not remember it,' said O'Brien.</p>
-<p>
- Winston's heart sank. That was doublethink. He had a
-feeling of deadly helplessness. If he could have been certain
-that O'Brien was lying, it would not have seemed to matter. But
-it was perfectly possible that O'Brien had really forgotten the
-photograph. And if so, then already he would have forgotten his
-denial of remembering it, and forgotten the act of forgetting.
-How could one be sure that it was simple trickery? Perhaps that
-lunatic dislocation in the mind could really happen: that was
-the thought that defeated him.</p>
-<p>
- O'Brien was looking down at him speculatively. More than
-ever he had the air of a teacher taking pains with a wayward
-but promising child.</p>
-<p>
- 'There is a Party slogan dealing with the control of the
-past,' he said. 'Repeat it, if you please.'</p>
-<p>
- "Who controls the past controls the future: who controls
-the present controls the past," repeated Winston obediently.</p>
-<p>
- "Who controls the present controls the past," said
-O'Brien, nodding his head with slow approval. 'Is it your
-opinion, Winston, that the past has real existence?'</p>
-<p>
- Again the feeling of helplessness descended upon Winston.
-His eyes flitted towards the dial. He not only did not know
-whether 'yes' or 'no' was the answer that would save him from
-pain; he did not even know which answer he believed to be the
-true one.</p>
-<p>
- O'Brien smiled faintly. 'You are no metaphysician,
-Winston,' he said. 'Until this moment you had never considered
-what is meant by existence. I will put it more precisely. Does
-the past exist concretely, in space? Is there somewhere or
-other a place, a world of solid objects, where the past is
-still happening?'</p>
-<p>
- 'No.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Then where does the past exist, if at all?'</p>
-<p>
- 'In records. It is written down.'</p>
-<p>
- 'In records. And- ?'</p>
-<p>
- 'In the mind. In human memories.</p>
-<p>
- 'In memory. Very well, then. We, the Party, control all
-records, and we control all memories. Then we control the past,
-do we not?'</p>
-<p>
- 'But how can you stop people remembering things?' cried
-Winston again momentarily forgetting the dial. 'It is
-involuntary. It is outside oneself. How can you control memory?
-You have not controlled mine!'</p>
-<p>
- O'Brien's manner grew stern again. He laid his hand on the
-dial.</p>
-<p>
- 'On the contrary,' he said, 'you have not
-controlled it. That is what has brought you here. You are here
-because you have failed in humility, in self-discipline. You
-would not make the act of submission which is the price of
-sanity. You preferred to be a lunatic, a minority of one. Only
-the disciplined mind can see reality, Winston. You believe that
-reality is something objective, external, existing in its own
-right. You also believe that the nature of reality is
-self-evident. When you delude yourself into thinking that you
-see something, you assume that everyone else sees the same
-thing as you. But I tell you, Winston, that reality is not
-external. Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.
-Not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes, and in any
-case soon perishes: only in the mind of the Party, which is
-collective and immortal. Whatever the Party holds to be the
-truth, is truth. It is impossible to see reality except
-by looking through the eyes of the Party. That is the fact that
-you have got to relearn, Winston. It needs an act of
-self-destruction, an effort of the will. You must humble yourself
-before you can become sane.'</p>
-<p>
- He paused for a few moments, as though to allow what he
-had been saying to sink in.</p>
-<p>
- 'Do you remember,' he went on, ' writing in your diary,
-"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four"?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes,' said Winston.</p>
-<p>
- O'Brien held up his left hand, its back towards Winston,
-with the thumb hidden and the four fingers extended.</p>
-<p>
- 'How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?</p>
-<p>
- 'Four.'</p>
-<p>
- 'And if the party says that it is not four but five --
-then how many?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Four.'</p>
-<p>
- The word ended in a gasp of pain. The needle of the dial
-had shot up to fifty-five. The sweat had sprung out all over
-Winston's body. The air tore into his lungs and issued again in
-deep groans which even by clenching his teeth he could not
-stop. O'Brien watched him, the four fingers still extended. He
-drew back the lever. This time the pain was only slightly
-eased.</p>
-<p>
- 'How many fingers, Winston?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Four.'</p>
-<p>
- The needle went up to sixty.</p>
-<p>
- 'How many fingers, Winston?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Four! Four! What else can I say? Four!'</p>
-<p>
- The needle must have risen again, but he did not look at
-it. The heavy, stern face and the four fingers filled his
-vision. The fingers stood up before his eyes like pillars,
-enormous, blurry, and seeming to vibrate, but unmistakably
-four.</p>
-<p>
- 'How many fingers, Winston?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Four! Stop it, stop it! How can you go on? Four! Four!'</p>
-<p>
- 'How many fingers, Winston?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Five! Five! Five!'</p>
-<p>
- 'No, Winston, that is no use. You are lying. You still
-think there are four. How many fingers, please?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Four! five! Four! Anything you like. Only stop it, stop
-the pain!</p>
-<p>
- Abruptly he was sitting up with O'Brien's arm round his
-shoulders. He had perhaps lost consciousness for a few seconds.
-The bonds that had held his body down were loosened. He felt
-very cold, he was shaking uncontrollably, his teeth were
-chattering, the tears were rolling down his cheeks. For a
-moment he clung to O'Brien like a baby, curiously comforted by
-the heavy arm round his shoulders. He had the feeling that
-O'Brien was his protector, that the pain was something that
-came from outside, from some other source, and that it was
-O'Brien who would save him from it.</p>
-<p>
- 'You are a slow learner, Winston,' said O'Brien gently.</p>
-<p>
- 'How can I help it?' he blubbered. 'How can I help seeing
-what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four.</p>
-<p>
- Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes
-they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You
-must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.'</p>
-<p>
- He laid Winston down on the bed. The grip of his limbs
-tightened again, but the pain had ebbed away and the trembling
-had stopped, leaving him merely weak and cold. O'Brien motioned
-with his head to the man in the white coat, who had stood
-immobile throughout the proceedings. The man in the white coat
-bent down and looked closely into Winston's eyes, felt his
-pulse, laid an ear against his chest, tapped here and there,
-then he nodded to O'Brien.</p>
-<p>
- 'Again,' said O'Brien.</p>
-<p>
- The pain flowed into Winston's body. The needle must be at
-seventy, seventy-five. He had shut his eyes this time. He knew
-that the fingers were still there, and still four. All that
-mattered was somehow to stay alive until the spasm was over. He
-had ceased to notice whether he was crying out or not. The pain
-lessened again. He opened his eyes. O'Brien had drawn back the
-lever.</p>
-<p>
- 'How many fingers, Winston?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Four. I suppose there are four. I would see five if I
-could. I am trying to see five.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Which do you wish: to persuade me that you see five, or
-really to see them?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Really to see them.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Again,' said O'Brien.</p>
-<p>
- Perhaps the needle was eighty -- ninety. Winston could not
-intermittently remember why the pain was happening. Behind his
-screwed-up eyelids a forest of fingers seemed to be moving in a
-sort of dance, weaving in and out, disappearing behind one
-another and reappearing again. He was trying to count them, he
-could not remember why. He knew only that it was impossible to
-count them, and that this was somehow due to the mysterious
-identity between five and four. The pain died down again. When
-he opened his eyes it was to find that he was still seeing the
-same thing. Innumerable fingers, like moving trees, were still
-streaming past in either direction, crossing and recrossing. He
-shut his eyes again.</p>
-<p>
- 'How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?'</p>
-<p>
- 'I don't know. I don't know. You will kill me if you do
-that again. Four, five, six -- in all honesty I don't know.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Better,' said O'Brien.</p>
-<p>
- A needle slid into Winston's arm. Almost in the same
-instant a blissful, healing warmth spread all through his body.
-The pain was already half-forgotten. He opened his eyes and
-looked up gratefully at O'Brien. At sight of the heavy, lined
-face, so ugly and so intelligent, his heart seemed to turn
-over. If he could have moved he would have stretched out a hand
-and laid it on O'Brien arm. He had never loved him so deeply as
-at this moment, and not merely because he had stopped the pain.
-The old feeling, that it bottom it did not matter whether
-O'Brien was a friend or an enemy, had come back. O'Brien was a
-person who could be talked to. Perhaps one did not want to be
-loved so much as to be understood. O'Brien had tortured him to
-the edge of lunacy, and in a little while, it was certain, he
-would send him to his death. It made no difference. In some
-sense that went deeper than friendship, they were intimates:
-somewhere or other, although the actual words might never be
-spoken, there was a place where they could meet and talk.
-O'Brien was looking down at him with an expression which
-suggested that the same thought might be in his own mind. When
-he spoke it was in an easy, conversational tone.</p>
-<p>
- 'Do you know where you are, Winston?' he said.</p>
-<p>
- 'I don't know. I can guess. In the Ministry of Love.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Do you know how long you have been here?'</p>
-<p>
- 'I don't know. Days, weeks, months -- I think it is
-months.'</p>
-<p>
- 'And why do you imagine that we bring people to this
-place?'</p>
-<p>
- 'To make them confess.'</p>
-<p>
- 'No, that is not the reason. Try again.'</p>
-<p>
- 'To punish them.'</p>
-<p>
- 'No!' exclaimed O'Brien. His voice had changed
-extraordinarily, and his face had suddenly become both stern
-and animated. 'No! Not merely to extract your confession, not
-to punish you. Shall I tell you why we have brought you here?
-To cure you! To make you sane! Will you understand, Winston,
-that no one whom we bring to this place ever leaves our hands
-uncured? We are not interested in those stupid crimes that you
-have committed. The Party is not interested in the overt act:
-the thought is all we care about. We do not merely destroy our
-enemies, we change them. Do you understand what I mean by
-that?'</p>
-<p>
- He was bending over Winston. His face looked enormous
-because of its nearness, and hideously ugly because it was seen
-from below. Moreover it was filled with a sort of exaltation, a
-lunatic intensity. Again Winston's heart shrank. If it had been
-possible he would have cowered deeper into the bed. He felt
-certain that O'Brien was about to twist the dial out of sheer
-wantonness. At this moment, however, O'Brien turned away. He
-took a pace or two up and down. Then he continued less
-vehemently:</p>
-<p>
- 'The first thing for you to understand is that in this
-place there are no martyrdoms. You have read of the religious
-persecutions of the past. In the Middle Ages there was the
-Inquisitlon. It was a failure. It set out to eradicate heresy,
-and ended by perpetuating it. For every heretic it burned at
-the stake, thousands of others rose up. Why was that? Because
-the Inquisition killed its enemies in the open, and killed them
-while they were still unrepentant: in fact, it killed them
-because they were unrepentant. Men were dying because they
-would not abandon their true beliefs. Naturally all the glory
-belonged to the victim and all the shame to the Inquisitor who
-burned him. Later, in the twentieth century, there were the
-totalitarians, as they were called. There were the German Nazis
-and the Russian Communists. The Russians persecuted heresy more
-cruelly than the Inquisition had done. And they imagined that
-they had learned from the mistakes of the past; they knew, at
-any rate, that one must not make martyrs. Before they exposed
-their victims to public trial, they deliberately set themselves
-to destroy their dignity. They wore them down by torture and
-solitude until they were despicable, cringing wretches,
-confessing whatever was put into their mouths, covering
-themselves with abuse, accusing and sheltering behind one
-another, whimpering for mercy. And yet after only a few years
-the same thing had happened over again. The dead men had become
-martyrs and their degradation was forgotten. Once again, why
-was it? In the first place, because the confessions that they
-had made were obviously extorted and untrue. We do not make
-mistakes of that kind. All the confessions that are uttered
-here are true. We make them true. And above all we do not allow
-the dead to rise up against us. You must stop imagining that
-posterity will vindicate you, Winston. Posterity will never
-hear of you. You will be lifted clean out from the stream of
-history. We shall turn you into gas and pour you into the
-stratosphere. Nothing will remain of you, not a name in a
-register, not a memory in a living brain. You will be
-annihilated in the past as well as in the future. You will
-never have existed.'</p>
-<p>
- Then why bother to torture me? thought Winston, with a
-momentary bitterness. O'Brien checked his step as though
-Winston had uttered the thought aloud. His large ugly face came
-nearer, with the eyes a little narrowed.</p>
-<p>
- 'You are thinking,' he said, 'that since we intend to
-destroy you utterly, so that nothing that you say or do can
-make the smallest difference -- in that case, why do we go to
-the trouble of interrogating you first? That is what you were
-thinking, was it not?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes,' said Winston.</p>
-<p>
- O'Brien smiled slightly. 'You are a flaw in the pattern,
-Winston. You are a stain that must be wiped out. Did I not tell
-you just now that we are different from the persecutors of the
-past? We are not content with negative obedience, nor even with
-the most abject submission. When finally you surrender to us,
-it must be of your own free will. We do not destroy the heretic
-because he resists us: so long as he resists us we never
-destroy him. We convert him, we capture his inner mind, we
-reshape him. We burn all evil and all illusion out of him; we
-bring him over to our side, not in appearance, but genuinely,
-heart and soul. We make him one of ourselves before we kill
-him. It is intolerable to us that an erroneous thought should
-exist anywhere in the world, however secret and powerless it
-may be. Even in the instant of death we cannot permit any
-deviation. In the old days the heretic walked to the stake
-still a heretic, proclaiming his heresy, exulting in it. Even
-the victim of the Russian purges could carry rebellion locked
-up in his skull as he walked down the passage waiting for the
-bullet. But we make the brain perfect before we blow it out.
-The command of the old despotisms was "Thou shalt not". The
-command of the totalitarians was "Thou shalt". Our command is
-"Thou art". No one whom we bring to this place ever
-stands out against us. Everyone is washed clean. Even those
-three miserable traitors in whose innocence you once believed
--- Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford -- in the end we broke them
-down. I took part in their interrogation myself. I saw them
-gradually worn down, whimpering, grovelling, weeping -- and in
-the end it was not with pain or fear, only with penitence. By
-the time we had finished with them they were only the shells of
-men. There was nothing left in them except sorrow for what they
-had done, and love of Big Brother. It was touching to see how
-they loved him. They begged to be shot quickly, so that they
-could die while their minds were still clean.'</p>
-<p>
- His voice had grown almost dreamy. The exaltation, the
-lunatic enthusiasm, was still in his face. He is not
-pretending, thought Winston, he is not a hypocrite, he believes
-every word he says. What most oppressed him was the
-consciousness of his own intellectual inferiority. He watched
-the heavy yet graceful form strolling to and fro, in and out of
-the range of his vision. O'Brien was a being in all ways larger
-than himself. There was no idea that he had ever had, or could
-have, that O'Brien had not long ago known, examined, and
-rejected. His mind contained Winston's mind. But in that
-case how could it be true that O'Brien was mad? It must be he,
-Winston, who was mad. O'Brien halted and looked down at him.
-His voice had grown stern again.</p>
-<p>
- 'Do not imagine that you will save yourself, Winston,
-however completely you surrender to us. No one who has once
-gone astray is ever spared. And even if we chose to let you
-live out the natural term of your life, still you would never
-escape from us. What happens to you here is for ever.
-Understand that in advance. We shall crush you down to the
-point from which there is no coming back. Things will happen to
-you from which you could not recover, if you lived a thousand
-years. Never again will you be capable of ordinary human
-feeling. Everything will be dead inside you. Never again will
-you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or
-laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be
-hollow. We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you
-with ourselves.'</p>
-<p>
- He paused and signed to the man in the white coat. Winston
-was aware of some heavy piece of apparatus being pushed into
-place behind his head. O'Brien had sat down beside the bed, so
-that his face was almost on a level with Winston's.</p>
-<p>
- 'Three thousand,' he said, speaking over Winston's head to
-the man in the white coat.</p>
-<p>
- Two soft pads, which felt slightly moist, clamped
-themselves against Winston's temples. He quailed. There was
-pain coming, a new kind of pain. O'Brien laid a hand
-reassuringly, almost kindly, on his.</p>
-<p>
- 'This time it will not hurt,' he said. 'Keep your eyes
-fixed on mine.'</p>
-<p>
- At this moment there was a devastating explosion, or what
-seemed like an explosion, though it was not certain whether
-there was any noise. There was undoubtedly a blinding flash of
-light. Winston was not hurt, only prostrated. Although he had
-already been lying on his back when the thing happened, he had
-a curious feeling that he had been knocked into that position.
-A terrific painless blow had flattened him out. Also something
-had happened inside his head. As his eyes regained their focus
-he remembered who he was, and where he was, and recognized the
-face that was gazing into his own; but somewhere or other there
-was a large patch of emptiness, as though a piece had been
-taken out of his brain.</p>
-<p>
- 'It will not last,' said O'Brien. 'Look me in the eyes.
-What country is Oceania at war with?'</p>
-<p>
- Winston thought. He knew what was meant by Oceania and
-that he himself was a citizen of Oceania. He also remembered
-Eurasia and Eastasia; but who was at war with whom he did not
-know. In fact he had not been aware that there was any war.</p>
-<p>
- 'I don't remember.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Oceania is at war with Eastasia. Do you remember that
-now?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia. Since the
-beginning of your life, since the beginning of the Party, since
-the beginning of history, the war has continued without a
-break, always the same war. Do you remember that?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes.'</p>
-<p>
- ' Eleven years ago you created a legend about three men
-who had been condemned to death for treachery. You pretended
-that you had seen a piece of paper which proved them innocent.
-No such piece of paper ever existed. You invented it, and later
-you grew to believe in it. You remember now the very moment at
-which you first invented it. Do you remember that?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Just now I held up the fingers of my hand to you. You saw
-five fingers. Do you remember that?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes.'</p>
-<p>
- O'Brien held up the fingers of his left hand, with the
-thumb concealed.</p>
-<p>
- 'There are five fingers there. Do you see five fingers?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes.'</p>
-<p>
- And he did see them, for a fleeting instant, before the
-scenery of his mind changed. He saw five fingers, and there was
-no deformity. Then everything was normal again, and the old
-fear, the hatred, and the bewilderment came crowding back
-again. But there had been a moment -- he did not know how long,
-thirty seconds, perhaps -- of luminous certainty, when each new
-suggestion of O'Brien's had filled up a patch of emptiness and
-become absolute truth, and when two and two could have been
-three as easily as five, if that were what was needed. It had
-faded but before O'Brien had dropped his hand; but though he
-could not recapture it, he could remember it, as one remembers
-a vivid experience at some period of one's life when one was in
-effect a different person.</p>
-<p>
- 'You see now,' said O'Brien, 'that it is at any rate
-possible.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes,' said Winston.</p>
-<p>
- O'Brien stood up with a satisfied air. Over to his left
-Winston saw the man in the white coat break an ampoule and draw
-back the plunger of a syringe. O'Brien turned to Winston with a
-smile. In almost the old manner he resettled his spectacles on
-his nose.</p>
-<p>
- 'Do you remember writing in your diary,' he said, 'that it
-did not matter whether I was a friend or an enemy, since I was
-at least a person who understood you and could be talked to?
-You were right. I enjoy talking to you. Your mind appeals to
-me. It resembles my own mind except that you happen to be
-insane. Before we bring the session to an end you can ask me a
-few questions, if you choose.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Any question I like?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Anything.' He saw that Winston's eyes were upon the dial.
-'It is switched off. What is your first question?'</p>
-<p>
- 'What have you done with Julia?' said Winston.</p>
-<p>
- O'Brien smiled again. 'She betrayed you, Winston.
-Immediately-unreservedly. I have seldom seen anyone come over
-to us so promptly. You would hardly recognize her if you saw
-her. All her rebelliousness, her deceit, her folly, her
-dirty-mindedness -- everything has been burned out of her. It
-was a perfect conversion, a textbook case.'</p>
-<p>
- 'You tortured her?'</p>
-<p>
- O'Brien left this unanswered. 'Next question,' he said.</p>
-<p>
- 'Does Big Brother exist?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Of course he exists. The Party exists. Big Brother is the
-embodiment of the Party.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Does he exist in the same way as I exist?</p>
-<p>
- 'You do not exist,' said O'Brien.</p>
-<p>
- Once again the sense of helplessness assailed him. He
-knew, or he could imagine, the arguments which proved his own
-nonexistence; but they were nonsense, they were only a play on
-words. Did not the statement, 'You do not exist', contain a
-logical absurdity? But what use was it to say so? His mind
-shrivelled as he thought of the unanswerable, mad arguments
-with which O'Brien would demolish him.</p>
-<p>
- 'I think I exist,' he said wearily. 'I am conscious of my
-own identity. I was born and I shall die. I have arms and legs.
-I occupy a particular point in space. No other solid object can
-occupy the same point simultaneously. In that sense, does Big
-Brother exist?'</p>
-<p>
- 'It is of no importance. He exists.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Will Big Brother ever die?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Of course not. How could he die? Next question.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Does the Brotherhood exist?'</p>
-<p>
- 'That, Winston, you will never know. If we choose to set
-you free when we have finished with you, and if you live to be
-ninety years old, still you will never learn whether the answer
-to that question is Yes or No. As long as you live it will be
-an unsolved riddle in your mind.'</p>
-<p>
- Winston lay silent. His breast rose and fell a little
-faster. He still had not asked the question that had come into
-his mind the first. He had got to ask it, and yet it was as
-though his tongue would not utter it. There was a trace of
-amusement in O'Brien's face. Even his spectacles seemed to wear
-an ironical gleam. He knows, thought Winston suddenly, he knows
-what I am going to ask! At the thought the words burst out of
-him:</p>
-<p>
- 'What is in Room 101?'</p>
-<p>
- The expression on O'Brien's face did not change. He
-answered drily:</p>
-<p>
- 'You know what is in Room 101, Winston. Everyone knows
-what is in Room 101.'</p>
-<p>
- He raised a finger to the man in the white coat. Evidently
-the session was at an end. A needle jerked into Winston's arm.
-He sank almost instantly into deep sleep.</p>
-<h1><a name="20">XX</a></h1>
-<p class="no-indent">
- 'There are three stages in your reintegration,' said
-O'Brien. 'There is learning, there is understanding, and there
-is acceptance. It is time for you to enter upon the second
-stage.'</p>
-<p>
- As always, Winston was lying flat on his back. But of late
-his bonds were looser. They still held him to the bed, but he
-could move his knees a little and could turn his head from side
-to side and raise his arms from the elbow. The dial, also, had
-grown to be less of a terror. He could evade its pangs if he
-was quick-witted enough: it was chiefly when he showed
-stupidity that O'Brien pulled the lever. Sometimes they got
-through a whole session without use of the dial. He could not
-remember how many sessions there had been. The whole process
-seemed to stretch out over a long, indefinite time -- weeks,
-possibly -- and the intervals between the sessions might
-sometimes have been days, sometimes only an hour or two.</p>
-<p>
- 'As you lie there,' said O'Brien, 'you have often wondered
-you have even asked me -- why the Ministry of Love should
-expend so much time and trouble on you. And when you were free
-you were puzzled by what was essentially the same question. You
-could grasp the mechanics of the Society you lived in, but not
-its underlying motives. Do you remember writing in your diary,
-"I understand how: I do not understand why"? It was when
-you thought about "why" that you doubted your own sanity. You
-have read the book, Goldstein's book, or parts of it, at
-least. Did it tell you anything that you did not know already?'</p>
-<p>
- 'You have read it?' said Winston.</p>
-<p>
- 'I wrote it. That is to say, I collaborated in writing it.
-No book is produced individually, as you know.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Is it true, what it says?'</p>
-<p>
- 'A description, yes. The programme it sets forth is
-nonsense. The secret accumulation of knowledge -- a gradual
-spread of enlightenment -- ultimately a proletarian rebellion
--- the overthrow of the Party. You foresaw yourself that that
-was what it would say. It is all nonsense. The proletarians
-will never revolt, not in a thousand years or a million. They
-cannot. I do not have to tell you the reason: you know it
-already. If you have ever cherished any dreams of violent
-insurrection, you must abandon them. There is no way in which
-the Party can be overthrown. The rule of the Party is for ever.
-Make that the starting-point of your thoughts.'</p>
-<p>
- He came closer to the bed. 'For ever!' he repeated. 'And
-now let us get back to the question of "how" and "why". You
-understand well enough how the Party maintains itself in
-power. Now tell me why we cling to power. What is our motive?
-Why should we want power? Go on, speak,' he added as Winston
-remained silent.</p>
-<p>
- Nevertheless Winston did not speak for another moment or
-two. A feeling of weariness had overwhelmed him. The faint, mad
-gleam of enthusiasm had come back into O'Brien's face. He knew
-in advance what O'Brien would say. That the Party did not seek
-power for its own ends, but only for the good of the majority.
-That it sought power because men in the mass were frail
-cowardly creatures who could not endure liberty or face the
-truth, and must be ruled over and systematically deceived by
-others who were stronger than themselves. That the choice for
-mankind lay between freedom and happiness, and that, for the
-great bulk of mankind, happiness was better. That the party was
-the eternal guardian of the weak, a dedicated sect doing evil
-that good might come, sacrificing its own happiness to that of
-others. The terrible thing, thought Winston, the terrible thing
-was that when O'Brien said this he would believe it. You could
-see it in his face. O'Brien knew everything. A thousand times
-better than Winston he knew what the world was really like, in
-what degradation the mass of human beings lived and by what
-lies and barbarities the Party kept them there. He had
-understood it all, weighed it all, and it made no difference:
-all was justified by the ultimate purpose. What can you do,
-thought Winston, against the lunatic who is more intelligent
-than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then
-simply persists in his lunacy?</p>
-<p>
- 'You are ruling over us for our own good,' he said feebly.
-'You believe that human beings are not fit to govern
-themselves, and therefore-'</p>
-<p>
- He started and almost cried out. A pang of pain had shot
-through his body. O'Brien had pushed the lever of the dial up
-to thirty-five.</p>
-<p>
- 'That was stupid, Winston, stupid!' he said. 'You should
-know better than to say a thing like that.'</p>
-<p>
- He pulled the lever back and continued:</p>
-<p>
- 'Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is
-this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are
-not interested in the good of others ; we are interested solely
-in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only
-power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand
-presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the
-past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even
-those who resembled ourselves, were- cowards and hypocrites.
-The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to
-us in their methods, but they never had the courage to
-recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even
-believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a
-limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a
-paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not
-like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the
-intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an
-end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to
-safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to
-establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is
-persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of
-power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?'</p>
-<p>
- Winston was struck, as he had been struck before, by the
-tiredness of O'Brien's face. It was strong and fleshy and
-brutal, it was full of intelligence and a sort of controlled
-passion before which he felt himself helpless; but it was
-tired. There were pouches under the eyes, the skin sagged from
-the cheekbones. O'Brien leaned over him, deliberately bringing
-the worn face nearer.</p>
-<p>
- 'You are thinking,' he said, 'that my face is old and
-tired. You are thinking that I talk of power, and yet I am not
-even able to prevent the decay of my own body. Can you not
-understand, Winston, that the individual is only a cell? The
-weariness of the cell is the vigour of the organism. Do you die
-when you cut your fingernails?'</p>
-<p>
- He turned away from the bed and began strolling up and
-down again, one hand in his pocket.</p>
-<p>
- 'We are the priests of power,' he said. 'God is power. But
-at present power is only a word so far as you are concerned. It
-is time for you to gather some idea of what power means. The
-first thing you must realize is that power is collective. The
-individual only has power in so far as he ceases to be an
-individual. You know the Party slogan: "Freedom is Slavery".
-Has it ever occurred to you that it is reversible? Slavery is
-freedom. Alone -- free -- the human being is always defeated.
-It must be so, because every human being is doomed to die,
-which is the greatest of all failures. But if he can make
-complete, utter submission, if he can escape from his identity,
-if he can merge himself in the Party so that he is the
-Party, then he is all-powerful and immortal. The second thing
-for you to realize is that power is power over human beings.
-Over the body but, above all, over the mind. Power over matter
--- external reality, as you would call it -- is not important.
-Already our control over matter is absolute.'</p>
-<p>
- For a moment Winston ignored the dial. He made a violent
-effort to raise himself into a sitting position, and merely
-succeeded in wrenching his body painfully.</p>
-<p>
- 'But how can you control matter?' he burst out. 'You don't
-even control the climate or the law of gravity. And there are
-disease, pain, death-'</p>
-<p>
- O'Brien silenced him by a movement of his hand. 'We
-control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside
-the skull. You will learn by degrees, Winston. There is nothing
-that we could not do. Invisibility, levitation -- anything. I
-could float off this floor like a soap bubble if I wish to. I
-do not wish to, because the Party does not wish it. You must
-get rid of those nineteenth-century ideas about the laws of
-Nature. We make the laws of Nature.'</p>
-<p>
- 'But you do not! You are not even masters of this planet.
-What about Eurasia and Eastasia? You have not conquered them
-yet.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Unimportant. We shall conquer them when it suits us. And
-if we did not, what difference would it make? We can shut them
-out of existence. Oceania is the world.'</p>
-<p>
- 'But the world itself is only a speck of dust. And man is
-tiny helpless! How long has he been in existence? For millions
-of years the earth was uninhabited.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Nonsense. The earth is as old as we are, no older. How
-could it be older? Nothing exists except through human
-consciousness.'</p>
-<p>
- 'But the rocks are full of the bones of extinct animals --
-mammoths and mastodons and enormous reptiles which lived here
-long before man was ever heard of.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Have you ever seen those bones, Winston? Of course not.
-Nineteenth-century biologists invented them. Before man there
-was nothing. After man, if he could come to an end, there would
-be nothing. Outside man there is nothing.'</p>
-<p>
- 'But the whole universe is outside us. Look at the stars!
-Some of them are a million light-years away. They are out of
-our reach for ever.'</p>
-<p>
- 'What are the stars?' said O'Brien indifferently. 'They
-are bits of fire a few kilometres away. We could reach them if
-we wanted to. Or we could blot them out. The earth is the
-centre of the universe. The sun and the stars go round it.'</p>
-<p>
- Winston made another convulsive movement. This time he did
-not say anything. O'Brien continued as though answering a
-spoken objection:</p>
-<p>
- 'For certain purposes, of course, that is not true. When
-we navigate the ocean, or when we predict an eclipse, we often
-find it convenient to assume that the earth goes round the sun
-and that the stars are millions upon millions of kilometres
-away. But what of it? Do you suppose it is beyond us to produce
-a dual system of astronomy? The stars can be near or distant,
-according as we need them. Do you suppose our mathematicians
-are unequal to that? Have you forgotten doublethink?'</p>
-<p>
- Winston shrank back upon the bed. Whatever he said, the
-swift answer crushed him like a bludgeon. And yet he knew, he
-knew, that he was in the right. The belief that nothing
-exists outside your own mind -- surely there must be some way
-of demonstrating that it was false? Had it not been exposed
-long ago as a fallacy? There was even a name for it, which he
-had forgotten. A faint smile twitched the corners of O'Brien's
-mouth as he looked down at him.</p>
-<p>
- 'I told you, Winston,' he said, 'that metaphysics is not
-your strong point. The word you are trying to think of is
-solipsism. But you are mistaken. This is not solipsism.
-Collective solipsism, if you like. But that is a different
-thing: in fact, the opposite thing. All this is a digression,'
-he added in a different tone. 'The real power, the power we
-have to fight for night and day, is not power over things, but
-over men.' He paused, and for a moment assumed again his air of
-a schoolmaster questioning a promising pupil: 'How does one man
-assert his power over another, Winston?'</p>
-<p>
- Winston thought. 'By making him suffer,' he said.</p>
-<p>
- 'Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough.
-Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying
-your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and
-humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and
-putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.
-Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating?
-It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that
-the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery is
-torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world
-which will grow not less but more merciless as it
-refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress towards
-more pain. The old civilizations claimed that they were founded
-on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world
-there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and
-self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy everything. Already
-we are breaking down the habits of thought which have survived
-from before the Revolution. We have cut the links between child
-and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman.
-No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer.
-But in the future there will be no wives and no friends.
-Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one
-takes eggs from a hen. The sex instinct will be eradicated.
-Procreation will be an annual formality like the renewal of a
-ration card. We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are
-at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty
-towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of
-Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of
-triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no
-literature, no science. When we are omnipotent we shall have no
-more need of science. There will be no distinction between
-beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment
-of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be
-destroyed. But always -- do not forget this, Winston -- always
-there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing
-and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there
-will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an
-enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future,
-imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- for ever.'</p>
-<p>
- He paused as though he expected Winston to speak. Winston
-had tried to shrink back into the surface of the bed again. He
-could not say anything. His heart seemed to be frozen. O'Brien
-went on:</p>
-<p>
- 'And remember that it is for ever. The face will always be
-there to be stamped upon. The heretic, the enemy of society,
-will always be there, so that he can be defeated and humiliated
-over again. Everything that you have undergone since you have
-been in our hands -- all that will continue, and worse. The
-espionage, the betrayals, the arrests, the tortures, the
-executions, the disappearances will never cease. It will be a
-world of terror as much as a world of triumph. The more the
-Party is powerful, the less it will be tolerant: the weaker the
-opposition, the tighter the despotism. Goldstein and his
-heresies will live for ever. Every day, at every moment, they
-will be defeated, discredited, ridiculed, spat upon and yet
-they will always survive. This drama that I have played out
-with you during seven years will be played out over and over
-again generation after generation, always in subtler forms.
-Always we shall have the heretic here at our mercy, screaming
-with pain, broken up, contemptible -- and in the end utterly
-penitent, saved from himself, crawling to our feet of his own
-accord. That is the world that we are preparing, Winston. A
-world of victory after victory, triumph after triumph after
-triumph: an endless pressing, pressing, pressing upon the nerve
-of power. You are beginning, I can see, to realize what that
-world will be like. But in the end you will do more than
-understand it. You will accept it, welcome it, become part of
-it.'</p>
-<p>
- Winston had recovered himself sufficiently to speak. 'You
-can't!' he said weakly.</p>
-<p>
- 'What do you mean by that remark, Winston?'</p>
-<p>
- 'You could not create such a world as you have just
-described. It is a dream. It is impossible.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Why?'</p>
-<p>
- 'It is impossible to found a civilization on fear and
-hatred and cruelty. It would never endure.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Why not?'</p>
-<p>
- 'It would have no vitality. It would disintegrate. It
-would commit suicide.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Nonsense. You are under the impression that hatred is
-more exhausting than love. Why should it be? And if it were,
-what difference would that make? Suppose that we choose to wear
-ourselves out faster. Suppose that we quicken the tempo of
-human life till men are senile at thirty. Still what difference
-would it make? Can you not understand that the death of the
-individual is not death? The party is immortal.'</p>
-<p>
- As usual, the voice had battered Winston into
-helplessness. Moreover he was in dread that if he persisted in
-his disagreement O'Brien would twist the dial again. And yet he
-could not keep silent. Feebly, without arguments, with nothing
-to support him except his inarticulate horror of what O'Brien
-had said, he returned to the attack.</p>
-<p>
- 'I don't know -- I don't care. Somehow you will fail.
-Something will defeat you. Life will defeat you.'</p>
-<p>
- 'We control life, Winston, at all its levels. You are
-imagining that there is something called human nature which
-will be outraged by what we do and will turn against us. But we
-create human nature. Men are infinitely malleable. Or perhaps
-you have returned to your old idea that the proletarians or the
-slaves will arise and overthrow us. Put it out of your mind.
-They are helpless, like the animals. Humanity is the Party. The
-others are outside -- irrelevant.'</p>
-<p>
- 'I don't care. In the end they will beat you. Sooner or
-later they will see you for what you are, and then they will
-tear you to pieces.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Do you see any evidence that that is happening? Or any
-reason why it should?'</p>
-<p>
- 'No. I believe it. I know that you will fail. There
-is something in the universe -- I don't know, some spirit, some
-principle -- that you will never overcome.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Do you believe in God, Winston?'</p>
-<p>
- 'No.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Then what is it, this principle that will defeat us?'</p>
-<p>
- 'I don't know. The spirit of Man.'</p>
-<p>
- 'And do you consider yourself a man?.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes.'</p>
-<p>
- 'If you are a man, Winston, you are the last man. Your
-kind is extinct; we are the inheritors. Do you understand that
-you are alone? You are outside history, you are
-non-existent.' His manner changed and he said more harshly:
-'And you consider yourself morally superior to us, with our
-lies and our cruelty?'</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes, I consider myself superior.'</p>
-<p>
- O'Brien did not speak. Two other voices were speaking.
-After a moment Winston recognized one of them as his own. It
-was a sound-track of the conversation he had had with O'Brien,
-on the night when he had enrolled himself in the Brotherhood.
-He heard himself promising to lie, to steal, to forge, to
-murder, to encourage drug-taking and prostitution, to
-disseminate venereal diseases, to throw vitriol in a child's
-face. O'Brien made a small impatient gesture, as though to say
-that the demonstration was hardly worth making. Then he turned
-a switch and the voices stopped.</p>
-<p>
- 'Get up from that bed,' he said.</p>
-<p>
- The bonds had loosened themselves. Winston lowered himself
-to the floor and stood up unsteadily.</p>
-<p>
- 'You are the last man,' said O'Brien. 'You are the
-guardian of the human spirit. You shall see yourself as you
-are. Take off your clothes.'</p>
-<p>
- Winston undid the bit of string that held his overalls
-together. The zip fastener had long since been wrenched out of
-them. He could not remember whether at any time since his
-arrest he had taken off all his clothes at one time. Beneath
-the overalls his body was looped with filthy yellowish rags,
-just recognizable as the remnants of underclothes. As he slid
-them to the ground he saw that there was a three-sided mirror
-at the far end of the room. He approached it, then stopped
-short. An involuntary cry had broken out of him.</p>
-<p>
- 'Go on,' said O'Brien. 'Stand between the wings of the
-mirror. You shall see the side view as well.'</p>
-<p>
- He had stopped because he was frightened. A bowed,
-grey-coloured, skeleton-like thing was coming towards him. Its
-actual appearance was frightening, and not merely the fact that
-he knew it to be himself. He moved closer to the glass. The
-creature's face seemed to be protruded, because of its bent
-carriage. A forlorn, jailbird's face with a nobby forehead
-running back into a bald scalp, a crooked nose, and
-battered-looking cheekbones above which his eyes were fierce
-and watchful. The cheeks were seamed, the mouth had a drawn-in
-look. Certainly it was his own face, but it seemed to him that
-it had changed more than he had changed inside. The emotions it
-registered would be different from the ones he felt. He had
-gone partially bald. For the first moment he had thought that
-he had gone grey as well, but it was only the scalp that was
-grey. Except for his hands and a circle of his face, his body
-was grey all over with ancient, ingrained dirt. Here and there
-under the dirt there were the red scars of wounds, and near the
-ankle the varicose ulcer was an inflamed mass with flakes of
-skin peeling off it. But the truly frightening thing was the
-emaciation of his body. The barrel of the ribs was as narrow as
-that of a skeleton: the legs had shrunk so that the knees were
-thicker than the thighs. He saw now what O'Brien had meant
-about seeing the side view. The curvature of the spine was
-astonishing. The thin shoulders were hunched forward so as to
-make a cavity of the chest, the scraggy neck seemed to be
-bending double under the weight of the skull. At a guess he
-would have said that it was the body of a man of sixty,
-suffering from some malignant disease.</p>
-<p>
- 'You have thought sometimes,' said O'Brien, 'that my face
--- the face of a member of the Inner Party -- looks old and
-worn. What do you think of your own face?'</p>
-<p>
- He seized Winston's shoulder and spun him round so that he
-was facing him.</p>
-<p>
- 'Look at the condition you are in!' he said. 'Look at this
-filthy grime all over your body. Look at the dirt between your
-toes. Look at that disgusting running sore on your leg. Do you
-know that you stink like a goat? Probably you have ceased to
-notice it. Look at your emaciation. Do you see? I can make my
-thumb and forefinger meet round your bicep. I could snap your
-neck like a carrot. Do you know that you have lost twenty-five
-kilograms since you have been in our hands? Even your hair is
-coming out in handfuls. Look!' He plucked at Winston's head and
-brought away a tuft of hair. 'Open your mouth. Nine, ten,
-eleven teeth left. How many had you when you came to us? And
-the few you have left are dropping out of your head. Look
-here!'</p>
-<p>
- He seized one of Winston's remaining front teeth between
-his powerful thumb and forefinger. A twinge of pain shot
-through Winston's jaw. O'Brien had wrenched the loose tooth out
-by the roots. He tossed it across the cell.</p>
-<p>
- 'You are rotting away,' he said; 'you are falling to
-pieces. What are you? A bag of filth. Now turn around and look
-into that mirror again. Do you see that thing facing you? That
-is the last man. If you are human, that is humanity. Now put
-your clothes on again.'</p>
-<p>
- Winston began to dress himself with slow stiff movements.
-Until now he had not seemed to notice how thin and weak he was.
-Only one thought stirred in his mind: that he must have been in
-this place longer than he had imagined. Then suddenly as he
-fixed the miserable rags round himself a feeling of pity for
-his ruined body overcame him. Before he knew what he was doing
-he had collapsed on to a small stool that stood beside the bed
-and burst into tears. He was aware of his ugliness, his
-gracelessness, a bundle of bones in filthy underclothes sitting
-weeping in the harsh white light: but he could not stop
-himself. O'Brien laid a hand on his shoulder, almost kindly.</p>
-<p>
- 'It will not last for ever,' he said. 'You can escape from
-it whenever you choose. Everything depends on yourself.'</p>
-<p>
- 'You did it!' sobbed Winston. 'You reduced me to this
-state.'</p>
-<p>
- 'No, Winston, you reduced yourself to it. This is what you
-accepted when you set yourself up against the Party. It was all
-contained in that first act. Nothing has happened that you did
-not foresee.'</p>
-<p>
- He paused, and then went on:</p>
-<p>
- 'We have beaten you, Winston. We have broken you up. You
-have seen what your body is like. Your mind is in the same
-state. I do not think there can be much pride left in you. You
-have been kicked and flogged and insulted, you have screamed
-with pain, you have rolled on the floor in your own blood and
-vomit. You have whimpered for mercy, you have betrayed
-everybody and everything. Can you think of a single degradation
-that has not happened to you?'</p>
-<p>
- Winston had stopped weeping, though the tears were still
-oozing out of his eyes. He looked up at O'Brien.</p>
-<p>
- 'I have not betrayed Julia,' he said.</p>
-<p>
- O'Brien looked down at him thoughtfully. 'No,' he said;
-'no; that is perfectly true. You have not betrayed Julia.'</p>
-<p>
- The peculiar reverence for O'Brien, which nothing seemed
-able to destroy, flooded Winston's heart again. How
-intelligent, he thought, how intelligent! Never did O'Brien
-fail to understand what was said to him. Anyone else on earth
-would have answered promptly that he had betrayed Julia.
-For what was there that they had not screwed out of him under
-the torture? He had told them everything he knew about her, her
-habits, her character, her past life; he had confessed in the
-most trivial detail everything that had happened at their
-meetings, all that he had said to her and she to him, their
-black-market meals, their adulteries, their vague plottings
-against the Party -- everything. And yet, in the sense in which
-he intended the word, he had not betrayed her. He had not
-stopped loving her; his feelings towards her had remained the
-same. O'Brien had seen what he meant without the need for
-explanation.</p>
-<p>
- 'Tell me,' he said, 'how soon will they shoot me?'</p>
-<p>
- 'It might be a long time,' said O'Brien. 'You are a
-difficult case. But don't give up hope. Everyone is cured
-sooner or later. In the end we shall shoot you.'</p>
-<h1><a name="21">XXI</a></h1>
-<p class="no-indent">
- He was much better. He was growing fatter and stronger
-every day, if it was proper to speak of days.</p>
-<p>
- The white light and the humming sound were the same as
-ever, but the cell was a little more comfortable than the
-others he had been in. There was a pillow and a mattress on the
-plank bed, and a stool to sit on. They had given him a bath,
-and they allowed him to wash himself fairly frequently in a tin
-basin. They even gave him warm water to wash with. They had
-given him new underclothes and a clean suit of overalls. They
-had dressed his varicose ulcer with soothing ointment. They had
-pulled out the remnants of his teeth and given him a new set of
-dentures.</p>
-<p>
- Weeks or months must have passed. It would have been
-possible now to keep count of the passage of time, if he had
-felt any interest in doing so, since he was being fed at what
-appeared to be regular intervals. He was getting, he judged,
-three meals in the twenty-four hours; sometimes he wondered
-dimly whether he was getting them by night or by day. The food
-was surprisingly good, with meat at every third meal. Once
-there was even a packet of cigarettes. He had no matches, but
-the never-speaking guard who brought his food would give him a
-light. The first time he tried to smoke it made him sick, but
-he persevered, and spun the packet out for a long time, smoking
-half a cigarette after each meal.</p>
-<p>
- They had given him a white slate with a stump of pencil
-tied to the corner. At first he made no use of it. Even when he
-was awake he was completely torpid. Often he would lie from one
-meal to the next almost without stirring, sometimes asleep,
-sometimes waking into vague reveries in which it was too much
-trouble to open his eyes. He had long grown used to sleeping
-with a strong light on his face. It seemed to make no
-difference, except that one's dreams were more coherent. He
-dreamed a great deal all through this time, and they were
-always happy dreams. He was in the Golden Country, or he was
-sitting among enormous glorious, sunlit ruins, with his mother,
-with Julia, with O'Brien -- not doing anything, merely sitting
-in the sun, talking of peaceful things. Such thoughts as he had
-when he was awake were mostly about his dreams. He seemed to
-have lost the power of intellectual effort, now that the
-stimulus of pain had been removed. He was not bored, he had no
-desire for conversation or distraction. Merely to be alone, not
-to be beaten or questioned, to have enough to eat, and to be
-clean all over, was completely satisfying.</p>
-<p>
- By degrees he came to spend less time in sleep, but he
-still felt no impulse to get off the bed. All he cared for was
-to lie quiet and feel the strength gathering in his body. He
-would finger himself here and there, trying to make sure that
-it was not an illusion that his muscles were growing rounder
-and his skin tauter. Finally it was established beyond a doubt
-that he was growing fatter; his thighs were now definitely
-thicker than his knees. After that, reluctantly at first, he
-began exercising himself regularly. In a little while he could
-walk three kilometres, measured by pacing the cell, and his
-bowed shoulders were growing straighter. He attempted more
-elaborate exercises, and was astonished and humiliated to find
-what things he could not do. He could not move out of a walk,
-he could not hold his stool out at arm's length, he could not
-stand on one leg without falling over. He squatted down on his
-heels, and found that with agonizing pains in thigh and calf he
-could just lift himself to a standing position. He lay flat on
-his belly and tried to lift his weight by his hands. It was
-hopeless, he could not raise himself a centimetre. But after a
-few more days -- a few more mealtimes -- even that feat was
-accomplished. A time came when he could do it six times
-running. He began to grow actually proud of his body, and to
-cherish an intermittent belief that his face also was growing
-back to normal. Only when he chanced to put his hand on his
-bald scalp did he remember the seamed, ruined face that had
-looked back at him out of the mirror.</p>
-<p>
- His mind grew more active. He sat down on the plank bed,
-his back against the wall and the slate on his knees, and set
-to work deliberately at the task of re-educating himself.</p>
-<p>
- He had capitulated, that was agreed. In reality, as he saw
-now, he had been ready to capitulate long before he had taken
-the decision. From the moment when he was inside the Ministry
-of Love -- and yes, even during those minutes when he and Julia
-had stood helpless while the iron voice from the telescreen
-told them what to do -- he had grasped the frivolity, the
-shallowness of his attempt to set himself up against the power
-of the Party. He knew now that for seven years the Thought
-police had watched him like a beetle under a magnifying glass.
-There was no physical act, no word spoken aloud, that they had
-not noticed, no train of thought that they had not been able to
-infer. Even the speck of whitish dust on the cover of his diary
-they had carefully replaced. They had played sound-tracks to
-him, shown him photographs. Some of them were photographs of
-Julia and himself. Yes, even ... He could not fight against
-the Party any longer. Besides, the Party was in the right. It
-must be so; how could the immortal, collective brain be
-mistaken? By what external standard could you check its
-judgements? Sanity was statistical. It was merely a question of
-learning to think as they thought. Only!</p>
-<p>
- The pencil felt thick and awkward in his fingers. He began
-to write down the thoughts that came into his head. He wrote
-first in large clumsy capitals:</p>
-<p>
-
- FREEDOM IS SLAVERY</p>
-<p>
-
- Then almost without a pause he wrote beneath it:</p>
-<p>
-
- TWO AND TWO MAKE FIVE</p>
-<p>
-
- But then there came a sort of check. His mind, as though
-shying away from something, seemed unable to concentrate. He
-knew that he knew what came next, but for the moment he could
-not recall it. When he did recall it, it was only by
-consciously reasoning out what it must be: it did not come of
-its own accord. He wrote:</p>
-<p>
-
- GOD IS POWER</p>
-<p>
-
- He accepted everything. The past was alterable. The past
-never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia.
-Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia. Jones, Aaronson,
-and Rutherford were guilty of the crimes they were charged
-with. He had never seen the photograph that disproved their
-guilt. It had never existed, he had invented it. He remembered
-remembering contrary things, but those were false memories,
-products of self-deception. How easy it all was! Only surrender,
-and everything else followed. It was like swimming against a
-current that swept you backwards however hard you struggled,
-and then suddenly deciding to turn round and go with the
-current instead of opposing it. Nothing had changed except your
-own attitude: the predestined thing happened in any case. He
-hardly knew why he had ever rebelled. Everything was easy,
-except!</p>
-<p>
- Anything could be true. The so-called laws of Nature were
-nonsense. The law of gravity was nonsense. 'If I wished,'
-O'Brien had said, 'I could float off this floor like a soap
-bubble.' Winston worked it out. 'If he thinks he floats
-off the floor, and if I simultaneously think I see him
-do it, then the thing happens.' Suddenly, like a lump of
-submerged wreckage breaking the surface of water, the thought
-burst into his mind: 'It doesn't really happen. We imagine it.
-It is hallucination.' He pushed the thought under instantly.
-The fallacy was obvious. It presupposed that somewhere or
-other, outside oneself, there was a 'real' world where 'real'
-things happened. But how could there be such a world? What
-knowledge have we of anything, save through our own minds? All
-happenings are in the mind. Whatever happens in all minds,
-truly happens.</p>
-<p>
- He had no difficulty in disposing of the fallacy, and he
-was in no danger of succumbing to it. He realized,
-nevertheless, that it ought never to have occurred to him. The
-mind should develop a blind spot whenever a dangerous thought
-presented itself. The process should be automatic, instinctive.
-Crimestop, they called it in Newspeak.</p>
-<p>
- He set to work to exercise himself in crimestop. He
-presented himself with propositions -- 'the Party says the
-earth is flat', 'the party says that ice is heavier than water'
--- and trained himself in not seeing or not understanding the
-arguments that contradicted them. It was not easy. It needed
-great powers of reasoning and improvisation. The arithmetical
-problems raised, for instance, by such a statement as 'two and
-two make five' were beyond his intellectual grasp. It needed
-also a sort of athleticism of mind, an ability at one moment to
-make the most delicate use of logic and at the next to be
-unconscious of the crudest logical errors. Stupidity was as
-necessary as intelligence, and as difficult to attain.</p>
-<p>
- All the while, with one part of his mind, he wondered how
-soon they would shoot him. 'Everything depends on yourself,'
-O'Brien had said; but he knew that there was no conscious act
-by which he could bring it nearer. It might be ten minutes
-hence, or ten years. They might keep him for years in solitary
-confinement, they might send him to a labour-camp, they might
-release him for a while, as they sometimes did. It was
-perfectly possible that before he was shot the whole drama of
-his arrest and interrogation would be enacted all over again.
-The one certain thing was that death never came at an expected
-moment. The tradition -- the unspoken tradition: somehow you
-knew it, though you never heard it said-was that they shot you
-from behind; always in the back of the head, without warning,
-as you walked down a corridor from cell to cell.</p>
-<p>
- One day -- but 'one day' was not the right expression;
-just as probably it was in the middle of the night: once -- he
-fell into a strange, blissful reverie. He was walking down the
-corridor, waiting for the bullet. He knew that it was coming in
-another moment. Everything was settled, smoothed out,
-reconciled. There were no more doubts, no more arguments, no
-more pain, no more fear. His body was healthy and strong. He
-walked easily, with a joy of movement and with a feeling of
-walking in sunlight. He was not any longer in the narrow white
-corridors in the Ministry of Love, he was in the enormous
-sunlit passage, a kilometre wide, down which he had seemed to
-walk in the delirium induced by drugs. He was in the Golden
-Country, following the foot-track across the old
-rabbit-cropped pasture. He could feel the short springy turf
-under his feet and the gentle sunshine on his face. At the edge
-of the field were the elm trees, faintly stirring, and
-somewhere beyond that was the stream where the dace lay in the
-green pools under the willows.</p>
-<p>
- Suddenly he started up with a shock of horror. The sweat
-broke out on his backbone. He had heard himself cry aloud:</p>
-<p>
- 'Julia! Julia! Julia, my love! Julia!'</p>
-<p>
- For a moment he had had an overwhelming hallucination of
-her presence. She had seemed to be not merely with him, but
-inside him. It was as though she had got into the texture of
-his skin. In that moment he had loved her far more than he had
-ever done when they were together and free. Also he knew that
-somewhere or other she was still alive and needed his help.</p>
-<p>
- He lay back on the bed and tried to compose himself. What
-had he done? How many years had he added to his servitude by
-that moment of weakness?</p>
-<p>
- In another moment he would hear the tramp of boots
-outside. They could not let such an outburst go unpunished.
-They would know now, if they had not known before, that he was
-breaking the agreement he had made with them. He obeyed the
-Party, but he still hated the Party. In the old days he had
-hidden a heretical mind beneath an appearance of conformity.
-Now he had retreated a step further: in the mind he had
-surrendered, but he had hoped to keep the inner heart
-inviolate. He knew that he was in the wrong, but he preferred
-to be in the wrong. They would understand that- O'Brien would
-understand it. It was all confessed in that single foolish cry.</p>
-<p>
- He would have to start all over again. It might take
-years. He ran a hand over his face, trying to familiarize
-himself with the new shape. There were deep furrows in the
-cheeks, the cheekbones felt sharp, the nose flattened. Besides,
-since last seeing himself in the glass he had been given a
-complete new set of teeth. It was not easy to preserve
-inscrutability when you did not know what your face looked
-like. In any case, mere control of the features was not enough.
-For the first time he perceived that if you want to keep a
-secret you must also hide it from yourself. You must know all
-the while that it is there, but until it is needed you must
-never let it emerge into your consciousness in any shape that
-could be given a name. From now onwards he must not only think
-right; he must feel right, dream right. And all the while he
-must keep his hatred locked up inside him like a ball of matter
-which was part of himself and yet unconnected with the rest of
-him, a kind of cyst.</p>
-<p>
- One day they would decide to shoot him. You could not tell
-when it would happen, but a few seconds beforehand it should be
-possible to guess. It was always from behind, walking down a
-corridor. Ten seconds would be enough. In that time the world
-inside him could turn over. And then suddenly, without a word
-uttered, without a check in his step, without the changing of a
-line in his face -- suddenly the camouflage would be down and
-bang! would go the batteries of his hatred. Hatred would fill
-him like an enormous roaring flame. And almost in the same
-instant bang! would go the bullet, too late, or too early. They
-would have blown his brain to pieces before they could reclaim
-it. The heretical thought would be unpunished, unrepented, out
-of their reach for ever. They would have blown a hole in their
-own perfection. To die hating them, that was freedom.</p>
-<p>
- He shut his eyes. It was more difficult than accepting an
-intellectual discipline. It was a question of degrading
-himself, mutilating himself. He had got to plunge into the
-filthiest of filth. What was the most horrible, sickening thing
-of all? He thought of Big Brother. The enormous face (because
-of constantly seeing it on posters he always thought of it as
-being a metre wide), with its heavy black moustache and the
-eyes that followed you to and fro, seemed to float into his
-mind of its own accord. What were his true feelings towards Big
-Brother?</p>
-<p>
- There was a heavy tramp of boots in the passage. The steel
-door swung open with a clang. O'Brien walked into the cell.
-Behind him were the waxen-faced officer and the black-uniformed
-guards.</p>
-<p>
- 'Get up,' said O'Brien. 'Come here.'</p>
-<p>
- Winston stood opposite him. O'Brien took Winston's
-shoulders between his strong hands and looked at him closely.</p>
-<p>
- 'You have had thoughts of deceiving me,' he said. 'That
-was stupid. Stand up straighter. Look me in the face.'</p>
-<p>
- He paused, and went on in a gentler tone:</p>
-<p>
- 'You are improving. Intellectually there is very little
-wrong with you. It is only emotionally that you have failed to
-make progress. Tell me, Winston -- and remember, no lies: you
-know that I am always able to detect a lie -- tell me, what are
-your true feelings towards Big Brother?'</p>
-<p>
- 'I hate him.'</p>
-<p>
- 'You hate him. Good. Then the time has come for you to
-take the last step. You must love Big Brother. It is not enough
-to obey him: you must love him.'</p>
-<p>
- He released Winston with a little push towards the guards.</p>
-<p>
- 'Room 101,' he said.</p>
-<h1><a name="22">XXII</a></h1>
-<p class="no-indent">
- At each stage of his imprisonment he had known, or seemed
-to know, whereabouts he was in the windowless building.
-Possibly there were slight differences in the air pressure. The
-cells where the guards had beaten him were below ground level.
-The room where he had been interrogated by O'Brien was high up
-near the roof. This place was many metres underground, as deep
-down as it was possible to go.</p>
-<p>
- It was bigger than most of the cells he had been in. But
-he hardly noticed his surroundings. All he noticed was that
-there were two small tables straight in front of him, each
-covered with green baize. One was only a metre or two from him,
-the other was further away, near the door. He was strapped
-upright in a chair, so tightly that he could move nothing, not
-even his head. A sort of pad gripped his head from behind,
-forcing him to look straight in front of him.</p>
-<p>
- For a moment he was alone, then the door opened and
-O'Brien came in.</p>
-<p>
- 'You asked me once,' said O'Brien, 'what was in Room 101.
-I told you that you knew the answer already. Everyone knows it.
-The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world.'</p>
-<p>
- The door opened again. A guard came in, carrying something
-made of wire, a box or basket of some kind. He set it down on
-the further table. Because of the position in which O'Brien was
-standing. Winston could not see what the thing was.</p>
-<p>
- 'The worst thing in the world,' said O'Brien, 'varies from
-individual to individual. It may be burial alive, or death by
-fire, or by drowning, or by impalement, or fifty other deaths.
-There are cases where it is some quite trivial thing, not even
-fatal.'</p>
-<p>
- He had moved a little to one side, so that Winston had a
-better view of the thing on the table. It was an oblong wire
-cage with a handle on top for carrying it by. Fixed to the
-front of it was something that looked like a fencing mask, with
-the concave side outwards. Although it was three or four metres
-away from him, he could see that the cage was divided
-lengthways into two compartments, and that there was some kind
-of creature in each. They were rats.</p>
-<p>
- 'In your case, said O'Brien, 'the worst thing in the world
-happens to be rats.'</p>
-<p>
- A sort of premonitory tremor, a fear of he was not certain
-what, had passed through Winston as soon as he caught his first
-glimpse of the cage. But at this moment the meaning of the
-mask-like attachment in front of it suddenly sank into him. His
-bowels seemed to turn to water.</p>
-<p>
- 'You can't do that!' he cried out in a high cracked voice.
-'You couldn't, you couldn't! It's impossible.'</p>
-<p>
- 'Do you remember,' said O'Brien, 'the moment of panic that
-used to occur in your dreams? There was a wall of blackness in
-front of you, and a roaring sound in your ears. There was
-something terrible on the other side of the wall. You knew that
-you knew what it was, but you dared not drag it into the open.
-It was the rats that were on the other side of the wall.'</p>
-<p>
- 'O'Brien!' said Winston, making an effort to control his
-voice. 'You know this is not necessary. What is it that you
-want me to do?'</p>
-<p>
- O'Brien made no direct answer. When he spoke it was in the
-schoolmasterish manner that he sometimes affected. He looked
-thoughtfully into the distance, as though he were addressing an
-audience somewhere behind Winston's back.</p>
-<p>
- 'By itself,' he said, 'pain is not always enough. There
-are occasions when a human being will stand out against pain,
-even to the point of death. But for everyone there is something
-unendurable -- something that cannot be contemplated. Courage
-and cowardice are not involved. If you are falling from a
-height it is not cowardly to clutch at a rope. If you have come
-up from deep water it is not cowardly to fill your lungs with
-air. It is merely an instinct which cannot be destroyed. It is
-the same with the rats. For you, they are unendurable. They are
-a form of pressure that you cannot withstand. even if you
-wished to. You will do what is required of you.</p>
-<p>
- 'But what is it, what is it? How can I do it if I don't
-know what it is?'</p>
-<p>
- O'Brien picked up the cage and brought it across to the
-nearer table. He set it down carefully on the baize cloth.
-Winston could hear the blood singing in his ears. He had the
-feeling of sitting in utter loneliness. He was in the middle of
-a great empty plain, a flat desert drenched with sunlight,
-across which all sounds came to him out of immense distances.
-Yet the cage with the rats was not two metres away from him.
-They were enormous rats. They were at the age when a rat's
-muzzle grows blunt and fierce and his fur brown instead of
-grey.</p>
-<p>
- 'The rat,' said O'Brien, still addressing his invisible
-audience, 'although a rodent, is carnivorous. You are aware of
-that. You will have heard of the things that happen in the poor
-quarters of this town. In some streets a woman dare not leave
-her baby alone in the house, even for five minutes. The rats
-are certain to attack it. Within quite a small time they will
-strip it to the bones. They also attack sick or dying people.
-They show astonishing intelligence in knowing when a human
-being is helpless.'</p>
-<p>
- There was an outburst of squeals from the cage. It seemed
-to reach Winston from far away. The rats were fighting; they
-were trying to get at each other through the partition. He
-heard also a deep groan of despair. That, too, seemed to come
-from outside himself.</p>
-<p>
- O'Brien picked up the cage, and, as he did so, pressed
-something in it. There was a sharp click. Winston made a
-frantic effort to tear himself loose from the chair. It was
-hopeless; every part of him, even his head, was held immovably.
-O'Brien moved the cage nearer. It was less than a metre from
-Winston's face.</p>
-<p>
- 'I have pressed the first lever,' said O'Brien. 'You
-understand the construction of this cage. The mask will fit
-over your head, leaving no exit. When I press this other lever,
-the door of the cage will slide up. These starving brutes will
-shoot out of it like bullets. Have you ever seen a rat leap
-through the air? They will leap on to your face and bore
-straight into it. Sometimes they attack the eyes first.
-Sometimes they burrow through the cheeks and devour the
-tongue.'</p>
-<p>
- The cage was nearer; it was closing in. Winston heard a
-succession of shrill cries which appeared to be occurring in
-the air above his head. But he fought furiously against his
-panic. To think, to think, even with a split second left -- to
-think was the only hope. Suddenly the foul musty odour of the
-brutes struck his nostrils. There was a violent convulsion of
-nausea inside him, and he almost lost consciousness. Everything
-had gone black. For an instant he was insane, a screaming
-animal. Yet he came out of the blackness clutching an idea.
-There was one and only one way to save himself. He must
-interpose another human being, the body of another human
-being, between himself and the rats.</p>
-<p>
- The circle of the mask was large enough now to shut out
-the vision of anything else. The wire door was a couple of
-hand-spans from his face. The rats knew what was coming now.
-One of them was leaping up and down, the other, an old scaly
-grandfather of the sewers, stood up, with his pink hands
-against the bars, and fiercely sniffed the air. Winston could
-see the whiskers and the yellow teeth. Again the black panic
-took hold of him. He was blind, helpless, mindless.</p>
-<p>
- 'It was a common punishment in Imperial China,' said
-O'Brien as didactically as ever.</p>
-<p>
- The mask was closing on his face. The wire brushed his
-cheek. And then -- no, it was not relief, only hope, a tiny
-fragment of hope. Too late, perhaps too late. But he had
-suddenly understood that in the whole world there was just
-one person to whom he could transfer his punishment --
-one body that he could thrust between himself and the
-rats. And he was shouting frantically, over and over.</p>
-<p>
- 'Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia! I don't
-care what you do to her. Tear her face off, strip her to the
-bones. Not me! Julia! Not me!'</p>
-<p>
- He was falling backwards, into enormous depths, away from
-the rats. He was still strapped in the chair, but he had fallen
-through the floor, through the walls of the building, through
-the earth, through the oceans, through the atmosphere, into
-outer space, into the gulfs between the stars -- always away,
-away, away from the rats. He was light years distant, but
-O'Brien was still standing at his side. There was still the
-cold touch of wire against his cheek. But through the darkness
-that enveloped him he heard another metallic click, and knew
-that the cage door had clicked shut and not open.</p>
-<h1><a name="23">XXIII</a></h1>
-<p class="no-indent">
- The Chestnut Tree was almost empty. A ray of sunlight
-slanting through a window fell on dusty table-tops. It was the
-lonely hour of fifteen. A tinny music trickled from the
-telescreens.</p>
-<p>
- Winston sat in his usual corner, gazing into an empty
-glass. Now and again he glanced up at a vast face which eyed
-him from the opposite wall. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the
-caption said. Unbidden, a waiter came and filled his glass up
-with Victory Gin, shaking into it a few drops from another
-bottle with a quill through the cork. It was saccharine
-flavoured with cloves, the speciality of the café.</p>
-<p>
- Winston was listening to the telescreen. At present only
-music was coming out of it, but there was a possibility that at
-any moment there might be a special bulletin from the Ministry
-of Peace. The news from the African front was disquieting in
-the extreme. On and off he had been worrying about it all day.
-A Eurasian army (Oceania was at war with Eurasia: Oceania had
-always been at war with Eurasia) was moving southward at
-terrifying speed. The mid-day bulletin had not mentioned any
-definite area, but it was probable that already the mouth of
-the Congo was a battlefield. Brazzaville and Leopoldville were
-in danger. One did not have to look at the map to see what it
-meant. It was not merely a question of losing Central Africa:
-for the first time in the whole war, the territory of Oceania
-itself was menaced.</p>
-<p>
- A violent emotion, not fear exactly but a sort of
-undifferentiated excitement, flared up in him, then faded
-again. He stopped thinking about the war. In these days he
-could never fix his mind on any one subject for more than a few
-moments at a time. He picked up his glass and drained it at a
-gulp. As always, the gin made him shudder and even retch
-slightly. The stuff was horrible. The cloves and saccharine,
-themselves disgusting enough in their sickly way, could not
-disguise the flat oily smell; and what was worst of all was
-that the smell of gin, which dwelt with him night and day, was
-inextricably mixed up in his mind with the smell of those-</p>
-<p>
- He never named them, even in his thoughts, and so far as
-it was possible he never visualized them. They were something
-that he was half-aware of, hovering close to his face, a smell
-that clung to his nostrils. As the gin rose in him he belched
-through purple lips. He had grown fatter since they released
-him, and had regained his old colour -- indeed, more than
-regained it. His features had thickened, the skin on nose and
-cheekbones was coarsely red, even the bald scalp was too deep a
-pink. A waiter, again unbidden, brought the chessboard and the
-current issue of The Times, with the page turned down at
-the chess problem. Then, seeing that Winston's glass was empty,
-he brought the gin bottle and filled it. There was no need to
-give orders. They knew his habits. The chessboard was always
-waiting for him, his corner table was always reserved; even
-when the place was full he had it to himself, since nobody
-cared to be seen sitting too close to him. He never even
-bothered to count his drinks. At irregular intervals they
-presented him with a dirty slip of paper which they said was
-the bill, but he had the impression that they always
-undercharged him. It would have made no difference if it had
-been the other way about. He had always plenty of money
-nowadays. He even had a job, a sinecure, more highly-paid than
-his old job had been.</p>
-<p>
- The music from the telescreen stopped and a voice took
-over. Winston raised his head to listen. No bulletins from the
-front, however. It was merely a brief announcement from the
-Ministry of Plenty. In the preceding quarter, it appeared, the
-Tenth Three-Year Plan's quota for bootlaces had been
-overfulfilled by 98 per cent.</p>
-<p>
- He examined the chess problem and set out the pieces. It
-was a tricky ending, involving a couple of knights. 'White to
-play and mate in two moves.' Winston looked up at the portrait
-of Big Brother. White always mates, he thought with a sort of
-cloudy mysticism. Always, without exception, it is so arranged.
-In no chess problem since the beginning of the world has black
-ever won. Did it not symbolize the eternal, unvarying triumph
-of Good over Evil? The huge face gazed back at him, full of
-calm power. White always mates.</p>
-<p>
- The voice from the telescreen paused and added in a
-different and much graver tone: 'You are warned to stand by for
-an important announcement at fifteen-thirty. Fifteen-thirty!
-This is news of the highest importance. Take care not to miss
-it. Fifteen-thirty!' The tinking music struck up again.</p>
-<p>
- Winston's heart stirred. That was the bulletin from the
-front; instinct told him that it was bad news that was coming.
-All day, with little spurts of excitement, the thought of a
-smashing defeat in Africa had been in and out of his mind. He
-seemed actually to see the Eurasian army swarming across the
-never-broken frontier and pouring down into the tip of Africa
-like a column of ants. Why had it not been possible to outflank
-them in some way? The outline of the West African coast stood
-out vividly in his mind. He picked up the white knight and
-moved it across the board. There was the proper spot.
-Even while he saw the black horde racing southward he saw
-another force, mysteriously assembled, suddenly planted in
-their rear, cutting their comunications by land and sea. He
-felt that by willing it he was bringing that other force into
-existence. But it was necessary to act quickly. If they could
-get control of the whole of Africa, if they had airfields and
-submarine bases at the Cape, it would cut Oceania in two. It
-might mean anything: defeat, breakdown, the redivision of the
-world, the destruction of the Party! He drew a deep breath. An
-extraordinary medley of feeling-but it was not a medley,
-exactly; rather it was successive layers of feeling, in which
-one could not say which layer was undermost struggled inside
-him.</p>
-<p>
- The spasm passed. He put the white knight back in its
-place, but for the moment he could not settle down to serious
-study of the chess problem. His thoughts wandered again. Almost
-unconsciously he traced with his finger in the dust on the
-table: 2+2=</p>
-<p>
- 'They can't get inside you,' she had said. But they could
-get inside you. 'What happens to you here is for ever,'
-O'Brien had said. That was a true word. There were things, your
-own acts, from which you could never recover. Something was
-killed in your breast: burnt out, cauterized out.</p>
-<p>
- He had seen her; he had even spoken to her. There was no
-danger in it. He knew as though instinctively that they now
-took almost no interest in his doings. He could have arranged
-to meet her a second time if either of them had wanted to.
-Actually it was by chance that they had met. It was in the
-Park, on a vile, biting day in March, when the earth was like
-iron and all the grass seemed dead and there was not a bud
-anywhere except a few crocuses which had pushed themselves up
-to be dismembered by the wind. He was hurrying along with
-frozen hands and watering eyes when he saw her not ten metres
-away from him. It struck him at once that she had changed in
-some ill-defined way. They almost passed one another without a
-sign, then he turned and followed her, not very eagerly. He
-knew that there was no danger, nobody would take any interest
-in him. She did not speak. She walked obliquely away across the
-grass as though trying to get rid of him, then seemed to resign
-herself to having him at her side. Presently they were in among
-a clump of ragged leafless shrubs, useless either for
-concealment or as protection from the wind. They halted. It was
-vilely cold. The wind whistled through the twigs and fretted
-the occasional, dirty-looking crocuses. He put his arm round
-her waist.</p>
-<p>
- There was no telescreen, but there must be hidden
-microphones: besides, they could be seen. It did not matter,
-nothing mattered. They could have lain down on the ground and
-done that if they had wanted to. His flesh froze with
-horror at the thought of it. She made no response whatever to
-the clasp of his arm ; she did not even try to disengage
-herself. He knew now what had changed in her. Her face was
-sallower, and there was a long scar, partly hidden by the hair,
-across her forehead and temple; but that was not the change. It
-was that her waist had grown thicker, and, in a surprising way,
-had stiffened. He remembered how once, after the explosion of a
-rocket bomb, he had helped to drag a corpse out of some ruins,
-and had been astonished not only by the incredible weight of
-the thing, but by its rigidity and awkwardness to handle, which
-made it seem more like stone than flesh. Her body felt like
-that. It occurred to him that the texture of her skin would be
-quite different from what it had once been.</p>
-<p>
- He did not attempt to kiss her, nor did they speak. As
-they walked back across the grass, she looked directly at him
-for the first time. It was only a momentary glance, full of
-contempt and dislike. He wondered whether it was a dislike that
-came purely out of the past or whether it was inspired also by
-his bloated face and the water that the wind kept squeezing
-from his eyes. They sat down on two iron chairs, side by side
-but not too close together. He saw that she was about to speak.
-She moved her clumsy shoe a few centimetres and deliberately
-crushed a twig. Her feet seemed to have grown broader, he
-noticed.</p>
-<p>
- 'I betrayed you,' she said baldly.</p>
-<p>
- 'I betrayed you,' he said.</p>
-<p>
- She gave him another quick look of dislike.</p>
-<p>
- 'Sometimes,' she said, 'they threaten you with something
-something you can't stand up to, can't even think about. And
-then you say, "Don't do it to me, do it to somebody else, do it
-to So-and-so." And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that
-it was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stop
-and didn't really mean it. But that isn't true. At the time
-when it happens you do mean it. You think there's no other way
-of saving yourself, and you're quite ready to save yourself
-that way. You want it to happen to the other person. You
-don't give a damn what they suffer. All you care about is
-yourself.'</p>
-<p>
- 'All you care about is yourself,' he echoed.</p>
-<p>
- 'And after that, you don't feel the same towards the other
-person any longer.'</p>
-<p>
- 'No,' he said, 'you don't feel the same.'</p>
-<p>
- There did not seem to be anything more to say. The wind
-plastered their thin overalls against their bodies. Almost at
-once it became embarrassing to sit there in silence: besides,
-it was too cold to keep still. She said something about
-catching her Tube and stood up to go.</p>
-<p>
- 'We must meet again,' he said.</p>
-<p>
- 'Yes,' she said, 'we must meet again. '</p>
-<p>
- He followed irresolutely for a little distance, half a
-pace behind her. They did not speak again. She did not actually
-try to shake him off, but walked at just such a speed as to
-prevent his keeping abreast of her. He had made up his mind
-that he would accompany her as far as the Tube station, but
-suddenly this process of trailing along in the cold seemed
-pointless and unbearable. He was overwhelmed by a desire not so
-much to get away from Julia as to get back to the Chestnut Tree
-Café, which had never seemed so attractive as at this moment.
-He had a nostalgic vision of his corner table, with the
-newspaper and the chessboard and the ever-flowing gin. Above
-all, it would be warm in there. The next moment, not altogether
-by accident, he allowed himself to become separated from her by
-a small knot of people. He made a halfhearted attempt to catch
-up, then slowed down, turned, and made off in the opposite
-direction. When he had gone fifty metres he looked back. The
-street was not crowded, but already he could not distinguish
-her. Any one of a dozen hurrying figures might have been hers.
-Perhaps her thickened, stiffened body was no longer
-recognizable from behind.</p>
-<p>
- 'At the time when it happens,' she had said, 'you do mean
-it.' He had meant it. He had not merely said it, he had wished
-it. He had wished that she and not he should be delivered over
-to the-</p>
-<p>
- Something changed in the music that trickled from the
-telescreen. A cracked and jeering note, a yellow note, came
-into it. And then -- perhaps it was not happening, perhaps it
-was only a memory taking on the semblance of sound -- a voice
-was singing:</p>
-<p class="quote">
- 'Under the spreading chestnut tree<br>
- I sold you and you sold me '</p>
-<p>
-
- The tears welled up in his eyes. A passing waiter noticed
-that his glass was empty and came back with the gin bottle.</p>
-<p>
- He took up his glass and sniffed at it. The stuff grew not
-less but more horrible with every mouthful he drank. But it had
-become the element he swam in. It was his life, his death, and
-his resurrection. It was gin that sank him into stupor every
-night, and gin that revived him every morning. When he woke,
-seldom before eleven hundred, with gummed-up eyelids and fiery
-mouth and a back that seemed to be broken, it would have been
-impossible even to rise from the horizontal if it had not been
-for the bottle and teacup placed beside the bed overnight.
-Through the midday hours he sat with glazed face, the bottle
-handy, listening to the telescreen. From fifteen to
-closing-time he was a fixture in the Chestnut Tree. No one
-cared what he did any longer, no whistle woke him, no
-telescreen admonished him. Occasionally, perhaps twice a week,
-he went to a dusty, forgotten-looking office in the Ministry of
-Truth and did a little work, or what was called work. He had
-been appointed to a sub-committee of a sub-committee which had
-sprouted from one of the innumerable committees dealing with
-minor difficulties that arose in the compilation of the
-Eleventh Edition of the Newspeak Dictionary. They were engaged
-in producing something called an Interim Report, but what it
-was that they were reporting on he had never definitely found
-out. It was something to do with the question of whether commas
-should be placed inside brackets, or outside. There were four
-others on the committee, all of them persons similar to
-himself. There were days when they assembled and then promptly
-dispersed again, frankly admitting to one another that there
-was not really anything to be done. But there were other days
-when they settled down to their work almost eagerly, making a
-tremendous show of entering up their minutes and drafting long
-memoranda which were never finished -- when the argument as to
-what they were supposedly arguing about grew extraordinarily
-involved and abstruse, with subtle haggling over definitions,
-enormous digressions, quarrels threats, even, to appeal to
-higher authority. And then suddenly the life would go out of
-them and they would sit round the table looking at one another
-with extinct eyes, like ghosts fading at cock-crow.</p>
-<p>
- The telescreen was silent for a moment. Winston raised his
-head again. The bulletin! But no, they were merely changing the
-music. He had the map of Africa behind his eyelids. The
-movement of the armies was a diagram: a black arrow tearing
-vertically southward, and a white arrow horizontally eastward,
-across the tail of the first. As though for reassurance he
-looked up at the imperturbable face in the portrait. Was it
-conceivable that the second arrow did not even exist?</p>
-<p>
- His interest flagged again. He drank another mouthful of
-gin, picked up the white knight and made a tentative move.
-Check. But it was evidently not the right move, because</p>
-<p>
- Uncalled, a memory floated into his mind. He saw a
-candle-lit room with a vast white-counterpaned bed, and
-himself, a boy of nine or ten, sitting on the floor, shaking a
-dice-box, and laughing excitedly. His mother was sitting
-opposite him and also laughing.</p>
-<p>
- It must have been about a month before she disappeared. It
-was a moment of reconciliation, when the nagging hunger in his
-belly was forgotten and his earlier affection for her had
-temporarily revived. He remembered the day well, a pelting,
-drenching day when the water streamed down the window-pane and
-the light indoors was too dull to read by. The boredom of the
-two children in the dark, cramped bedroom became unbearable.
-Winston whined and grizzled, made futile demands for food,
-fretted about the room pulling everything out of place and
-kicking the wainscoting until the neighbours banged on the
-wall, while the younger child wailed intermittently. In the end
-his mother said, 'Now be good, and I'Il buy you a toy. A lovely
-toy -- you'll love it'; and then she had gone out in the rain,
-to a little general shop which was still sporadically open
-nearby, and came back with a cardboard box containing an outfit
-of Snakes and Ladders. He could still remember the smell of the
-damp cardboard. It was a miserable outfit. The board was
-cracked and the tiny wooden dice were so ill-cut that they
-would hardly lie on their sides. Winston looked at the thing
-sulkily and without interest. But then his mother lit a piece
-of candle and they sat down on the floor to play. Soon he was
-wildly excited and shouting with laughter as the tiddly-winks
-climbed hopefully up the ladders and then came slithering down
-the snakes again, almost to the starting- point. They played
-eight games, winning four each. His tiny sister, too young to
-understand what the game was about, had sat propped up against
-a bolster, laughing because the others were laughing. For a
-whole afternoon they had all been happy together, as in his
-earlier childhood.</p>
-<p>
- He pushed the picture out of his mind. It was a false
-memory. He was troubled by false memories occasionally. They
-did not matter so long as one knew them for what they were.
-Some things had happened, others had not happened. He turned
-back to the chessboard and picked up the white knight again.
-Almost in the same instant it dropped on to the board with a
-clatter. He had started as though a pin had run into him.</p>
-<p>
- A shrill trumpet-call had pierced the air. It was the
-bulletin! Victory! It always meant victory when a trumpet-call
-preceded the news. A sort of electric drill ran through the
-café. Even the waiters had started and pricked up their ears.</p>
-<p>
- The trumpet-call had let loose an enormous volume of
-noise. Already an excited voice was gabbling from the
-telescreen, but even as it started it was almost drowned by a
-roar of cheering from outside. The news had run round the
-streets like magic. He could hear just enough of what was
-issuing from the telescreen to realize that it had all
-happened, as he had foreseen; a vast seaborne armada had
-secretly assembled a sudden blow in the enemy's rear, the white
-arrow tearing across the tail of the black. Fragments of
-triumphant phrases pushed themselves through the din: 'Vast
-strategic manoeuvre -- perfect co-ordination -- utter rout --
-half a million prisoners -- complete demoralization -- control
-of the whole of Africa -- bring the war within measurable
-distance of its end victory -- greatest victory in human
-history -- victory, victory, victory!'</p>
-<p>
- Under the table Winston's feet made convulsive movements.
-He had not stirred from his seat, but in his mind he was
-running, swiftly running, he was with the crowds outside,
-cheering himself deaf. He looked up again at the portrait of
-Big Brother. The colossus that bestrode the world! The rock
-against which the hordes of Asia dashed themselves in vain! He
-thought how ten minutes ago-yes, only ten minutes -- there had
-still been equivocation in his heart as he wondered whether the
-news from the front would be of victory or defeat. Ah, it was
-more than a Eurasian army that had perished! Much had changed
-in him since that first day in the Ministry of Love, but the
-final, indispensable, healing change had never happened, until
-this moment.</p>
-<p>
- The voice from the telescreen was still pouring forth its
-tale of prisoners and booty and slaughter, but the shouting
-outside had died down a little. The waiters were turning back
-to their work. One of them approached with the gin bottle.
-Winston, sitting in a blissful dream, paid no attention as his
-glass was filled up. He was not running or cheering any longer.
-He was back in the Ministry of Love, with everything forgiven,
-his soul white as snow. He was in the public dock, confessing
-everything, implicating everybody. He was walking down the
-white-tiled corridor, with the feeling of walking in sunlight,
-and an armed guard at his back. The longhoped-for bullet was
-entering his brain.</p>
-<p>
- He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken
-him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark
-moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn,
-self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears
-trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right,
-everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won
-the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.</p>
-<h1><a name="appendix">APPENDIX:
-The Principles of Newspeak</a></h1>
-<p class="no-indent">
- Newspeak was the official language of Oceania and had been
-devised to meet the ideological needs of Ingsoc, or English
-Socialism. In the year 1984 there was not as yet anyone who
-used Newspeak as his sole means of communication, either in
-speech or writing. The leading articles in The Times
-were written in it, but this was a tour de force which
-could only be carried out by a specialist. It was expected that
-Newspeak would have finally superseded Oldspeak (or Standard
-English, as we should call it) by about the year 2050.
-Meanwhile it gained ground steadily, all Party members tending
-to use Newspeak words and grammatical constructions more and
-more in their everyday speech. The version in use in 1984, and
-embodied in the Ninth and Tenth Editions of the Newspeak
-Dictionary, was a provisional one, and contained many
-superfluous words and archaic formations which were due to be
-suppressed later. It is with the final, perfected version, as
-embodied in the Eleventh Edition of the Dictionary, that we are
-concerned here.</p>
-<p>
- The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium
-of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to
-the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought
-impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted
-once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought --
-that is, a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc --
-should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is
-dependent on words. Its vocabulary was so constructed as to
-give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning
-that a Party member could properly wish to express, while
-excluding all other meanings and also the possibility of
-arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done partly by
-the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating
-undesirable words and by stripping such words as remained of
-unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary
-meanings whatever. To give a single example. The word
-free still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be
-used in such statements as 'This dog is free from lice' or
-'This field is free from weeds'. It could not be used in its
-old sense of ' politically free' or 'intellectually free' since
-political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as
-concepts, and were therefore of necessity nameless. Quite apart
-from the suppression of definitely heretical words, reduction
-of vocabulary was regarded as an end in itself, and no word
-that could be dispensed with was allowed to survive. Newspeak
-was designed not to extend but to diminish the range of
-thought, and this purpose was indirectly assisted by cutting
-the choice of words down to a minimum.</p>
-<p>
- Newspeak was founded on the English language as we now
-know it, though many Newspeak sentences, even when not
-containing newly-created words, would be barely intelligible to
-an English-speaker of our own day. Newspeak words were divided
-into three distinct classes, known as the A vocabulary, the B
-vocabulary (also called compound words), and the C vocabulary.
-It will be simpler to discuss each class separately, but the
-grammatical peculiarities of the language can be dealt with in
-the section devoted to the A vocabulary, since the same rules
-held good for all three categories.</p>
-<p class="spacer">
-<p>
- <i>The A vocabulary.</i>
- The A vocabulary consisted of the
-words needed for the business of everyday life -- for such
-things as eating, drinking, working, putting on one's clothes,
-going up and down stairs, riding in vehicles, gardening,
-cooking, and the like. It was composed almost entirely of words
-that we already possess words like hit, run, dog, tree,
-sugar, house, field -- but in comparison with the
-present-day English vocabulary their number was extremely
-small, while their meanings were far more rigidly defined. All
-ambiguities and shades of meaning had been purged out of them.
-So far as it could be achieved, a Newspeak word of this class
-was simply a staccato sound expressing one clearly
-understood concept. It would have been quite impossible to use
-the A vocabulary for literary purposes or for political or
-philosophical discussion. It was intended only to express
-simple, purposive thoughts, usually involving concrete objects
-or physical actions.</p>
-<p>
- The grammar of Newspeak had two outstanding peculiarities.
-The first of these was an almost complete interchangeability
-between different parts of speech. Any word in the language (in
-principle this applied even to very abstract words such as
-if or when) could be used either as verb, noun,
-adjective, or adverb. Between the verb and the noun form, when
-they were of the same root, there was never any variation, this
-rule of itself involving the destruction of many archaic forms.
-The word thought, for example, did not exist in
-Newspeak. Its place was taken by think, which did duty
-for both noun and verb. No etymological principle was followed
-here: in some cases it was the original noun that was chosen
-for retention, in other cases the verb. Even where a noun and
-verb of kindred meaning were not etymologically connected, one
-or other of them was frequently suppressed. There was, for
-example, no such word as cut, its meaning being
-sufficiently covered by the noun-verb knife. Adjectives
-were formed by adding the suffix-ful to the noun-verb,
-and adverbs by adding -wise. Thus for example,
-speedful meant 'rapid' and speedwise meant
-'quickly'. Certain of our present-day adjectives, such as
-good, strong, big, black, soft, were retained,
-but their total number was very small. There was little need
-for them, since almost any adjectival meaning could be arrived
-at by adding-ful to a noun-verb. None of the
-now-existing adverbs was retained, except for a very few
-already ending in-wise: the -wise termination was
-invariable. The word well, for example, was replaced by
-goodwise.</p>
-<p>
- In addition, any word -- this again applied in principle
-to every word in the language -- could be negatived by adding
-the affix un- or could be strengthened by the affix
-plus-, or, for still greater emphasis,
-doubleplus-. Thus, for example, uncold meant
-'warm', while pluscold and doublepluscold meant,
-respectively, 'very cold' and 'superlatively cold'. It was also
-possible, as in present-day English, to modify the meaning of
-almost any word by prepositional affixes such as ante-,
-post-, up-, down-, etc. By such methods it
-was found possible to bring about an enormous diminution of
-vocabulary. Given, for instance, the word good, there
-was no need for such a word as bad, since the required
-meaning was equally well -- indeed, better -- expressed by
-ungood. All that was necessary, in any case where two
-words formed a natural pair of opposites, was to decide which
-of them to suppress. Dark, for example, could be
-replaced by unlight, or light by undark,
-according to preference.</p>
-<p>
- The second distinguishing mark of Newspeak grammar was its
-regularity. Subject to a few exceptions which are mentioned
-below all inflexions followed the same rules. Thus, in all
-verbs the preterite and the past participle were the same and
-ended in-ed. The preterite of steal was
-stealed, the preterite of think was
-thinked, and so on throughout the language, all such
-forms as swam, gave, brought, spoke,
-taken, etc., being abolished. All plurals were made by
-adding-s or-es as the case might be. The plurals of man, ox,
-life, were mans, oxes, lifes. Comparison of
-adjectives was invariably made by adding-er,-est (good,
-gooder, goodest), irregular forms and the more, most
-formation being suppressed.</p>
-<p>
- The only classes of words that were still allowed to
-inflect irregularly were the pronouns, the relatives, the
-demonstrative adjectives, and the auxiliary verbs. All of these
-followed their ancient usage, except that whom had been
-scrapped as unnecessary, and the shall, should tenses
-had been dropped, all their uses being covered by will
-and would. There were also certain irregularities in
-word-formation arising out of the need for rapid and easy
-speech. A word which was difficult to utter, or was liable to
-be incorrectly heard, was held to be ipso facto a bad
-word: occasionally therefore, for the sake of euphony, extra
-letters were inserted into a word or an archaic formation was
-retained. But this need made itself felt chiefly in connexion
-with the B vocabulary. Why so great an importance was
-attached to ease of pronunciation will be made clear later in
-this essay.</p>
-<p class="spacer">
-<p>
- <i>The B vocabulary.</i>
- The B vocabulary consisted of
-words which had been deliberately constructed for political
-purposes: words, that is to say, which not only had in every
-case a political implication, but were intended to impose a
-desirable mental attitude upon the person using them. Without a
-full understanding of the principles of Ingsoc it was difficult
-to use these words correctly. In some cases they couId be
-translated into Oldspeak, or even into words taken from the A
-vocabulary, but this usually demanded a long paraphrase and
-always involved the loss of certain overtones. The B words were
-a sort of verbal shorthand, often packing whole ranges of ideas
-into a few syllables, and at the same time more accurate and
-forcible than ordinary language.</p>
-<p>
- The B words were in all cases compound words.</p>
-<p>
- They consisted of two or more words,
-or portions of words, welded together in an easily
-pronounceable form. The resulting amalgam was always a
-noun-verb, and inflected according to the ordinary rules. To
-take a single example: the word goodthink, meaning, very
-roughly, 'orthodoxy', or, if one chose to regard it as a verb,
-'to think in an orthodox manner'. This inflected as follows:
-noun-verb, goodthink; past tense and past participle,
-goodthinked; present participle, good-
-thinking; adjective, goodthinkful; adverb,
-goodthinkwise; verbal noun, goodthinker.</p>
-<p>
- The B words were not constructed on any etymological plan.
-The words of which they were made up could be any parts of
-speech, and could be placed in any order and mutilated in any
-way which made them easy to pronounce while indicating their
-derivation. In the word crimethink (thoughtcrime), for
-instance, the think came second, whereas in
-thinkpol Thought Police) it came first, and in the
-latter word police had lost its second syllable. Because
-of the great difficuIty in securing euphony, irregular
-formations were commoner in the B vocabulary than in the A
-vocabulary. For example, the adjective forms of Minitrue,
-Minipax, and Miniluv were, respectively,
-Minitruthful, Minipeaceful, and Minilovely,
-simply because- trueful,-paxful, and-loveful were
-slightly awkward to pronounce. In principle, however, all B
-words could inflect, and all inflected in exactly the same way.</p>
-<p>
- Some of the B words had highly subtilized meanings, barely
-intelligible to anyone who had not mastered the language as a
-whole. Consider, for example, such a typical sentence from a
-Times leading article as Oldthinkers unbellyfeel
-Ingsoc. The shortest rendering that one could make of this
-in Oldspeak would be: 'Those whose ideas were formed before the
-Revolution cannot have a full emotional understanding of the
-principles of English Socialism.' But this is not an adequate
-translation. To begin with, in order to</p>
-<p>
-
- Compound words such as speakwrite,
-were of course to be found in the A vocabulary, but these were
-merely convenient abbreviations and had no special ideologcal
-colour.</p>
-<p>
- grasp the full meaning of the Newspeak sentence quoted
-above, one would have to have a clear idea of what is meant by
-Ingsoc. And in addition, only a person thoroughly
-grounded in Ingsoc could appreciate the full force of the word
-bellyfeel, which implied a blind, enthusiastic
-acceptance difficult to imagine today; or of the word
-oldthink, which was inextricably mixed up with the idea
-of wickedness and decadence. But the special function of
-certain Newspeak words, of which oldthink was one, was
-not so much to express meanings as to destroy them. These
-words, necessarily few in number, had had their meanings
-extended until they contained within themselves whole batteries
-of words which, as they were sufficiently covered by a single
-comprehensive term, could now be scrapped and forgotten. The
-greatest difficulty facing the compilers of the Newspeak
-Dictionary was not to invent new words, but, having invented
-them, to make sure what they meant: to make sure, that is to
-say, what ranges of words they cancelled by their existence.</p>
-<p>
- As we have already seen in the case of the word free,
-words which had once borne a heretical meaning were sometimes
-retained for the sake of convenience, but only with the
-undesirable meanings purged out of them. Countless other words
-such as honour, justice, morality, internationalism,
-democracy, science, and religion had simply ceased
-to exist. A few blanket words covered them, and, in covering
-them, abolished them. All words grouping themselves round the
-concepts of liberty and equality, for instance, were contained
-in the single word crimethink, while all words grouping
-themselves round the concepts of objectivity and rationalism
-were contained in the single word oldthink. Greater
-precision would have been dangerous. What was required in a
-Party member was an outlook similar to that of the ancient
-Hebrew who knew, without knowing much else, that all nations
-other than his own worshipped 'false gods'. He did not need to
-know that these gods were called Baal, Osiris, Moloch,
-Ashtaroth, and the like: probably the less he knew about them
-the better for his orthodoxy. He knew Jehovah and the
-commandments of Jehovah: he knew, therefore, that all gods with
-other names or other attributes were false gods. In somewhat
-the same way, the party member knew what constituted right
-conduct, and in exceedingly vague, generalized terms he knew
-what kinds of departure from it were possible. His sexual life,
-for example, was entirely regulated by the two Newspeak words
-sexcrime (sexual immorality) and goodsex (chastity).
-Sexcrime covered all sexual misdeeds whatever. It
-covered fornication, adultery, homosexuality, and other
-perversions, and, in addition, normal intercourse practised for
-its own sake. There was no need to enumerate them separately,
-since they were all equally culpable, and, in principle, all
-punishable by death. In the C vocabulary, which consisted of
-scientific and technical words, it might be necessary to give
-specialized names to certain sexual aberrations, but the
-ordinary citizen had no need of them. He knew what was meant by
-goodsex -- that is to say, normal intercourse between
-man and wife, for the sole purpose of begetting children, and
-without physical pleasure on the part of the woman: all else
-was sexcrime. In Newspeak it was seldom possible to
-follow a heretical thought further than the perception that it
-was heretical: beyond that point the necessary words were
-nonexistent.</p>
-<p>
- No word in the B vocabulary was ideologically neutral. A
-great many were euphemisms. Such words, for instance, as
-joycamp (forced-labour camp) or Minipax Ministry
-of Peace, i. e. Ministry of War) meant almost the exact
-opposite of what they appeared to mean. Some words, on the
-other hand, displayed a frank and contemptuous understanding of
-the real nature of Oceanic society. An example was
-prolefeed, meaning the rubbishy entertainment and
-spurious news which the Party handed out to the masses. Other
-words, again, were ambivalent, having the connotation 'good'
-when applied to the Party and 'bad' when applied to its
-enemies. But in addition there were great numbers of words
-which at first sight appeared to be mere abbreviations and
-which derived their ideological colour not from their meaning,
-but from their structure.</p>
-<p>
- So far as it could be contrived, everything that had or
-might have political significance of any kind was fitted into
-the B vocabulary. The name of every organization, or body of
-people, or doctrine, or country, or institution, or public
-building, was invariably cut down into the familiar shape; that
-is, a single easily pronounced word with the smallest number of
-syllables that would preserve the original derivation. In the
-Ministry of Truth, for example, the Records Department, in
-which Winston Smith worked, was called Recdep, the
-Fiction Department was called Ficdep, the Teleprogrammes
-Department was called Teledep, and so on. This was not
-done solely with the object of saving time. Even in the early
-decades of the twentieth century, telescoped words and phrases
-had been one of the characteristic features of political
-language; and it had been noticed that the tendency to use
-abbreviations of this kind was most marked in totalitarian
-countries and totalitarian organizations. Examples were such
-words as Nazi, Gestapo, Comin- tern, Inprecorr,
-Agitprop. In the beginning the practice had been adopted as
-it were instinctively, but in Newspeak it was used with a
-conscious purpose. It was perceived that in thus abbreviating a
-name one narrowed and subtly altered its meaning, by cutting
-out most of the associations that would otherwise cling to it.
-The words Communist International, for instance, call up
-a composite picture of universal human brotherhood, red flags,
-barricades, Karl Marx, and the Paris Commune. The word
-Comintern, on the other hand, suggests merely a
-tightly-knit organization and a well-defined body of doctrine.
-It refers to something almost as easily recognized, and as
-limited in purpose, as a chair or a table. Comintern is
-a word that can be uttered almost without taking thought,
-whereas Communist International is a phrase over which
-one is obliged to linger at least momentarily. In the same way,
-the associations called up by a word like Minitrue are
-fewer and more controllable than those called up by Ministry
-of Truth. This accounted not only for the habit of
-abbreviating whenever possible, but also for the almost
-exaggerated care that was taken to make every word easily
-pronounceable.</p>
-<p>
- In Newspeak, euphony outweighed every consideration other
-than exactitude of meaning. Regularity of grammar was always
-sacrificed to it when it seemed necessary. And rightly so,
-since what was required, above all for political purposes, was
-short clipped words of unmistakable meaning which could be
-uttered rapidly and which roused the minimum of echoes in the
-speaker's mind. The words of the B vocabulary even gained in
-force from the fact that nearly all of them were very much
-alike. Almost invariably these words -- goodthink, Minipax,
-prolefeed, sexcrime, joycamp, Ingsoc, bellyfeel,
-thinkpol, and countless others -- were words of two or
-three syllables, with the stress distributed equally between
-the first syllable and the last. The use of them encouraged a
-gabbling style of speech, at once staccato and monotonous. And
-this was exactly what was aimed at. The intention was to make
-speech, and especially speech on any subject not ideologically
-neutral, as nearly as possible independent of consciousness.
-For the purposes of everyday life it was no doubt necessary, or
-sometimes necessary, to reflect before speaking, but a Party
-member called upon to make a political or ethical judgement
-should be able to spray forth the correct opinions as
-automatically as a machine gun spraying forth bullets. His
-training fitted him to do this, the language gave him an almost
-foolproof instrument, and the texture of the words, with their
-harsh sound and a certain wilful ugliness which was in accord
-with the spirit of Ingsoc, assisted the process still further.</p>
-<p>
- So did the fact of having very few words to choose from.
-Relative to our own, the Newspeak vocabulary was tiny, and new
-ways of reducing it were constantly being devised. Newspeak,
-indeed, differed from most all other languages in that its
-vocabulary grew smaller instead of larger every year. Each
-reduction was a gain, since the smaller the area of choice, the
-smaller the temptation to take thought. Ultimately it was hoped
-to make articulate speech issue from the larynx without
-involving the higher brain centres at all. This aim was frankly
-admitted in the Newspeak word duckspeak, meaning ' to
-quack like a duck'. Like various other words in the B
-vocabulary, duckspeak was ambivalent in meaning.
-Provided that the opinions which were quacked out were orthodox
-ones, it implied nothing but praise, and when The Times
-referred to one of the orators of the Party as a
-doubleplusgood duckspeaker it was paying a warm and
-valued compliment.</p>
-<p class="spacer">
-<p>
- <i>The C vocabulary.</i>
- The C vocabulary was supplementary
-to the others and consisted entirely of scientific and
-technical terms. These resembled the scientific terms in use
-today, and were constructed from the same roots, but the usual
-care was taken to define them rigidly and strip them of
-undesirable meanings. They followed the same grammatical rules
-as the words in the other two vocabularies. Very few of the C
-words had any currency either in everyday speech or in
-political speech. Any scientific worker or technician could
-find all the words he needed in the list devoted to his own
-speciality, but he seldom had more than a smattering of the
-words occurring in the other lists. Only a very few words were
-common to all lists, and there was no vocabulary expressing the
-function of Science as a habit of mind, or a method of thought,
-irrespective of its particular branches. There was, indeed, no
-word for 'Science', any meaning that it could possibly bear
-being already sufficiently covered by the word Ingsoc.</p>
-<p>
- From the foregoing account it will be seen that in
-Newspeak the expression of unorthodox opinions, above a very
-low level, was well-nigh impossible. It was of course possible
-to utter heresies of a very crude kind, a species of blasphemy.
-It would have been possible, for example, to say Big Brother
-is ungood. But this statement, which to an orthodox ear
-merely conveyed a self-evident absurdity, could not have been
-sustained by reasoned argument, because the necessary words
-were not available. Ideas inimical to Ingsoc could only be
-entertained in a vague wordless form, and could only be named
-in very broad terms which lumped together and condemned whole
-groups of heresies without defining them in doing so. One
-could, in fact, only use Newspeak for unorthodox purposes by
-illegitimately translating some of the words back into
-Oldspeak. For example, All mans are equal was a possible
-Newspeak sentence, but only in the same sense in which All
-men are redhaired is a possible Oldspeak sentence.
-It did not contain a grammatical error, but it expressed a
-palpable untruth-i.e. that all men are of equal size, weight,
-or strength. The concept of political equality no longer
-existed, and this secondary meaning had accordingly been purged
-out of the word equal. In 1984, when Oldspeak was still
-the normal means of communication, the danger theoretically
-existed that in using Newspeak words one might remember their
-original meanings. In practice it was not difficult for any
-person well grounded in doublethink to avoid doing this,
-but within a couple of generations even the possibility of such
-a lapse would have vaished. A person growing up with Newspeak
-as his sole language would no more know that equal had
-once had the secondary meaning of 'politically equal', or that
-free had once meant 'intellectually free', than for
-instance, a person who had never heard of chess would be aware
-of the secondary meanings attaching to queen and
-rook. There would be many crimes and errors which it
-would be beyond his power to commit, simply because they were
-nameless and therefore unimaginable. And it was to be foreseen
-that with the passage of time the distinguishing
-characteristics of Newspeak would become more and more
-pronounced -- its words growing fewer and fewer, their meanings
-more and more rigid, and the chance of putting them to improper
-uses always diminishing.</p>
-<p>
- When Oldspeak had been once and for all superseded, the
-last link with the past would have been severed. History had
-already been rewritten, but fragments of the literature of the
-past survived here and there, imperfectly censored, and so long
-as one retained one's knowledge of Oldspeak it was possible to
-read them. In the future such fragments, even if they chanced
-to survive, would be unintelligible and untranslatable. It was
-impossible to translate any passage of Oldspeak into Newspeak
-unless it either referred to some technical process or some
-very simple everyday action, or was already orthodox
-(goodthinkful would be the NewsPeak expression) in
-tendency. In practice this meant that no book written before
-approximately 1960 could be translated as a whole.
-Pre-revolutionary literature could only be subjected to
-ideological translation -- that is, alteration in sense as well
-as language. Take for example the well-known passage from the
-Declaration of Independence:</p>
-<p class="quote"><i>
- We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men
-are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with
-certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty,
-and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights,
-Governments are instituted among men, deriving their powers
-from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of
-Government becomes destructive of those ends, it is the right
-of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new
-Government...</i></p>
-<p>
- It would have been quite impossible to render this into
-Newspeak while keeping to the sense of the original. The
-nearest one could come to doing so would be to swallow the
-whole passage up in the single word crimethink. A full
-translation could only be an ideological translation, whereby
-Jefferson's words would be changed into a panegyric on absolute
-government.</p>
-<p>
- A good deal of the literature of the past was, indeed,
-already being transformed in this way. Considerations of
-prestige made it desirable to preserve the memory of certain
-historical figures, while at the same time bringing their
-achievements into line with the philosophy of Ingsoc. Various
-writers, such as Shakespeare, Milton, Swift, Byron, Dickens,
-and some others were therefore in process of translation: when
-the task had been completed, their original writings, with all
-else that survived of the literature of the past, would be
-destroyed. These translations were a slow and difficult
-business, and it was not expected that they would be finished
-before the first or second decade of the twenty-first century.
-There were also large quantities of merely utilitarian
-literature -- indispensable technical manuals, and the like --
-that had to be treated in the same way. It was chiefly in order
-to allow time for the preliminary work of translation that the
-final adoption of Newspeak had been fixed for so late a date as
-2050.</p>
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