Title: Nineteen eighty-four
\nAuthor: George Orwell (pseudonym of Eric Blair) (1903-1950)<\/p>\n
PART ONE<\/p>\n
Chapter 1<\/p>\n
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
\nWinston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the
\nvile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions,
\nthough not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering
\nalong with him.<\/p>\n
The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats. At one end of it a
\ncoloured poster, too large for indoor display, had been tacked to the wall.
\nIt depicted simply an enormous face, more than a metre wide: the face of a
\nman of about forty-five, with a heavy black moustache and ruggedly handsome
\nfeatures. Winston made for the stairs. It was no use trying the lift. Even
\nat the best of times it was seldom working, and at present the electric
\ncurrent was cut off during daylight hours. It was part of the economy drive
\nin preparation for Hate Week. The flat was seven flights up, and Winston,
\nwho was thirty-nine and had a varicose ulcer above his right ankle, went
\nslowly, resting several times on the way. On each landing, opposite the
\nlift-shaft, the poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was
\none of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about
\nwhen you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran.<\/p>\n
Inside the flat a fruity voice was reading out a list of figures which had
\nsomething to do with the production of pig-iron. The voice came from an
\noblong metal plaque like a dulled mirror which formed part of the surface
\nof the right-hand wall. Winston turned a switch and the voice sank
\nsomewhat, though the words were still distinguishable. The instrument
\n(the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of
\nshutting it off completely. He moved over to the window: a smallish, frail
\nfigure, the meagreness of his body merely emphasized by the blue overalls
\nwhich were the uniform of the party. His hair was very fair, his face
\nnaturally sanguine, his skin roughened by coarse soap and blunt razor
\nblades and the cold of the winter that had just ended.<\/p>\n
Outside, even through the shut window-pane, the world looked cold. Down in
\nthe street little eddies of wind were whirling dust and torn paper into
\nspirals, and though the sun was shining and the sky a harsh blue, there
\nseemed to be no colour in anything, except the posters that were plastered
\neverywhere. The black-moustachio’d face gazed down from every commanding
\ncorner. There was one on the house-front immediately opposite. BIG BROTHER
\nIS WATCHING YOU, the caption said, while the dark eyes looked deep into
\nWinston’s own. Down at street level another poster, torn at one corner,
\nflapped fitfully in the wind, alternately covering and uncovering the
\nsingle word INGSOC. In the far distance a helicopter skimmed down between
\nthe roofs, hovered for an instant like a bluebottle, and darted away again
\nwith a curving flight. It was the police patrol, snooping into people’s
\nwindows. The patrols did not matter, however. Only the Thought Police
\nmattered.<\/p>\n
Behind Winston’s back the voice from the telescreen was still babbling away
\nabout pig-iron and the overfulfilment of the Ninth Three-Year Plan. The
\ntelescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston
\nmade, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it,
\nmoreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal
\nplaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course
\nno way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How
\noften, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual
\nwire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all
\nthe time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted
\nto. You had to live–did live, from habit that became instinct–in the
\nassumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in
\ndarkness, every movement scrutinized.<\/p>\n
Winston kept his back turned to the telescreen. It was safer; though, as he
\nwell knew, even a back can be revealing. A kilometre away the Ministry of
\nTruth, his place of work, towered vast and white above the grimy landscape.
\nThis, he thought with a sort of vague distaste–this was London, chief
\ncity of Airstrip One, itself the third most populous of the provinces of
\nOceania. He tried to squeeze out some childhood memory that should tell him
\nwhether London had always been quite like this. Were there always these
\nvistas of rotting nineteenth-century houses, their sides shored up with
\nbaulks of timber, their windows patched with cardboard and their roofs
\nwith corrugated iron, their crazy garden walls sagging in all directions?
\nAnd the bombed sites where the plaster dust swirled in the air and the
\nwillow-herb straggled over the heaps of rubble; and the places where the
\nbombs had cleared a larger patch and there had sprung up sordid colonies
\nof wooden dwellings like chicken-houses? But it was no use, he could not
\nremember: nothing remained of his childhood except a series of bright-lit
\ntableaux occurring against no background and mostly unintelligible.<\/p>\n
The Ministry of Truth–Minitrue, in Newspeak [Newspeak was the official
\nlanguage of Oceania. For an account of its structure and etymology see
\nAppendix.]–was startlingly different from any other object in sight. It
\nwas an enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete, soaring
\nup, terrace after terrace, 300 metres into the air. From where Winston
\nstood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in
\nelegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party:<\/p>\n
WAR IS PEACE
\n FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
\n IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH<\/p>\n
The Ministry of Truth contained, it was said, three thousand rooms above
\nground level, and corresponding ramifications below. Scattered about London
\nthere were just three other buildings of similar appearance and size. So
\ncompletely did they dwarf the surrounding architecture that from the roof
\nof Victory Mansions you could see all four of them simultaneously. They
\nwere the homes of the four Ministries between which the entire apparatus
\nof government was divided. The Ministry of Truth, which concerned itself
\nwith news, entertainment, education, and the fine arts. The Ministry of
\nPeace, which concerned itself with war. The Ministry of Love, which
\nmaintained law and order. And the Ministry of Plenty, which was responsible
\nfor economic affairs. Their names, in Newspeak: Minitrue, Minipax, Miniluv,
\nand Miniplenty.<\/p>\n
The Ministry of Love was the really frightening one. There were no windows
\nin it at all. Winston had never been inside the Ministry of Love, nor
\nwithin half a kilometre of it. It was a place impossible to enter except
\non official business, and then only by penetrating through a maze of
\nbarbed-wire entanglements, steel doors, and hidden machine-gun nests. Even
\nthe streets leading up to its outer barriers were roamed by gorilla-faced
\nguards in black uniforms, armed with jointed truncheons.<\/p>\n
Winston turned round abruptly. He had set his features into the
\nexpression of quiet optimism which it was advisable to wear when facing
\nthe telescreen. He crossed the room into the tiny kitchen. By leaving
\nthe Ministry at this time of day he had sacrificed his lunch in the
\ncanteen, and he was aware that there was no food in the kitchen except
\na hunk of dark-coloured bread which had got to be saved for tomorrow’s
\nbreakfast. He took down from the shelf a bottle of colourless liquid
\nwith a plain white label marked VICTORY GIN. It gave off a sickly, oily
\nsmell, as of Chinese rice-spirit. Winston poured out nearly a teacupful,
\nnerved himself for a shock, and gulped it down like a dose of medicine.<\/p>\n
Instantly his face turned scarlet and the water ran out of his eyes. The
\nstuff was like nitric acid, and moreover, in swallowing it one had the
\nsensation of being hit on the back of the head with a rubber club. The
\nnext moment, however, the burning in his belly died down and the world
\nbegan to look more cheerful. He took a cigarette from a crumpled packet
\nmarked VICTORY CIGARETTES and incautiously held it upright, whereupon the
\ntobacco fell out on to the floor. With the next he was more successful.
\nHe went back to the living-room and sat down at a small table that stood
\nto the left of the telescreen. From the table drawer he took out a
\npenholder, a bottle of ink, and a thick, quarto-sized blank book with a
\nred back and a marbled cover.<\/p>\n
For some reason the telescreen in the living-room was in an unusual
\nposition. Instead of being placed, as was normal, in the end wall, where
\nit could command the whole room, it was in the longer wall, opposite the
\nwindow. To one side of it there was a shallow alcove in which Winston
\nwas now sitting, and which, when the flats were built, had probably been
\nintended to hold bookshelves. By sitting in the alcove, and keeping well
\nback, Winston was able to remain outside the range of the telescreen, so
\nfar as sight went. He could be heard, of course, but so long as he stayed
\nin his present position he could not be seen. It was partly the unusual
\ngeography of the room that had suggested to him the thing that he was now
\nabout to do.<\/p>\n
But it had also been suggested by the book that he had just taken out of
\nthe drawer. It was a peculiarly beautiful book. Its smooth creamy paper,
\na little yellowed by age, was of a kind that had not been manufactured for
\nat least forty years past. He could guess, however, that the book was much
\nolder than that. He had seen it lying in the window of a frowsy little
\njunk-shop in a slummy quarter of the town (just what quarter he did not
\nnow remember) and had been stricken immediately by an overwhelming desire
\nto possess it. Party members were supposed not to go into ordinary shops
\n(‘dealing on the free market’, it was called), but the rule was not
\nstrictly kept, because there were various things, such as shoelaces and
\nrazor blades, which it was impossible to get hold of in any other way. He
\nhad given a quick glance up and down the street and then had slipped inside
\nand bought the book for two dollars fifty. At the time he was not conscious
\nof wanting it for any particular purpose. He had carried it guiltily home
\nin his briefcase. Even with nothing written in it, it was a compromising
\npossession.<\/p>\n
The thing that he was about to do was to open a diary. This was not illegal
\n(nothing was illegal, since there were no longer any laws), but if detected
\nit was reasonably certain that it would be punished by death, or at least
\nby twenty-five years in a forced-labour camp. Winston fitted a nib into
\nthe penholder and sucked it to get the grease off. The pen was an archaic
\ninstrument, seldom used even for signatures, and he had procured one,
\nfurtively and with some difficulty, simply because of a feeling that the
\nbeautiful creamy paper deserved to be written on with a real nib instead
\nof being scratched with an ink-pencil. Actually he was not used to writing
\nby hand. Apart from very short notes, it was usual to dictate everything
\ninto the speak-write which was of course impossible for his present
\npurpose. He dipped the pen into the ink and then faltered for just a
\nsecond. A tremor had gone through his bowels. To mark the paper was the
\ndecisive act. In small clumsy letters he wrote:<\/p>\n
April 4th, 1984.<\/p>\n
He sat back. A sense of complete helplessness had descended upon him. To
\nbegin with, he did not know with any certainty that this was 1984. It
\nmust be round about that date, since he was fairly sure that his age was
\nthirty-nine, and he believed that he had been born in 1944 or 1945; but
\nit was never possible nowadays to pin down any date within a year or two.<\/p>\n
For whom, it suddenly occurred to him to wonder, was he writing this diary?
\nFor the future, for the unborn. His mind hovered for a moment round the
\ndoubtful date on the page, and then fetched up with a bump against the
\nNewspeak word DOUBLETHINK. For the first time the magnitude of what he had
\nundertaken came home to him. How could you communicate with the future? It
\nwas of its nature impossible. Either the future would resemble the present,
\nin which case it would not listen to him: or it would be different from it,
\nand his predicament would be meaningless.<\/p>\n
For some time he sat gazing stupidly at the paper. The telescreen had
\nchanged over to strident military music. It was curious that he seemed
\nnot merely to have lost the power of expressing himself, but even to have
\nforgotten what it was that he had originally intended to say. For weeks
\npast he had been making ready for this moment, and it had never crossed
\nhis mind that anything would be needed except courage. The actual writing
\nwould be easy. All he had to do was to transfer to paper the interminable
\nrestless monologue that had been running inside his head, literally for
\nyears. At this moment, however, even the monologue had dried up. Moreover
\nhis varicose ulcer had begun itching unbearably. He dared not scratch it,
\nbecause if he did so it always became inflamed. The seconds were ticking
\nby. He was conscious of nothing except the blankness of the page in front
\nof him, the itching of the skin above his ankle, the blaring of the music,
\nand a slight booziness caused by the gin.<\/p>\n
Suddenly he began writing in sheer panic, only imperfectly aware of what
\nhe was setting down. His small but childish handwriting straggled up and
\ndown the page, shedding first its capital letters and finally even its
\nfull stops:<\/p>\n
April 4th, 1984. Last night to the flicks. All war films. One very good
\none of a ship full of refugees being bombed somewhere in the Mediterranean.
\nAudience much amused by shots of a great huge fat man trying to swim away
\nwith a helicopter after him, first you saw him wallowing along in the
\nwater like a porpoise, then you saw him through the helicopters gunsights,
\nthen he was full of holes and the sea round him turned pink and he sank as
\nsuddenly as though the holes had let in the water, audience shouting with
\nlaughter when he sank. then you saw a lifeboat full of children with a
\nhelicopter hovering over it. there was a middle-aged woman might have been
\na jewess sitting up in the bow with a little boy about three years old in
\nher arms. little boy screaming with fright and hiding his head between her
\nbreasts as if he was trying to burrow right into her and the woman putting
\nher arms round him and comforting him although she was blue with fright
\nherself, all the time covering him up as much as possible as if she thought
\nher arms could keep the bullets off him. then the helicopter planted a 20
\nkilo bomb in among them terrific flash and the boat went all to matchwood.
\nthen there was a wonderful shot of a child’s arm going up up up right up
\ninto the air a helicopter with a camera in its nose must have followed it
\nup and there was a lot of applause from the party seats but a woman down in
\nthe prole part of the house suddenly started kicking up a fuss and shouting
\nthey didnt oughter of showed it not in front of kids they didnt it aint
\nright not in front of kids it aint until the police turned her turned her
\nout i dont suppose anything happened to her nobody cares what the proles
\nsay typical prole reaction they never—-<\/p>\n
Winston stopped writing, partly because he was suffering from cramp. He did
\nnot know what had made him pour out this stream of rubbish. But the curious
\nthing was that while he was doing so a totally different memory had
\nclarified itself in his mind, to the point where he almost felt equal to
\nwriting it down. It was, he now realized, because of this other incident
\nthat he had suddenly decided to come home and begin the diary today.<\/p>\n
It had happened that morning at the Ministry, if anything so nebulous could
\nbe said to happen.<\/p>\n
It was nearly eleven hundred, and in the Records Department, where Winston
\nworked, they were dragging the chairs out of the cubicles and grouping them
\nin the centre of the hall opposite the big telescreen, in preparation for
\nthe Two Minutes Hate. Winston was just taking his place in one of the
\nmiddle rows when two people whom he knew by sight, but had never spoken
\nto, came unexpectedly into the room. One of them was a girl whom he often
\npassed in the corridors. He did not know her name, but he knew that she
\nworked in the Fiction Department. Presumably–since he had sometimes seen
\nher with oily hands and carrying a spanner–she had some mechanical job
\non one of the novel-writing machines. She was a bold-looking girl, of
\nabout twenty-seven, with thick hair, a freckled face, and swift, athletic
\nmovements. A narrow scarlet sash, emblem of the Junior Anti-Sex League, was
\nwound several times round the waist of her overalls, just tightly enough to
\nbring out the shapeliness of her hips. Winston had disliked her from the
\nvery first moment of seeing her. He knew the reason. It was because of the
\natmosphere of hockey-fields and cold baths and community hikes and general
\nclean-mindedness which she managed to carry about with her. He disliked
\nnearly all women, and especially the young and pretty ones. It was always
\nthe women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted
\nadherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and
\nnosers-out of unorthodoxy. But this particular girl gave him the impression
\nof being more dangerous than most. Once when they passed in the corridor
\nshe gave him a quick sidelong glance which seemed to pierce right into
\nhim and for a moment had filled him with black terror. The idea had even
\ncrossed his mind that she might be an agent of the Thought Police. That,
\nit was true, was very unlikely. Still, he continued to feel a peculiar
\nuneasiness, which had fear mixed up in it as well as hostility, whenever
\nshe was anywhere near him.<\/p>\n
The other person was a man named O’Brien, a member of the Inner Party and
\nholder of some post so important and remote that Winston had only a dim
\nidea of its nature. A momentary hush passed over the group of people
\nround the chairs as they saw the black overalls of an Inner Party member
\napproaching. O’Brien was a large, burly man with a thick neck and a coarse,
\nhumorous, brutal face. In spite of his formidable appearance he had a
\ncertain charm of manner. He had a trick of resettling his spectacles on
\nhis nose which was curiously disarming–in some indefinable way, curiously
\ncivilized. It was a gesture which, if anyone had still thought in such
\nterms, might have recalled an eighteenth-century nobleman offering his
\nsnuffbox. Winston had seen O’Brien perhaps a dozen times in almost as many
\nyears. He felt deeply drawn to him, and not solely because he was intrigued
\nby the contrast between O’Brien’s urbane manner and his prize-fighter’s
\nphysique. Much more it was because of a secretly held belief–or perhaps
\nnot even a belief, merely a hope–that O’Brien’s political orthodoxy was
\nnot perfect. Something in his face suggested it irresistibly. And again,
\nperhaps it was not even unorthodoxy that was written in his face, but
\nsimply intelligence. But at any rate he had the appearance of being a
\nperson that you could talk to if somehow you could cheat the telescreen and
\nget him alone. Winston had never made the smallest effort to verify this
\nguess: indeed, there was no way of doing so. At this moment O’Brien glanced
\nat his wrist-watch, saw that it was nearly eleven hundred, and evidently
\ndecided to stay in the Records Department until the Two Minutes Hate was
\nover. He took a chair in the same row as Winston, a couple of places away.
\nA small, sandy-haired woman who worked in the next cubicle to Winston was
\nbetween them. The girl with dark hair was sitting immediately behind.<\/p>\n
The next moment a hideous, grinding speech, as of some monstrous machine
\nrunning without oil, burst from the big telescreen at the end of the room.
\nIt was a noise that set one’s teeth on edge and bristled the hair at the
\nback of one’s neck. The Hate had started.<\/p>\n
As usual, the face of Emmanuel Goldstein, the Enemy of the People, had
\nflashed on to the screen. There were hisses here and there among the
\naudience. The little sandy-haired woman gave a squeak of mingled fear and
\ndisgust. Goldstein was the renegade and backslider who once, long ago
\n(how long ago, nobody quite remembered), had been one of the leading
\nfigures of the Party, almost on a level with Big Brother himself, and
\nthen had engaged in counter-revolutionary activities, had been condemned
\nto death, and had mysteriously escaped and disappeared. The programmes
\nof the Two Minutes Hate varied from day to day, but there was none in
\nwhich Goldstein was not the principal figure. He was the primal traitor,
\nthe earliest defiler of the Party’s purity. All subsequent crimes against
\nthe Party, all treacheries, acts of sabotage, heresies, deviations,
\nsprang directly out of his teaching. Somewhere or other he was still
\nalive and hatching his conspiracies: perhaps somewhere beyond the sea,
\nunder the protection of his foreign paymasters, perhaps even–so it was
\noccasionally rumoured–in some hiding-place in Oceania itself.<\/p>\n
Winston’s diaphragm was constricted. He could never see the face of
\nGoldstein without a painful mixture of emotions. It was a lean Jewish face,
\nwith a great fuzzy aureole of white hair and a small goatee beard–a
\nclever face, and yet somehow inherently despicable, with a kind of senile
\nsilliness in the long thin nose, near the end of which a pair of spectacles
\nwas perched. It resembled the face of a sheep, and the voice, too, had a
\nsheep-like quality. Goldstein was delivering his usual venomous attack
\nupon the doctrines of the Party–an attack so exaggerated and perverse that
\na child should have been able to see through it, and yet just plausible
\nenough to fill one with an alarmed feeling that other people, less
\nlevel-headed than oneself, might be taken in by it. He was abusing Big
\nBrother, he was denouncing the dictatorship of the Party, he was demanding
\nthe immediate conclusion of peace with Eurasia, he was advocating freedom
\nof speech, freedom of the Press, freedom of assembly, freedom of thought,
\nhe was crying hysterically that the revolution had been betrayed–and all
\nthis in rapid polysyllabic speech which was a sort of parody of the
\nhabitual style of the orators of the Party, and even contained Newspeak
\nwords: more Newspeak words, indeed, than any Party member would normally
\nuse in real life. And all the while, lest one should be in any doubt as to
\nthe reality which Goldstein’s specious claptrap covered, behind his head on
\nthe telescreen there marched the endless columns of the Eurasian army–row
\nafter row of solid-looking men with expressionless Asiatic faces, who swam
\nup to the surface of the screen and vanished, to be replaced by others
\nexactly similar. The dull rhythmic tramp of the soldiers’ boots formed the
\nbackground to Goldstein’s bleating voice.<\/p>\n
Before the Hate had proceeded for thirty seconds, uncontrollable
\nexclamations of rage were breaking out from half the people in the room.
\nThe self-satisfied sheep-like face on the screen, and the terrifying power
\nof the Eurasian army behind it, were too much to be borne: besides,
\nthe sight or even the thought of Goldstein produced fear and anger
\nautomatically. He was an object of hatred more constant than either Eurasia
\nor Eastasia, since when Oceania was at war with one of these Powers it was
\ngenerally at peace with the other. But what was strange was that although
\nGoldstein was hated and despised by everybody, although every day and a
\nthousand times a day, on platforms, on the telescreen, in newspapers,
\nin books, his theories were refuted, smashed, ridiculed, held up to the
\ngeneral gaze for the pitiful rubbish that they were–in spite of all this,
\nhis influence never seemed to grow less. Always there were fresh dupes
\nwaiting to be seduced by him. A day never passed when spies and saboteurs
\nacting under his directions were not unmasked by the Thought Police.
\nHe was the commander of a vast shadowy army, an underground network of
\nconspirators dedicated to the overthrow of the State. The Brotherhood, its
\nname was supposed to be. There were also whispered stories of a terrible
\nbook, a compendium of all the heresies, of which Goldstein was the author
\nand which circulated clandestinely here and there. It was a book without a
\ntitle. People referred to it, if at all, simply as THE BOOK. But one knew
\nof such things only through vague rumours. Neither the Brotherhood nor
\nTHE BOOK was a subject that any ordinary Party member would mention if
\nthere was a way of avoiding it.<\/p>\n
In its second minute the Hate rose to a frenzy. People were leaping up and
\ndown in their places and shouting at the tops of their voices in an effort
\nto drown the maddening bleating voice that came from the screen. The little
\nsandy-haired woman had turned bright pink, and her mouth was opening and
\nshutting like that of a landed fish. Even O’Brien’s heavy face was flushed.
\nHe was sitting very straight in his chair, his powerful chest swelling and
\nquivering as though he were standing up to the assault of a wave. The
\ndark-haired girl behind Winston had begun crying out ‘Swine! Swine! Swine!’
\nand suddenly she picked up a heavy Newspeak dictionary and flung it at the
\nscreen. It struck Goldstein’s nose and bounced off; the voice continued
\ninexorably. In a lucid moment Winston found that he was shouting with the
\nothers and kicking his heel violently against the rung of his chair. The
\nhorrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to
\nact a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid joining
\nin. Within thirty seconds any pretence was always unnecessary. A hideous
\necstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash
\nfaces in with a sledge-hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of
\npeople like an electric current, turning one even against one’s will into
\na grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the rage that one felt was an
\nabstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to
\nanother like the flame of a blowlamp. Thus, at one moment Winston’s hatred
\nwas not turned against Goldstein at all, but, on the contrary, against
\nBig Brother, the Party, and the Thought Police; and at such moments his
\nheart went out to the lonely, derided heretic on the screen, sole guardian
\nof truth and sanity in a world of lies. And yet the very next instant he
\nwas at one with the people about him, and all that was said of Goldstein
\nseemed to him to be true. At those moments his secret loathing of Big
\nBrother changed into adoration, and Big Brother seemed to tower up, an
\ninvincible, fearless protector, standing like a rock against the hordes
\nof Asia, and Goldstein, in spite of his isolation, his helplessness, and
\nthe doubt that hung about his very existence, seemed like some sinister
\nenchanter, capable by the mere power of his voice of wrecking the structure
\nof civilization.<\/p>\n
It was even possible, at moments, to switch one’s hatred this way or that
\nby a voluntary act. Suddenly, by the sort of violent effort with which one
\nwrenches one’s head away from the pillow in a nightmare, Winston succeeded
\nin transferring his hatred from the face on the screen to the dark-haired
\ngirl behind him. Vivid, beautiful hallucinations flashed through his mind.
\nHe would flog her to death with a rubber truncheon. He would tie her naked
\nto a stake and shoot her full of arrows like Saint Sebastian. He would
\nravish her and cut her throat at the moment of climax. Better than before,
\nmoreover, he realized WHY it was that he hated her. He hated her because
\nshe was young and pretty and sexless, because he wanted to go to bed with
\nher and would never do so, because round her sweet supple waist, which
\nseemed to ask you to encircle it with your arm, there was only the odious
\nscarlet sash, aggressive symbol of chastity.<\/p>\n
The Hate rose to its climax. The voice of Goldstein had become an actual
\nsheep’s bleat, and for an instant the face changed into that of a sheep.
\nThen the sheep-face melted into the figure of a Eurasian soldier who seemed
\nto be advancing, huge and terrible, his sub-machine gun roaring, and
\nseeming to spring out of the surface of the screen, so that some of the
\npeople in the front row actually flinched backwards in their seats. But
\nin the same moment, drawing a deep sigh of relief from everybody, the
\nhostile figure melted into the face of Big Brother, black-haired,
\nblack-moustachio’d, full of power and mysterious calm, and so vast that
\nit almost filled up the screen. Nobody heard what Big Brother was saying.
\nIt was merely a few words of encouragement, the sort of words that are
\nuttered in the din of battle, not distinguishable individually but
\nrestoring confidence by the fact of being spoken. Then the face of Big
\nBrother faded away again, and instead the three slogans of the Party stood
\nout in bold capitals:<\/p>\n
WAR IS PEACE
\n FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
\n IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH<\/p>\n
But the face of Big Brother seemed to persist for several seconds on the
\nscreen, as though the impact that it had made on everyone’s eyeballs was
\ntoo vivid to wear off immediately. The little sandy-haired woman had flung
\nherself forward over the back of the chair in front of her. With a
\ntremulous murmur that sounded like ‘My Saviour!’ she extended her arms
\ntowards the screen. Then she buried her face in her hands. It was apparent
\nthat she was uttering a prayer.<\/p>\n
At this moment the entire group of people broke into a deep, slow,
\nrhythmical chant of ‘B-B!…B-B!’–over and over again, very slowly, with a
\nlong pause between the first ‘B’ and the second–a heavy, murmurous sound,
\nsomehow curiously savage, in the background of which one seemed to hear the
\nstamp of naked feet and the throbbing of tom-toms. For perhaps as much as
\nthirty seconds they kept it up. It was a refrain that was often heard in
\nmoments of overwhelming emotion. Partly it was a sort of hymn to the wisdom
\nand majesty of Big Brother, but still more it was an act of self-hypnosis,
\na deliberate drowning of consciousness by means of rhythmic noise.
\nWinston’s entrails seemed to grow cold. In the Two Minutes Hate he could
\nnot help sharing in the general delirium, but this sub-human chanting of
\n‘B-B!…B-B!’ always filled him with horror. Of course he chanted with the
\nrest: it was impossible to do otherwise. To dissemble your feelings, to
\ncontrol your face, to do what everyone else was doing, was an instinctive
\nreaction. But there was a space of a couple of seconds during which the
\nexpression of his eyes might conceivably have betrayed him. And it was
\nexactly at this moment that the significant thing happened–if, indeed,
\nit did happen.<\/p>\n
Momentarily he caught O’Brien’s eye. O’Brien had stood up. He had taken
\noff his spectacles and was in the act of resettling them on his nose with
\nhis characteristic gesture. But there was a fraction of a second when
\ntheir eyes met, and for as long as it took to happen Winston knew–yes, he
\nKNEW!–that O’Brien was thinking the same thing as himself. An unmistakable
\nmessage had passed. It was as though their two minds had opened and the
\nthoughts were flowing from one into the other through their eyes. ‘I am
\nwith you,’ O’Brien seemed to be saying to him. ‘I know precisely what you
\nare feeling. I know all about your contempt, your hatred, your disgust.
\nBut don’t worry, I am on your side!’ And then the flash of intelligence
\nwas gone, and O’Brien’s face was as inscrutable as everybody else’s.<\/p>\n
That was all, and he was already uncertain whether it had happened. Such
\nincidents never had any sequel. All that they did was to keep alive in him
\nthe belief, or hope, that others besides himself were the enemies of the
\nParty. Perhaps the rumours of vast underground conspiracies were true after
\nall–perhaps the Brotherhood really existed! It was impossible, in spite
\nof the endless arrests and confessions and executions, to be sure that the
\nBrotherhood was not simply a myth. Some days he believed in it, some days
\nnot. There was no evidence, only fleeting glimpses that might mean anything
\nor nothing: snatches of overheard conversation, faint scribbles on lavatory
\nwalls–once, even, when two strangers met, a small movement of the hand
\nwhich had looked as though it might be a signal of recognition. It was all
\nguesswork: very likely he had imagined everything. He had gone back to his
\ncubicle without looking at O’Brien again. The idea of following up their
\nmomentary contact hardly crossed his mind. It would have been inconceivably
\ndangerous even if he had known how to set about doing it. For a second, two
\nseconds, they had exchanged an equivocal glance, and that was the end of
\nthe story. But even that was a memorable event, in the locked loneliness in
\nwhich one had to live.<\/p>\n
Winston roused himself and sat up straighter. He let out a belch. The gin
\nwas rising from his stomach.<\/p>\n
His eyes re-focused on the page. He discovered that while he sat helplessly
\nmusing he had also been writing, as though by automatic action. And it was
\nno longer the same cramped, awkward handwriting as before. His pen had slid
\nvoluptuously over the smooth paper, printing in large neat capitals–<\/p>\n
DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER
\n DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER
\n DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER
\n DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER
\n DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER<\/p>\n
over and over again, filling half a page.<\/p>\n
He could not help feeling a twinge of panic. It was absurd, since the
\nwriting of those particular words was not more dangerous than the initial
\nact of opening the diary, but for a moment he was tempted to tear out the
\nspoiled pages and abandon the enterprise altogether.<\/p>\n
He did not do so, however, because he knew that it was useless. Whether he
\nwrote DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER, or whether he refrained from writing it, made
\nno difference. Whether he went on with the diary, or whether he did not go
\non with it, made no difference. The Thought Police would get him just the
\nsame. He had committed–would still have committed, even if he had never
\nset pen to paper–the essential crime that contained all others in itself.
\nThoughtcrime, they called it. Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be
\nconcealed for ever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for
\nyears, but sooner or later they were bound to get you.<\/p>\n
It was always at night–the arrests invariably happened at night. The
\nsudden jerk out of sleep, the rough hand shaking your shoulder, the lights
\nglaring in your eyes, the ring of hard faces round the bed. In the vast
\nmajority of cases there was no trial, no report of the arrest. People
\nsimply disappeared, always during the night. Your name was removed from the
\nregisters, every record of everything you had ever done was wiped out, your
\none-time existence was denied and then forgotten. You were abolished,
\nannihilated: VAPORIZED was the usual word.<\/p>\n
For a moment he was seized by a kind of hysteria. He began writing in a
\nhurried untidy scrawl:<\/p>\n
theyll shoot me i don’t care theyll shoot me in the back of the neck i
\ndont care down with big brother they always shoot you in the back of the
\nneck i dont care down with big brother—-<\/p>\n
He sat back in his chair, slightly ashamed of himself, and laid down
\nthe pen. The next moment he started violently. There was a knocking at
\nthe door.<\/p>\n
Already! He sat as still as a mouse, in the futile hope that whoever it was
\nmight go away after a single attempt. But no, the knocking was repeated.
\nThe worst thing of all would be to delay. His heart was thumping like a
\ndrum, but his face, from long habit, was probably expressionless. He got
\nup and moved heavily towards the door.<\/p>\n
Chapter 2<\/p>\n
As he put his hand to the door-knob Winston saw that he had left the
\ndiary open on the table. DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER was written all over it,
\nin letters almost big enough to be legible across the room. It was an
\ninconceivably stupid thing to have done. But, he realized, even in his
\npanic he had not wanted to smudge the creamy paper by shutting the book
\nwhile the ink was wet.<\/p>\n
He drew in his breath and opened the door. Instantly a warm wave of relief
\nflowed through him. A colourless, crushed-looking woman, with wispy hair
\nand a lined face, was standing outside.<\/p>\n
‘Oh, comrade,’ she began in a dreary, whining sort of voice, ‘I thought I
\nheard you come in. Do you think you could come across and have a look at
\nour kitchen sink? It’s got blocked up and—-‘<\/p>\n
It was Mrs Parsons, the wife of a neighbour on the same floor. (‘Mrs’ was
\na word somewhat discountenanced by the Party–you were supposed to call
\neveryone ‘comrade’–but with some women one used it instinctively.) She was
\na woman of about thirty, but looking much older. One had the impression
\nthat there was dust in the creases of her face. Winston followed her down
\nthe passage. These amateur repair jobs were an almost daily irritation.
\nVictory Mansions were old flats, built in 1930 or thereabouts, and were
\nfalling to pieces. The plaster flaked constantly from ceilings and walls,
\nthe pipes burst in every hard frost, the roof leaked whenever there was
\nsnow, the heating system was usually running at half steam when it was not
\nclosed down altogether from motives of economy. Repairs, except what you
\ncould do for yourself, had to be sanctioned by remote committees which
\nwere liable to hold up even the mending of a window-pane for two years.<\/p>\n
‘Of course it’s only because Tom isn’t home,’ said Mrs Parsons vaguely.<\/p>\n
The Parsons’ flat was bigger than Winston’s, and dingy in a different
\nway. Everything had a battered, trampled-on look, as though the
\nplace had just been visited by some large violent animal. Games
\nimpedimenta–hockey-sticks, boxing-gloves, a burst football, a pair of
\nsweaty shorts turned inside out–lay all over the floor, and on the
\ntable there was a litter of dirty dishes and dog-eared exercise-books.
\nOn the walls were scarlet banners of the Youth League and the Spies, and
\na full-sized poster of Big Brother. There was the usual boiled-cabbage
\nsmell, common to the whole building, but it was shot through by a sharper
\nreek of sweat, which–one knew this at the first sniff, though it was
\nhard to say how–was the sweat of some person not present at the moment.
\nIn another room someone with a comb and a piece of toilet paper was
\ntrying to keep tune with the military music which was still issuing
\nfrom the telescreen.<\/p>\n
‘It’s the children,’ said Mrs Parsons, casting a half-apprehensive glance
\nat the door. ‘They haven’t been out today. And of course—-‘<\/p>\n
She had a habit of breaking off her sentences in the middle. The kitchen
\nsink was full nearly to the brim with filthy greenish water which smelt
\nworse than ever of cabbage. Winston knelt down and examined the angle-joint
\nof the pipe. He hated using his hands, and he hated bending down, which was
\nalways liable to start him coughing. Mrs Parsons looked on helplessly.<\/p>\n
‘Of course if Tom was home he’d put it right in a moment,’ she said.
\n‘He loves anything like that. He’s ever so good with his hands, Tom is.’<\/p>\n
Parsons was Winston’s fellow-employee at the Ministry of Truth. He was
\na fattish but active man of paralysing stupidity, a mass of imbecile
\nenthusiasms–one of those completely unquestioning, devoted drudges on
\nwhom, more even than on the Thought Police, the stability of the Party
\ndepended. At thirty-five he had just been unwillingly evicted from the
\nYouth League, and before graduating into the Youth League he had managed to
\nstay on in the Spies for a year beyond the statutory age. At the Ministry
\nhe was employed in some subordinate post for which intelligence was not
\nrequired, but on the other hand he was a leading figure on the Sports
\nCommittee and all the other committees engaged in organizing community
\nhikes, spontaneous demonstrations, savings campaigns, and voluntary
\nactivities generally. He would inform you with quiet pride, between whiffs
\nof his pipe, that he had put in an appearance at the Community Centre every
\nevening for the past four years. An overpowering smell of sweat, a sort of
\nunconscious testimony to the strenuousness of his life, followed him about
\nwherever he went, and even remained behind him after he had gone.<\/p>\n
‘Have you got a spanner?’ said Winston, fiddling with the nut on the
\nangle-joint.<\/p>\n
‘A spanner,’ said Mrs Parsons, immediately becoming invertebrate. ‘I don’t
\nknow, I’m sure. Perhaps the children—-‘<\/p>\n
There was a trampling of boots and another blast on the comb as the
\nchildren charged into the living-room. Mrs Parsons brought the spanner.
\nWinston let out the water and disgustedly removed the clot of human hair
\nthat had blocked up the pipe. He cleaned his fingers as best he could in
\nthe cold water from the tap and went back into the other room.<\/p>\n
‘Up with your hands!’ yelled a savage voice.<\/p>\n
A handsome, tough-looking boy of nine had popped up from behind the table
\nand was menacing him with a toy automatic pistol, while his small sister,
\nabout two years younger, made the same gesture with a fragment of wood.
\nBoth of them were dressed in the blue shorts, grey shirts, and red
\nneckerchiefs which were the uniform of the Spies. Winston raised his hands
\nabove his head, but with an uneasy feeling, so vicious was the boy’s
\ndemeanour, that it was not altogether a game.<\/p>\n
‘You’re a traitor!’ yelled the boy. ‘You’re a thought-criminal! You’re a
\nEurasian spy! I’ll shoot you, I’ll vaporize you, I’ll send you to the salt
\nmines!’<\/p>\n
Suddenly they were both leaping round him, shouting ‘Traitor!’ and
\n‘Thought-criminal!’ the little girl imitating her brother in every
\nmovement. It was somehow slightly frightening, like the gambolling of
\ntiger cubs which will soon grow up into man-eaters. There was a sort of
\ncalculating ferocity in the boy’s eye, a quite evident desire to hit or
\nkick Winston and a consciousness of being very nearly big enough to do so.
\nIt was a good job it was not a real pistol he was holding, Winston thought.<\/p>\n
Mrs Parsons’ eyes flitted nervously from Winston to the children, and back
\nagain. In the better light of the living-room he noticed with interest
\nthat there actually was dust in the creases of her face.<\/p>\n
‘They do get so noisy,’ she said. ‘They’re disappointed because they
\ncouldn’t go to see the hanging, that’s what it is. I’m too busy to take
\nthem. and Tom won’t be back from work in time.’<\/p>\n
‘Why can’t we go and see the hanging?’ roared the boy in his huge voice.<\/p>\n
‘Want to see the hanging! Want to see the hanging!’ chanted the little
\ngirl, still capering round.<\/p>\n
Some Eurasian prisoners, guilty of war crimes, were to be hanged in the
\nPark that evening, Winston remembered. This happened about once a month,
\nand was a popular spectacle. Children always clamoured to be taken to see
\nit. He took his leave of Mrs Parsons and made for the door. But he had not
\ngone six steps down the passage when something hit the back of his neck an
\nagonizingly painful blow. It was as though a red-hot wire had been jabbed
\ninto him. He spun round just in time to see Mrs Parsons dragging her son
\nback into the doorway while the boy pocketed a catapult.<\/p>\n
‘Goldstein!’ bellowed the boy as the door closed on him. But what most
\nstruck Winston was the look of helpless fright on the woman’s greyish face.<\/p>\n
Back in the flat he stepped quickly past the telescreen and sat down at the
\ntable again, still rubbing his neck. The music from the telescreen had
\nstopped. Instead, a clipped military voice was reading out, with a sort of
\nbrutal relish, a description of the armaments of the new Floating Fortress
\nwhich had just been anchored between Iceland and the Faroe Islands.<\/p>\n
With those children, he thought, that wretched woman must lead a life of
\nterror. Another year, two years, and they would be watching her night
\nand day for symptoms of unorthodoxy. Nearly all children nowadays were
\nhorrible. What was worst of all was that by means of such organizations as
\nthe Spies they were systematically turned into ungovernable little savages,
\nand yet this produced in them no tendency whatever to rebel against the
\ndiscipline of the Party. On the contrary, they adored the Party and
\neverything connected with it. The songs, the processions, the banners, the
\nhiking, the drilling with dummy rifles, the yelling of slogans, the worship
\nof Big Brother–it was all a sort of glorious game to them. All their
\nferocity was turned outwards, against the enemies of the State, against
\nforeigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought-criminals. It was almost normal
\nfor people over thirty to be frightened of their own children. And with
\ngood reason, for hardly a week passed in which ‘The Times’ did not carry
\na paragraph describing how some eavesdropping little sneak–‘child hero’
\nwas the phrase generally used–had overheard some compromising remark
\nand denounced its parents to the Thought Police.<\/p>\n
The sting of the catapult bullet had worn off. He picked up his pen
\nhalf-heartedly, wondering whether he could find something more to write
\nin the diary. Suddenly he began thinking of O’Brien again.<\/p>\n
Years ago–how long was it? Seven years it must be–he had dreamed that he
\nwas walking through a pitch-dark room. And someone sitting to one side of
\nhim had said as he passed: ‘We shall meet in the place where there is no
\ndarkness.’ It was said very quietly, almost casually–a statement, not a
\ncommand. He had walked on without pausing. What was curious was that at the
\ntime, in the dream, the words had not made much impression on him. It was
\nonly later and by degrees that they had seemed to take on significance. He
\ncould not now remember whether it was before or after having the dream that
\nhe had seen O’Brien for the first time, nor could he remember when he had
\nfirst identified the voice as O’Brien’s. But at any rate the identification
\nexisted. It was O’Brien who had spoken to him out of the dark.<\/p>\n
Winston had never been able to feel sure–even after this morning’s flash
\nof the eyes it was still impossible to be sure whether O’Brien was a friend
\nor an enemy. Nor did it even seem to matter greatly. There was a link of
\nunderstanding between them, more important than affection or partisanship.
\n‘We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness,’ he had said.
\nWinston did not know what it meant, only that in some way or another it
\nwould come true.<\/p>\n
The voice from the telescreen paused. A trumpet call, clear and beautiful,
\nfloated into the stagnant air. The voice continued raspingly:<\/p>\n
‘Attention! Your attention, please! A newsflash has this moment arrived
\nfrom the Malabar front. Our forces in South India have won a glorious
\nvictory. I am authorized to say that the action we are now reporting may
\nwell bring the war within measurable distance of its end. Here is the
\nnewsflash—-‘<\/p>\n
Bad news coming, thought Winston. And sure enough, following on a gory
\ndescription of the annihilation of a Eurasian army, with stupendous figures
\nof killed and prisoners, came the announcement that, as from next week,
\nthe chocolate ration would be reduced from thirty grammes to twenty.<\/p>\n
Winston belched again. The gin was wearing off, leaving a deflated feeling.
\nThe telescreen–perhaps to celebrate the victory, perhaps to drown the
\nmemory of the lost chocolate–crashed into ‘Oceania, ’tis for thee’. You
\nwere supposed to stand to attention. However, in his present position he
\nwas invisible.<\/p>\n
‘Oceania, ’tis for thee’ gave way to lighter music. Winston walked over to
\nthe window, keeping his back to the telescreen. The day was still cold and
\nclear. Somewhere far away a rocket bomb exploded with a dull, reverberating
\nroar. About twenty or thirty of them a week were falling on London at
\npresent.<\/p>\n
Down in the street the wind flapped the torn poster to and fro, and the
\nword INGSOC fitfully appeared and vanished. Ingsoc. The sacred principles
\nof Ingsoc. Newspeak, doublethink, the mutability of the past. He felt as
\nthough he were wandering in the forests of the sea bottom, lost in a
\nmonstrous world where he himself was the monster. He was alone. The past
\nwas dead, the future was unimaginable. What certainty had he that a single
\nhuman creature now living was on his side? And what way of knowing that the
\ndominion of the Party would not endure FOR EVER? Like an answer, the three
\nslogans on the white face of the Ministry of Truth came back to him:<\/p>\n
WAR IS PEACE
\n FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
\n IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH<\/p>\n
He took a twenty-five cent piece out of his pocket. There, too, in tiny
\nclear lettering, the same slogans were inscribed, and on the other face of
\nthe coin the head of Big Brother. Even from the coin the eyes pursued you.
\nOn coins, on stamps, on the covers of books, on banners, on posters, and on
\nthe wrappings of a cigarette packet–everywhere. Always the eyes watching
\nyou and the voice enveloping you. Asleep or awake, working or eating,
\nindoors or out of doors, in the bath or in bed–no escape. Nothing was your
\nown except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull.<\/p>\n
The sun had shifted round, and the myriad windows of the Ministry of Truth,
\nwith the light no longer shining on them, looked grim as the loopholes of a
\nfortress. His heart quailed before the enormous pyramidal shape. It was too
\nstrong, it could not be stormed. A thousand rocket bombs would not batter
\nit down. He wondered again for whom he was writing the diary. For the
\nfuture, for the past–for an age that might be imaginary. And in front of
\nhim there lay not death but annihilation. The diary would be reduced to
\nashes and himself to vapour. Only the Thought Police would read what he had
\nwritten, before they wiped it out of existence and out of memory. How could
\nyou make appeal to the future when not a trace of you, not even an
\nanonymous word scribbled on a piece of paper, could physically survive?<\/p>\n
The telescreen struck fourteen. He must leave in ten minutes. He had to be
\nback at work by fourteen-thirty.<\/p>\n
Curiously, the chiming of the hour seemed to have put new heart into him.
\nHe was a lonely ghost uttering a truth that nobody would ever hear. But so
\nlong as he uttered it, in some obscure way the continuity was not broken.
\nIt was not by making yourself heard but by staying sane that you carried on
\nthe human heritage. He went back to the table, dipped his pen, and wrote:<\/p>\n
To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free, when men
\nare different from one another and do not live alone–to a time when truth
\nexists and what is done cannot be undone:
\n From the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude, from the age of
\nBig Brother, from the age of doublethink–greetings!<\/p>\n
He was already dead, he reflected. It seemed to him that it was only now,
\nwhen he had begun to be able to formulate his thoughts, that he had taken
\nthe decisive step. The consequences of every act are included in the act
\nitself. He wrote:<\/p>\n
Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime IS death.<\/p>\n
Now he had recognized himself as a dead man it became important to stay
\nalive as long as possible. Two fingers of his right hand were inkstained.
\nIt was exactly the kind of detail that might betray you. Some nosing zealot
\nin the Ministry (a woman, probably: someone like the little sandy-haired
\nwoman or the dark-haired girl from the Fiction Department) might start
\nwondering why he had been writing during the lunch interval, why he had
\nused an old-fashioned pen, WHAT he had been writing–and then drop a hint
\nin the appropriate quarter. He went to the bathroom and carefully scrubbed
\nthe ink away with the gritty dark-brown soap which rasped your skin like
\nsandpaper and was therefore well adapted for this purpose.<\/p>\n
He put the diary away in the drawer. It was quite useless to think of
\nhiding it, but he could at least make sure whether or not its existence had
\nbeen discovered. A hair laid across the page-ends was too obvious. With the
\ntip of his finger he picked up an identifiable grain of whitish dust and
\ndeposited it on the corner of the cover, where it was bound to be shaken
\noff if the book was moved.<\/p>\n
Chapter 3<\/p>\n
Winston was dreaming of his mother.<\/p>\n
He must, he thought, have been ten or eleven years old when his mother had
\ndisappeared. She was a tall, statuesque, rather silent woman with slow
\nmovements and magnificent fair hair. His father he remembered more vaguely
\nas dark and thin, dressed always in neat dark clothes (Winston remembered
\nespecially the very thin soles of his father’s shoes) and wearing
\nspectacles. The two of them must evidently have been swallowed up in one
\nof the first great purges of the fifties.<\/p>\n
At this moment his mother was sitting in some place deep down beneath him,
\nwith his young sister in her arms. He did not remember his sister at all,
\nexcept as a tiny, feeble baby, always silent, with large, watchful eyes.
\nBoth of them were looking up at him. They were down in some subterranean
\nplace–the bottom of a well, for instance, or a very deep grave–but it
\nwas a place which, already far below him, was itself moving downwards.
\nThey were in the saloon of a sinking ship, looking up at him through the
\ndarkening water. There was still air in the saloon, they could still see
\nhim and he them, but all the while they were sinking down, down into the
\ngreen waters which in another moment must hide them from sight for ever.
\nHe was out in the light and air while they were being sucked down to death,
\nand they were down there because he was up here. He knew it and they knew
\nit, and he could see the knowledge in their faces. There was no reproach
\neither in their faces or in their hearts, only the knowledge that they
\nmust die in order that he might remain alive, and that this was part of
\nthe unavoidable order of things.<\/p>\n
He could not remember what had happened, but he knew in his dream that in
\nsome way the lives of his mother and his sister had been sacrificed to his
\nown. It was one of those dreams which, while retaining the characteristic
\ndream scenery, are a continuation of one’s intellectual life, and in which
\none becomes aware of facts and ideas which still seem new and valuable
\nafter one is awake. The thing that now suddenly struck Winston was that his
\nmother’s death, nearly thirty years ago, had been tragic and sorrowful in
\na way that was no longer possible. Tragedy, he perceived, belonged to the
\nancient time, to a time when there was still privacy, love, and friendship,
\nand when the members of a family stood by one another without needing to
\nknow the reason. His mother’s memory tore at his heart because she had died
\nloving him, when he was too young and selfish to love her in return, and
\nbecause somehow, he did not remember how, she had sacrificed herself to a
\nconception of loyalty that was private and unalterable. Such things, he
\nsaw, could not happen today. Today there were fear, hatred, and pain, but
\nno dignity of emotion, no deep or complex sorrows. All this he seemed to
\nsee in the large eyes of his mother and his sister, looking up at him
\nthrough the green water, hundreds of fathoms down and still sinking.<\/p>\n
Suddenly he was standing on short springy turf, on a summer evening when
\nthe slanting rays of the sun gilded the ground. The landscape that he was
\nlooking at recurred so often in his dreams that he was never fully certain
\nwhether or not he had seen it in the real world. In his waking thoughts he
\ncalled it the Golden Country. It was an old, rabbit-bitten pasture, with a
\nfoot-track wandering across it and a molehill here and there. In the ragged
\nhedge on the opposite side of the field the boughs of the elm trees were
\nswaying very faintly in the breeze, their leaves just stirring in dense
\nmasses like women’s hair. Somewhere near at hand, though out of sight,
\nthere was a clear, slow-moving stream where dace were swimming in the
\npools under the willow trees.<\/p>\n
The girl with dark hair was coming towards them across the field. With
\nwhat seemed a single movement she tore off her clothes and flung them
\ndisdainfully aside. Her body was white and smooth, but it aroused no desire
\nin him, indeed he barely looked at it. What overwhelmed him in that instant
\nwas admiration for the gesture with which she had thrown her clothes aside.
\nWith its grace and carelessness it seemed to annihilate a whole culture,
\na whole system of thought, as though Big Brother and the Party and the
\nThought Police could all be swept into nothingness by a single splendid
\nmovement of the arm. That too was a gesture belonging to the ancient time.
\nWinston woke up with the word ‘Shakespeare’ on his lips.<\/p>\n
The telescreen was giving forth an ear-splitting whistle which continued on
\nthe same note for thirty seconds. It was nought seven fifteen, getting-up
\ntime for office workers. Winston wrenched his body out of bed–naked, for
\na member of the Outer Party received only 3,000 clothing coupons annually,
\nand a suit of pyjamas was 600–and seized a dingy singlet and a pair of
\nshorts that were lying across a chair. The Physical Jerks would begin in
\nthree minutes. The next moment he was doubled up by a violent coughing fit
\nwhich nearly always attacked him soon after waking up. It emptied his lungs
\nso completely that he could only begin breathing again by lying on his back
\nand taking a series of deep gasps. His veins had swelled with the effort of
\nthe cough, and the varicose ulcer had started itching.<\/p>\n
‘Thirty to forty group!’ yapped a piercing female voice. ‘Thirty to forty
\ngroup! Take your places, please. Thirties to forties!’<\/p>\n
Winston sprang to attention in front of the telescreen, upon which the
\nimage of a youngish woman, scrawny but muscular, dressed in tunic and
\ngym-shoes, had already appeared.<\/p>\n
‘Arms bending and stretching!’ she rapped out. ‘Take your time by me. ONE,
\ntwo, three, four! ONE, two, three, four! Come on, comrades, put a bit of
\nlife into it! ONE, two, three four! ONE two, three, four!…’<\/p>\n
The pain of the coughing fit had not quite driven out of Winston’s mind the
\nimpression made by his dream, and the rhythmic movements of the exercise
\nrestored it somewhat. As he mechanically shot his arms back and forth,
\nwearing on his face the look of grim enjoyment which was considered proper
\nduring the Physical Jerks, he was struggling to think his way backward into
\nthe dim period of his early childhood. It was extraordinarily difficult.
\nBeyond the late fifties everything faded. When there were no external
\nrecords that you could refer to, even the outline of your own life lost
\nits sharpness. You remembered huge events which had quite probably not
\nhappened, you remembered the detail of incidents without being able to
\nrecapture their atmosphere, and there were long blank periods to which you
\ncould assign nothing. Everything had been different then. Even the names of
\ncountries, and their shapes on the map, had been different. Airstrip One,
\nfor instance, had not been so called in those days: it had been called
\nEngland or Britain, though London, he felt fairly certain, had always been
\ncalled London.<\/p>\n
Winston could not definitely remember a time when his country had not been
\nat war, but it was evident that there had been a fairly long interval of
\npeace during his childhood, because one of his early memories was of an air
\nraid which appeared to take everyone by surprise. Perhaps it was the time
\nwhen the atomic bomb had fallen on Colchester. He did not remember the raid
\nitself, but he did remember his father’s hand clutching his own as they
\nhurried down, down, down into some place deep in the earth, round and round
\na spiral staircase which rang under his feet and which finally so wearied
\nhis legs that he began whimpering and they had to stop and rest. His
\nmother, in her slow, dreamy way, was following a long way behind them. She
\nwas carrying his baby sister–or perhaps it was only a bundle of blankets
\nthat she was carrying: he was not certain whether his sister had been born
\nthen. Finally they had emerged into a noisy, crowded place which he had
\nrealized to be a Tube station.<\/p>\n
There were people sitting all over the stone-flagged floor, and other
\npeople, packed tightly together, were sitting on metal bunks, one above
\nthe other. Winston and his mother and father found themselves a place on
\nthe floor, and near them an old man and an old woman were sitting side by
\nside on a bunk. The old man had on a decent dark suit and a black cloth cap
\npushed back from very white hair: his face was scarlet and his eyes were
\nblue and full of tears. He reeked of gin. It seemed to breathe out of his
\nskin in place of sweat, and one could have fancied that the tears welling
\nfrom his eyes were pure gin. But though slightly drunk he was also
\nsuffering under some grief that was genuine and unbearable. In his childish
\nway Winston grasped that some terrible thing, something that was beyond
\nforgiveness and could never be remedied, had just happened. It also seemed
\nto him that he knew what it was. Someone whom the old man loved–a little
\ngranddaughter, perhaps–had been killed. Every few minutes the old man kept
\nrepeating:<\/p>\n
‘We didn’t ought to ‘ave trusted ’em. I said so, Ma, didn’t I? That’s what
\ncomes of trusting ’em. I said so all along. We didn’t ought to ‘ave trusted
\nthe buggers.’<\/p>\n
But which buggers they didn’t ought to have trusted Winston could not now
\nremember.<\/p>\n
Since about that time, war had been literally continuous, though strictly
\nspeaking it had not always been the same war. For several months during his
\nchildhood there had been confused street fighting in London itself, some
\nof which he remembered vividly. But to trace out the history of the whole
\nperiod, to say who was fighting whom at any given moment, would have been
\nutterly impossible, since no written record, and no spoken word, ever made
\nmention of any other alignment than the existing one. At this moment, for
\nexample, in 1984 (if it was 1984), Oceania was at war with Eurasia and
\nin alliance with Eastasia. In no public or private utterance was it ever
\nadmitted that the three powers had at any time been grouped along different
\nlines. Actually, as Winston well knew, it was only four years since Oceania
\nhad been at war with Eastasia and in alliance with Eurasia. But that was
\nmerely a piece of furtive knowledge which he happened to possess because
\nhis memory was not satisfactorily under control. Officially the change of
\npartners had never happened. Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore
\nOceania had always been at war with Eurasia. The enemy of the moment always
\nrepresented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or future
\nagreement with him was impossible.<\/p>\n
The frightening thing, he reflected for the ten thousandth time as he
\nforced his shoulders painfully backward (with hands on hips, they were
\ngyrating their bodies from the waist, an exercise that was supposed to be
\ngood for the back muscles)–the frightening thing was that it might all be
\ntrue. If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or
\nthat event, IT NEVER HAPPENED–that, surely, was more terrifying than mere
\ntorture and death?<\/p>\n
The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia. He,
\nWinston Smith, knew that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as short
\na time as four years ago. But where did that knowledge exist? Only in his
\nown consciousness, which in any case must soon be annihilated. And if all
\nothers accepted the lie which the Party imposed–if all records told the
\nsame tale–then the lie passed into history and became truth. ‘Who controls
\nthe past,’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the
\npresent controls the past.’ And yet the past, though of its nature
\nalterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from
\neverlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was
\nan unending series of victories over your own memory. ‘Reality control’,
\nthey called it: in Newspeak, ‘doublethink’.<\/p>\n
‘Stand easy!’ barked the instructress, a little more genially.<\/p>\n
Winston sank his arms to his sides and slowly refilled his lungs with air.
\nHis mind slid away into the labyrinthine world of doublethink. To know
\nand not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling
\ncarefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which
\ncancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of
\nthem, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim
\nto it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the
\nguardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then
\nto draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and
\nthen promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process
\nto the process itself. That was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to
\ninduce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of
\nthe act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word
\n‘doublethink’ involved the use of doublethink.<\/p>\n
The instructress had called them to attention again. ‘And now let’s see
\nwhich of us can touch our toes!’ she said enthusiastically. ‘Right over
\nfrom the hips, please, comrades. ONE-two! ONE-two!…’<\/p>\n
Winston loathed this exercise, which sent shooting pains all the way from
\nhis heels to his buttocks and often ended by bringing on another coughing
\nfit. The half-pleasant quality went out of his meditations. The past, he
\nreflected, had not merely been altered, it had been actually destroyed. For
\nhow could you establish even the most obvious fact when there existed no
\nrecord outside your own memory? He tried to remember in what year he had
\nfirst heard mention of Big Brother. He thought it must have been at some
\ntime in the sixties, but it was impossible to be certain. In the Party
\nhistories, of course, Big Brother figured as the leader and guardian of the
\nRevolution since its very earliest days. His exploits had been gradually
\npushed backwards in time until already they extended into the fabulous
\nworld of the forties and the thirties, when the capitalists in their
\nstrange cylindrical hats still rode through the streets of London in great
\ngleaming motor-cars or horse carriages with glass sides. There was no
\nknowing how much of this legend was true and how much invented. Winston
\ncould not even remember at what date the Party itself had come into
\nexistence. He did not believe he had ever heard the word Ingsoc before
\n1960, but it was possible that in its Oldspeak form–‘English Socialism’,
\nthat is to say–it had been current earlier. Everything melted into mist.
\nSometimes, indeed, you could put your finger on a definite lie. It was not
\ntrue, for example, as was claimed in the Party history books, that the
\nParty had invented aeroplanes. He remembered aeroplanes since his earliest
\nchildhood. But you could prove nothing. There was never any evidence. Just
\nonce in his whole life he had held in his hands unmistakable documentary
\nproof of the falsification of an historical fact. And on that occasion—-<\/p>\n
‘Smith!’ screamed the shrewish voice from the telescreen. ‘6079 Smith W.!
\nYes, YOU! Bend lower, please! You can do better than that. You’re not
\ntrying. Lower, please! THAT’S better, comrade. Now stand at ease, the
\nwhole squad, and watch me.’<\/p>\n
A sudden hot sweat had broken out all over Winston’s body. His face
\nremained completely inscrutable. Never show dismay! Never show resentment!
\nA single flicker of the eyes could give you away. He stood watching while
\nthe instructress raised her arms above her head and–one could not say
\ngracefully, but with remarkable neatness and efficiency–bent over and
\ntucked the first joint of her fingers under her toes.<\/p>\n
‘THERE, comrades! THAT’S how I want to see you doing it. Watch me again.
\nI’m thirty-nine and I’ve had four children. Now look.’ She bent over again.
\n‘You see MY knees aren’t bent. You can all do it if you want to,’ she added
\nas she straightened herself up. ‘Anyone under forty-five is perfectly
\ncapable of touching his toes. We don’t all have the privilege of fighting
\nin the front line, but at least we can all keep fit. Remember our boys on
\nthe Malabar front! And the sailors in the Floating Fortresses! Just think
\nwhat THEY have to put up with. Now try again. That’s better, comrade,
\nthat’s MUCH better,’ she added encouragingly as Winston, with a violent
\nlunge, succeeded in touching his toes with knees unbent, for the first
\ntime in several years.<\/p>\n
Chapter 4<\/p>\n
With the deep, unconscious sigh which not even the nearness of the
\ntelescreen could prevent him from uttering when his day’s work started,
\nWinston pulled the speakwrite towards him, blew the dust from its
\nmouthpiece, and put on his spectacles. Then he unrolled and clipped
\ntogether four small cylinders of paper which had already flopped out of
\nthe pneumatic tube on the right-hand side of his desk.<\/p>\n
In the walls of the cubicle there were three orifices. To the right of the
\nspeakwrite, a small pneumatic tube for written messages, to the left, a
\nlarger one for newspapers; and in the side wall, within easy reach of
\nWinston’s arm, a large oblong slit protected by a wire grating. This last
\nwas for the disposal of waste paper. Similar slits existed in thousands or
\ntens of thousands throughout the building, not only in every room but at
\nshort intervals in every corridor. For some reason they were nicknamed
\nmemory holes. When one knew that any document was due for destruction, or
\neven when one saw a scrap of waste paper lying about, it was an automatic
\naction to lift the flap of the nearest memory hole and drop it in,
\nwhereupon it would be whirled away on a current of warm air to the enormous
\nfurnaces which were hidden somewhere in the recesses of the building.<\/p>\n
Winston examined the four slips of paper which he had unrolled. Each
\ncontained a message of only one or two lines, in the abbreviated
\njargon–not actually Newspeak, but consisting
\nlargely of Newspeak words–which was used in the Ministry for internal
\npurposes. They ran:<\/p>\n
times 17.3.84 bb speech malreported africa rectify<\/p>\n
times 19.12.83 forecasts 3 yp 4th quarter 83 misprints verify current issue<\/p>\n
times 14.2.84 miniplenty malquoted chocolate rectify<\/p>\n
times 3.12.83 reporting bb dayorder doubleplusungood refs unpersons rewrite
\nfullwise upsub antefiling<\/p>\n
With a faint feeling of satisfaction Winston laid the fourth message aside.
\nIt was an intricate and responsible job and had better be dealt with last.
\nThe other three were routine matters, though the second one would probably
\nmean some tedious wading through lists of figures.<\/p>\n
Winston dialled ‘back numbers’ on the telescreen and called for the
\nappropriate issues of ‘The Times’, which slid out of the pneumatic tube
\nafter only a few minutes’ delay. The messages he had received referred to
\narticles or news items which for one reason or another it was thought
\nnecessary to alter, or, as the official phrase had it, to rectify. For
\nexample, it appeared from ‘The Times’ of the seventeenth of March that Big
\nBrother, in his speech of the previous day, had predicted that the South
\nIndian front would remain quiet but that a Eurasian offensive would shortly
\nbe launched in North Africa. As it happened, the Eurasian Higher Command
\nhad launched its offensive in South India and left North Africa alone. It
\nwas therefore necessary to rewrite a paragraph of Big Brother’s speech, in
\nsuch a way as to make him predict the thing that had actually happened. Or
\nagain, ‘The Times’ of the nineteenth of December had published the official
\nforecasts of the output of various classes of consumption goods in the
\nfourth quarter of 1983, which was also the sixth quarter of the Ninth
\nThree-Year Plan. Today’s issue contained a statement of the actual output,
\nfrom which it appeared that the forecasts were in every instance grossly
\nwrong. Winston’s job was to rectify the original figures by making them
\nagree with the later ones. As for the third message, it referred to a very
\nsimple error which could be set right in a couple of minutes. As short
\na time ago as February, the Ministry of Plenty had issued a promise
\n(a ‘categorical pledge’ were the official words) that there would be
\nno reduction of the chocolate ration during 1984. Actually, as Winston
\nwas aware, the chocolate ration was to be reduced from thirty grammes
\nto twenty at the end of the present week. All that was needed was to
\nsubstitute for the original promise a warning that it would probably be
\nnecessary to reduce the ration at some time in April.<\/p>\n
As soon as Winston had dealt with each of the messages, he clipped his
\nspeakwritten corrections to the appropriate copy of ‘The Times’ and pushed
\nthem into the pneumatic tube. Then, with a movement which was as nearly as
\npossible unconscious, he crumpled up the original message and any notes
\nthat he himself had made, and dropped them into the memory hole to be
\ndevoured by the flames.<\/p>\n
What happened in the unseen labyrinth to which the pneumatic tubes led, he
\ndid not know in detail, but he did know in general terms. As soon as all
\nthe corrections which happened to be necessary in any particular number
\nof ‘The Times’ had been assembled and collated, that number would be
\nreprinted, the original copy destroyed, and the corrected copy placed on
\nthe files in its stead. This process of continuous alteration was applied
\nnot only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters,
\nleaflets, films, sound-tracks, cartoons, photographs–to every kind of
\nliterature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or
\nideological significance. Day by day and almost minute by minute the past
\nwas brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party
\ncould be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct, nor was any
\nitem of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the
\nneeds of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was
\na palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was
\nnecessary. In no case would it have been possible, once the deed was done,
\nto prove that any falsification had taken place. The largest section of
\nthe Records Department, far larger than the one on which Winston worked,
\nconsisted simply of persons whose duty it was to track down and collect all
\ncopies of books, newspapers, and other documents which had been superseded
\nand were due for destruction. A number of ‘The Times’ which might, because
\nof changes in political alignment, or mistaken prophecies uttered by Big
\nBrother, have been rewritten a dozen times still stood on the files bearing
\nits original date, and no other copy existed to contradict it. Books, also,
\nwere recalled and rewritten again and again, and were invariably reissued
\nwithout any admission that any alteration had been made. Even the written
\ninstructions which Winston received, and which he invariably got rid of
\nas soon as he had dealt with them, never stated or implied that an act of
\nforgery was to be committed: always the reference was to slips, errors,
\nmisprints, or misquotations which it was necessary to put right in the
\ninterests of accuracy.<\/p>\n
But actually, he thought as he re-adjusted the Ministry of Plenty’s
\nfigures, it was not even forgery. It was merely the substitution of one
\npiece of nonsense for another. Most of the material that you were dealing
\nwith had no connexion with anything in the real world, not even the kind of
\nconnexion that is contained in a direct lie. Statistics were just as much
\na fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version. A great
\ndeal of the time you were expected to make them up out of your head. For
\nexample, the Ministry of Plenty’s forecast had estimated the output of
\nboots for the quarter at 145 million pairs. The actual output was given as
\nsixty-two millions. Winston, however, in rewriting the forecast, marked
\nthe figure down to fifty-seven millions, so as to allow for the usual claim
\nthat the quota had been overfulfilled. In any case, sixty-two millions was
\nno nearer the truth than fifty-seven millions, or than 145 millions. Very
\nlikely no boots had been produced at all. Likelier still, nobody knew
\nhow many had been produced, much less cared. All one knew was that every
\nquarter astronomical numbers of boots were produced on paper, while perhaps
\nhalf the population of Oceania went barefoot. And so it was with every
\nclass of recorded fact, great or small. Everything faded away into a
\nshadow-world in which, finally, even the date of the year had become
\nuncertain.<\/p>\n
Winston glanced across the hall. In the corresponding cubicle on the other
\nside a small, precise-looking, dark-chinned man named Tillotson was working
\nsteadily away, with a folded newspaper on his knee and his mouth very close
\nto the mouthpiece of the speakwrite. He had the air of trying to keep what
\nhe was saying a secret between himself and the telescreen. He looked up,
\nand his spectacles darted a hostile flash in Winston’s direction.<\/p>\n
Winston hardly knew Tillotson, and had no idea what work he was employed
\non. People in the Records Department did not readily talk about their jobs.
\nIn the long, windowless hall, with its double row of cubicles and its
\nendless rustle of papers and hum of voices murmuring into speakwrites,
\nthere were quite a dozen people whom Winston did not even know by name,
\nthough he daily saw them hurrying to and fro in the corridors or
\ngesticulating in the Two Minutes Hate. He knew that in the cubicle next
\nto him the little woman with sandy hair toiled day in day out, simply at
\ntracking down and deleting from the Press the names of people who had been
\nvaporized and were therefore considered never to have existed. There was a
\ncertain fitness in this, since her own husband had been vaporized a couple
\nof years earlier. And a few cubicles away a mild, ineffectual, dreamy
\ncreature named Ampleforth, with very hairy ears and a surprising talent
\nfor juggling with rhymes and metres, was engaged in producing garbled
\nversions–definitive texts, they were called–of poems which had become
\nideologically offensive, but which for one reason or another were to be
\nretained in the anthologies. And this hall, with its fifty workers or
\nthereabouts, was only one sub-section, a single cell, as it were, in the
\nhuge complexity of the Records Department. Beyond, above, below, were other
\nswarms of workers engaged in an unimaginable multitude of jobs. There were
\nthe huge printing-shops with their sub-editors, their typography experts,
\nand their elaborately equipped studios for the faking of photographs. There
\nwas the tele-programmes section with its engineers, its producers, and its
\nteams of actors specially chosen for their skill in imitating voices. There
\nwere the armies of reference clerks whose job was simply to draw up lists
\nof books and periodicals which were due for recall. There were the vast
\nrepositories where the corrected documents were stored, and the hidden
\nfurnaces where the original copies were destroyed. And somewhere or other,
\nquite anonymous, there were the directing brains who co-ordinated the whole
\neffort and laid down the lines of policy which made it necessary that this
\nfragment of the past should be preserved, that one falsified, and the other
\nrubbed out of existence.<\/p>\n
And the Records Department, after all, was itself only a single branch of
\nthe Ministry of Truth, whose primary job was not to reconstruct the past
\nbut to supply the citizens of Oceania with newspapers, films, textbooks,
\ntelescreen programmes, plays, novels–with every conceivable kind of
\ninformation, instruction, or entertainment, from a statue to a slogan,
\nfrom a lyric poem to a biological treatise, and from a child’s
\nspelling-book to a Newspeak dictionary. And the Ministry had not only to
\nsupply the multifarious needs of the party, but also to repeat the whole
\noperation at a lower level for the benefit of the proletariat. There
\nwas a whole chain of separate departments dealing with proletarian
\nliterature, music, drama, and entertainment generally. Here were produced
\nrubbishy newspapers containing almost nothing except sport, crime and
\nastrology, sensational five-cent novelettes, films oozing with sex, and
\nsentimental songs which were composed entirely by mechanical means on a
\nspecial kind of kaleidoscope known as a versificator. There was even
\na whole sub-section–Pornosec, it was called in Newspeak–engaged in
\nproducing the lowest kind of pornography, which was sent out in sealed
\npackets and which no Party member, other than those who worked on it,
\nwas permitted to look at.<\/p>\n
Three messages had slid out of the pneumatic tube while Winston was
\nworking, but they were simple matters, and he had disposed of them before
\nthe Two Minutes Hate interrupted him. When the Hate was over he returned
\nto his cubicle, took the Newspeak dictionary from the shelf, pushed the
\nspeakwrite to one side, cleaned his spectacles, and settled down to his
\nmain job of the morning.<\/p>\n
Winston’s greatest pleasure in life was in his work. Most of it was a
\ntedious routine, but included in it there were also jobs so difficult and
\nintricate that you could lose yourself in them as in the depths of a
\nmathematical problem–delicate pieces of forgery in which you had nothing
\nto guide you except your knowledge of the principles of Ingsoc and your
\nestimate of what the Party wanted you to say. Winston was good at this kind
\nof thing. On occasion he had even been entrusted with the rectification of
\n‘The Times’ leading articles, which were written entirely in Newspeak.
\nHe unrolled the message that he had set aside earlier. It ran:<\/p>\n
times 3.12.83 reporting bb dayorder doubleplusungood refs unpersons
\nrewrite fullwise upsub antefiling<\/p>\n
In Oldspeak (or standard English) this might be rendered:<\/p>\n
The reporting of Big Brother’s Order for the Day in ‘The Times’ of December
\n3rd 1983 is extremely unsatisfactory and makes references to non-existent
\npersons. Rewrite it in full and submit your draft to higher authority
\nbefore filing.<\/p>\n
Winston read through the offending article. Big Brother’s Order for the
\nDay, it seemed, had been chiefly devoted to praising the work of an
\norganization known as FFCC, which supplied cigarettes and other comforts
\nto the sailors in the Floating Fortresses. A certain Comrade Withers, a
\nprominent member of the Inner Party, had been singled out for special
\nmention and awarded a decoration, the Order of Conspicuous Merit, Second
\nClass.<\/p>\n
Three months later FFCC had suddenly been dissolved with no reasons given.
\nOne could assume that Withers and his associates were now in disgrace, but
\nthere had been no report of the matter in the Press or on the telescreen.
\nThat was to be expected, since it was unusual for political offenders to
\nbe put on trial or even publicly denounced. The great purges involving
\nthousands of people, with public trials of traitors and thought-criminals
\nwho made abject confession of their crimes and were afterwards executed,
\nwere special show-pieces not occurring oftener than once in a couple of
\nyears. More commonly, people who had incurred the displeasure of the
\nParty simply disappeared and were never heard of again. One never had the
\nsmallest clue as to what had happened to them. In some cases they might
\nnot even be dead. Perhaps thirty people personally known to Winston, not
\ncounting his parents, had disappeared at one time or another.<\/p>\n
Winston stroked his nose gently with a paper-clip. In the cubicle
\nacross the way Comrade Tillotson was still crouching secretively over
\nhis speakwrite. He raised his head for a moment: again the hostile
\nspectacle-flash. Winston wondered whether Comrade Tillotson was engaged
\non the same job as himself. It was perfectly possible. So tricky a piece
\nof work would never be entrusted to a single person: on the other hand,
\nto turn it over to a committee would be to admit openly that an act of
\nfabrication was taking place. Very likely as many as a dozen people were
\nnow working away on rival versions of what Big Brother had actually said.
\nAnd presently some master brain in the Inner Party would select this
\nversion or that, would re-edit it and set in motion the complex processes
\nof cross-referencing that would be required, and then the chosen lie
\nwould pass into the permanent records and become truth.<\/p>\n
Winston did not know why Withers had been disgraced. Perhaps it was for
\ncorruption or incompetence. Perhaps Big Brother was merely getting rid of
\na too-popular subordinate. Perhaps Withers or someone close to him had
\nbeen suspected of heretical tendencies. Or perhaps–what was likeliest of
\nall–the thing had simply happened because purges and vaporizations were a
\nnecessary part of the mechanics of government. The only real clue lay in
\nthe words ‘refs unpersons’, which indicated that Withers was already dead.
\nYou could not invariably assume this to be the case when people were
\narrested. Sometimes they were released and allowed to remain at liberty
\nfor as much as a year or two years before being executed. Very occasionally
\nsome person whom you had believed dead long since would make a ghostly
\nreappearance at some public trial where he would implicate hundreds of
\nothers by his testimony before vanishing, this time for ever. Withers,
\nhowever, was already an UNPERSON. He did not exist: he had never existed.
\nWinston decided that it would not be enough simply to reverse the tendency
\nof Big Brother’s speech. It was better to make it deal with something
\ntotally unconnected with its original subject.<\/p>\n
He might turn the speech into the usual denunciation of traitors and
\nthought-criminals, but that was a little too obvious, while to invent a
\nvictory at the front, or some triumph of over-production in the Ninth
\nThree-Year Plan, might complicate the records too much. What was needed
\nwas a piece of pure fantasy. Suddenly there sprang into his mind, ready
\nmade as it were, the image of a certain Comrade Ogilvy, who had recently
\ndied in battle, in heroic circumstances. There were occasions when Big
\nBrother devoted his Order for the Day to commemorating some humble,
\nrank-and-file Party member whose life and death he held up as an example
\nworthy to be followed. Today he should commemorate Comrade Ogilvy. It was
\ntrue that there was no such person as Comrade Ogilvy, but a few lines of
\nprint and a couple of faked photographs would soon bring him into
\nexistence.<\/p>\n
Winston thought for a moment, then pulled the speakwrite towards him and
\nbegan dictating in Big Brother’s familiar style: a style at once military
\nand pedantic, and, because of a trick of asking questions and then
\npromptly answering them (‘What lessons do we learn from this fact,
\ncomrades? The lesson–which is also one of the fundamental principles
\nof Ingsoc–that,’ etc., etc.), easy to imitate.<\/p>\n
At the age of three Comrade Ogilvy had refused all toys except a drum, a
\nsub-machine gun, and a model helicopter. At six–a year early, by a special
\nrelaxation of the rules–he had joined the Spies, at nine he had been a
\ntroop leader. At eleven he had denounced his uncle to the Thought Police
\nafter overhearing a conversation which appeared to him to have criminal
\ntendencies. At seventeen he had been a district organizer of the Junior
\nAnti-Sex League. At nineteen he had designed a hand-grenade which had
\nbeen adopted by the Ministry of Peace and which, at its first trial, had
\nkilled thirty-one Eurasian prisoners in one burst. At twenty-three he had
\nperished in action. Pursued by enemy jet planes while flying over the
\nIndian Ocean with important despatches, he had weighted his body with his
\nmachine gun and leapt out of the helicopter into deep water, despatches
\nand all–an end, said Big Brother, which it was impossible to contemplate
\nwithout feelings of envy. Big Brother added a few remarks on the purity
\nand single-mindedness of Comrade Ogilvy’s life. He was a total abstainer
\nand a nonsmoker, had no recreations except a daily hour in the gymnasium,
\nand had taken a vow of celibacy, believing marriage and the care of a
\nfamily to be incompatible with a twenty-four-hour-a-day devotion to duty.
\nHe had no subjects of conversation except the principles of Ingsoc, and
\nno aim in life except the defeat of the Eurasian enemy and the hunting-down
\nof spies, saboteurs, thought-criminals, and traitors generally.<\/p>\n
Winston debated with himself whether to award Comrade Ogilvy the Order of
\nConspicuous Merit: in the end he decided against it because of the
\nunnecessary cross-referencing that it would entail.<\/p>\n
Once again he glanced at his rival in the opposite cubicle. Something
\nseemed to tell him with certainty that Tillotson was busy on the same job
\nas himself. There was no way of knowing whose job would finally be adopted,
\nbut he felt a profound conviction that it would be his own. Comrade Ogilvy,
\nunimagined an hour ago, was now a fact. It struck him as curious that you
\ncould create dead men but not living ones. Comrade Ogilvy, who had never
\nexisted in the present, now existed in the past, and when once the act of
\nforgery was forgotten, he would exist just as authentically, and upon the
\nsame evidence, as Charlemagne or Julius Caesar.<\/p>\n
Chapter 5<\/p>\n
In the low-ceilinged canteen, deep underground, the lunch queue jerked
\nslowly forward. The room was already very full and deafeningly noisy. From
\nthe grille at the counter the steam of stew came pouring forth, with a sour
\nmetallic smell which did not quite overcome the fumes of Victory Gin. On
\nthe far side of the room there was a small bar, a mere hole in the wall,
\nwhere gin could be bought at ten cents the large nip.<\/p>\n
‘Just the man I was looking for,’ said a voice at Winston’s back.<\/p>\n
He turned round. It was his friend Syme, who worked in the Research
\nDepartment. Perhaps ‘friend’ was not exactly the right word. You did not
\nhave friends nowadays, you had comrades: but there were some comrades whose
\nsociety was pleasanter than that of others. Syme was a philologist, a
\nspecialist in Newspeak. Indeed, he was one of the enormous team of experts
\nnow engaged in compiling the Eleventh Edition of the Newspeak Dictionary.
\nHe was a tiny creature, smaller than Winston, with dark hair and large,
\nprotuberant eyes, at once mournful and derisive, which seemed to search
\nyour face closely while he was speaking to you.<\/p>\n
‘I wanted to ask you whether you’d got any razor blades,’ he said.<\/p>\n
‘Not one!’ said Winston with a sort of guilty haste. ‘I’ve tried all over
\nthe place. They don’t exist any longer.’<\/p>\n
Everyone kept asking you for razor blades. Actually he had two unused ones
\nwhich he was hoarding up. There had been a famine of them for months past.
\nAt any given moment there was some necessary article which the Party shops
\nwere unable to supply. Sometimes it was buttons, sometimes it was darning
\nwool, sometimes it was shoelaces; at present it was razor blades. You could
\nonly get hold of them, if at all, by scrounging more or less furtively on
\nthe ‘free’ market.<\/p>\n
‘I’ve been using the same blade for six weeks,’ he added untruthfully.<\/p>\n
The queue gave another jerk forward. As they halted he turned and faced
\nSyme again. Each of them took a greasy metal tray from a pile at the end
\nof the counter.<\/p>\n
‘Did you go and see the prisoners hanged yesterday?’ said Syme.<\/p>\n
‘I was working,’ said Winston indifferently. ‘I shall see it on the
\nflicks, I suppose.’<\/p>\n
‘A very inadequate substitute,’ said Syme.<\/p>\n
His mocking eyes roved over Winston’s face. ‘I know you,’ the eyes seemed
\nto say, ‘I see through you. I know very well why you didn’t go to see
\nthose prisoners hanged.’ In an intellectual way, Syme was venomously
\northodox. He would talk with a disagreeable gloating satisfaction of
\nhelicopter raids on enemy villages, and trials and confessions of
\nthought-criminals, the executions in the cellars of the Ministry of Love.
\nTalking to him was largely a matter of getting him away from such subjects
\nand entangling him, if possible, in the technicalities of Newspeak, on
\nwhich he was authoritative and interesting. Winston turned his head a
\nlittle aside to avoid the scrutiny of the large dark eyes.<\/p>\n
‘It was a good hanging,’ said Syme reminiscently. ‘I think it spoils it
\nwhen they tie their feet together. I like to see them kicking. And above
\nall, at the end, the tongue sticking right out, and blue–a quite bright
\nblue. That’s the detail that appeals to me.’<\/p>\n
‘Nex’, please!’ yelled the white-aproned prole with the ladle.<\/p>\n
Winston and Syme pushed their trays beneath the grille. On to each was
\ndumped swiftly the regulation lunch–a metal pannikin of pinkish-grey stew,
\na hunk of bread, a cube of cheese, a mug of milkless Victory Coffee, and
\none saccharine tablet.<\/p>\n
‘There’s a table over there, under that telescreen,’ said Syme. ‘Let’s pick
\nup a gin on the way.’<\/p>\n
The gin was served out to them in handleless china mugs. They threaded
\ntheir way across the crowded room and unpacked their trays on to the
\nmetal-topped table, on one corner of which someone had left a pool of stew,
\na filthy liquid mess that had the appearance of vomit. Winston took up his
\nmug of gin, paused for an instant to collect his nerve, and gulped the
\noily-tasting stuff down. When he had winked the tears out of his eyes he
\nsuddenly discovered that he was hungry. He began swallowing spoonfuls of
\nthe stew, which, in among its general sloppiness, had cubes of spongy
\npinkish stuff which was probably a preparation of meat. Neither of them
\nspoke again till they had emptied their pannikins. From the table at
\nWinston’s left, a little behind his back, someone was talking rapidly and
\ncontinuously, a harsh gabble almost like the quacking of a duck, which
\npierced the general uproar of the room.<\/p>\n
‘How is the Dictionary getting on?’ said Winston, raising his voice to
\novercome the noise.<\/p>\n
‘Slowly,’ said Syme. ‘I’m on the adjectives. It’s fascinating.’<\/p>\n
He had brightened up immediately at the mention of Newspeak. He pushed his
\npannikin aside, took up his hunk of bread in one delicate hand and his
\ncheese in the other, and leaned across the table so as to be able to speak
\nwithout shouting.<\/p>\n
‘The Eleventh Edition is the definitive edition,’ he said. ‘We’re getting
\nthe language into its final shape–the shape it’s going to have when nobody
\nspeaks anything else. When we’ve finished with it, people like you will
\nhave to learn it all over again. You think, I dare say, that our chief job
\nis inventing new words. But not a bit of it! We’re destroying words–scores
\nof them, hundreds of them, every day. We’re cutting the language down to
\nthe bone. The Eleventh Edition won’t contain a single word that will become
\nobsolete before the year 2050.’<\/p>\n
He bit hungrily into his bread and swallowed a couple of mouthfuls, then
\ncontinued speaking, with a sort of pedant’s passion. His thin dark face
\nhad become animated, his eyes had lost their mocking expression and grown
\nalmost dreamy.<\/p>\n
‘It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course the great
\nwastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns
\nthat can be got rid of as well. It isn’t only the synonyms; there are also
\nthe antonyms. After all, what justification is there for a word which is
\nsimply the opposite of some other word? A word contains its opposite in
\nitself. Take “good”, for instance. If you have a word like “good”, what
\nneed is there for a word like “bad”? “Ungood” will do just as well–better,
\nbecause it’s an exact opposite, which the other is not. Or again, if you
\nwant a stronger version of “good”, what sense is there in having a whole
\nstring of vague useless words like “excellent” and “splendid” and all the
\nrest of them? “Plusgood” covers the meaning, or “doubleplusgood” if you
\nwant something stronger still. Of course we use those forms already. but
\nin the final version of Newspeak there’ll be nothing else. In the end the
\nwhole notion of goodness and badness will be covered by only six words–in
\nreality, only one word. Don’t you see the beauty of that, Winston? It was
\nB.B.’s idea originally, of course,’ he added as an afterthought.<\/p>\n
A sort of vapid eagerness flitted across Winston’s face at the mention of
\nBig Brother. Nevertheless Syme immediately detected a certain lack of
\nenthusiasm.<\/p>\n
‘You haven’t a real appreciation of Newspeak, Winston,’ he said almost
\nsadly. ‘Even when you write it you’re still thinking in Oldspeak. I’ve read
\nsome of those pieces that you write in “The Times” occasionally. They’re
\ngood enough, but they’re translations. In your heart you’d prefer to stick
\nto Oldspeak, with all its vagueness and its useless shades of meaning.
\nYou don’t grasp the beauty of the destruction of words. Do you know that
\nNewspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller
\nevery year?’<\/p>\n
Winston did know that, of course. He smiled, sympathetically he hoped, not
\ntrusting himself to speak. Syme bit off another fragment of the
\ndark-coloured bread, chewed it briefly, and went on:<\/p>\n
‘Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of
\nthought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible,
\nbecause there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that
\ncan ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning
\nrigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten.
\nAlready, in the Eleventh Edition, we’re not far from that point. But the
\nprocess will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year
\nfewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little
\nsmaller. Even now, of course, there’s no reason or excuse for committing
\nthoughtcrime. It’s merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control.
\nBut in the end there won’t be any need even for that. The Revolution will
\nbe complete when the language is perfect. Newspeak is Ingsoc and Ingsoc
\nis Newspeak,’ he added with a sort of mystical satisfaction. ‘Has it ever
\noccurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a
\nsingle human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation
\nas we are having now?’<\/p>\n
‘Except—-‘ began Winston doubtfully, and he stopped.<\/p>\n
It had been on the tip of his tongue to say ‘Except the proles,’ but he
\nchecked himself, not feeling fully certain that this remark was not in
\nsome way unorthodox. Syme, however, had divined what he was about to say.<\/p>\n
‘The proles are not human beings,’ he said carelessly. ‘By 2050–earlier,
\nprobably–all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared. The whole
\nliterature of the past will have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare,
\nMilton, Byron–they’ll exist only in Newspeak versions, not merely changed
\ninto something different, but actually changed into something contradictory
\nof what they used to be. Even the literature of the Party will change.
\nEven the slogans will change. How could you have a slogan like “freedom is
\nslavery” when the concept of freedom has been abolished? The whole climate
\nof thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we
\nunderstand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking–not needing to think.
\nOrthodoxy is unconsciousness.’<\/p>\n
One of these days, thought Winston with sudden deep conviction, Syme will
\nbe vaporized. He is too intelligent. He sees too clearly and speaks too
\nplainly. The Party does not like such people. One day he will disappear.
\nIt is written in his face.<\/p>\n
Winston had finished his bread and cheese. He turned a little sideways
\nin his chair to drink his mug of coffee. At the table on his left the man
\nwith the strident voice was still talking remorselessly away. A young
\nwoman who was perhaps his secretary, and who was sitting with her back
\nto Winston, was listening to him and seemed to be eagerly agreeing with
\neverything that he said. From time to time Winston caught some such remark
\nas ‘I think you’re so right, I do so agree with you’, uttered in a youthful
\nand rather silly feminine voice. But the other voice never stopped for an
\ninstant, even when the girl was speaking. Winston knew the man by sight,
\nthough he knew no more about him than that he held some important post
\nin the Fiction Department. He was a man of about thirty, with a muscular
\nthroat and a large, mobile mouth. His head was thrown back a little, and
\nbecause of the angle at which he was sitting, his spectacles caught the
\nlight and presented to Winston two blank discs instead of eyes. What was
\nslightly horrible, was that from the stream of sound that poured out of
\nhis mouth it was almost impossible to distinguish a single word. Just
\nonce Winston caught a phrase–‘complete and final elimination of
\nGoldsteinism’–jerked out very rapidly and, as it seemed, all in one piece,
\nlike a line of type cast solid. For the rest it was just a noise, a
\nquack-quack-quacking. And yet, though you could not actually hear what the
\nman was saying, you could not be in any doubt about its general nature.
\nHe might be denouncing Goldstein and demanding sterner measures against
\nthought-criminals and saboteurs, he might be fulminating against the
\natrocities of the Eurasian army, he might be praising Big Brother or the
\nheroes on the Malabar front–it made no difference. Whatever it was, you
\ncould be certain that every word of it was pure orthodoxy, pure Ingsoc.
\nAs he watched the eyeless face with the jaw moving rapidly up and down,
\nWinston had a curious feeling that this was not a real human being but
\nsome kind of dummy. It was not the man’s brain that was speaking, it was
\nhis larynx. The stuff that was coming out of him consisted of words, but
\nit was not speech in the true sense: it was a noise uttered in
\nunconsciousness, like the quacking of a duck.<\/p>\n
Syme had fallen silent for a moment, and with the handle of his spoon was
\ntracing patterns in the puddle of stew. The voice from the other table
\nquacked rapidly on, easily audible in spite of the surrounding din.<\/p>\n
‘There is a word in Newspeak,’ said Syme, ‘I don’t know whether you know
\nit: DUCKSPEAK, to quack like a duck. It is one of those interesting words
\nthat have two contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it is abuse,
\napplied to someone you agree with, it is praise.’<\/p>\n
Unquestionably Syme will be vaporized, Winston thought again. He thought
\nit with a kind of sadness, although well knowing that Syme despised him
\nand slightly disliked him, and was fully capable of denouncing him as a
\nthought-criminal if he saw any reason for doing so. There was something
\nsubtly wrong with Syme. There was something that he lacked: discretion,
\naloofness, a sort of saving stupidity. You could not say that he was
\nunorthodox. He believed in the principles of Ingsoc, he venerated Big
\nBrother, he rejoiced over victories, he hated heretics, not merely with
\nsincerity but with a sort of restless zeal, an up-to-dateness of
\ninformation, which the ordinary Party member did not approach. Yet a faint
\nair of disreputability always clung to him. He said things that would have
\nbeen better unsaid, he had read too many books, he frequented the Chestnut
\nTree Cafe, haunt of painters and musicians. There was no law, not even an
\nunwritten law, against frequenting the Chestnut Tree Cafe, yet the place
\nwas somehow ill-omened. The old, discredited leaders of the Party had been
\nused to gather there before they were finally purged. Goldstein himself,
\nit was said, had sometimes been seen there, years and decades ago. Syme’s
\nfate was not difficult to foresee. And yet it was a fact that if Syme
\ngrasped, even for three seconds, the nature of his, Winston’s, secret
\nopinions, he would betray him instantly to the Thought Police. So would
\nanybody else, for that matter: but Syme more than most. Zeal was not
\nenough. Orthodoxy was unconsciousness.<\/p>\n
Syme looked up. ‘Here comes Parsons,’ he said.<\/p>\n
Something in the tone of his voice seemed to add, ‘that bloody fool’.
\nParsons, Winston’s fellow-tenant at Victory Mansions, was in fact threading
\nhis way across the room–a tubby, middle-sized man with fair hair and a
\nfroglike face. At thirty-five he was already putting on rolls of fat at
\nneck and waistline, but his movements were brisk and boyish. His whole
\nappearance was that of a little boy grown large, so much so that although
\nhe was wearing the regulation overalls, it was almost impossible not to
\nthink of him as being dressed in the blue shorts, grey shirt, and red
\nneckerchief of the Spies. In visualizing him one saw always a picture of
\ndimpled knees and sleeves rolled back from pudgy forearms. Parsons did,
\nindeed, invariably revert to shorts when a community hike or any other
\nphysical activity gave him an excuse for doing so. He greeted them both
\nwith a cheery ‘Hullo, hullo!’ and sat down at the table, giving off an
\nintense smell of sweat. Beads of moisture stood out all over his pink face.
\nHis powers of sweating were extraordinary. At the Community Centre you
\ncould always tell when he had been playing table-tennis by the dampness of
\nthe bat handle. Syme had produced a strip of paper on which there was a
\nlong column of words, and was studying it with an ink-pencil between his
\nfingers.<\/p>\n
‘Look at him working away in the lunch hour,’ said Parsons, nudging
\nWinston. ‘Keenness, eh? What’s that you’ve got there, old boy? Something
\na bit too brainy for me, I expect. Smith, old boy, I’ll tell you why I’m
\nchasing you. It’s that sub you forgot to give me.’<\/p>\n
‘Which sub is that?’ said Winston, automatically feeling for money. About
\na quarter of one’s salary had to be earmarked for voluntary subscriptions,
\nwhich were so numerous that it was difficult to keep track of them.<\/p>\n
‘For Hate Week. You know–the house-by-house fund. I’m treasurer for our
\nblock. We’re making an all-out effort–going to put on a tremendous show.
\nI tell you, it won’t be my fault if old Victory Mansions doesn’t have the
\nbiggest outfit of flags in the whole street. Two dollars you promised me.’<\/p>\n
Winston found and handed over two creased and filthy notes, which Parsons
\nentered in a small notebook, in the neat handwriting of the illiterate.<\/p>\n
‘By the way, old boy,’ he said. ‘I hear that little beggar of mine let fly
\nat you with his catapult yesterday. I gave him a good dressing-down for it.
\nIn fact I told him I’d take the catapult away if he does it again.’<\/p>\n
‘I think he was a little upset at not going to the execution,’ said
\nWinston.<\/p>\n
‘Ah, well–what I mean to say, shows the right spirit, doesn’t it?
\nMischievous little beggars they are, both of them, but talk about keenness!
\nAll they think about is the Spies, and the war, of course. D’you know what
\nthat little girl of mine did last Saturday, when her troop was on a hike
\nout Berkhamsted way? She got two other girls to go with her, slipped off
\nfrom the hike, and spent the whole afternoon following a strange man. They
\nkept on his tail for two hours, right through the woods, and then, when
\nthey got into Amersham, handed him over to the patrols.’<\/p>\n
‘What did they do that for?’ said Winston, somewhat taken aback. Parsons
\nwent on triumphantly:<\/p>\n
‘My kid made sure he was some kind of enemy agent–might have been dropped
\nby parachute, for instance. But here’s the point, old boy. What do you
\nthink put her on to him in the first place? She spotted he was wearing a
\nfunny kind of shoes–said she’d never seen anyone wearing shoes like that
\nbefore. So the chances were he was a foreigner. Pretty smart for a nipper
\nof seven, eh?’<\/p>\n
‘What happened to the man?’ said Winston.<\/p>\n
‘Ah, that I couldn’t say, of course. But I wouldn’t be altogether surprised
\nif—-‘ Parsons made the motion of aiming a rifle, and clicked his tongue
\nfor the explosion.<\/p>\n
‘Good,’ said Syme abstractedly, without looking up from his strip of paper.<\/p>\n
‘Of course we can’t afford to take chances,’ agreed Winston dutifully.<\/p>\n
‘What I mean to say, there is a war on,’ said Parsons.<\/p>\n
As though in confirmation of this, a trumpet call floated from the
\ntelescreen just above their heads. However, it was not the proclamation of
\na military victory this time, but merely an announcement from the Ministry
\nof Plenty.<\/p>\n
‘Comrades!’ cried an eager youthful voice. ‘Attention, comrades! We have
\nglorious news for you. We have won the battle for production! Returns now
\ncompleted of the output of all classes of consumption goods show that the
\nstandard of living has risen by no less than 20 per cent over the past
\nyear. All over Oceania this morning there were irrepressible spontaneous
\ndemonstrations when workers marched out of factories and offices and
\nparaded through the streets with banners voicing their gratitude to Big
\nBrother for the new, happy life which his wise leadership has bestowed
\nupon us. Here are some of the completed figures. Foodstuffs—-‘<\/p>\n
The phrase ‘our new, happy life’ recurred several times. It had been a
\nfavourite of late with the Ministry of Plenty. Parsons, his attention
\ncaught by the trumpet call, sat listening with a sort of gaping solemnity,
\na sort of edified boredom. He could not follow the figures, but he was
\naware that they were in some way a cause for satisfaction. He had lugged
\nout a huge and filthy pipe which was already half full of charred tobacco.
\nWith the tobacco ration at 100 grammes a week it was seldom possible to
\nfill a pipe to the top. Winston was smoking a Victory Cigarette which he
\nheld carefully horizontal. The new ration did not start till tomorrow and
\nhe had only four cigarettes left. For the moment he had shut his ears to
\nthe remoter noises and was listening to the stuff that streamed out of the
\ntelescreen. It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank
\nBig Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grammes a week. And
\nonly yesterday, he reflected, it had been announced that the ration was
\nto be REDUCED to twenty grammes a week. Was it possible that they could
\nswallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it. Parsons
\nswallowed it easily, with the stupidity of an animal. The eyeless creature
\nat the other table swallowed it fanatically, passionately, with a furious
\ndesire to track down, denounce, and vaporize anyone who should suggest that
\nlast week the ration had been thirty grammes. Syme, too–in some more
\ncomplex way, involving doublethink, Syme swallowed it. Was he, then, ALONE
\nin the possession of a memory?<\/p>\n
The fabulous statistics continued to pour out of the telescreen. As
\ncompared with last year there was more food, more clothes, more houses,
\nmore furniture, more cooking-pots, more fuel, more ships, more helicopters,
\nmore books, more babies–more of everything except disease, crime, and
\ninsanity. Year by year and minute by minute, everybody and everything was
\nwhizzing rapidly upwards. As Syme had done earlier Winston had taken up
\nhis spoon and was dabbling in the pale-coloured gravy that dribbled across
\nthe table, drawing a long streak of it out into a pattern. He meditated
\nresentfully on the physical texture of life. Had it always been like
\nthis? Had food always tasted like this? He looked round the canteen.
\nA low-ceilinged, crowded room, its walls grimy from the contact of
\ninnumerable bodies; battered metal tables and chairs, placed so close
\ntogether that you sat with elbows touching; bent spoons, dented trays,
\ncoarse white mugs; all surfaces greasy, grime in every crack; and a
\nsourish, composite smell of bad gin and bad coffee and metallic stew and
\ndirty clothes. Always in your stomach and in your skin there was a sort
\nof protest, a feeling that you had been cheated of something that you had
\na right to. It was true that he had no memories of anything greatly
\ndifferent. In any time that he could accurately remember, there had never
\nbeen quite enough to eat, one had never had socks or underclothes that
\nwere not full of holes, furniture had always been battered and rickety,
\nrooms underheated, tube trains crowded, houses falling to pieces,
\nbread dark-coloured, tea a rarity, coffee filthy-tasting, cigarettes
\ninsufficient–nothing cheap and plentiful except synthetic gin. And though,
\nof course, it grew worse as one’s body aged, was it not a sign that this
\nwas NOT the natural order of things, if one’s heart sickened at the
\ndiscomfort and dirt and scarcity, the interminable winters, the stickiness
\nof one’s socks, the lifts that never worked, the cold water, the gritty
\nsoap, the cigarettes that came to pieces, the food with its strange evil
\ntastes? Why should one feel it to be intolerable unless one had some kind
\nof ancestral memory that things had once been different?<\/p>\n
He looked round the canteen again. Nearly everyone was ugly, and would
\nstill have been ugly even if dressed otherwise than in the uniform blue
\noveralls. On the far side of the room, sitting at a table alone, a small,
\ncuriously beetle-like man was drinking a cup of coffee, his little eyes
\ndarting suspicious glances from side to side. How easy it was, thought
\nWinston, if you did not look about you, to believe that the physical type
\nset up by the Party as an ideal–tall muscular youths and deep-bosomed
\nmaidens, blond-haired, vital, sunburnt, carefree–existed and even
\npredominated. Actually, so far as he could judge, the majority of people
\nin Airstrip One were small, dark, and ill-favoured. It was curious how that
\nbeetle-like type proliferated in the Ministries: little dumpy men, growing
\nstout very early in life, with short legs, swift scuttling movements, and
\nfat inscrutable faces with very small eyes. It was the type that seemed to
\nflourish best under the dominion of the Party.<\/p>\n
The announcement from the Ministry of Plenty ended on another trumpet call
\nand gave way to tinny music. Parsons, stirred to vague enthusiasm by the
\nbombardment of figures, took his pipe out of his mouth.<\/p>\n
‘The Ministry of Plenty’s certainly done a good job this year,’ he said
\nwith a knowing shake of his head. ‘By the way, Smith old boy, I suppose
\nyou haven’t got any razor blades you can let me have?’<\/p>\n
‘Not one,’ said Winston. ‘I’ve been using the same blade for six weeks
\nmyself.’<\/p>\n
‘Ah, well–just thought I’d ask you, old boy.’<\/p>\n
‘Sorry,’ said Winston.<\/p>\n
The quacking voice from the next table, temporarily silenced during the
\nMinistry’s announcement, had started up again, as loud as ever. For some
\nreason Winston suddenly found himself thinking of Mrs Parsons, with her
\nwispy hair and the dust in the creases of her face. Within two years those
\nchildren would be denouncing her to the Thought Police. Mrs Parsons would
\nbe vaporized. Syme would be vaporized. Winston would be vaporized. O’Brien
\nwould be vaporized. Parsons, on the other hand, would never be vaporized.
\nThe eyeless creature with the quacking voice would never be vaporized.
\nThe little beetle-like men who scuttle so nimbly through the labyrinthine
\ncorridors of Ministries they, too, would never be vaporized. And the girl
\nwith dark hair, the girl from the Fiction Department–she would never be
\nvaporized either. It seemed to him that he knew instinctively who would
\nsurvive and who would perish: though just what it was that made for
\nsurvival, it was not easy to say.<\/p>\n
At this moment he was dragged out of his reverie with a violent jerk. The
\ngirl at the next table had turned partly round and was looking at him. It
\nwas the girl with dark hair. She was looking at him in a sidelong way, but
\nwith curious intensity. The instant she caught his eye she looked away
\nagain.<\/p>\n
The sweat started out on Winston’s backbone. A horrible pang of terror
\nwent through him. It was gone almost at once, but it left a sort of nagging
\nuneasiness behind. Why was she watching him? Why did she keep following him
\nabout? Unfortunately he could not remember whether she had already been at
\nthe table when he arrived, or had come there afterwards. But yesterday, at
\nany rate, during the Two Minutes Hate, she had sat immediately behind him
\nwhen there was no apparent need to do so. Quite likely her real object had
\nbeen to listen to him and make sure whether he was shouting loudly enough.<\/p>\n
His earlier thought returned to him: probably she was not actually a member
\nof the Thought Police, but then it was precisely the amateur spy who was
\nthe greatest danger of all. He did not know how long she had been looking
\nat him, but perhaps for as much as five minutes, and it was possible
\nthat his features had not been perfectly under control. It was terribly
\ndangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place
\nor within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away.
\nA nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to
\nyourself–anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of
\nhaving something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on
\nyour face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example)
\nwas itself a punishable offence. There was even a word for it in Newspeak:
\nFACECRIME, it was called.<\/p>\n
The girl had turned her back on him again. Perhaps after all she was not
\nreally following him about, perhaps it was coincidence that she had sat so
\nclose to him two days running. His cigarette had gone out, and he laid it
\ncarefully on the edge of the table. He would finish smoking it after work,
\nif he could keep the tobacco in it. Quite likely the person at the next
\ntable was a spy of the Thought Police, and quite likely he would be in the
\ncellars of the Ministry of Love within three days, but a cigarette end
\nmust not be wasted. Syme had folded up his strip of paper and stowed it
\naway in his pocket. Parsons had begun talking again.<\/p>\n
‘Did I ever tell you, old boy,’ he said, chuckling round the stem of his
\npipe, ‘about the time when those two nippers of mine set fire to the old
\nmarket-woman’s skirt because they saw her wrapping up sausages in a poster
\nof B.B.? Sneaked up behind her and set fire to it with a box of matches.
\nBurned her quite badly, I believe. Little beggars, eh? But keen as mustard!
\nThat’s a first-rate training they give them in the Spies nowadays–better
\nthan in my day, even. What d’you think’s the latest thing they’ve served
\nthem out with? Ear trumpets for listening through keyholes! My little
\ngirl brought one home the other night–tried it out on our sitting-room
\ndoor, and reckoned she could hear twice as much as with her ear to the
\nhole. Of course it’s only a toy, mind you. Still, gives ’em the right
\nidea, eh?’<\/p>\n
At this moment the telescreen let out a piercing whistle. It was the
\nsignal to return to work. All three men sprang to their feet to join in
\nthe struggle round the lifts, and the remaining tobacco fell out of
\nWinston’s cigarette.<\/p>\n
Chapter 6<\/p>\n
Winston was writing in his diary:<\/p>\n
It was three years ago. It was on a dark evening, in a narrow
\nside-street near one of the big railway stations. She was standing near a
\ndoorway in the wall, under a street lamp that hardly gave any light. She
\nhad a young face, painted very thick. It was really the paint that appealed
\nto me, the whiteness of it, like a mask, and the bright red lips. Party
\nwomen never paint their faces. There was nobody else in the street, and no
\ntelescreens. She said two dollars. I—-<\/p>\n
For the moment it was too difficult to go on. He shut his eyes and pressed
\nhis fingers against them, trying to squeeze out the vision that kept
\nrecurring. He had an almost overwhelming temptation to shout a string of
\nfilthy words at the top of his voice. Or to bang his head against the wall,
\nto kick over the table, and hurl the inkpot through the window–to do any
\nviolent or noisy or painful thing that might black out the memory that was
\ntormenting him.<\/p>\n
Your worst enemy, he reflected, was your own nervous system. At any moment
\nthe tension inside you was liable to translate itself into some visible
\nsymptom. He thought of a man whom he had passed in the street a few weeks
\nback; a quite ordinary-looking man, a Party member, aged thirty-five to
\nforty, tallish and thin, carrying a brief-case. They were a few metres
\napart when the left side of the man’s face was suddenly contorted by a sort
\nof spasm. It happened again just as they were passing one another: it was
\nonly a twitch, a quiver, rapid as the clicking of a camera shutter, but
\nobviously habitual. He remembered thinking at the time: That poor devil is
\ndone for. And what was frightening was that the action was quite possibly
\nunconscious. The most deadly danger of all was talking in your sleep. There
\nwas no way of guarding against that, so far as he could see.<\/p>\n
He drew his breath and went on writing:<\/p>\n
I went with her through the doorway and across a backyard into a
\nbasement kitchen. There was a bed against the wall, and a lamp on the
\ntable, turned down very low. She—-<\/p>\n
His teeth were set on edge. He would have liked to spit. Simultaneously
\nwith the woman in the basement kitchen he thought of Katharine, his wife.
\nWinston was married–had been married, at any rate: probably he still was
\nmarried, so far as he knew his wife was not dead. He seemed to breathe
\nagain the warm stuffy odour of the basement kitchen, an odour compounded
\nof bugs and dirty clothes and villainous cheap scent, but nevertheless
\nalluring, because no woman of the Party ever used scent, or could be
\nimagined as doing so. Only the proles used scent. In his mind the smell
\nof it was inextricably mixed up with fornication.<\/p>\n
When he had gone with that woman it had been his first lapse in two years
\nor thereabouts. Consorting with prostitutes was forbidden, of course, but
\nit was one of those rules that you could occasionally nerve yourself to
\nbreak. It was dangerous, but it was not a life-and-death matter. To be
\ncaught with a prostitute might mean five years in a forced-labour camp:
\nnot more, if you had committed no other offence. And it was easy enough,
\nprovided that you could avoid being caught in the act. The poorer quarters
\nswarmed with women who were ready to sell themselves. Some could even be
\npurchased for a bottle of gin, which the proles were not supposed to drink.
\nTacitly the Party was even inclined to encourage prostitution, as an outlet
\nfor instincts which could not be altogether suppressed. Mere debauchery
\ndid not matter very much, so long as it was furtive and joyless and only
\ninvolved the women of a submerged and despised class. The unforgivable
\ncrime was promiscuity between Party members. But–though this was one
\nof the crimes that the accused in the great purges invariably confessed
\nto–it was difficult to imagine any such thing actually happening.<\/p>\n
The aim of the Party was not merely to prevent men and women from forming
\nloyalties which it might not be able to control. Its real, undeclared
\npurpose was to remove all pleasure from the sexual act. Not love so much
\nas eroticism was the enemy, inside marriage as well as outside it. All
\nmarriages between Party members had to be approved by a committee
\nappointed for the purpose, and–though the principle was never clearly
\nstated–permission was always refused if the couple concerned gave
\nthe impression of being physically attracted to one another. The only
\nrecognized purpose of marriage was to beget children for the service of
\nthe Party. Sexual intercourse was to be looked on as a slightly disgusting
\nminor operation, like having an enema. This again was never put into plain
\nwords, but in an indirect way it was rubbed into every Party member from
\nchildhood onwards. There were even organizations such as the Junior
\nAnti-Sex League, which advocated complete celibacy for both sexes. All
\nchildren were to be begotten by artificial insemination (ARTSEM, it was
\ncalled in Newspeak) and brought up in public institutions. This, Winston
\nwas aware, was not meant altogether seriously, but somehow it fitted in
\nwith the general ideology of the Party. The Party was trying to kill the
\nsex instinct, or, if it could not be killed, then to distort it and dirty
\nit. He did not know why this was so, but it seemed natural that it should
\nbe so. And as far as the women were concerned, the Party’s efforts were
\nlargely successful.<\/p>\n
He thought again of Katharine. It must be nine, ten–nearly eleven years
\nsince they had parted. It was curious how seldom he thought of her. For
\ndays at a time he was capable of forgetting that he had ever been married.
\nThey had only been together for about fifteen months. The Party did not
\npermit divorce, but it rather encouraged separation in cases where there
\nwere no children.<\/p>\n
Katharine was a tall, fair-haired girl, very straight, with splendid
\nmovements. She had a bold, aquiline face, a face that one might have called
\nnoble until one discovered that there was as nearly as possible nothing
\nbehind it. Very early in her married life he had decided–though perhaps
\nit was only that he knew her more intimately than he knew most people–that
\nshe had without exception the most stupid, vulgar, empty mind that he had
\never encountered. She had not a thought in her head that was not a slogan,
\nand there was no imbecility, absolutely none that she was not capable of
\nswallowing if the Party handed it out to her. ‘The human sound-track’ he
\nnicknamed her in his own mind. Yet he could have endured living with her
\nif it had not been for just one thing–sex.<\/p>\n
As soon as he touched her she seemed to wince and stiffen. To embrace her
\nwas like embracing a jointed wooden image. And what was strange was that
\neven when she was clasping him against her he had the feeling that she
\nwas simultaneously pushing him away with all her strength. The rigidity
\nof her muscles managed to convey that impression. She would lie there
\nwith shut eyes, neither resisting nor co-operating but SUBMITTING. It was
\nextraordinarily embarrassing, and, after a while, horrible. But even then
\nhe could have borne living with her if it had been agreed that they should
\nremain celibate. But curiously enough it was Katharine who refused this.
\nThey must, she said, produce a child if they could. So the performance
\ncontinued to happen, once a week quite regularly, whenever it was not
\nimpossible. She even used to remind him of it in the morning, as something
\nwhich had to be done that evening and which must not be forgotten. She had
\ntwo names for it. One was ‘making a baby’, and the other was ‘our duty to
\nthe Party’ (yes, she had actually used that phrase). Quite soon he grew to
\nhave a feeling of positive dread when the appointed day came round. But
\nluckily no child appeared, and in the end she agreed to give up trying,
\nand soon afterwards they parted.<\/p>\n
Winston sighed inaudibly. He picked up his pen again and
\nwrote:<\/p>\n
She threw herself down on the bed, and at once, without any kind of
\npreliminary in the most coarse, horrible way you can imagine, pulled up
\nher skirt. I—-<\/p>\n
He saw himself standing there in the dim lamplight, with the smell of bugs
\nand cheap scent in his nostrils, and in his heart a feeling of defeat and
\nresentment which even at that moment was mixed up with the thought of
\nKatharine’s white body, frozen for ever by the hypnotic power of the Party.
\nWhy did it always have to be like this? Why could he not have a woman of
\nhis own instead of these filthy scuffles at intervals of years? But a real
\nlove affair was an almost unthinkable event. The women of the Party were
\nall alike. Chastity was as deep ingrained in them as Party loyalty. By
\ncareful early conditioning, by games and cold water, by the rubbish that
\nwas dinned into them at school and in the Spies and the Youth League, by
\nlectures, parades, songs, slogans, and martial music, the natural feeling
\nhad been driven out of them. His reason told him that there must be
\nexceptions, but his heart did not believe it. They were all impregnable,
\nas the Party intended that they should be. And what he wanted, more even
\nthan to be loved, was to break down that wall of virtue, even if it were
\nonly once in his whole life. The sexual act, successfully performed, was
\nrebellion. Desire was thoughtcrime. Even to have awakened Katharine, if he
\ncould have achieved it, would have been like a seduction, although she was
\nhis wife.<\/p>\n
But the rest of the story had got to be written down. He wrote:<\/p>\n
I turned up the lamp. When I saw her in the light—-<\/p>\n
After the darkness the feeble light of the paraffin lamp had seemed very
\nbright. For the first time he could see the woman properly. He had taken a
\nstep towards her and then halted, full of lust and terror. He was painfully
\nconscious of the risk he had taken in coming here. It was perfectly
\npossible that the patrols would catch him on the way out: for that matter
\nthey might be waiting outside the door at this moment. If he went away
\nwithout even doing what he had come here to do—-!<\/p>\n
It had got to be written down, it had got to be confessed. What he had
\nsuddenly seen in the lamplight was that the woman was OLD. The paint was
\nplastered so thick on her face that it looked as though it might crack
\nlike a cardboard mask. There were streaks of white in her hair; but the
\ntruly dreadful detail was that her mouth had fallen a little open,
\nrevealing nothing except a cavernous blackness. She had no teeth at all.<\/p>\n
He wrote hurriedly, in scrabbling handwriting:<\/p>\n
When I saw her in the light she was quite an old woman, fifty years old
\nat least. But I went ahead and did it just the same.<\/p>\n
He pressed his fingers against his eyelids again. He had written it down
\nat last, but it made no difference. The therapy had not worked. The urge
\nto shout filthy words at the top of his voice was as strong as ever.<\/p>\n
Chapter 7<\/p>\n
‘If there is hope,’ wrote Winston, ‘it lies in the proles.’<\/p>\n
If there was hope, it MUST lie in the proles, because only there in those
\nswarming disregarded masses, 85 per cent of the population of Oceania,
\ncould the force to destroy the Party ever be generated. The Party could
\nnot be overthrown from within. Its enemies, if it had any enemies, had
\nno way of coming together or even of identifying one another. Even if
\nthe legendary Brotherhood existed, as just possibly it might, it was
\ninconceivable that its members could ever assemble in larger numbers than
\ntwos and threes. Rebellion meant a look in the eyes, an inflexion of the
\nvoice, at the most, an occasional whispered word. But the proles, if only
\nthey could somehow become conscious of their own strength. would have no
\nneed to conspire. They needed only to rise up and shake themselves like
\na horse shaking off flies. If they chose they could blow the Party to
\npieces tomorrow morning. Surely sooner or later it must occur to them to
\ndo it? And yet—-!<\/p>\n
He remembered how once he had been walking down a crowded street when a
\ntremendous shout of hundreds of voices women’s voices–had burst from a
\nside-street a little way ahead. It was a great formidable cry of anger
\nand despair, a deep, loud ‘Oh-o-o-o-oh!’ that went humming on like the
\nreverberation of a bell. His heart had leapt. It’s started! he had thought.
\nA riot! The proles are breaking loose at last! When he had reached the spot
\nit was to see a mob of two or three hundred women crowding round the stalls
\nof a street market, with faces as tragic as though they had been the doomed
\npassengers on a sinking ship. But at this moment the general despair broke
\ndown into a multitude of individual quarrels. It appeared that one of the
\nstalls had been selling tin saucepans. They were wretched, flimsy things,
\nbut cooking-pots of any kind were always difficult to get. Now the supply
\nhad unexpectedly given out. The successful women, bumped and jostled by
\nthe rest, were trying to make off with their saucepans while dozens of
\nothers clamoured round the stall, accusing the stall-keeper of favouritism
\nand of having more saucepans somewhere in reserve. There was a fresh
\noutburst of yells. Two bloated women, one of them with her hair coming
\ndown, had got hold of the same saucepan and were trying to tear it out of
\none another’s hands. For a moment they were both tugging, and then the
\nhandle came off. Winston watched them disgustedly. And yet, just for a
\nmoment, what almost frightening power had sounded in that cry from only
\na few hundred throats! Why was it that they could never shout like that
\nabout anything that mattered?<\/p>\n
He wrote:<\/p>\n
Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they
\nhave rebelled they cannot become conscious.<\/p>\n
That, he reflected, might almost have been a transcription from one of the
\nParty textbooks. The Party claimed, of course, to have liberated the proles
\nfrom bondage. Before the Revolution they had been hideously oppressed by
\nthe capitalists, they had been starved and flogged, women had been forced
\nto work in the coal mines (women still did work in the coal mines, as a
\nmatter of fact), children had been sold into the factories at the age
\nof six. But simultaneously, true to the Principles of doublethink, the
\nParty taught that the proles were natural inferiors who must be kept in
\nsubjection, like animals, by the application of a few simple rules. In
\nreality very little was known about the proles. It was not necessary to
\nknow much. So long as they continued to work and breed, their other
\nactivities were without importance. Left to themselves, like cattle turned
\nloose upon the plains of Argentina, they had reverted to a style of life
\nthat appeared to be natural to them, a sort of ancestral pattern. They were
\nborn, they grew up in the gutters, they went to work at twelve, they passed
\nthrough a brief blossoming-period of beauty and sexual desire, they married
\nat twenty, they were middle-aged at thirty, they died, for the most part,
\nat sixty. Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty
\nquarrels with neighbours, films, football, beer, and above all, gambling,
\nfilled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not
\ndifficult. A few agents of the Thought Police moved always among them,
\nspreading false rumours and marking down and eliminating the few
\nindividuals who were judged capable of becoming dangerous; but no attempt
\nwas made to indoctrinate them with the ideology of the Party. It was not
\ndesirable that the proles should have strong political feelings. All that
\nwas required of them was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to
\nwhenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working-hours or
\nshorter rations. And even when they became discontented, as they sometimes
\ndid, their discontent led nowhere, because being without general ideas,
\nthey could only focus it on petty specific grievances. The larger evils
\ninvariably escaped their notice. The great majority of proles did not even
\nhave telescreens in their homes. Even the civil police interfered with them
\nvery little. There was a vast amount of criminality in London, a whole
\nworld-within-a-world of thieves, bandits, prostitutes, drug-peddlers, and
\nracketeers of every description; but since it all happened among the proles
\nthemselves, it was of no importance. In all questions of morals they were
\nallowed to follow their ancestral code. The sexual puritanism of the
\nParty was not imposed upon them. Promiscuity went unpunished, divorce
\nwas permitted. For that matter, even religious worship would have been
\npermitted if the proles had shown any sign of needing or wanting it.
\nThey were beneath suspicion. As the Party slogan put it: ‘Proles and
\nanimals are free.’<\/p>\n
Winston reached down and cautiously scratched his varicose ulcer. It
\nhad begun itching again. The thing you invariably came back to was the
\nimpossibility of knowing what life before the Revolution had really been
\nlike. He took out of the drawer a copy of a children’s history textbook
\nwhich he had borrowed from Mrs Parsons, and began copying a passage into
\nthe diary:<\/p>\n
In the old days (it ran), before the glorious Revolution, London was
\nnot the beautiful city that we know today. It was a dark, dirty, miserable
\nplace where hardly anybody had enough to eat and where hundreds and
\nthousands of poor people had no boots on their feet and not even a roof to
\nsleep under. Children no older than you had to work twelve hours a day for
\ncruel masters who flogged them with whips if they worked too slowly and
\nfed them on nothing but stale breadcrusts and water. But in among all
\nthis terrible poverty there were just a few great big beautiful houses
\nthat were lived in by rich men who had as many as thirty servants to look
\nafter them. These rich men were called capitalists. They were fat, ugly
\nmen with wicked faces, like the one in the picture on the opposite page.
\nYou can see that he is dressed in a long black coat which was called a
\nfrock coat, and a queer, shiny hat shaped like a stovepipe, which was
\ncalled a top hat. This was the uniform of the capitalists, and no one else
\nwas allowed to wear it. The capitalists owned everything in the world, and
\neveryone else was their slave. They owned all the land, all the houses,
\nall the factories, and all the money. If anyone disobeyed them they could
\nthrow them into prison, or they could take his job away and starve him to
\ndeath. When any ordinary person spoke to a capitalist he had to cringe and
\nbow to him, and take off his cap and address him as ‘Sir’. The chief of
\nall the capitalists was called the King, and—-<\/p>\n
But he knew the rest of the catalogue. There would be mention of the
\nbishops in their lawn sleeves, the judges in their ermine robes, the
\npillory, the stocks, the treadmill, the cat-o’-nine tails, the Lord Mayor’s
\nBanquet, and the practice of kissing the Pope’s toe. There was also
\nsomething called the JUS PRIMAE NOCTIS, which would probably not be
\nmentioned in a textbook for children. It was the law by which every
\ncapitalist had the right to sleep with any woman working in one of his
\nfactories.<\/p>\n
How could you tell how much of it was lies? It MIGHT be true that the
\naverage human being was better off now than he had been before the
\nRevolution. The only evidence to the contrary was the mute protest in your
\nown bones, the instinctive feeling that the conditions you lived in were
\nintolerable and that at some other time they must have been different. It
\nstruck him that the truly characteristic thing about modern life was not
\nits cruelty and insecurity, but simply its bareness, its dinginess, its
\nlistlessness. Life, if you looked about you, bore no resemblance not only
\nto the lies that streamed out of the telescreens, but even to the ideals
\nthat the Party was trying to achieve. Great areas of it, even for a Party
\nmember, were neutral and non-political, a matter of slogging through dreary
\njobs, fighting for a place on the Tube, darning a worn-out sock, cadging
\na saccharine tablet, saving a cigarette end. The ideal set up by the
\nParty was something huge, terrible, and glittering–a world of steel
\nand concrete, of monstrous machines and terrifying weapons–a nation of
\nwarriors and fanatics, marching forward in perfect unity, all thinking the
\nsame thoughts and shouting the same slogans, perpetually working, fighting,
\ntriumphing, persecuting–three hundred million people all with the same
\nface. The reality was decaying, dingy cities where underfed people shuffled
\nto and fro in leaky shoes, in patched-up nineteenth-century houses that
\nsmelt always of cabbage and bad lavatories. He seemed to see a vision of
\nLondon, vast and ruinous, city of a million dustbins, and mixed up with it
\nwas a picture of Mrs Parsons, a woman with lined face and wispy hair,
\nfiddling helplessly with a blocked waste-pipe.<\/p>\n
He reached down and scratched his ankle again. Day and night the
\ntelescreens bruised your ears with statistics proving that people today
\nhad more food, more clothes, better houses, better recreations–that they
\nlived longer, worked shorter hours, were bigger, healthier, stronger,
\nhappier, more intelligent, better educated, than the people of fifty years
\nago. Not a word of it could ever be proved or disproved. The Party claimed,
\nfor example, that today 40 per cent of adult proles were literate: before
\nthe Revolution, it was said, the number had only been 15 per cent. The
\nParty claimed that the infant mortality rate was now only 160 per
\nthousand, whereas before the Revolution it had been 300–and so it went
\non. It was like a single equation with two unknowns. It might very well be
\nthat literally every word in the history books, even the things that one
\naccepted without question, was pure fantasy. For all he knew there might
\nnever have been any such law as the JUS PRIMAE NOCTIS, or any such creature
\nas a capitalist, or any such garment as a top hat.<\/p>\n
Everything faded into mist. The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten,
\nthe lie became truth. Just once in his life he had possessed–AFTER the
\nevent: that was what counted–concrete, unmistakable evidence of an act of
\nfalsification. He had held it between his fingers for as long as thirty
\nseconds. In 1973, it must have been–at any rate, it was at about the time
\nwhen he and Katharine had parted. But the really relevant date was seven
\nor eight years earlier.<\/p>\n
The story really began in the middle sixties, the period of the great
\npurges in which the original leaders of the Revolution were wiped out
\nonce and for all. By 1970 none of them was left, except Big Brother
\nhimself. All the rest had by that time been exposed as traitors and
\ncounter-revolutionaries. Goldstein had fled and was hiding no one knew
\nwhere, and of the others, a few had simply disappeared, while the majority
\nhad been executed after spectacular public trials at which they made
\nconfession of their crimes. Among the last survivors were three men named
\nJones, Aaronson, and Rutherford. It must have been in 1965 that these three
\nhad been arrested. As often happened, they had vanished for a year or more,
\nso that one did not know whether they were alive or dead, and then had
\nsuddenly been brought forth to incriminate themselves in the usual way.
\nThey had confessed to intelligence with the enemy (at that date, too, the
\nenemy was Eurasia), embezzlement of public funds, the murder of various
\ntrusted Party members, intrigues against the leadership of Big Brother
\nwhich had started long before the Revolution happened, and acts of sabotage
\ncausing the death of hundreds of thousands of people. After confessing to
\nthese things they had been pardoned, reinstated in the Party, and given
\nposts which were in fact sinecures but which sounded important. All three
\nhad written long, abject articles in ‘The Times’, analysing the reasons
\nfor their defection and promising to make amends.<\/p>\n
Some time after their release Winston had actually seen all three of them
\nin the Chestnut Tree Cafe. He remembered the sort of terrified fascination
\nwith which he had watched them out of the corner of his eye. They were men
\nfar older than himself, relics of the ancient world, almost the last great
\nfigures left over from the heroic days of the Party. The glamour of the
\nunderground struggle and the civil war still faintly clung to them. He had
\nthe feeling, though already at that time facts and dates were growing
\nblurry, that he had known their names years earlier than he had known that
\nof Big Brother. But also they were outlaws, enemies, untouchables, doomed
\nwith absolute certainty to extinction within a year or two. No one who had
\nonce fallen into the hands of the Thought Police ever escaped in the end.
\nThey were corpses waiting to be sent back to the grave.<\/p>\n
There was no one at any of the tables nearest to them. It was not wise
\neven to be seen in the neighbourhood of such people. They were sitting
\nin silence before glasses of the gin flavoured with cloves which was the
\nspeciality of the cafe. Of the three, it was Rutherford whose appearance
\nhad most impressed Winston. Rutherford had once been a famous caricaturist,
\nwhose brutal cartoons had helped to inflame popular opinion before and
\nduring the Revolution. Even now, at long intervals, his cartoons were
\nappearing in The Times. They were simply an imitation of his earlier
\nmanner, and curiously lifeless and unconvincing. Always they were a
\nrehashing of the ancient themes–slum tenements, starving children, street
\nbattles, capitalists in top hats–even on the barricades the capitalists
\nstill seemed to cling to their top hats an endless, hopeless effort to
\nget back into the past. He was a monstrous man, with a mane of greasy
\ngrey hair, his face pouched and seamed, with thick negroid lips. At one
\ntime he must have been immensely strong; now his great body was sagging,
\nsloping, bulging, falling away in every direction. He seemed to be breaking
\nup before one’s eyes, like a mountain crumbling.<\/p>\n
It was the lonely hour of fifteen. Winston could not now remember how he
\nhad come to be in the cafe at such a time. The place was almost empty. A
\ntinny music was trickling from the telescreens. The three men sat in their
\ncorner almost motionless, never speaking. Uncommanded, the waiter brought
\nfresh glasses of gin. There was a chessboard on the table beside them, with
\nthe pieces set out but no game started. And then, for perhaps half a minute
\nin all, something happened to the telescreens. The tune that they were
\nplaying changed, and the tone of the music changed too. There came into
\nit–but it was something hard to describe. It was a peculiar, cracked,
\nbraying, jeering note: in his mind Winston called it a yellow note. And
\nthen a voice from the telescreen was singing:<\/p>\n
Under the spreading chestnut tree
\n I sold you and you sold me:
\n There lie they, and here lie we
\n Under the spreading chestnut tree.<\/p>\n
The three men never stirred. But when Winston glanced again at Rutherford’s
\nruinous face, he saw that his eyes were full of tears. And for the first
\ntime he noticed, with a kind of inward shudder, and yet not knowing
\nAT WHAT he shuddered, that both Aaronson and Rutherford had broken noses.<\/p>\n
A little later all three were re-arrested. It appeared that they had
\nengaged in fresh conspiracies from the very moment of their release. At
\ntheir second trial they confessed to all their old crimes over again, with
\na whole string of new ones. They were executed, and their fate was recorded
\nin the Party histories, a warning to posterity. About five years after
\nthis, in 1973, Winston was unrolling a wad of documents which had just
\nflopped out of the pneumatic tube on to his desk when he came on a fragment
\nof paper which had evidently been slipped in among the others and then
\nforgotten. The instant he had flattened it out he saw its significance.
\nIt was a half-page torn out of ‘The Times’ of about ten years earlier–the
\ntop half of the page, so that it included the date–and it contained a
\nphotograph of the delegates at some Party function in New York. Prominent
\nin the middle of the group were Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford. There was
\nno mistaking them, in any case their names were in the caption at the
\nbottom.<\/p>\n
The point was that at both trials all three men had confessed that on that
\ndate they had been on Eurasian soil. They had flown from a secret airfield
\nin Canada to a rendezvous somewhere in Siberia, and had conferred with
\nmembers of the Eurasian General Staff, to whom they had betrayed important
\nmilitary secrets. The date had stuck in Winston’s memory because it chanced
\nto be midsummer day; but the whole story must be on record in countless
\nother places as well. There was only one possible conclusion: the
\nconfessions were lies.<\/p>\n
Of course, this was not in itself a discovery. Even at that time Winston
\nhad not imagined that the people who were wiped out in the purges had
\nactually committed the crimes that they were accused of. But this was
\nconcrete evidence; it was a fragment of the abolished past, like a fossil
\nbone which turns up in the wrong stratum and destroys a geological theory.
\nIt was enough to blow the Party to atoms, if in some way it could have
\nbeen published to the world and its significance made known.<\/p>\n
He had gone straight on working. As soon as he saw what the photograph
\nwas, and what it meant, he had covered it up with another sheet of paper.
\nLuckily, when he unrolled it, it had been upside-down from the point of
\nview of the telescreen.<\/p>\n
He took his scribbling pad on his knee and pushed back his chair so as
\nto get as far away from the telescreen as possible. To keep your face
\nexpressionless was not difficult, and even your breathing could be
\ncontrolled, with an effort: but you could not control the beating of your
\nheart, and the telescreen was quite delicate enough to pick it up. He let
\nwhat he judged to be ten minutes go by, tormented all the while by the
\nfear that some accident–a sudden draught blowing across his desk, for
\ninstance–would betray him. Then, without uncovering it again, he dropped
\nthe photograph into the memory hole, along with some other waste papers.
\nWithin another minute, perhaps, it would have crumbled into ashes.<\/p>\n
That was ten–eleven years ago. Today, probably, he would have kept that
\nphotograph. It was curious that the fact of having held it in his fingers
\nseemed to him to make a difference even now, when the photograph itself,
\nas well as the event it recorded, was only memory. Was the Party’s hold
\nupon the past less strong, he wondered, because a piece of evidence which
\nexisted no longer HAD ONCE existed?<\/p>\n
But today, supposing that it could be somehow resurrected from its ashes,
\nthe photograph might not even be evidence. Already, at the time when he
\nmade his discovery, Oceania was no longer at war with Eurasia, and it must
\nhave been to the agents of Eastasia that the three dead men had betrayed
\ntheir country. Since then there had been other changes–two, three,
\nhe could not remember how many. Very likely the confessions had been
\nrewritten and rewritten until the original facts and dates no longer
\nhad the smallest significance. The past not only changed, but changed
\ncontinuously. What most afflicted him with the sense of nightmare was that
\nhe had never clearly understood why the huge imposture was undertaken.
\nThe immediate advantages of falsifying the past were obvious, but the
\nultimate motive was mysterious. He took up his pen again and wrote:<\/p>\n
I understand HOW: I do not understand WHY.<\/p>\n
He wondered, as he had many times wondered before, whether he himself was
\na lunatic. Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one. At one time it
\nhad been a sign of madness to believe that the earth goes round the sun;
\ntoday, to believe that the past is unalterable. He might be ALONE in
\nholding that belief, and if alone, then a lunatic. But the thought of being
\na lunatic did not greatly trouble him: the horror was that he might also
\nbe wrong.<\/p>\n
He picked up the children’s history book and looked at the portrait of
\nBig Brother which formed its frontispiece. The hypnotic eyes gazed into
\nhis own. It was as though some huge force were pressing down upon
\nyou–something that penetrated inside your skull, battering against your
\nbrain, frightening you out of your beliefs, persuading you, almost, to
\ndeny the evidence of your senses. In the end the Party would announce that
\ntwo and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable
\nthat they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their
\nposition demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very
\nexistence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The
\nheresy of heresies was common sense. And what was terrifying was not that
\nthey would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right.
\nFor, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the
\nforce of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past
\nand the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is
\ncontrollable what then?<\/p>\n
But no! His courage seemed suddenly to stiffen of its own accord. The face
\nof O’Brien, not called up by any obvious association, had floated into his
\nmind. He knew, with more certainty than before, that O’Brien was on his
\nside. He was writing the diary for O’Brien–TO O’Brien: it was like an
\ninterminable letter which no one would ever read, but which was addressed
\nto a particular person and took its colour from that fact.<\/p>\n
The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was
\ntheir final, most essential command. His heart sank as he thought of
\nthe enormous power arrayed against him, the ease with which any Party
\nintellectual would overthrow him in debate, the subtle arguments which he
\nwould not be able to understand, much less answer. And yet he was in the
\nright! They were wrong and he was right. The obvious, the silly, and the
\ntrue had got to be defended. Truisms are true, hold on to that! The solid
\nworld exists, its laws do not change. Stones are hard, water is wet,
\nobjects unsupported fall towards the earth’s centre. With the feeling that
\nhe was speaking to O’Brien, and also that he was setting forth an important
\naxiom, he wrote:<\/p>\n
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is
\ngranted, all else follows.<\/p>\n
Chapter 8<\/p>\n
From somewhere at the bottom of a passage the smell of roasting
\ncoffee–real coffee, not Victory Coffee–came floating out into the street.
\nWinston paused involuntarily. For perhaps two seconds he was back in the
\nhalf-forgotten world of his childhood. Then a door banged, seeming to cut
\noff the smell as abruptly as though it had been a sound.<\/p>\n
He had walked several kilometres over pavements, and his varicose ulcer
\nwas throbbing. This was the second time in three weeks that he had missed
\nan evening at the Community Centre: a rash act, since you could be certain
\nthat the number of your attendances at the Centre was carefully checked.
\nIn principle a Party member had no spare time, and was never alone except
\nin bed. It was assumed that when he was not working, eating, or sleeping
\nhe would be taking part in some kind of communal recreation: to do anything
\nthat suggested a taste for solitude, even to go for a walk by yourself,
\nwas always slightly dangerous. There was a word for it in Newspeak:
\nOWNLIFE, it was called, meaning individualism and eccentricity. But this
\nevening as he came out of the Ministry the balminess of the April air had
\ntempted him. The sky was a warmer blue than he had seen it that year, and
\nsuddenly the long, noisy evening at the Centre, the boring, exhausting
\ngames, the lectures, the creaking camaraderie oiled by gin, had seemed
\nintolerable. On impulse he had turned away from the bus-stop and wandered
\noff into the labyrinth of London, first south, then east, then north again,
\nlosing himself among unknown streets and hardly bothering in which
\ndirection he was going.<\/p>\n
‘If there is hope,’ he had written in the diary, ‘it lies in the proles.’
\nThe words kept coming back to him, statement of a mystical truth and a
\npalpable absurdity. He was somewhere in the vague, brown-coloured slums
\nto the north and east of what had once been Saint Pancras Station. He was
\nwalking up a cobbled street of little two-storey houses with battered
\ndoorways which gave straight on the pavement and which were somehow
\ncuriously suggestive of ratholes. There were puddles of filthy water here
\nand there among the cobbles. In and out of the dark doorways, and down
\nnarrow alley-ways that branched off on either side, people swarmed in
\nastonishing numbers–girls in full bloom, with crudely lipsticked mouths,
\nand youths who chased the girls, and swollen waddling women who showed you
\nwhat the girls would be like in ten years’ time, and old bent creatures
\nshuffling along on splayed feet, and ragged barefooted children who played
\nin the puddles and then scattered at angry yells from their mothers.
\nPerhaps a quarter of the windows in the street were broken and boarded up.
\nMost of the people paid no attention to Winston; a few eyed him with a
\nsort of guarded curiosity. Two monstrous women with brick-red forearms
\nfolded across their aprons were talking outside a doorway. Winston caught
\nscraps of conversation as he approached.<\/p>\n
‘”Yes,” I says to ‘er, “that’s all very well,” I says. “But if you’d of
\nbeen in my place you’d of done the same as what I done. It’s easy to
\ncriticize,” I says, “but you ain’t got the same problems as what I got.”‘<\/p>\n
‘Ah,’ said the other, ‘that’s jest it. That’s jest where it is.’<\/p>\n
The strident voices stopped abruptly. The women studied him in hostile
\nsilence as he went past. But it was not hostility, exactly; merely a kind
\nof wariness, a momentary stiffening, as at the passing of some unfamiliar
\nanimal. The blue overalls of the Party could not be a common sight in a
\nstreet like this. Indeed, it was unwise to be seen in such places, unless
\nyou had definite business there. The patrols might stop you if you happened
\nto run into them. ‘May I see your papers, comrade? What are you doing here?
\nWhat time did you leave work? Is this your usual way home?’–and so on and
\nso forth. Not that there was any rule against walking home by an unusual
\nroute: but it was enough to draw attention to you if the Thought Police
\nheard about it.<\/p>\n
Suddenly the whole street was in commotion. There were yells of warning
\nfrom all sides. People were shooting into the doorways like rabbits. A
\nyoung woman leapt out of a doorway a little ahead of Winston, grabbed up a
\ntiny child playing in a puddle, whipped her apron round it, and leapt back
\nagain, all in one movement. At the same instant a man in a concertina-like
\nblack suit, who had emerged from a side alley, ran towards Winston,
\npointing excitedly to the sky.<\/p>\n
‘Steamer!’ he yelled. ‘Look out, guv’nor! Bang over’ead! Lay down quick!’<\/p>\n
‘Steamer’ was a nickname which, for some reason, the proles applied to
\nrocket bombs. Winston promptly flung himself on his face. The proles were
\nnearly always right when they gave you a warning of this kind. They seemed
\nto possess some kind of instinct which told them several seconds in advance
\nwhen a rocket was coming, although the rockets supposedly travelled faster
\nthan sound. Winston clasped his forearms above his head. There was a roar
\nthat seemed to make the pavement heave; a shower of light objects pattered
\non to his back. When he stood up he found that he was covered with
\nfragments of glass from the nearest window.<\/p>\n
He walked on. The bomb had demolished a group of houses 200 metres up the
\nstreet. A black plume of smoke hung in the sky, and below it a cloud of
\nplaster dust in which a crowd was already forming around the ruins. There
\nwas a little pile of plaster lying on the pavement ahead of him, and in
\nthe middle of it he could see a bright red streak. When he got up to it he
\nsaw that it was a human hand severed at the wrist. Apart from the bloody
\nstump, the hand was so completely whitened as to resemble a plaster cast.<\/p>\n
He kicked the thing into the gutter, and then, to avoid the crowd, turned
\ndown a side-street to the right. Within three or four minutes he was out
\nof the area which the bomb had affected, and the sordid swarming life of
\nthe streets was going on as though nothing had happened. It was nearly
\ntwenty hours, and the drinking-shops which the proles frequented (‘pubs’,
\nthey called them) were choked with customers. From their grimy swing doors,
\nendlessly opening and shutting, there came forth a smell of urine, sawdust,
\nand sour beer. In an angle formed by a projecting house-front three men
\nwere standing very close together, the middle one of them holding a
\nfolded-up newspaper which the other two were studying over his shoulder.
\nEven before he was near enough to make out the expression on their faces,
\nWinston could see absorption in every line of their bodies. It was
\nobviously some serious piece of news that they were reading. He was a few
\npaces away from them when suddenly the group broke up and two of the men
\nwere in violent altercation. For a moment they seemed almost on the point
\nof blows.<\/p>\n
‘Can’t you bleeding well listen to what I say? I tell you no number ending
\nin seven ain’t won for over fourteen months!’<\/p>\n
‘Yes, it ‘as, then!’<\/p>\n
‘No, it ‘as not! Back ‘ome I got the ‘ole lot of ’em for over two years
\nwrote down on a piece of paper. I takes ’em down reg’lar as the clock. An’
\nI tell you, no number ending in seven—-‘<\/p>\n
‘Yes, a seven ‘AS won! I could pretty near tell you the bleeding number.
\nFour oh seven, it ended in. It were in February–second week in February.’<\/p>\n
‘February your grandmother! I got it all down in black and white. An’ I
\ntell you, no number—-‘<\/p>\n
‘Oh, pack it in!’ said the third man.<\/p>\n
They were talking about the Lottery. Winston looked back when he had gone
\nthirty metres. They were still arguing, with vivid, passionate faces.
\nThe Lottery, with its weekly pay-out of enormous prizes, was the one public
\nevent to which the proles paid serious attention. It was probable that
\nthere were some millions of proles for whom the Lottery was the principal
\nif not the only reason for remaining alive. It was their delight, their
\nfolly, their anodyne, their intellectual stimulant. Where the Lottery was
\nconcerned, even people who could barely read and write seemed capable of
\nintricate calculations and staggering feats of memory. There was a whole
\ntribe of men who made a living simply by selling systems, forecasts, and
\nlucky amulets. Winston had nothing to do with the running of the Lottery,
\nwhich was managed by the Ministry of Plenty, but he was aware (indeed
\neveryone in the party was aware) that the prizes were largely imaginary.
\nOnly small sums were actually paid out, the winners of the big prizes being
\nnon-existent persons. In the absence of any real intercommunication between
\none part of Oceania and another, this was not difficult to arrange.<\/p>\n
But if there was hope, it lay in the proles. You had to cling on to that.
\nWhen you put it in words it sounded reasonable: it was when you looked at
\nthe human beings passing you on the pavement that it became an act of
\nfaith. The street into which he had turned ran downhill. He had a feeling
\nthat he had been in this neighbourhood before, and that there was a main
\nthoroughfare not far away. From somewhere ahead there came a din of
\nshouting voices. The street took a sharp turn and then ended in a flight
\nof steps which led down into a sunken alley where a few stall-keepers
\nwere selling tired-looking vegetables. At this moment Winston remembered
\nwhere he was. The alley led out into the main street, and down the next
\nturning, not five minutes away, was the junk-shop where he had bought the
\nblank book which was now his diary. And in a small stationer’s shop not
\nfar away he had bought his penholder and his bottle of ink.<\/p>\n
He paused for a moment at the top of the steps. On the opposite side of
\nthe alley there was a dingy little pub whose windows appeared to be frosted
\nover but in reality were merely coated with dust. A very old man, bent but
\nactive, with white moustaches that bristled forward like those of a prawn,
\npushed open the swing door and went in. As Winston stood watching, it
\noccurred to him that the old man, who must be eighty at the least, had
\nalready been middle-aged when the Revolution happened. He and a few others
\nlike him were the last links that now existed with the vanished world of
\ncapitalism. In the Party itself there were not many people left whose ideas
\nhad been formed before the Revolution. The older generation had mostly
\nbeen wiped out in the great purges of the fifties and sixties, and the few
\nwho survived had long ago been terrified into complete intellectual
\nsurrender. If there was any one still alive who could give you a truthful
\naccount of conditions in the early part of the century, it could only be a
\nprole. Suddenly the passage from the history book that he had copied into
\nhis diary came back into Winston’s mind, and a lunatic impulse took hold
\nof him. He would go into the pub, he would scrape acquaintance with that
\nold man and question him. He would say to him: ‘Tell me about your life
\nwhen you were a boy. What was it like in those days? Were things better
\nthan they are now, or were they worse?’<\/p>\n
Hurriedly, lest he should have time to become frightened, he descended the
\nsteps and crossed the narrow street. It was madness of course. As usual,
\nthere was no definite rule against talking to proles and frequenting their
\npubs, but it was far too unusual an action to pass unnoticed. If the
\npatrols appeared he might plead an attack of faintness, but it was not
\nlikely that they would believe him. He pushed open the door, and a hideous
\ncheesy smell of sour beer hit him in the face. As he entered the din of
\nvoices dropped to about half its volume. Behind his back he could feel
\neveryone eyeing his blue overalls. A game of darts which was going on at
\nthe other end of the room interrupted itself for perhaps as much as thirty
\nseconds. The old man whom he had followed was standing at the bar, having
\nsome kind of altercation with the barman, a large, stout, hook-nosed young
\nman with enormous forearms. A knot of others, standing round with glasses
\nin their hands, were watching the scene.<\/p>\n
‘I arst you civil enough, didn’t I?’ said the old man, straightening his
\nshoulders pugnaciously. ‘You telling me you ain’t got a pint mug in the
\n‘ole bleeding boozer?’<\/p>\n
‘And what in hell’s name IS a pint?’ said the barman, leaning forward with
\nthe tips of his fingers on the counter.<\/p>\n
”Ark at ‘im! Calls ‘isself a barman and don’t know what a pint is! Why,
\na pint’s the ‘alf of a quart, and there’s four quarts to the gallon.
\n‘Ave to teach you the A, B, C next.’<\/p>\n
‘Never heard of ’em,’ said the barman shortly. ‘Litre and half
\nlitre–that’s all we serve. There’s the glasses on the shelf in front
\nof you.’<\/p>\n
‘I likes a pint,’ persisted the old man. ‘You could ‘a drawed me off a pint
\neasy enough. We didn’t ‘ave these bleeding litres when I was a young man.’<\/p>\n
‘When you were a young man we were all living in the treetops,’ said the
\nbarman, with a glance at the other customers.<\/p>\n
There was a shout of laughter, and the uneasiness caused by Winston’s entry
\nseemed to disappear. The old man’s white-stubbled face had flushed pink. He
\nturned away, muttering to himself, and bumped into Winston. Winston caught
\nhim gently by the arm.<\/p>\n
‘May I offer you a drink?’ he said.<\/p>\n
‘You’re a gent,’ said the other, straightening his shoulders again. He
\nappeared not to have noticed Winston’s blue overalls. ‘Pint!’ he added
\naggressively to the barman. ‘Pint of wallop.’<\/p>\n
The barman swished two half-litres of dark-brown beer into thick glasses
\nwhich he had rinsed in a bucket under the counter. Beer was the only drink
\nyou could get in prole pubs. The proles were supposed not to drink gin,
\nthough in practice they could get hold of it easily enough. The game of
\ndarts was in full swing again, and the knot of men at the bar had begun
\ntalking about lottery tickets. Winston’s presence was forgotten for a
\nmoment. There was a deal table under the window where he and the old man
\ncould talk without fear of being overheard. It was horribly dangerous, but
\nat any rate there was no telescreen in the room, a point he had made sure
\nof as soon as he came in.<\/p>\n
”E could ‘a drawed me off a pint,’ grumbled the old man as he settled down
\nbehind a glass. ‘A ‘alf litre ain’t enough. It don’t satisfy. And a ‘ole
\nlitre’s too much. It starts my bladder running. Let alone the price.’<\/p>\n
‘You must have seen great changes since you were a young man,’ said
\nWinston tentatively.<\/p>\n
The old man’s pale blue eyes moved from the darts board to the bar, and
\nfrom the bar to the door of the Gents, as though it were in the bar-room
\nthat he expected the changes to have occurred.<\/p>\n
‘The beer was better,’ he said finally. ‘And cheaper! When I was a young
\nman, mild beer–wallop we used to call it–was fourpence a pint. That was
\nbefore the war, of course.’<\/p>\n
‘Which war was that?’ said Winston.<\/p>\n
‘It’s all wars,’ said the old man vaguely. He took up his glass, and his
\nshoulders straightened again. ”Ere’s wishing you the very best of ‘ealth!’<\/p>\n
In his lean throat the sharp-pointed Adam’s apple made a surprisingly rapid
\nup-and-down movement, and the beer vanished. Winston went to the bar and
\ncame back with two more half-litres. The old man appeared to have forgotten
\nhis prejudice against drinking a full litre.<\/p>\n
‘You are very much older than I am,’ said Winston. ‘You must have been a
\ngrown man before I was born. You can remember what it was like in the old
\ndays, before the Revolution. People of my age don’t really know anything
\nabout those times. We can only read about them in books, and what it says
\nin the books may not be true. I should like your opinion on that. The
\nhistory books say that life before the Revolution was completely different
\nfrom what it is now. There was the most terrible oppression, injustice,
\npoverty worse than anything we can imagine. Here in London, the great mass
\nof the people never had enough to eat from birth to death. Half of them
\nhadn’t even boots on their feet. They worked twelve hours a day, they left
\nschool at nine, they slept ten in a room. And at the same time there were
\na very few people, only a few thousands–the capitalists, they were
\ncalled–who were rich and powerful. They owned everything that there was
\nto own. They lived in great gorgeous houses with thirty servants, they
\nrode about in motor-cars and four-horse carriages, they drank champagne,
\nthey wore top hats—-‘<\/p>\n
The old man brightened suddenly.<\/p>\n
‘Top ‘ats!’ he said. ‘Funny you should mention ’em. The same thing come
\ninto my ‘ead only yesterday, I dono why. I was jest thinking, I ain’t seen
\na top ‘at in years. Gorn right out, they ‘ave. The last time I wore one
\nwas at my sister-in-law’s funeral. And that was–well, I couldn’t give you
\nthe date, but it must’a been fifty years ago. Of course it was only ‘ired
\nfor the occasion, you understand.’<\/p>\n
‘It isn’t very important about the top hats,’ said Winston patiently.
\n‘The point is, these capitalists–they and a few lawyers and priests and
\nso forth who lived on them–were the lords of the earth. Everything existed
\nfor their benefit. You–the ordinary people, the workers–were their
\nslaves. They could do what they liked with you. They could ship you off to
\nCanada like cattle. They could sleep with your daughters if they chose.
\nThey could order you to be flogged with something called a cat-o’-nine
\ntails. You had to take your cap off when you passed them. Every capitalist
\nwent about with a gang of lackeys who—-‘<\/p>\n
The old man brightened again.<\/p>\n
‘Lackeys!’ he said. ‘Now there’s a word I ain’t ‘eard since ever so long.
\nLackeys! That reg’lar takes me back, that does. I recollect–oh, donkey’s
\nyears ago–I used to sometimes go to ‘Yde Park of a Sunday afternoon to
\n‘ear the blokes making speeches. Salvation Army, Roman Catholics, Jews,
\nIndians–all sorts there was. And there was one bloke–well, I couldn’t
\ngive you ‘is name, but a real powerful speaker ‘e was. ‘E didn’t ‘alf
\ngive it ’em! “Lackeys!” ‘e says, “lackeys of the bourgeoisie! Flunkies of
\nthe ruling class!” Parasites–that was another of them. And ‘yenas–‘e
\ndefinitely called ’em ‘yenas. Of course ‘e was referring to the Labour
\nParty, you understand.’<\/p>\n
Winston had the feeling that they were talking at cross-purposes.<\/p>\n
‘What I really wanted to know was this,’ he said. ‘Do you feel that you
\nhave more freedom now than you had in those days? Are you treated more
\nlike a human being? In the old days, the rich people, the people at the
\ntop—-‘<\/p>\n
‘The ‘Ouse of Lords,’ put in the old man reminiscently.<\/p>\n
‘The House of Lords, if you like. What I am asking is, were these people
\nable to treat you as an inferior, simply because they were rich and you
\nwere poor? Is it a fact, for instance, that you had to call them “Sir” and
\ntake off your cap when you passed them?’<\/p>\n
The old man appeared to think deeply. He drank off about a quarter of his
\nbeer before answering.<\/p>\n
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘They liked you to touch your cap to ’em. It showed
\nrespect, like. I didn’t agree with it, myself, but I done it often enough.
\nHad to, as you might say.’<\/p>\n
‘And was it usual–I’m only quoting what I’ve read in history books–was
\nit usual for these people and their servants to push you off the pavement
\ninto the gutter?’<\/p>\n
‘One of ’em pushed me once,’ said the old man. ‘I recollect it as if it
\nwas yesterday. It was Boat Race night–terribly rowdy they used to get on
\nBoat Race night–and I bumps into a young bloke on Shaftesbury Avenue.
\nQuite a gent, ‘e was–dress shirt, top ‘at, black overcoat. ‘E was kind
\nof zig-zagging across the pavement, and I bumps into ‘im accidental-like.
\n‘E says, “Why can’t you look where you’re going?” ‘e says. I say, “Ju think
\nyou’ve bought the bleeding pavement?” ‘E says, “I’ll twist your bloody ‘ead
\noff if you get fresh with me.” I says, “You’re drunk. I’ll give you in
\ncharge in ‘alf a minute,” I says. An’ if you’ll believe me, ‘e puts ‘is
\n‘and on my chest and gives me a shove as pretty near sent me under the
\nwheels of a bus. Well, I was young in them days, and I was going to ‘ave
\nfetched ‘im one, only—-‘<\/p>\n
A sense of helplessness took hold of Winston. The old man’s memory was
\nnothing but a rubbish-heap of details. One could question him all day
\nwithout getting any real information. The party histories might still be
\ntrue, after a fashion: they might even be completely true. He made a last
\nattempt.<\/p>\n
‘Perhaps I have not made myself clear,’ he said. ‘What I’m trying to say
\nis this. You have been alive a very long time; you lived half your life
\nbefore the Revolution. In 1925, for instance, you were already grown up.
\nWould you say from what you can remember, that life in 1925 was better
\nthan it is now, or worse? If you could choose, would you prefer to live
\nthen or now?’<\/p>\n
The old man looked meditatively at the darts board. He finished up his
\nbeer, more slowly than before. When he spoke it was with a tolerant
\nphilosophical air, as though the beer had mellowed him.<\/p>\n
‘I know what you expect me to say,’ he said. ‘You expect me to say as I’d
\nsooner be young again. Most people’d say they’d sooner be young, if you
\narst ’em. You got your ‘ealth and strength when you’re young. When you
\nget to my time of life you ain’t never well. I suffer something wicked
\nfrom my feet, and my bladder’s jest terrible. Six and seven times a night
\nit ‘as me out of bed. On the other ‘and, there’s great advantages in being
\na old man. You ain’t got the same worries. No truck with women, and that’s
\na great thing. I ain’t ‘ad a woman for near on thirty year, if you’d
\ncredit it. Nor wanted to, what’s more.’<\/p>\n
Winston sat back against the window-sill. It was no use going on. He was
\nabout to buy some more beer when the old man suddenly got up and shuffled
\nrapidly into the stinking urinal at the side of the room. The extra
\nhalf-litre was already working on him. Winston sat for a minute or two
\ngazing at his empty glass, and hardly noticed when his feet carried him out
\ninto the street again. Within twenty years at the most, he reflected, the
\nhuge and simple question, ‘Was life better before the Revolution than it
\nis now?’ would have ceased once and for all to be answerable. But in effect
\nit was unanswerable even now, since the few scattered survivors from the
\nancient world were incapable of comparing one age with another. They
\nremembered a million useless things, a quarrel with a workmate, a hunt for
\na lost bicycle pump, the expression on a long-dead sister’s face, the
\nswirls of dust on a windy morning seventy years ago: but all the relevant
\nfacts were outside the range of their vision. They were like the ant,
\nwhich can see small objects but not large ones. And when memory failed and
\nwritten records were falsified–when that happened, the claim of the Party
\nto have improved the conditions of human life had got to be accepted,
\nbecause there did not exist, and never again could exist, any standard
\nagainst which it could be tested.<\/p>\n
At this moment his train of thought stopped abruptly. He halted and looked
\nup. He was in a narrow street, with a few dark little shops, interspersed
\namong dwelling-houses. Immediately above his head there hung three
\ndiscoloured metal balls which looked as if they had once been gilded. He
\nseemed to know the place. Of course! He was standing outside the junk-shop
\nwhere he had bought the diary.<\/p>\n
A twinge of fear went through him. It had been a sufficiently rash act to
\nbuy the book in the beginning, and he had sworn never to come near the
\nplace again. And yet the instant that he allowed his thoughts to wander,
\nhis feet had brought him back here of their own accord. It was precisely
\nagainst suicidal impulses of this kind that he had hoped to guard himself
\nby opening the diary. At the same time he noticed that although it was
\nnearly twenty-one hours the shop was still open. With the feeling that he
\nwould be less conspicuous inside than hanging about on the pavement, he
\nstepped through the doorway. If questioned, he could plausibly say that
\nhe was trying to buy razor blades.<\/p>\n
The proprietor had just lighted a hanging oil lamp which gave off an
\nunclean but friendly smell. He was a man of perhaps sixty, frail and
\nbowed, with a long, benevolent nose, and mild eyes distorted by thick
\nspectacles. His hair was almost white, but his eyebrows were bushy and
\nstill black. His spectacles, his gentle, fussy movements, and the fact
\nthat he was wearing an aged jacket of black velvet, gave him a vague air
\nof intellectuality, as though he had been some kind of literary man, or
\nperhaps a musician. His voice was soft, as though faded, and his accent
\nless debased than that of the majority of proles.<\/p>\n
‘I recognized you on the pavement,’ he said immediately. ‘You’re the
\ngentleman that bought the young lady’s keepsake album. That was a beautiful
\nbit of paper, that was. Cream-laid, it used to be called. There’s been no
\npaper like that made for–oh, I dare say fifty years.’ He peered at Winston
\nover the top of his spectacles. ‘Is there anything special I can do for
\nyou? Or did you just want to look round?’<\/p>\n
‘I was passing,’ said Winston vaguely. ‘I just looked in. I don’t want
\nanything in particular.’<\/p>\n
‘It’s just as well,’ said the other, ‘because I don’t suppose I could have
\nsatisfied you.’ He made an apologetic gesture with his softpalmed hand.
\n‘You see how it is; an empty shop, you might say. Between you and me, the
\nantique trade’s just about finished. No demand any longer, and no stock
\neither. Furniture, china, glass it’s all been broken up by degrees. And
\nof course the metal stuff’s mostly been melted down. I haven’t seen a brass
\ncandlestick in years.’<\/p>\n
The tiny interior of the shop was in fact uncomfortably full, but there
\nwas almost nothing in it of the slightest value. The floorspace was very
\nrestricted, because all round the walls were stacked innumerable dusty
\npicture-frames. In the window there were trays of nuts and bolts, worn-out
\nchisels, penknives with broken blades, tarnished watches that did not even
\npretend to be in going order, and other miscellaneous rubbish. Only on a
\nsmall table in the corner was there a litter of odds and ends–lacquered
\nsnuffboxes, agate brooches, and the like–which looked as though they might
\ninclude something interesting. As Winston wandered towards the table his
\neye was caught by a round, smooth thing that gleamed softly in the
\nlamplight, and he picked it up.<\/p>\n
It was a heavy lump of glass, curved on one side, flat on the other, making
\nalmost a hemisphere. There was a peculiar softness, as of rainwater, in
\nboth the colour and the texture of the glass. At the heart of it, magnified
\nby the curved surface, there was a strange, pink, convoluted object that
\nrecalled a rose or a sea anemone.<\/p>\n
‘What is it?’ said Winston, fascinated.<\/p>\n
‘That’s coral, that is,’ said the old man. ‘It must have come from the
\nIndian Ocean. They used to kind of embed it in the glass. That wasn’t made
\nless than a hundred years ago. More, by the look of it.’<\/p>\n
‘It’s a beautiful thing,’ said Winston.<\/p>\n
‘It is a beautiful thing,’ said the other appreciatively. ‘But there’s not
\nmany that’d say so nowadays.’ He coughed. ‘Now, if it so happened that you
\nwanted to buy it, that’d cost you four dollars. I can remember when a thing
\nlike that would have fetched eight pounds, and eight pounds was–well, I
\ncan’t work it out, but it was a lot of money. But who cares about genuine
\nantiques nowadays–even the few that’s left?’<\/p>\n
Winston immediately paid over the four dollars and slid the coveted thing
\ninto his pocket. What appealed to him about it was not so much its beauty
\nas the air it seemed to possess of belonging to an age quite different
\nfrom the present one. The soft, rainwatery glass was not like any glass
\nthat he had ever seen. The thing was doubly attractive because of its
\napparent uselessness, though he could guess that it must once have been
\nintended as a paperweight. It was very heavy in his pocket, but fortunately
\nit did not make much of a bulge. It was a queer thing, even a compromising
\nthing, for a Party member to have in his possession. Anything old, and for
\nthat matter anything beautiful, was always vaguely suspect. The old man had
\ngrown noticeably more cheerful after receiving the four dollars. Winston
\nrealized that he would have accepted three or even two.<\/p>\n
‘There’s another room upstairs that you might care to take a look at,’ he
\nsaid. ‘There’s not much in it. Just a few pieces. We’ll do with a light if
\nwe’re going upstairs.’<\/p>\n
He lit another lamp, and, with bowed back, led the way slowly up the
\nsteep and worn stairs and along a tiny passage, into a room which did
\nnot give on the street but looked out on a cobbled yard and a forest of
\nchimney-pots. Winston noticed that the furniture was still arranged as
\nthough the room were meant to be lived in. There was a strip of carpet on
\nthe floor, a picture or two on the walls, and a deep, slatternly arm-chair
\ndrawn up to the fireplace. An old-fashioned glass clock with a twelve-hour
\nface was ticking away on the mantelpiece. Under the window, and occupying
\nnearly a quarter of the room, was an enormous bed with the mattress still
\non it.<\/p>\n
‘We lived here till my wife died,’ said the old man half apologetically.
\n‘I’m selling the furniture off by little and little. Now that’s a beautiful
\nmahogany bed, or at least it would be if you could get the bugs out of it.
\nBut I dare say you’d find it a little bit cumbersome.’<\/p>\n
He was holding the lamp high up, so as to illuminate the whole room, and
\nin the warm dim light the place looked curiously inviting. The thought
\nflitted through Winston’s mind that it would probably be quite easy to
\nrent the room for a few dollars a week, if he dared to take the risk. It
\nwas a wild, impossible notion, to be abandoned as soon as thought of; but
\nthe room had awakened in him a sort of nostalgia, a sort of ancestral
\nmemory. It seemed to him that he knew exactly what it felt like to sit in
\na room like this, in an arm-chair beside an open fire with your feet in
\nthe fender and a kettle on the hob; utterly alone, utterly secure, with
\nnobody watching you, no voice pursuing you, no sound except the singing
\nof the kettle and the friendly ticking of the clock.<\/p>\n
‘There’s no telescreen!’ he could not help murmuring.<\/p>\n
‘Ah,’ said the old man, ‘I never had one of those things. Too expensive.
\nAnd I never seemed to feel the need of it, somehow. Now that’s a nice
\ngateleg table in the corner there. Though of course you’d have to put new
\nhinges on it if you wanted to use the flaps.’<\/p>\n
There was a small bookcase in the other corner, and Winston had already
\ngravitated towards it. It contained nothing but rubbish. The hunting-down
\nand destruction of books had been done with the same thoroughness in the
\nprole quarters as everywhere else. It was very unlikely that there existed
\nanywhere in Oceania a copy of a book printed earlier than 1960. The old
\nman, still carrying the lamp, was standing in front of a picture in a
\nrosewood frame which hung on the other side of the fireplace, opposite
\nthe bed.<\/p>\n
‘Now, if you happen to be interested in old prints at all—-‘ he began
\ndelicately.<\/p>\n
Winston came across to examine the picture. It was a steel engraving of an
\noval building with rectangular windows, and a small tower in front. There
\nwas a railing running round the building, and at the rear end there was
\nwhat appeared to be a statue. Winston gazed at it for some moments. It
\nseemed vaguely familiar, though he did not remember the statue.<\/p>\n
‘The frame’s fixed to the wall,’ said the old man, ‘but I could unscrew it
\nfor you, I dare say.’<\/p>\n
‘I know that building,’ said Winston finally. ‘It’s a ruin now. It’s in
\nthe middle of the street outside the Palace of Justice.’<\/p>\n
‘That’s right. Outside the Law Courts. It was bombed in–oh, many years
\nago. It was a church at one time, St Clement Danes, its name was.’ He
\nsmiled apologetically, as though conscious of saying something slightly
\nridiculous, and added: ‘Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clement’s!’<\/p>\n
‘What’s that?’ said Winston.<\/p>\n
‘Oh–“Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clement’s.” That was a rhyme
\nwe had when I was a little boy. How it goes on I don’t remember, but I do
\nknow it ended up, “Here comes a candle to light you to bed, Here comes a
\nchopper to chop off your head.” It was a kind of a dance. They held out
\ntheir arms for you to pass under, and when they came to “Here comes a
\nchopper to chop off your head” they brought their arms down and caught you.
\nIt was just names of churches. All the London churches were in it–all the
\nprincipal ones, that is.’<\/p>\n
Winston wondered vaguely to what century the church belonged. It was always
\ndifficult to determine the age of a London building. Anything large and
\nimpressive, if it was reasonably new in appearance, was automatically
\nclaimed as having been built since the Revolution, while anything that was
\nobviously of earlier date was ascribed to some dim period called the Middle
\nAges. The centuries of capitalism were held to have produced nothing of any
\nvalue. One could not learn history from architecture any more than one
\ncould learn it from books. Statues, inscriptions, memorial stones, the
\nnames of streets–anything that might throw light upon the past had been
\nsystematically altered.<\/p>\n
‘I never knew it had been a church,’ he said.<\/p>\n
‘There’s a lot of them left, really,’ said the old man, ‘though they’ve
\nbeen put to other uses. Now, how did that rhyme go? Ah! I’ve got it!<\/p>\n
“Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clement’s,
\n You owe me three farthings, say the bells of St Martin’s—-”<\/p>\n
there, now, that’s as far as I can get. A farthing, that was a small copper
\ncoin, looked something like a cent.’<\/p>\n
‘Where was St Martin’s?’ said Winston.<\/p>\n
‘St Martin’s? That’s still standing. It’s in Victory Square, alongside the
\npicture gallery. A building with a kind of a triangular porch and pillars
\nin front, and a big flight of steps.’<\/p>\n
Winston knew the place well. It was a museum used for propaganda displays
\nof various kinds–scale models of rocket bombs and Floating Fortresses,
\nwaxwork tableaux illustrating enemy atrocities, and the like.<\/p>\n
‘St Martin’s-in-the-Fields it used to be called,’ supplemented the old man,
\n‘though I don’t recollect any fields anywhere in those parts.’<\/p>\n
Winston did not buy the picture. It would have been an even more
\nincongruous possession than the glass paperweight, and impossible to carry
\nhome, unless it were taken out of its frame. But he lingered for some
\nminutes more, talking to the old man, whose name, he discovered, was not
\nWeeks–as one might have gathered from the inscription over the
\nshop-front–but Charrington. Mr Charrington, it seemed, was a widower aged
\nsixty-three and had inhabited this shop for thirty years. Throughout that
\ntime he had been intending to alter the name over the window, but had never
\nquite got to the point of doing it. All the while that they were talking
\nthe half-remembered rhyme kept running through Winston’s head. Oranges and
\nlemons say the bells of St Clement’s, You owe me three farthings, say
\nthe bells of St Martin’s! It was curious, but when you said it to yourself
\nyou had the illusion of actually hearing bells, the bells of a lost London
\nthat still existed somewhere or other, disguised and forgotten. From one
\nghostly steeple after another he seemed to hear them pealing forth. Yet so
\nfar as he could remember he had never in real life heard church bells
\nringing.<\/p>\n
He got away from Mr Charrington and went down the stairs alone, so as not
\nto let the old man see him reconnoitring the street before stepping out of
\nthe door. He had already made up his mind that after a suitable
\ninterval–a month, say–he would take the risk of visiting the shop again.
\nIt was perhaps not more dangerous than shirking an evening at the Centre.
\nThe serious piece of folly had been to come back here in the first place,
\nafter buying the diary and without knowing whether the proprietor of the
\nshop could be trusted. However—-!<\/p>\n
Yes, he thought again, he would come back. He would buy further scraps of
\nbeautiful rubbish. He would buy the engraving of St Clement Danes, take
\nit out of its frame, and carry it home concealed under the jacket of his
\noveralls. He would drag the rest of that poem out of Mr Charrington’s
\nmemory. Even the lunatic project of renting the room upstairs flashed
\nmomentarily through his mind again. For perhaps five seconds exaltation
\nmade him careless, and he stepped out on to the pavement without so much
\nas a preliminary glance through the window. He had even started humming
\nto an improvised tune<\/p>\n
Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clement’s,
\n You owe me three farthings, say the—-<\/p>\n
Suddenly his heart seemed to turn to ice and his bowels to water. A figure
\nin blue overalls was coming down the pavement, not ten metres away. It was
\nthe girl from the Fiction Department, the girl with dark hair. The light
\nwas failing, but there was no difficulty in recognizing her. She looked
\nhim straight in the face, then walked quickly on as though she had not
\nseen him.<\/p>\n
For a few seconds Winston was too paralysed to move. Then he turned to the
\nright and walked heavily away, not noticing for the moment that he was
\ngoing in the wrong direction. At any rate, one question was settled. There
\nwas no doubting any longer that the girl was spying on him. She must have
\nfollowed him here, because it was not credible that by pure chance she
\nshould have happened to be walking on the same evening up the same obscure
\nbackstreet, kilometres distant from any quarter where Party members lived.
\nIt was too great a coincidence. Whether she was really an agent of the
\nThought Police, or simply an amateur spy actuated by officiousness, hardly
\nmattered. It was enough that she was watching him. Probably she had seen
\nhim go into the pub as well.<\/p>\n
It was an effort to walk. The lump of glass in his pocket banged against
\nhis thigh at each step, and he was half minded to take it out and throw it
\naway. The worst thing was the pain in his belly. For a couple of minutes
\nhe had the feeling that he would die if he did not reach a lavatory soon.
\nBut there would be no public lavatories in a quarter like this. Then the
\nspasm passed, leaving a dull ache behind.<\/p>\n
The street was a blind alley. Winston halted, stood for several seconds
\nwondering vaguely what to do, then turned round and began to retrace his
\nsteps. As he turned it occurred to him that the girl had only passed him
\nthree minutes ago and that by running he could probably catch up with her.
\nHe could keep on her track till they were in some quiet place, and then
\nsmash her skull in with a cobblestone. The piece of glass in his pocket
\nwould be heavy enough for the job. But he abandoned the idea immediately,
\nbecause even the thought of making any physical effort was unbearable. He
\ncould not run, he could not strike a blow. Besides, she was young and lusty
\nand would defend herself. He thought also of hurrying to the Community
\nCentre and staying there till the place closed, so as to establish a
\npartial alibi for the evening. But that too was impossible. A deadly
\nlassitude had taken hold of him. All he wanted was to get home quickly and
\nthen sit down and be quiet.<\/p>\n
It was after twenty-two hours when he got back to the flat. The lights
\nwould be switched off at the main at twenty-three thirty. He went into the
\nkitchen and swallowed nearly a teacupful of Victory Gin. Then he went to
\nthe table in the alcove, sat down, and took the diary out of the drawer.
\nBut he did not open it at once. From the telescreen a brassy female voice
\nwas squalling a patriotic song. He sat staring at the marbled cover of the
\nbook, trying without success to shut the voice out of his consciousness.<\/p>\n
It was at night that they came for you, always at night. The proper thing
\nwas to kill yourself before they got you. Undoubtedly some people did so.
\nMany of the disappearances were actually suicides. But it needed desperate
\ncourage to kill yourself in a world where firearms, or any quick and
\ncertain poison, were completely unprocurable. He thought with a kind of
\nastonishment of the biological uselessness of pain and fear, the treachery
\nof the human body which always freezes into inertia at exactly the moment
\nwhen a special effort is needed. He might have silenced the dark-haired
\ngirl if only he had acted quickly enough: but precisely because of the
\nextremity of his danger he had lost the power to act. It struck him that
\nin moments of crisis one is never fighting against an external enemy, but
\nalways against one’s own body. Even now, in spite of the gin, the dull
\nache in his belly made consecutive thought impossible. And it is the same,
\nhe perceived, in all seemingly heroic or tragic situations. On the
\nbattlefield, in the torture chamber, on a sinking ship, the issues that
\nyou are fighting for are always forgotten, because the body swells up until
\nit fills the universe, and even when you are not paralysed by fright or
\nscreaming with pain, life is a moment-to-moment struggle against hunger or
\ncold or sleeplessness, against a sour stomach or an aching tooth.<\/p>\n
He opened the diary. It was important to write something down. The woman
\non the telescreen had started a new song. Her voice seemed to stick into
\nhis brain like jagged splinters of glass. He tried to think of O’Brien,
\nfor whom, or to whom, the diary was written, but instead he began thinking
\nof the things that would happen to him after the Thought Police took him
\naway. It would not matter if they killed you at once. To be killed was
\nwhat you expected. But before death (nobody spoke of such things, yet
\neverybody knew of them) there was the routine of confession that had to
\nbe gone through: the grovelling on the floor and screaming for mercy, the
\ncrack of broken bones, the smashed teeth and bloody clots of hair.<\/p>\n
Why did you have to endure it, since the end was always the same? Why was
\nit not possible to cut a few days or weeks out of your life? Nobody ever
\nescaped detection, and nobody ever failed to confess. When once you had
\nsuccumbed to thoughtcrime it was certain that by a given date you would be
\ndead. Why then did that horror, which altered nothing, have to lie embedded
\nin future time?<\/p>\n
He tried with a little more success than before to summon up the image of
\nO’Brien. ‘We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness,’ O’Brien
\nhad said to him. He knew what it meant, or thought he knew. The place where
\nthere is no darkness was the imagined future, which one would never see,
\nbut which, by foreknowledge, one could mystically share in. But with the
\nvoice from the telescreen nagging at his ears he could not follow the train
\nof thought further. He put a cigarette in his mouth. Half the tobacco
\npromptly fell out on to his tongue, a bitter dust which was difficult to
\nspit out again. The face of Big Brother swam into his mind, displacing that
\nof O’Brien. Just as he had done a few days earlier, he slid a coin out of
\nhis pocket and looked at it. The face gazed up at him, heavy, calm,
\nprotecting: but what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache?
\nLike a leaden knell the words came back at him:<\/p>\n
WAR IS PEACE
\n FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
\n IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH<\/p>\n
PART TWO<\/p>\n
Chapter 1<\/p>\n
It was the middle of the morning, and Winston had left the cubicle to go
\nto the lavatory.<\/p>\n
A solitary figure was coming towards him from the other end of the long,
\nbrightly-lit corridor. It was the girl with dark hair. Four days had gone
\npast since the evening when he had run into her outside the junk-shop.
\nAs she came nearer he saw that her right arm was in a sling, not noticeable
\nat a distance because it was of the same colour as her overalls. Probably
\nshe had crushed her hand while swinging round one of the big kaleidoscopes
\non which the plots of novels were ‘roughed in’. It was a common accident
\nin the Fiction Department.<\/p>\n
They were perhaps four metres apart when the girl stumbled and fell almost
\nflat on her face. A sharp cry of pain was wrung out of her. She must have
\nfallen right on the injured arm. Winston stopped short. The girl had risen
\nto her knees. Her face had turned a milky yellow colour against which her
\nmouth stood out redder than ever. Her eyes were fixed on his, with an
\nappealing expression that looked more like fear than pain.<\/p>\n
A curious emotion stirred in Winston’s heart. In front of him was an enemy
\nwho was trying to kill him: in front of him, also, was a human creature,
\nin pain and perhaps with a broken bone. Already he had instinctively
\nstarted forward to help her. In the moment when he had seen her fall on
\nthe bandaged arm, it had been as though he felt the pain in his own body.<\/p>\n
‘You’re hurt?’ he said.<\/p>\n
‘It’s nothing. My arm. It’ll be all right in a second.’<\/p>\n
She spoke as though her heart were fluttering. She had certainly turned
\nvery pale.<\/p>\n
‘You haven’t broken anything?’<\/p>\n
‘No, I’m all right. It hurt for a moment, that’s all.’<\/p>\n
She held out her free hand to him, and he helped her up. She had regained
\nsome of her colour, and appeared very much better.<\/p>\n
‘It’s nothing,’ she repeated shortly. ‘I only gave my wrist a bit of a
\nbang. Thanks, comrade!’<\/p>\n
And with that she walked on in the direction in which she had been going,
\nas briskly as though it had really been nothing. The whole incident could
\nnot have taken as much as half a minute. Not to let one’s feelings appear
\nin one’s face was a habit that had acquired the status of an instinct,
\nand in any case they had been standing straight in front of a telescreen
\nwhen the thing happened. Nevertheless it had been very difficult not to
\nbetray a momentary surprise, for in the two or three seconds while he was
\nhelping her up the girl had slipped something into his hand. There was no
\nquestion that she had done it intentionally. It was something small and
\nflat. As he passed through the lavatory door he transferred it to his
\npocket and felt it with the tips of his fingers. It was a scrap of paper
\nfolded into a square.<\/p>\n
While he stood at the urinal he managed, with a little more fingering, to
\nget it unfolded. Obviously there must be a message of some kind written on
\nit. For a moment he was tempted to take it into one of the water-closets
\nand read it at once. But that would be shocking folly, as he well knew.
\nThere was no place where you could be more certain that the telescreens
\nwere watched continuously.<\/p>\n
He went back to his cubicle, sat down, threw the fragment of paper
\ncasually among the other papers on the desk, put on his spectacles and
\nhitched the speakwrite towards him. ‘Five minutes,’ he told himself,
\n‘five minutes at the very least!’ His heart bumped in his breast with
\nfrightening loudness. Fortunately the piece of work he was engaged on was
\nmere routine, the rectification of a long list of figures, not needing
\nclose attention.<\/p>\n
Whatever was written on the paper, it must have some kind of political
\nmeaning. So far as he could see there were two possibilities. One, much
\nthe more likely, was that the girl was an agent of the Thought Police,
\njust as he had feared. He did not know why the Thought Police should
\nchoose to deliver their messages in such a fashion, but perhaps they had
\ntheir reasons. The thing that was written on the paper might be a threat, a
\nsummons, an order to commit suicide, a trap of some description. But there
\nwas another, wilder possibility that kept raising its head, though he
\ntried vainly to suppress it. This was, that the message did not come from
\nthe Thought Police at all, but from some kind of underground organization.
\nPerhaps the Brotherhood existed after all! Perhaps the girl was part of it!
\nNo doubt the idea was absurd, but it had sprung into his mind in the very
\ninstant of feeling the scrap of paper in his hand. It was not till a couple
\nof minutes later that the other, more probable explanation had occurred to
\nhim. And even now, though his intellect told him that the message probably
\nmeant death–still, that was not what he believed, and the unreasonable
\nhope persisted, and his heart banged, and it was with difficulty that he
\nkept his voice from trembling as he murmured his figures into the
\nspeakwrite.<\/p>\n
He rolled up the completed bundle of work and slid it into the pneumatic
\ntube. Eight minutes had gone by. He re-adjusted his spectacles on his nose,
\nsighed, and drew the next batch of work towards him, with the scrap of
\npaper on top of it. He flattened it out. On it was written, in a large
\nunformed handwriting:<\/p>\n
I LOVE YOU.<\/p>\n
For several seconds he was too stunned even to throw the incriminating
\nthing into the memory hole. When he did so, although he knew very well the
\ndanger of showing too much interest, he could not resist reading it once
\nagain, just to make sure that the words were really there.<\/p>\n
For the rest of the morning it was very difficult to work. What was even
\nworse than having to focus his mind on a series of niggling jobs was the
\nneed to conceal his agitation from the telescreen. He felt as though a
\nfire were burning in his belly. Lunch in the hot, crowded, noise-filled
\ncanteen was torment. He had hoped to be alone for a little while during
\nthe lunch hour, but as bad luck would have it the imbecile Parsons flopped
\ndown beside him, the tang of his sweat almost defeating the tinny smell of
\nstew, and kept up a stream of talk about the preparations for Hate Week.
\nHe was particularly enthusiastic about a papier-mache model of Big
\nBrother’s head, two metres wide, which was being made for the occasion by
\nhis daughter’s troop of Spies. The irritating thing was that in the racket
\nof voices Winston could hardly hear what Parsons was saying, and was
\nconstantly having to ask for some fatuous remark to be repeated. Just once
\nhe caught a glimpse of the girl, at a table with two other girls at the
\nfar end of the room. She appeared not to have seen him, and he did not
\nlook in that direction again.<\/p>\n
The afternoon was more bearable. Immediately after lunch there arrived a
\ndelicate, difficult piece of work which would take several hours and
\nnecessitated putting everything else aside. It consisted in falsifying a
\nseries of production reports of two years ago, in such a way as to cast
\ndiscredit on a prominent member of the Inner Party, who was now under a
\ncloud. This was the kind of thing that Winston was good at, and for more
\nthan two hours he succeeded in shutting the girl out of his mind
\naltogether. Then the memory of her face came back, and with it a raging,
\nintolerable desire to be alone. Until he could be alone it was impossible
\nto think this new development out. Tonight was one of his nights at the
\nCommunity Centre. He wolfed another tasteless meal in the canteen, hurried
\noff to the Centre, took part in the solemn foolery of a ‘discussion group’,
\nplayed two games of table tennis, swallowed several glasses of gin, and
\nsat for half an hour through a lecture entitled ‘Ingsoc in relation to
\nchess’. His soul writhed with boredom, but for once he had had no impulse
\nto shirk his evening at the Centre. At the sight of the words I LOVE YOU
\nthe desire to stay alive had welled up in him, and the taking of minor
\nrisks suddenly seemed stupid. It was not till twenty-three hours, when he
\nwas home and in bed–in the darkness, where you were safe even from the
\ntelescreen so long as you kept silent–that he was able to think
\ncontinuously.<\/p>\n
It was a physical problem that had to be solved: how to get in touch with
\nthe girl and arrange a meeting. He did not consider any longer the
\npossibility that she might be laying some kind of trap for him. He knew
\nthat it was not so, because of her unmistakable agitation when she handed
\nhim the note. Obviously she had been frightened out of her wits, as well
\nshe might be. Nor did the idea of refusing her advances even cross his
\nmind. Only five nights ago he had contemplated smashing her skull in with
\na cobblestone, but that was of no importance. He thought of her naked,
\nyouthful body, as he had seen it in his dream. He had imagined her a fool
\nlike all the rest of them, her head stuffed with lies and hatred, her
\nbelly full of ice. A kind of fever seized him at the thought that he might
\nlose her, the white youthful body might slip away from him! What he feared
\nmore than anything else was that she would simply change her mind if he
\ndid not get in touch with her quickly. But the physical difficulty of
\nmeeting was enormous. It was like trying to make a move at chess when you
\nwere already mated. Whichever way you turned, the telescreen faced you.
\nActually, all the possible ways of communicating with her had occurred to
\nhim within five minutes of reading the note; but now, with time to think,
\nhe went over them one by one, as though laying out a row of instruments
\non a table.<\/p>\n
Obviously the kind of encounter that had happened this morning could not
\nbe repeated. If she had worked in the Records Department it might have
\nbeen comparatively simple, but he had only a very dim idea whereabouts in
\nthe building the Fiction Department lay, and he had no pretext for going
\nthere. If he had known where she lived, and at what time she left work,
\nhe could have contrived to meet her somewhere on her way home; but to try
\nto follow her home was not safe, because it would mean loitering about
\noutside the Ministry, which was bound to be noticed. As for sending a
\nletter through the mails, it was out of the question. By a routine that
\nwas not even secret, all letters were opened in transit. Actually, few
\npeople ever wrote letters. For the messages that it was occasionally
\nnecessary to send, there were printed postcards with long lists of phrases,
\nand you struck out the ones that were inapplicable. In any case he did not
\nknow the girl’s name, let alone her address. Finally he decided that the
\nsafest place was the canteen. If he could get her at a table by herself,
\nsomewhere in the middle of the room, not too near the telescreens, and
\nwith a sufficient buzz of conversation all round–if these conditions
\nendured for, say, thirty seconds, it might be possible to exchange a few
\nwords.<\/p>\n
For a week after this, life was like a restless dream. On the next day she
\ndid not appear in the canteen until he was leaving it, the whistle having
\nalready blown. Presumably she had been changed on to a later shift. They
\npassed each other without a glance. On the day after that she was in the
\ncanteen at the usual time, but with three other girls and immediately
\nunder a telescreen. Then for three dreadful days she did not appear at
\nall. His whole mind and body seemed to be afflicted with an unbearable
\nsensitivity, a sort of transparency, which made every movement, every
\nsound, every contact, every word that he had to speak or listen to, an
\nagony. Even in sleep he could not altogether escape from her image. He did
\nnot touch the diary during those days. If there was any relief, it was in
\nhis work, in which he could sometimes forget himself for ten minutes at a
\nstretch. He had absolutely no clue as to what had happened to her. There
\nwas no enquiry he could make. She might have been vaporized, she might
\nhave committed suicide, she might have been transferred to the other end
\nof Oceania: worst and likeliest of all, she might simply have changed her
\nmind and decided to avoid him.<\/p>\n
The next day she reappeared. Her arm was out of the sling and she had a
\nband of sticking-plaster round her wrist. The relief of seeing her was
\nso great that he could not resist staring directly at her for several
\nseconds. On the following day he very nearly succeeded in speaking to her.
\nWhen he came into the canteen she was sitting at a table well out from the
\nwall, and was quite alone. It was early, and the place was not very full.
\nThe queue edged forward till Winston was almost at the counter, then was
\nheld up for two minutes because someone in front was complaining that he
\nhad not received his tablet of saccharine. But the girl was still alone
\nwhen Winston secured his tray and began to make for her table. He walked
\ncasually towards her, his eyes searching for a place at some table beyond
\nher. She was perhaps three metres away from him. Another two seconds would
\ndo it. Then a voice behind him called, ‘Smith!’ He pretended not to hear.
\n‘Smith!’ repeated the voice, more loudly. It was no use. He turned round.
\nA blond-headed, silly-faced young man named Wilsher, whom he barely knew,
\nwas inviting him with a smile to a vacant place at his table. It was not
\nsafe to refuse. After having been recognized, he could not go and sit at
\na table with an unattended girl. It was too noticeable. He sat down with
\na friendly smile. The silly blond face beamed into his. Winston had a
\nhallucination of himself smashing a pick-axe right into the middle of it.
\nThe girl’s table filled up a few minutes later.<\/p>\n
But she must have seen him coming towards her, and perhaps she would take
\nthe hint. Next day he took care to arrive early. Surely enough, she was at
\na table in about the same place, and again alone. The person immediately
\nahead of him in the queue was a small, swiftly-moving, beetle-like man
\nwith a flat face and tiny, suspicious eyes. As Winston turned away from
\nthe counter with his tray, he saw that the little man was making straight
\nfor the girl’s table. His hopes sank again. There was a vacant place at a
\ntable further away, but something in the little man’s appearance suggested
\nthat he would be sufficiently attentive to his own comfort to choose the
\nemptiest table. With ice at his heart Winston followed. It was no use
\nunless he could get the girl alone. At this moment there was a tremendous
\ncrash. The little man was sprawling on all fours, his tray had gone flying,
\ntwo streams of soup and coffee were flowing across the floor. He started
\nto his feet with a malignant glance at Winston, whom he evidently
\nsuspected of having tripped him up. But it was all right. Five seconds
\nlater, with a thundering heart, Winston was sitting at the girl’s table.<\/p>\n
He did not look at her. He unpacked his tray and promptly began eating.
\nIt was all-important to speak at once, before anyone else came, but now
\na terrible fear had taken possession of him. A week had gone by since
\nshe had first approached him. She would have changed her mind, she must
\nhave changed her mind! It was impossible that this affair should end
\nsuccessfully; such things did not happen in real life. He might have
\nflinched altogether from speaking if at this moment he had not seen
\nAmpleforth, the hairy-eared poet, wandering limply round the room with
\na tray, looking for a place to sit down. In his vague way Ampleforth
\nwas attached to Winston, and would certainly sit down at his table if
\nhe caught sight of him. There was perhaps a minute in which to act. Both
\nWinston and the girl were eating steadily. The stuff they were eating was
\na thin stew, actually a soup, of haricot beans. In a low murmur Winston
\nbegan speaking. Neither of them looked up; steadily they spooned the
\nwatery stuff into their mouths, and between spoonfuls exchanged the few
\nnecessary words in low expressionless voices.<\/p>\n
‘What time do you leave work?’<\/p>\n
‘Eighteen-thirty.’<\/p>\n
‘Where can we meet?’<\/p>\n
‘Victory Square, near the monument.’<\/p>\n
‘It’s full of telescreens.’<\/p>\n
‘It doesn’t matter if there’s a crowd.’<\/p>\n
‘Any signal?’<\/p>\n
‘No. Don’t come up to me until you see me among a lot of people. And don’t
\nlook at me. Just keep somewhere near me.’<\/p>\n
‘What time?’<\/p>\n
‘Nineteen hours.’<\/p>\n
‘All right.’<\/p>\n
Ampleforth failed to see Winston and sat down at another table. They did
\nnot speak again, and, so far as it was possible for two people sitting on
\nopposite sides of the same table, they did not look at one another. The
\ngirl finished her lunch quickly and made off, while Winston stayed to
\nsmoke a cigarette.<\/p>\n
Winston was in Victory Square before the appointed time. He wandered round
\nthe base of the enormous fluted column, at the top of which Big Brother’s
\nstatue gazed southward towards the skies where he had vanquished the
\nEurasian aeroplanes (the Eastasian aeroplanes, it had been, a few years
\nago) in the Battle of Airstrip One. In the street in front of it there was
\na statue of a man on horseback which was supposed to represent Oliver
\nCromwell. At five minutes past the hour the girl had still not appeared.
\nAgain the terrible fear seized upon Winston. She was not coming, she had
\nchanged her mind! He walked slowly up to the north side of the square and
\ngot a sort of pale-coloured pleasure from identifying St Martin’s Church,
\nwhose bells, when it had bells, had chimed ‘You owe me three farthings.’
\nThen he saw the girl standing at the base of the monument, reading or
\npretending to read a poster which ran spirally up the column. It was not
\nsafe to go near her until some more people had accumulated. There were
\ntelescreens all round the pediment. But at this moment there was a din of
\nshouting and a zoom of heavy vehicles from somewhere to the left. Suddenly
\neveryone seemed to be running across the square. The girl nipped nimbly
\nround the lions at the base of the monument and joined in the rush.
\nWinston followed. As he ran, he gathered from some shouted remarks that
\na convoy of Eurasian prisoners was passing.<\/p>\n
Already a dense mass of people was blocking the south side of the square.
\nWinston, at normal times the kind of person who gravitates to the outer
\nedge of any kind of scrimmage, shoved, butted, squirmed his way forward
\ninto the heart of the crowd. Soon he was within arm’s length of the girl,
\nbut the way was blocked by an enormous prole and an almost equally enormous
\nwoman, presumably his wife, who seemed to form an impenetrable wall of
\nflesh. Winston wriggled himself sideways, and with a violent lunge managed
\nto drive his shoulder between them. For a moment it felt as though his
\nentrails were being ground to pulp between the two muscular hips, then he
\nhad broken through, sweating a little. He was next to the girl. They were
\nshoulder to shoulder, both staring fixedly in front of them.<\/p>\n
A long line of trucks, with wooden-faced guards armed with sub-machine
\nguns standing upright in each corner, was passing slowly down the street.
\nIn the trucks little yellow men in shabby greenish uniforms were squatting,
\njammed close together. Their sad, Mongolian faces gazed out over the sides
\nof the trucks utterly incurious. Occasionally when a truck jolted there
\nwas a clank-clank of metal: all the prisoners were wearing leg-irons.
\nTruck-load after truck-load of the sad faces passed. Winston knew they
\nwere there but he saw them only intermittently. The girl’s shoulder, and
\nher arm right down to the elbow, were pressed against his. Her cheek was
\nalmost near enough for him to feel its warmth. She had immediately taken
\ncharge of the situation, just as she had done in the canteen. She began
\nspeaking in the same expressionless voice as before, with lips barely
\nmoving, a mere murmur easily drowned by the din of voices and the rumbling
\nof the trucks.<\/p>\n
‘Can you hear me?’<\/p>\n
‘Yes.’<\/p>\n
‘Can you get Sunday afternoon off?’<\/p>\n
‘Yes.’<\/p>\n
‘Then listen carefully. You’ll have to remember this. Go to Paddington
\nStation—-‘<\/p>\n
With a sort of military precision that astonished him, she outlined the
\nroute that he was to follow. A half-hour railway journey; turn left outside
\nthe station; two kilometres along the road; a gate with the top bar
\nmissing; a path across a field; a grass-grown lane; a track between bushes;
\na dead tree with moss on it. It was as though she had a map inside her
\nhead. ‘Can you remember all that?’ she murmured finally.<\/p>\n
‘Yes.’<\/p>\n
‘You turn left, then right, then left again. And the gate’s got no top bar.’<\/p>\n
‘Yes. What time?’<\/p>\n
‘About fifteen. You may have to wait. I’ll get there by another way. Are
\nyou sure you remember everything?’<\/p>\n
‘Yes.’<\/p>\n
‘Then get away from me as quick as you can.’<\/p>\n
She need not have told him that. But for the moment they could not
\nextricate themselves from the crowd. The trucks were still filing past,
\nthe people still insatiably gaping. At the start there had been a few boos
\nand hisses, but it came only from the Party members among the crowd, and
\nhad soon stopped. The prevailing emotion was simply curiosity. Foreigners,
\nwhether from Eurasia or from Eastasia, were a kind of strange animal. One
\nliterally never saw them except in the guise of prisoners, and even as
\nprisoners one never got more than a momentary glimpse of them. Nor did
\none know what became of them, apart from the few who were hanged as
\nwar-criminals: the others simply vanished, presumably into forced-labour
\ncamps. The round Mogol faces had given way to faces of a more European
\ntype, dirty, bearded and exhausted. From over scrubby cheekbones eyes
\nlooked into Winston’s, sometimes with strange intensity, and flashed away
\nagain. The convoy was drawing to an end. In the last truck he could see an
\naged man, his face a mass of grizzled hair, standing upright with wrists
\ncrossed in front of him, as though he were used to having them bound
\ntogether. It was almost time for Winston and the girl to part. But at the
\nlast moment, while the crowd still hemmed them in, her hand felt for his
\nand gave it a fleeting squeeze.<\/p>\n
It could not have been ten seconds, and yet it seemed a long time that
\ntheir hands were clasped together. He had time to learn every detail
\nof her hand. He explored the long fingers, the shapely nails, the
\nwork-hardened palm with its row of callouses, the smooth flesh under the
\nwrist. Merely from feeling it he would have known it by sight. In the
\nsame instant it occurred to him that he did not know what colour the
\ngirl’s eyes were. They were probably brown, but people with dark hair
\nsometimes had blue eyes. To turn his head and look at her would have
\nbeen inconceivable folly. With hands locked together, invisible among
\nthe press of bodies, they stared steadily in front of them, and instead
\nof the eyes of the girl, the eyes of the aged prisoner gazed mournfully
\nat Winston out of nests of hair.<\/p>\n
Chapter 2<\/p>\n
Winston picked his way up the lane through dappled light and shade,
\nstepping out into pools of gold wherever the boughs parted. Under the
\ntrees to the left of him the ground was misty with bluebells. The air
\nseemed to kiss one’s skin. It was the second of May. From somewhere deeper
\nin the heart of the wood came the droning of ring-doves.<\/p>\n
He was a bit early. There had been no difficulties about the journey, and
\nthe girl was so evidently experienced that he was less frightened than he
\nwould normally have been. Presumably she could be trusted to find a safe
\nplace. In general you could not assume that you were much safer in the
\ncountry than in London. There were no telescreens, of course, but there
\nwas always the danger of concealed microphones by which your voice might
\nbe picked up and recognized; besides, it was not easy to make a journey
\nby yourself without attracting attention. For distances of less than
\n100 kilometres it was not necessary to get your passport endorsed, but
\nsometimes there were patrols hanging about the railway stations, who
\nexamined the papers of any Party member they found there and asked awkward
\nquestions. However, no patrols had appeared, and on the walk from the
\nstation he had made sure by cautious backward glances that he was not
\nbeing followed. The train was full of proles, in holiday mood because of
\nthe summery weather. The wooden-seated carriage in which he travelled was
\nfilled to overflowing by a single enormous family, ranging from a toothless
\ngreat-grandmother to a month-old baby, going out to spend an afternoon
\nwith ‘in-laws’ in the country, and, as they freely explained to Winston,
\nto get hold of a little black-market butter.<\/p>\n
The lane widened, and in a minute he came to the footpath she had told him
\nof, a mere cattle-track which plunged between the bushes. He had no watch,
\nbut it could not be fifteen yet. The bluebells were so thick underfoot
\nthat it was impossible not to tread on them. He knelt down and began
\npicking some partly to pass the time away, but also from a vague idea that
\nhe would like to have a bunch of flowers to offer to the girl when they
\nmet. He had got together a big bunch and was smelling their faint sickly
\nscent when a sound at his back froze him, the unmistakable crackle of a
\nfoot on twigs. He went on picking bluebells. It was the best thing to do.
\nIt might be the girl, or he might have been followed after all. To look
\nround was to show guilt. He picked another and another. A hand fell
\nlightly on his shoulder.<\/p>\n
He looked up. It was the girl. She shook her head, evidently as a warning
\nthat he must keep silent, then parted the bushes and quickly led the way
\nalong the narrow track into the wood. Obviously she had been that way
\nbefore, for she dodged the boggy bits as though by habit. Winston followed,
\nstill clasping his bunch of flowers. His first feeling was relief, but as
\nhe watched the strong slender body moving in front of him, with the scarlet
\nsash that was just tight enough to bring out the curve of her hips, the
\nsense of his own inferiority was heavy upon him. Even now it seemed quite
\nlikely that when she turned round and looked at him she would draw back
\nafter all. The sweetness of the air and the greenness of the leaves daunted
\nhim. Already on the walk from the station the May sunshine had made him
\nfeel dirty and etiolated, a creature of indoors, with the sooty dust of
\nLondon in the pores of his skin. It occurred to him that till now she had
\nprobably never seen him in broad daylight in the open. They came to the
\nfallen tree that she had spoken of. The girl hopped over and forced apart
\nthe bushes, in which there did not seem to be an opening. When Winston
\nfollowed her, he found that they were in a natural clearing, a tiny grassy
\nknoll surrounded by tall saplings that shut it in completely. The girl
\nstopped and turned.<\/p>\n
‘Here we are,’ she said.<\/p>\n
He was facing her at several paces’ distance. As yet he did not dare move
\nnearer to her.<\/p>\n
‘I didn’t want to say anything in the lane,’ she went on, ‘in case there’s
\na mike hidden there. I don’t suppose there is, but there could be. There’s
\nalways the chance of one of those swine recognizing your voice. We’re all
\nright here.’<\/p>\n
He still had not the courage to approach her. ‘We’re all right here?’
\nhe repeated stupidly.<\/p>\n
‘Yes. Look at the trees.’ They were small ashes, which at some time had
\nbeen cut down and had sprouted up again into a forest of poles, none of
\nthem thicker than one’s wrist. ‘There’s nothing big enough to hide a mike
\nin. Besides, I’ve been here before.’<\/p>\n
They were only making conversation. He had managed to move closer to her
\nnow. She stood before him very upright, with a smile on her face that
\nlooked faintly ironical, as though she were wondering why he was so slow
\nto act. The bluebells had cascaded on to the ground. They seemed to have
\nfallen of their own accord. He took her hand.<\/p>\n
‘Would you believe,’ he said, ‘that till this moment I didn’t know what
\ncolour your eyes were?’ They were brown, he noted, a rather light shade of
\nbrown, with dark lashes. ‘Now that you’ve seen what I’m really like,
\ncan you still bear to look at me?’<\/p>\n
‘Yes, easily.’<\/p>\n
‘I’m thirty-nine years old. I’ve got a wife that I can’t get rid of. I’ve
\ngot varicose veins. I’ve got five false teeth.’<\/p>\n
‘I couldn’t care less,’ said the girl.<\/p>\n
The next moment, it was hard to say by whose act, she was in his arms.
\nAt the beginning he had no feeling except sheer incredulity. The youthful
\nbody was strained against his own, the mass of dark hair was against his
\nface, and yes! actually she had turned her face up and he was kissing the
\nwide red mouth. She had clasped her arms about his neck, she was calling
\nhim darling, precious one, loved one. He had pulled her down on to the
\nground, she was utterly unresisting, he could do what he liked with her.
\nBut the truth was that he had no physical sensation, except that of mere
\ncontact. All he felt was incredulity and pride. He was glad that this was
\nhappening, but he had no physical desire. It was too soon, her youth and
\nprettiness had frightened him, he was too much used to living without
\nwomen–he did not know the reason. The girl picked herself up and pulled a
\nbluebell out of her hair. She sat against him, putting her arm round his
\nwaist.<\/p>\n
‘Never mind, dear. There’s no hurry. We’ve got the whole afternoon. Isn’t
\nthis a splendid hide-out? I found it when I got lost once on a community
\nhike. If anyone was coming you could hear them a hundred metres away.’<\/p>\n
‘What is your name?’ said Winston.<\/p>\n
‘Julia. I know yours. It’s Winston–Winston Smith.’<\/p>\n
‘How did you find that out?’<\/p>\n
‘I expect I’m better at finding things out than you are, dear. Tell me,
\nwhat did you think of me before that day I gave you the note?’<\/p>\n
He did not feel any temptation to tell lies to her. It was even a sort of
\nlove-offering to start off by telling the worst.<\/p>\n
‘I hated the sight of you,’ he said. ‘I wanted to rape you and then murder
\nyou afterwards. Two weeks ago I thought seriously of smashing your head in
\nwith a cobblestone. If you really want to know, I imagined that you had
\nsomething to do with the Thought Police.’<\/p>\n
The girl laughed delightedly, evidently taking this as a
\ntribute to the excellence of her disguise.<\/p>\n
‘Not the Thought Police! You didn’t honestly think that?’<\/p>\n
‘Well, perhaps not exactly that. But from your general appearance–merely
\nbecause you’re young and fresh and healthy, you understand–I thought that
\nprobably—-‘<\/p>\n
‘You thought I was a good Party member. Pure in word and deed. Banners,
\nprocessions, slogans, games, community hikes all that stuff. And you
\nthought that if I had a quarter of a chance I’d denounce you as a
\nthought-criminal and get you killed off?’<\/p>\n
‘Yes, something of that kind. A great many young girls are like that,
\nyou know.’<\/p>\n
‘It’s this bloody thing that does it,’ she said, ripping off the scarlet
\nsash of the Junior Anti-Sex League and flinging it on to a bough. Then,
\nas though touching her waist had reminded her of something, she felt in
\nthe pocket of her overalls and produced a small slab of chocolate. She
\nbroke it in half and gave one of the pieces to Winston. Even before he had
\ntaken it he knew by the smell that it was very unusual chocolate. It was
\ndark and shiny, and was wrapped in silver paper. Chocolate normally was
\ndull-brown crumbly stuff that tasted, as nearly as one could describe it,
\nlike the smoke of a rubbish fire. But at some time or another he had tasted
\nchocolate like the piece she had given him. The first whiff of its scent
\nhad stirred up some memory which he could not pin down, but which was
\npowerful and troubling.<\/p>\n
‘Where did you get this stuff?’ he said.<\/p>\n
‘Black market,’ she said indifferently. ‘Actually I am that sort of girl,
\nto look at. I’m good at games. I was a troop-leader in the Spies. I do
\nvoluntary work three evenings a week for the Junior Anti-Sex League. Hours
\nand hours I’ve spent pasting their bloody rot all over London. I always
\ncarry one end of a banner in the processions. I always look cheerful and
\nI never shirk anything. Always yell with the crowd, that’s what I say.
\nIt’s the only way to be safe.’<\/p>\n
The first fragment of chocolate had melted on Winston’s tongue. The taste
\nwas delightful. But there was still that memory moving round the edges of
\nhis consciousness, something strongly felt but not reducible to definite
\nshape, like an object seen out of the corner of one’s eye. He pushed it
\naway from him, aware only that it was the memory of some action which he
\nwould have liked to undo but could not.<\/p>\n
‘You are very young,’ he said. ‘You are ten or fifteen years younger than
\nI am. What could you see to attract you in a man like me?’<\/p>\n
‘It was something in your face. I thought I’d take a chance. I’m good at
\nspotting people who don’t belong. As soon as I saw you I knew you were
\nagainst THEM.’<\/p>\n
THEM, it appeared, meant the Party, and above all the Inner Party, about
\nwhom she talked with an open jeering hatred which made Winston feel uneasy,
\nalthough he knew that they were safe here if they could be safe anywhere.
\nA thing that astonished him about her was the coarseness of her language.
\nParty members were supposed not to swear, and Winston himself very seldom
\ndid swear, aloud, at any rate. Julia, however, seemed unable to mention
\nthe Party, and especially the Inner Party, without using the kind of words
\nthat you saw chalked up in dripping alley-ways. He did not dislike it. It
\nwas merely one symptom of her revolt against the Party and all its ways,
\nand somehow it seemed natural and healthy, like the sneeze of a horse that
\nsmells bad hay. They had left the clearing and were wandering again
\nthrough the chequered shade, with their arms round each other’s waists
\nwhenever it was wide enough to walk two abreast. He noticed how much
\nsofter her waist seemed to feel now that the sash was gone. They did not
\nspeak above a whisper. Outside the clearing, Julia said, it was better to
\ngo quietly. Presently they had reached the edge of the little wood. She
\nstopped him.<\/p>\n
‘Don’t go out into the open. There might be someone watching. We’re all
\nright if we keep behind the boughs.’<\/p>\n
They were standing in the shade of hazel bushes. The sunlight, filtering
\nthrough innumerable leaves, was still hot on their faces. Winston looked
\nout into the field beyond, and underwent a curious, slow shock of
\nrecognition. He knew it by sight. An old, close-bitten pasture, with a
\nfootpath wandering across it and a molehill here and there. In the ragged
\nhedge on the opposite side the boughs of the elm trees swayed just
\nperceptibly in the breeze, and their leaves stirred faintly in dense
\nmasses like women’s hair. Surely somewhere nearby, but out of sight,
\nthere must be a stream with green pools where dace were swimming?<\/p>\n
‘Isn’t there a stream somewhere near here?’ he whispered.<\/p>\n
‘That’s right, there is a stream. It’s at the edge of the next field,
\nactually. There are fish in it, great big ones. You can watch them lying
\nin the pools under the willow trees, waving their tails.’<\/p>\n
‘It’s the Golden Country–almost,’ he murmured.<\/p>\n
‘The Golden Country?’<\/p>\n
‘It’s nothing, really. A landscape I’ve seen sometimes in a dream.’<\/p>\n
‘Look!’ whispered Julia.<\/p>\n
A thrush had alighted on a bough not five metres away, almost at the level
\nof their faces. Perhaps it had not seen them. It was in the sun, they in
\nthe shade. It spread out its wings, fitted them carefully into place
\nagain, ducked its head for a moment, as though making a sort of obeisance
\nto the sun, and then began to pour forth a torrent of song. In the
\nafternoon hush the volume of sound was startling. Winston and Julia clung
\ntogether, fascinated. The music went on and on, minute after minute, with
\nastonishing variations, never once repeating itself, almost as though the
\nbird were deliberately showing off its virtuosity. Sometimes it stopped
\nfor a few seconds, spread out and resettled its wings, then swelled its
\nspeckled breast and again burst into song. Winston watched it with a sort
\nof vague reverence. For whom, for what, was that bird singing? No mate,
\nno rival was watching it. What made it sit at the edge of the lonely wood
\nand pour its music into nothingness? He wondered whether after all there
\nwas a microphone hidden somewhere near. He and Julia had spoken only in
\nlow whispers, and it would not pick up what they had said, but it would
\npick up the thrush. Perhaps at the other end of the instrument some small,
\nbeetle-like man was listening intently–listening to that. But by degrees
\nthe flood of music drove all speculations out of his mind. It was as
\nthough it were a kind of liquid stuff that poured all over him and got
\nmixed up with the sunlight that filtered through the leaves. He stopped
\nthinking and merely felt. The girl’s waist in the bend of his arm was soft
\nand warm. He pulled her round so that they were breast to breast; her body
\nseemed to melt into his. Wherever his hands moved it was all as yielding as
\nwater. Their mouths clung together; it was quite different from the hard
\nkisses they had exchanged earlier. When they moved their faces apart again
\nboth of them sighed deeply. The bird took fright and fled with a clatter
\nof wings.<\/p>\n
Winston put his lips against her ear. ‘NOW,’ he whispered.<\/p>\n
‘Not here,’ she whispered back. ‘Come back to the hide-out. It’s safer.’<\/p>\n
Quickly, with an occasional crackle of twigs, they threaded their way back
\nto the clearing. When they were once inside the ring of saplings she turned
\nand faced him. They were both breathing fast, but the smile had reappeared
\nround the corners of her mouth. She stood looking at him for an instant,
\nthen felt at the zipper of her overalls. And, yes! it was almost as in his
\ndream. Almost as swiftly as he had imagined it, she had torn her clothes
\noff, and when she flung them aside it was with that same magnificent
\ngesture by which a whole civilization seemed to be annihilated. Her body
\ngleamed white in the sun. But for a moment he did not look at her body;
\nhis eyes were anchored by the freckled face with its faint, bold smile.
\nHe knelt down before her and took her hands in his.<\/p>\n
‘Have you done this before?’<\/p>\n
‘Of course. Hundreds of times–well, scores of times, anyway.’<\/p>\n
‘With Party members?’<\/p>\n
‘Yes, always with Party members.’<\/p>\n
‘With members of the Inner Party?’<\/p>\n
‘Not with those swine, no. But there’s plenty that WOULD if they got half
\na chance. They’re not so holy as they make out.’<\/p>\n
His heart leapt. Scores of times she had done it: he wished it had been
\nhundreds–thousands. Anything that hinted at corruption always filled him
\nwith a wild hope. Who knew, perhaps the Party was rotten under the surface,
\nits cult of strenuousness and self-denial simply a sham concealing
\niniquity. If he could have infected the whole lot of them with leprosy or
\nsyphilis, how gladly he would have done so! Anything to rot, to weaken, to
\nundermine! He pulled her down so that they were kneeling face to face.<\/p>\n
‘Listen. The more men you’ve had, the more I love you. Do you understand
\nthat?’<\/p>\n
‘Yes, perfectly.’<\/p>\n
‘I hate purity, I hate goodness! I don’t want any virtue to exist anywhere.
\nI want everyone to be corrupt to the bones.’<\/p>\n
‘Well then, I ought to suit you, dear. I’m corrupt to the bones.’<\/p>\n
‘You like doing this? I don’t mean simply me: I mean the thing in itself?’<\/p>\n
‘I adore it.’<\/p>\n
That was above all what he wanted to hear. Not merely the love of one
\nperson but the animal instinct, the simple undifferentiated desire: that
\nwas the force that would tear the Party to pieces. He pressed her down
\nupon the grass, among the fallen bluebells. This time there was no
\ndifficulty. Presently the rising and falling of their breasts slowed to
\nnormal speed, and in a sort of pleasant helplessness they fell apart. The
\nsun seemed to have grown hotter. They were both sleepy. He reached out for
\nthe discarded overalls and pulled them partly over her. Almost immediately
\nthey fell asleep and slept for about half an hour.<\/p>\n
Winston woke first. He sat up and watched the freckled face, still
\npeacefully asleep, pillowed on the palm of her hand. Except for her mouth,
\nyou could not call her beautiful. There was a line or two round the eyes,
\nif you looked closely. The short dark hair was extraordinarily thick and
\nsoft. It occurred to him that he still did not know her surname or where
\nshe lived.<\/p>\n
The young, strong body, now helpless in sleep, awoke in him a pitying,
\nprotecting feeling. But the mindless tenderness that he had felt under
\nthe hazel tree, while the thrush was singing, had not quite come back.
\nHe pulled the overalls aside and studied her smooth white flank. In the
\nold days, he thought, a man looked at a girl’s body and saw that it was
\ndesirable, and that was the end of the story. But you could not have pure
\nlove or pure lust nowadays. No emotion was pure, because everything was
\nmixed up with fear and hatred. Their embrace had been a battle, the climax
\na victory. It was a blow struck against the Party. It was a political act.<\/p>\n
Chapter 3<\/p>\n
‘We can come here once again,’ said Julia. ‘It’s generally safe to use any
\nhide-out twice. But not for another month or two, of course.’<\/p>\n
As soon as she woke up her demeanour had changed. She became alert and
\nbusiness-like, put her clothes on, knotted the scarlet sash about her
\nwaist, and began arranging the details of the journey home. It seemed
\nnatural to leave this to her. She obviously had a practical cunning which
\nWinston lacked, and she seemed also to have an exhaustive knowledge of the
\ncountryside round London, stored away from innumerable community hikes.
\nThe route she gave him was quite different from the one by which he had
\ncome, and brought him out at a different railway station. ‘Never go home
\nthe same way as you went out,’ she said, as though enunciating an important
\ngeneral principle. She would leave first, and Winston was to wait half an
\nhour before following her.<\/p>\n
She had named a place where they could meet after work, four evenings
\nhence. It was a street in one of the poorer quarters, where there was an
\nopen market which was generally crowded and noisy. She would be hanging
\nabout among the stalls, pretending to be in search of shoelaces or
\nsewing-thread. If she judged that the coast was clear she would blow
\nher nose when he approached; otherwise he was to walk past her without
\nrecognition. But with luck, in the middle of the crowd, it would be
\nsafe to talk for a quarter of an hour and arrange another meeting.<\/p>\n
‘And now I must go,’ she said as soon as he had mastered his instructions.
\n‘I’m due back at nineteen-thirty. I’ve got to put in two hours for the
\nJunior Anti-Sex League, handing out leaflets, or something. Isn’t it
\nbloody? Give me a brush-down, would you? Have I got any twigs in my hair?
\nAre you sure? Then good-bye, my love, good-bye!’<\/p>\n
She flung herself into his arms, kissed him almost violently, and a moment
\nlater pushed her way through the saplings and disappeared into the wood
\nwith very little noise. Even now he had not found out her surname or her
\naddress. However, it made no difference, for it was inconceivable that
\nthey could ever meet indoors or exchange any kind of written communication.<\/p>\n
As it happened, they never went back to the clearing in the wood. During
\nthe month of May there was only one further occasion on which they actually
\nsucceeded in making love. That was in another hiding-place known to Julia,
\nthe belfry of a ruinous church in an almost-deserted stretch of country
\nwhere an atomic bomb had fallen thirty years earlier. It was a good
\nhiding-place when once you got there, but the getting there was very
\ndangerous. For the rest they could meet only in the streets, in a different
\nplace every evening and never for more than half an hour at a time. In the
\nstreet it was usually possible to talk, after a fashion. As they drifted
\ndown the crowded pavements, not quite abreast and never looking at one
\nanother, they carried on a curious, intermittent conversation which flicked
\non and off like the beams of a lighthouse, suddenly nipped into silence
\nby the approach of a Party uniform or the proximity of a telescreen, then
\ntaken up again minutes later in the middle of a sentence, then abruptly
\ncut short as they parted at the agreed spot, then continued almost without
\nintroduction on the following day. Julia appeared to be quite used to this
\nkind of conversation, which she called ‘talking by instalments’. She was
\nalso surprisingly adept at speaking without moving her lips. Just once in
\nalmost a month of nightly meetings they managed to exchange a kiss. They
\nwere passing in silence down a side-street (Julia would never speak when
\nthey were away from the main streets) when there was a deafening roar, the
\nearth heaved, and the air darkened, and Winston found himself lying on his
\nside, bruised and terrified. A rocket bomb must have dropped quite near at
\nhand. Suddenly he became aware of Julia’s face a few centimetres from his
\nown, deathly white, as white as chalk. Even her lips were white. She was
\ndead! He clasped her against him and found that he was kissing a live
\nwarm face. But there was some powdery stuff that got in the way of his
\nlips. Both of their faces were thickly coated with plaster.<\/p>\n
There were evenings when they reached their rendezvous and then had to
\nwalk past one another without a sign, because a patrol had just come round
\nthe corner or a helicopter was hovering overhead. Even if it had been
\nless dangerous, it would still have been difficult to find time to meet.
\nWinston’s working week was sixty hours, Julia’s was even longer, and
\ntheir free days varied according to the pressure of work and did not
\noften coincide. Julia, in any case, seldom had an evening completely free.
\nShe spent an astonishing amount of time in attending lectures and
\ndemonstrations, distributing literature for the junior Anti-Sex League,
\npreparing banners for Hate Week, making collections for the savings
\ncampaign, and such-like activities. It paid, she said, it was camouflage.
\nIf you kept the small rules, you could break the big ones. She even induced
\nWinston to mortgage yet another of his evenings by enrolling himself for
\nthe part-time munition work which was done voluntarily by zealous Party
\nmembers. So, one evening every week, Winston spent four hours of paralysing
\nboredom, screwing together small bits of metal which were probably parts
\nof bomb fuses, in a draughty, ill-lit workshop where the knocking of
\nhammers mingled drearily with the music of the telescreens.<\/p>\n
When they met in the church tower the gaps in their fragmentary
\nconversation were filled up. It was a blazing afternoon. The air in the
\nlittle square chamber above the bells was hot and stagnant, and smelt
\noverpoweringly of pigeon dung. They sat talking for hours on the dusty,
\ntwig-littered floor, one or other of them getting up from time to time to
\ncast a glance through the arrowslits and make sure that no one was coming.<\/p>\n
Julia was twenty-six years old. She lived in a hostel with thirty other
\ngirls (‘Always in the stink of women! How I hate women!’ she said
\nparenthetically), and she worked, as he had guessed, on the novel-writing
\nmachines in the Fiction Department. She enjoyed her work, which consisted
\nchiefly in running and servicing a powerful but tricky electric motor.
\nShe was ‘not clever’, but was fond of using her hands and felt at home
\nwith machinery. She could describe the whole process of composing a novel,
\nfrom the general directive issued by the Planning Committee down to the
\nfinal touching-up by the Rewrite Squad. But she was not interested in the
\nfinished product. She ‘didn’t much care for reading,’ she said. Books were
\njust a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.<\/p>\n
She had no memories of anything before the early sixties and the only
\nperson she had ever known who talked frequently of the days before the
\nRevolution was a grandfather who had disappeared when she was eight. At
\nschool she had been captain of the hockey team and had won the gymnastics
\ntrophy two years running. She had been a troop-leader in the Spies and a
\nbranch secretary in the Youth League before joining the Junior Anti-Sex
\nLeague. She had always borne an excellent character. She had even (an
\ninfallible mark of good reputation) been picked out to work in Pornosec,
\nthe sub-section of the Fiction Department which turned out cheap
\npornography for distribution among the proles. It was nicknamed Muck House
\nby the people who worked in it, she remarked. There she had remained for
\na year, helping to produce booklets in sealed packets with titles like
\n‘Spanking Stories’ or ‘One Night in a Girls’ School’, to be bought
\nfurtively by proletarian youths who were under the impression that they
\nwere buying something illegal.<\/p>\n
‘What are these books like?’ said Winston curiously.<\/p>\n
‘Oh, ghastly rubbish. They’re boring, really. They only have six plots,
\nbut they swap them round a bit. Of course I was only on the kaleidoscopes.
\nI was never in the Rewrite Squad. I’m not literary, dear–not even enough
\nfor that.’<\/p>\n
He learned with astonishment that all the workers in Pornosec, except the
\nheads of the departments, were girls. The theory was that men, whose sex
\ninstincts were less controllable than those of women, were in greater
\ndanger of being corrupted by the filth they handled.<\/p>\n
‘They don’t even like having married women there,’ she added. Girls are
\nalways supposed to be so pure. Here’s one who isn’t, anyway.<\/p>\n
She had had her first love-affair when she was sixteen, with a Party member
\nof sixty who later committed suicide to avoid arrest. ‘And a good job too,’
\nsaid Julia, ‘otherwise they’d have had my name out of him when he
\nconfessed.’ Since then there had been various others. Life as she saw it
\nwas quite simple. You wanted a good time; ‘they’, meaning the Party,
\nwanted to stop you having it; you broke the rules as best you could. She
\nseemed to think it just as natural that ‘they’ should want to rob you of
\nyour pleasures as that you should want to avoid being caught. She hated
\nthe Party, and said so in the crudest words, but she made no general
\ncriticism of it. Except where it touched upon her own life she had no
\ninterest in Party doctrine. He noticed that she never used Newspeak words
\nexcept the ones that had passed into everyday use. She had never heard of
\nthe Brotherhood, and refused to believe in its existence. Any kind of
\norganized revolt against the Party, which was bound to be a failure,
\nstruck her as stupid. The clever thing was to break the rules and stay
\nalive all the same. He wondered vaguely how many others like her there
\nmight be in the younger generation people who had grown up in the world of
\nthe Revolution, knowing nothing else, accepting the Party as something
\nunalterable, like the sky, not rebelling against its authority but simply
\nevading it, as a rabbit dodges a dog.<\/p>\n
They did not discuss the possibility of getting married. It was too remote
\nto be worth thinking about. No imaginable committee would ever sanction
\nsuch a marriage even if Katharine, Winston’s wife, could somehow have been
\ngot rid of. It was hopeless even as a daydream.<\/p>\n
‘What was she like, your wife?’ said Julia.<\/p>\n
‘She was–do you know the Newspeak word GOODTHINKFUL? Meaning naturally
\northodox, incapable of thinking a bad thought?’<\/p>\n
‘No, I didn’t know the word, but I know the kind of person, right enough.’<\/p>\n
He began telling her the story of his married life, but curiously enough
\nshe appeared to know the essential parts of it already. She described
\nto him, almost as though she had seen or felt it, the stiffening of
\nKatharine’s body as soon as he touched her, the way in which she still
\nseemed to be pushing him from her with all her strength, even when her
\narms were clasped tightly round him. With Julia he felt no difficulty in
\ntalking about such things: Katharine, in any case, had long ceased to be
\na painful memory and became merely a distasteful one.<\/p>\n
‘I could have stood it if it hadn’t been for one thing,’ he said. He told
\nher about the frigid little ceremony that Katharine had forced him to go
\nthrough on the same night every week. ‘She hated it, but nothing would
\nmake her stop doing it. She used to call it–but you’ll never guess.’<\/p>\n
‘Our duty to the Party,’ said Julia promptly.<\/p>\n
‘How did you know that?’<\/p>\n
‘I’ve been at school too, dear. Sex talks once a month for the
\nover-sixteens. And in the Youth Movement. They rub it into you for years.
\nI dare say it works in a lot of cases. But of course you can never tell;
\npeople are such hypocrites.’<\/p>\n
She began to enlarge upon the subject. With Julia, everything came back
\nto her own sexuality. As soon as this was touched upon in any way she was
\ncapable of great acuteness. Unlike Winston, she had grasped the inner
\nmeaning of the Party’s sexual puritanism. It was not merely that the sex
\ninstinct created a world of its own which was outside the Party’s control
\nand which therefore had to be destroyed if possible. What was more
\nimportant was that sexual privation induced hysteria, which was desirable
\nbecause it could be transformed into war-fever and leader-worship. The way
\nshe put it was:<\/p>\n
‘When you make love you’re using up energy; and afterwards you feel happy
\nand don’t give a damn for anything. They can’t bear you to feel like that.
\nThey want you to be bursting with energy all the time. All this marching
\nup and down and cheering and waving flags is simply sex gone sour. If
\nyou’re happy inside yourself, why should you get excited about Big Brother
\nand the Three-Year Plans and the Two Minutes Hate and all the rest of
\ntheir bloody rot?’<\/p>\n
That was very true, he thought. There was a direct intimate connexion
\nbetween chastity and political orthodoxy. For how could the fear, the
\nhatred, and the lunatic credulity which the Party needed in its members be
\nkept at the right pitch, except by bottling down some powerful instinct
\nand using it as a driving force? The sex impulse was dangerous to the
\nParty, and the Party had turned it to account. They had played a similar
\ntrick with the instinct of parenthood. The family could not actually be
\nabolished, and, indeed, people were encouraged to be fond of their
\nchildren, in almost the old-fashioned way. The children, on the other hand,
\nwere systematically turned against their parents and taught to spy on them
\nand report their deviations. The family had become in effect an extension
\nof the Thought Police. It was a device by means of which everyone could be
\nsurrounded night and day by informers who knew him intimately.<\/p>\n
Abruptly his mind went back to Katharine. Katharine would unquestionably
\nhave denounced him to the Thought Police if she had not happened to be too
\nstupid to detect the unorthodoxy of his opinions. But what really recalled
\nher to him at this moment was the stifling heat of the afternoon, which
\nhad brought the sweat out on his forehead. He began telling Julia of
\nsomething that had happened, or rather had failed to happen, on another
\nsweltering summer afternoon, eleven years ago.<\/p>\n
It was three or four months after they were married. They had lost their
\nway on a community hike somewhere in Kent. They had only lagged behind
\nthe others for a couple of minutes, but they took a wrong turning, and
\npresently found themselves pulled up short by the edge of an old chalk
\nquarry. It was a sheer drop of ten or twenty metres, with boulders at the
\nbottom. There was nobody of whom they could ask the way. As soon as she
\nrealized that they were lost Katharine became very uneasy. To be away
\nfrom the noisy mob of hikers even for a moment gave her a feeling of
\nwrong-doing. She wanted to hurry back by the way they had come and start
\nsearching in the other direction. But at this moment Winston noticed some
\ntufts of loosestrife growing in the cracks of the cliff beneath them.
\nOne tuft was of two colours, magenta and brick-red, apparently growing on
\nthe same root. He had never seen anything of the kind before, and he called
\nto Katharine to come and look at it.<\/p>\n
‘Look, Katharine! Look at those flowers. That clump down near the bottom.
\nDo you see they’re two different colours?’<\/p>\n
She had already turned to go, but she did rather fretfully come back for
\na moment. She even leaned out over the cliff face to see where he was
\npointing. He was standing a little behind her, and he put his hand on
\nher waist to steady her. At this moment it suddenly occurred to him how
\ncompletely alone they were. There was not a human creature anywhere, not a
\nleaf stirring, not even a bird awake. In a place like this the danger that
\nthere would be a hidden microphone was very small, and even if there was a
\nmicrophone it would only pick up sounds. It was the hottest sleepiest hour
\nof the afternoon. The sun blazed down upon them, the sweat tickled his
\nface. And the thought struck him…<\/p>\n
‘Why didn’t you give her a good shove?’ said Julia. ‘I would have.’<\/p>\n
‘Yes, dear, you would have. I would, if I’d been the same person then as
\nI am now. Or perhaps I would–I’m not certain.’<\/p>\n
‘Are you sorry you didn’t?’<\/p>\n
‘Yes. On the whole I’m sorry I didn’t.’<\/p>\n
They were sitting side by side on the dusty floor. He pulled her closer
\nagainst him. Her head rested on his shoulder, the pleasant smell of her
\nhair conquering the pigeon dung. She was very young, he thought, she
\nstill expected something from life, she did not understand that to push
\nan inconvenient person over a cliff solves nothing.<\/p>\n
‘Actually it would have made no difference,’ he said.<\/p>\n
‘Then why are you sorry you didn’t do it?’<\/p>\n
‘Only because I prefer a positive to a negative. In this game that we’re
\nplaying, we can’t win. Some kinds of failure are better than other kinds,
\nthat’s all.’<\/p>\n
He felt her shoulders give a wriggle of dissent. She always contradicted
\nhim when he said anything of this kind. She would not accept it as a law
\nof nature that the individual is always defeated. In a way she realized
\nthat she herself was doomed, that sooner or later the Thought Police would
\ncatch her and kill her, but with another part of her mind she believed
\nthat it was somehow possible to construct a secret world in which you could
\nlive as you chose. All you needed was luck and cunning and boldness. She
\ndid not understand that there was no such thing as happiness, that the
\nonly victory lay in the far future, long after you were dead, that from
\nthe moment of declaring war on the Party it was better to think of yourself
\nas a corpse.<\/p>\n
‘We are the dead,’ he said.<\/p>\n
‘We’re not dead yet,’ said Julia prosaically.<\/p>\n
‘Not physically. Six months, a year–five years, conceivably. I am afraid
\nof death. You are young, so presumably you’re more afraid of it than I am.
\nObviously we shall put it off as long as we can. But it makes very little
\ndifference. So long as human beings stay human, death and life are the
\nsame thing.’<\/p>\n
‘Oh, rubbish! Which would you sooner sleep with, me or a skeleton? Don’t
\nyou enjoy being alive? Don’t you like feeling: This is me, this is my hand,
\nthis is my leg, I’m real, I’m solid, I’m alive! Don’t you like THIS?’<\/p>\n
She twisted herself round and pressed her bosom against him. He could feel
\nher breasts, ripe yet firm, through her overalls. Her body seemed to be
\npouring some of its youth and vigour into his.<\/p>\n
‘Yes, I like that,’ he said.<\/p>\n
‘Then stop talking about dying. And now listen, dear, we’ve got to fix
\nup about the next time we meet. We may as well go back to the place in
\nthe wood. We’ve given it a good long rest. But you must get there by a
\ndifferent way this time. I’ve got it all planned out. You take the
\ntrain–but look, I’ll draw it out for you.’<\/p>\n
And in her practical way she scraped together a small square of dust,
\nand with a twig from a pigeon’s nest began drawing a map on the floor.<\/p>\n
Chapter 4<\/p>\n
Winston looked round the shabby little room above Mr Charrington’s shop.
\nBeside the window the enormous bed was made up, with ragged blankets and
\na coverless bolster. The old-fashioned clock with the twelve-hour face was
\nticking away on the mantelpiece. In the corner, on the gateleg table, the
\nglass paperweight which he had bought on his last visit gleamed softly out
\nof the half-darkness.<\/p>\n
In the fender was a battered tin oilstove, a saucepan, and two cups,
\nprovided by Mr Charrington. Winston lit the burner and set a pan of water
\nto boil. He had brought an envelope full of Victory Coffee and some
\nsaccharine tablets. The clock’s hands said seventeen-twenty: it was
\nnineteen-twenty really. She was coming at nineteen-thirty.<\/p>\n
Folly, folly, his heart kept saying: conscious, gratuitous, suicidal folly.
\nOf all the crimes that a Party member could commit, this one was the least
\npossible to conceal. Actually the idea had first floated into his head in
\nthe form of a vision, of the glass paperweight mirrored by the surface
\nof the gateleg table. As he had foreseen, Mr Charrington had made no
\ndifficulty about letting the room. He was obviously glad of the few dollars
\nthat it would bring him. Nor did he seem shocked or become offensively
\nknowing when it was made clear that Winston wanted the room for the purpose
\nof a love-affair. Instead he looked into the middle distance and spoke in
\ngeneralities, with so delicate an air as to give the impression that he
\nhad become partly invisible. Privacy, he said, was a very valuable thing.
\nEveryone wanted a place where they could be alone occasionally. And when
\nthey had such a place, it was only common courtesy in anyone else who knew
\nof it to keep his knowledge to himself. He even, seeming almost to fade
\nout of existence as he did so, added that there were two entries to the
\nhouse, one of them through the back yard, which gave on an alley.<\/p>\n
Under the window somebody was singing. Winston peeped out, secure in the
\nprotection of the muslin curtain. The June sun was still high in the sky,
\nand in the sun-filled court below, a monstrous woman, solid as a Norman
\npillar, with brawny red forearms and a sacking apron strapped about her
\nmiddle, was stumping to and fro between a washtub and a clothes line,
\npegging out a series of square white things which Winston recognized as
\nbabies’ diapers. Whenever her mouth was not corked with clothes pegs she
\nwas singing in a powerful contralto:<\/p>\n
It was only an ‘opeless fancy.
\n It passed like an Ipril dye,
\n But a look an’ a word an’ the dreams they stirred!
\n They ‘ave stolen my ‘eart awye!<\/p>\n
The tune had been haunting London for weeks past. It was one of countless
\nsimilar songs published for the benefit of the proles by a sub-section of
\nthe Music Department. The words of these songs were composed without any
\nhuman intervention whatever on an instrument known as a versificator.
\nBut the woman sang so tunefully as to turn the dreadful rubbish into an
\nalmost pleasant sound. He could hear the woman singing and the scrape of
\nher shoes on the flagstones, and the cries of the children in the street,
\nand somewhere in the far distance a faint roar of traffic, and yet the
\nroom seemed curiously silent, thanks to the absence of a telescreen.<\/p>\n
Folly, folly, folly! he thought again. It was inconceivable that they could
\nfrequent this place for more than a few weeks without being caught. But
\nthe temptation of having a hiding-place that was truly their own, indoors
\nand near at hand, had been too much for both of them. For some time
\nafter their visit to the church belfry it had been impossible to arrange
\nmeetings. Working hours had been drastically increased in anticipation of
\nHate Week. It was more than a month distant, but the enormous, complex
\npreparations that it entailed were throwing extra work on to everybody.
\nFinally both of them managed to secure a free afternoon on the same day.
\nThey had agreed to go back to the clearing in the wood. On the evening
\nbeforehand they met briefly in the street. As usual, Winston hardly looked
\nat Julia as they drifted towards one another in the crowd, but from the
\nshort glance he gave her it seemed to him that she was paler than usual.<\/p>\n
‘It’s all off,’ she murmured as soon as she judged it safe to speak.
\n‘Tomorrow, I mean.’<\/p>\n
‘What?’<\/p>\n
‘Tomorrow afternoon. I can’t come.’<\/p>\n
‘Why not?’<\/p>\n
‘Oh, the usual reason. It’s started early this time.’<\/p>\n
For a moment he was violently angry. During the month that he had known
\nher the nature of his desire for her had changed. At the beginning there
\nhad been little true sensuality in it. Their first love-making had been
\nsimply an act of the will. But after the second time it was different. The
\nsmell of her hair, the taste of her mouth, the feeling of her skin seemed
\nto have got inside him, or into the air all round him. She had become a
\nphysical necessity, something that he not only wanted but felt that he
\nhad a right to. When she said that she could not come, he had the feeling
\nthat she was cheating him. But just at this moment the crowd pressed
\nthem together and their hands accidentally met. She gave the tips of his
\nfingers a quick squeeze that seemed to invite not desire but affection. It
\nstruck him that when one lived with a woman this particular disappointment
\nmust be a normal, recurring event; and a deep tenderness, such as he had
\nnot felt for her before, suddenly took hold of him. He wished that they
\nwere a married couple of ten years’ standing. He wished that he were
\nwalking through the streets with her just as they were doing now but openly
\nand without fear, talking of trivialities and buying odds and ends for the
\nhousehold. He wished above all that they had some place where they could
\nbe alone together without feeling the obligation to make love every time
\nthey met. It was not actually at that moment, but at some time on the
\nfollowing day, that the idea of renting Mr Charrington’s room had occurred
\nto him. When he suggested it to Julia she had agreed with unexpected
\nreadiness. Both of them knew that it was lunacy. It was as though they were
\nintentionally stepping nearer to their graves. As he sat waiting on the
\nedge of the bed he thought again of the cellars of the Ministry of Love.
\nIt was curious how that predestined horror moved in and out of one’s
\nconsciousness. There it lay, fixed in future times, preceding death as
\nsurely as 99 precedes 100. One could not avoid it, but one could perhaps
\npostpone it: and yet instead, every now and again, by a conscious, wilful
\nact, one chose to shorten the interval before it happened.<\/p>\n
At this moment there was a quick step on the stairs. Julia burst into the
\nroom. She was carrying a tool-bag of coarse brown canvas, such as he had
\nsometimes seen her carrying to and fro at the Ministry. He started forward
\nto take her in his arms, but she disengaged herself rather hurriedly,
\npartly because she was still holding the tool-bag.<\/p>\n
‘Half a second,’ she said. ‘Just let me show you what I’ve brought. Did
\nyou bring some of that filthy Victory Coffee? I thought you would. You
\ncan chuck it away again, because we shan’t be needing it. Look here.’<\/p>\n
She fell on her knees, threw open the bag, and tumbled out some spanners
\nand a screwdriver that filled the top part of it. Underneath were a number
\nof neat paper packets. The first packet that she passed to Winston had a
\nstrange and yet vaguely familiar feeling. It was filled with some kind of
\nheavy, sand-like stuff which yielded wherever you touched it.<\/p>\n
‘It isn’t sugar?’ he said.<\/p>\n
‘Real sugar. Not saccharine, sugar. And here’s a loaf of bread–proper
\nwhite bread, not our bloody stuff–and a little pot of jam. And here’s a
\ntin of milk–but look! This is the one I’m really proud of. I had to wrap
\na bit of sacking round it, because—-‘<\/p>\n
But she did not need to tell him why she had wrapped it up. The smell was
\nalready filling the room, a rich hot smell which seemed like an emanation
\nfrom his early childhood, but which one did occasionally meet with even
\nnow, blowing down a passage-way before a door slammed, or diffusing itself
\nmysteriously in a crowded street, sniffed for an instant and then lost
\nagain.<\/p>\n
‘It’s coffee,’ he murmured, ‘real coffee.’<\/p>\n
‘It’s Inner Party coffee. There’s a whole kilo here,’ she said.<\/p>\n
‘How did you manage to get hold of all these things?’<\/p>\n
‘It’s all Inner Party stuff. There’s nothing those swine don’t have,
\nnothing. But of course waiters and servants and people pinch things,
\nand–look, I got a little packet of tea as well.’<\/p>\n
Winston had squatted down beside her. He tore open a corner of the packet.<\/p>\n
‘It’s real tea. Not blackberry leaves.’<\/p>\n
‘There’s been a lot of tea about lately. They’ve captured India, or
\nsomething,’ she said vaguely. ‘But listen, dear. I want you to turn your
\nback on me for three minutes. Go and sit on the other side of the bed.
\nDon’t go too near the window. And don’t turn round till I tell you.’<\/p>\n
Winston gazed abstractedly through the muslin curtain. Down in the yard
\nthe red-armed woman was still marching to and fro between the washtub and
\nthe line. She took two more pegs out of her mouth and sang with deep
\nfeeling:<\/p>\n
They sye that time ‘eals all things,
\n They sye you can always forget;
\n But the smiles an’ the tears acrorss the years
\n They twist my ‘eart-strings yet!<\/p>\n
She knew the whole drivelling song by heart, it seemed. Her voice floated
\nupward with the sweet summer air, very tuneful, charged with a sort of
\nhappy melancholy. One had the feeling that she would have been perfectly
\ncontent, if the June evening had been endless and the supply of clothes
\ninexhaustible, to remain there for a thousand years, pegging out diapers
\nand singing rubbish. It struck him as a curious fact that he had never
\nheard a member of the Party singing alone and spontaneously. It would even
\nhave seemed slightly unorthodox, a dangerous eccentricity, like talking to
\noneself. Perhaps it was only when people were somewhere near the starvation
\nlevel that they had anything to sing about.<\/p>\n
‘You can turn round now,’ said Julia.<\/p>\n
He turned round, and for a second almost failed to recognize her. What he
\nhad actually expected was to see her naked. But she was not naked. The
\ntransformation that had happened was much more surprising than that. She
\nhad painted her face.<\/p>\n
She must have slipped into some shop in the proletarian quarters and bought
\nherself a complete set of make-up materials. Her lips were deeply reddened,
\nher cheeks rouged, her nose powdered; there was even a touch of something
\nunder the eyes to make them brighter. It was not very skilfully done, but
\nWinston’s standards in such matters were not high. He had never before
\nseen or imagined a woman of the Party with cosmetics on her face. The
\nimprovement in her appearance was startling. With just a few dabs of colour
\nin the right places she had become not only very much prettier, but, above
\nall, far more feminine. Her short hair and boyish overalls merely added
\nto the effect. As he took her in his arms a wave of synthetic violets
\nflooded his nostrils. He remembered the half-darkness of a basement
\nkitchen, and a woman’s cavernous mouth. It was the very same scent that
\nshe had used; but at the moment it did not seem to matter.<\/p>\n
‘Scent too!’ he said.<\/p>\n
‘Yes, dear, scent too. And do you know what I’m going to do next? I’m
\ngoing to get hold of a real woman’s frock from somewhere and wear it
\ninstead of these bloody trousers. I’ll wear silk stockings and high-heeled
\nshoes! In this room I’m going to be a woman, not a Party comrade.’<\/p>\n
They flung their clothes off and climbed into the huge mahogany bed. It
\nwas the first time that he had stripped himself naked in her presence.
\nUntil now he had been too much ashamed of his pale and meagre body, with
\nthe varicose veins standing out on his calves and the discoloured patch
\nover his ankle. There were no sheets, but the blanket they lay on was
\nthreadbare and smooth, and the size and springiness of the bed astonished
\nboth of them. ‘It’s sure to be full of bugs, but who cares?’ said Julia.
\nOne never saw a double bed nowadays, except in the homes of the proles.
\nWinston had occasionally slept in one in his boyhood: Julia had never been
\nin one before, so far as she could remember.<\/p>\n
Presently they fell asleep for a little while. When Winston woke up the
\nhands of the clock had crept round to nearly nine. He did not stir, because
\nJulia was sleeping with her head in the crook of his arm. Most of her
\nmake-up had transferred itself to his own face or the bolster, but a light
\nstain of rouge still brought out the beauty of her cheekbone. A yellow ray
\nfrom the sinking sun fell across the foot of the bed and lighted up the
\nfireplace, where the water in the pan was boiling fast. Down in the yard
\nthe woman had stopped singing, but the faint shouts of children floated in
\nfrom the street. He wondered vaguely whether in the abolished past it had
\nbeen a normal experience to lie in bed like this, in the cool of a summer
\nevening, a man and a woman with no clothes on, making love when they chose,
\ntalking of what they chose, not feeling any compulsion to get up, simply
\nlying there and listening to peaceful sounds outside. Surely there could
\nnever have been a time when that seemed ordinary? Julia woke up, rubbed
\nher eyes, and raised herself on her elbow to look at the oilstove.<\/p>\n
‘Half that water’s boiled away,’ she said. ‘I’ll get up and make some
\ncoffee in another moment. We’ve got an hour. What time do they cut the
\nlights off at your flats?’<\/p>\n
‘Twenty-three thirty.’<\/p>\n
‘It’s twenty-three at the hostel. But you have to get in earlier than that,
\nbecause–Hi! Get out, you filthy brute!’<\/p>\n
She suddenly twisted herself over in the bed, seized a shoe from the floor,
\nand sent it hurtling into the corner with a boyish jerk of her arm, exactly
\nas he had seen her fling the dictionary at Goldstein, that morning during
\nthe Two Minutes Hate.<\/p>\n
‘What was it?’ he said in surprise.<\/p>\n
‘A rat. I saw him stick his beastly nose out of the wainscoting. There’s a
\nhole down there. I gave him a good fright, anyway.’<\/p>\n
‘Rats!’ murmured Winston. ‘In this room!’<\/p>\n
‘They’re all over the place,’ said Julia indifferently as she lay down
\nagain. ‘We’ve even got them in the kitchen at the hostel. Some parts of
\nLondon are swarming with them. Did you know they attack children? Yes,
\nthey do. In some of these streets a woman daren’t leave a baby alone for
\ntwo minutes. It’s the great huge brown ones that do it. And the nasty
\nthing is that the brutes always—-‘<\/p>\n
‘DON’T GO ON!’ said Winston, with his eyes tightly shut.<\/p>\n
‘Dearest! You’ve gone quite pale. What’s the matter? Do they make you feel
\nsick?’<\/p>\n
‘Of all horrors in the world–a rat!’<\/p>\n
She pressed herself against him and wound her limbs round him, as though
\nto reassure him with the warmth of her body. He did not reopen his eyes
\nimmediately. For several moments he had had the feeling of being back in a
\nnightmare which had recurred from time to time throughout his life. It was
\nalways very much the same. He was standing in front of a wall of darkness,
\nand on the other side of it there was something unendurable, something too
\ndreadful to be faced. In the dream his deepest feeling was always one of
\nself-deception, because he did in fact know what was behind the wall of
\ndarkness. With a deadly effort, like wrenching a piece out of his own
\nbrain, he could even have dragged the thing into the open. He always woke
\nup without discovering what it was: but somehow it was connected with what
\nJulia had been saying when he cut her short.<\/p>\n
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘it’s nothing. I don’t like rats, that’s all.’<\/p>\n
‘Don’t worry, dear, we’re not going to have the filthy brutes in here.
\nI’ll stuff the hole with a bit of sacking before we go. And next time we
\ncome here I’ll bring some plaster and bung it up properly.’<\/p>\n
Already the black instant of panic was half-forgotten. Feeling slightly
\nashamed of himself, he sat up against the bedhead. Julia got out of bed,
\npulled on her overalls, and made the coffee. The smell that rose from the
\nsaucepan was so powerful and exciting that they shut the window lest
\nanybody outside should notice it and become inquisitive. What was even
\nbetter than the taste of the coffee was the silky texture given to it by
\nthe sugar, a thing Winston had almost forgotten after years of saccharine.
\nWith one hand in her pocket and a piece of bread and jam in the other,
\nJulia wandered about the room, glancing indifferently at the bookcase,
\npointing out the best way of repairing the gateleg table, plumping herself
\ndown in the ragged arm-chair to see if it was comfortable, and examining
\nthe absurd twelve-hour clock with a sort of tolerant amusement. She brought
\nthe glass paperweight over to the bed to have a look at it in a better
\nlight. He took it out of her hand, fascinated, as always, by the soft,
\nrainwatery appearance of the glass.<\/p>\n
‘What is it, do you think?’ said Julia.<\/p>\n
‘I don’t think it’s anything–I mean, I don’t think it was ever put to any
\nuse. That’s what I like about it. It’s a little chunk of history that
\nthey’ve forgotten to alter. It’s a message from a hundred years ago, if
\none knew how to read it.’<\/p>\n
‘And that picture over there’–she nodded at the engraving on the opposite
\nwall–‘would that be a hundred years old?’<\/p>\n
‘More. Two hundred, I dare say. One can’t tell. It’s impossible to discover
\nthe age of anything nowadays.’<\/p>\n
She went over to look at it. ‘Here’s where that brute stuck his nose out,’
\nshe said, kicking the wainscoting immediately below the picture. ‘What is
\nthis place? I’ve seen it before somewhere.’<\/p>\n
‘It’s a church, or at least it used to be. St Clement Danes its name was.’
\nThe fragment of rhyme that Mr Charrington had taught him came back into
\nhis head, and he added half-nostalgically: “Oranges and lemons, say the
\nbells of St Clement’s!”<\/p>\n
To his astonishment she capped the line:<\/p>\n
‘You owe me three farthings, say the bells of St Martin’s,
\n When will you pay me? say the bells of Old Bailey—-‘<\/p>\n
‘I can’t remember how it goes on after that. But anyway I remember it ends
\nup, “Here comes a candle to light you to bed, here comes a chopper to chop
\noff your head!”‘<\/p>\n
It was like the two halves of a countersign. But there must be another
\nline after ‘the bells of Old Bailey’. Perhaps it could be dug out of
\nMr Charrington’s memory, if he were suitably prompted.<\/p>\n
‘Who taught you that?’ he said.<\/p>\n
‘My grandfather. He used to say it to me when I was a little girl. He was
\nvaporized when I was eight–at any rate, he disappeared. I wonder what a
\nlemon was,’ she added inconsequently. ‘I’ve seen oranges. They’re a kind
\nof round yellow fruit with a thick skin.’<\/p>\n
‘I can remember lemons,’ said Winston. ‘They were quite common in the
\nfifties. They were so sour that it set your teeth on edge even to smell
\nthem.’<\/p>\n
‘I bet that picture’s got bugs behind it,’ said Julia. ‘I’ll take it down
\nand give it a good clean some day. I suppose it’s almost time we were
\nleaving. I must start washing this paint off. What a bore! I’ll get the
\nlipstick off your face afterwards.’<\/p>\n
Winston did not get up for a few minutes more. The room was darkening. He
\nturned over towards the light and lay gazing into the glass paperweight.
\nThe inexhaustibly interesting thing was not the fragment of coral but the
\ninterior of the glass itself. There was such a depth of it, and yet it was
\nalmost as transparent as air. It was as though the surface of the glass
\nhad been the arch of the sky, enclosing a tiny world with its atmosphere
\ncomplete. He had the feeling that he could get inside it, and that in
\nfact he was inside it, along with the mahogany bed and the gateleg table,
\nand the clock and the steel engraving and the paperweight itself. The
\npaperweight was the room he was in, and the coral was Julia’s life and his
\nown, fixed in a sort of eternity at the heart of the crystal.<\/p>\n
Chapter 5<\/p>\n
Syme had vanished. A morning came, and he was missing from work: a few
\nthoughtless people commented on his absence. On the next day nobody
\nmentioned him. On the third day Winston went into the vestibule of the
\nRecords Department to look at the notice-board. One of the notices carried
\na printed list of the members of the Chess Committee, of whom Syme had
\nbeen one. It looked almost exactly as it had looked before–nothing had
\nbeen crossed out–but it was one name shorter. It was enough. Syme had
\nceased to exist: he had never existed.<\/p>\n
The weather was baking hot. In the labyrinthine Ministry the windowless,
\nair-conditioned rooms kept their normal temperature, but outside the
\npavements scorched one’s feet and the stench of the Tubes at the rush hours
\nwas a horror. The preparations for Hate Week were in full swing, and the
\nstaffs of all the Ministries were working overtime. Processions, meetings,
\nmilitary parades, lectures, waxworks, displays, film shows, telescreen
\nprogrammes all had to be organized; stands had to be erected, effigies
\nbuilt, slogans coined, songs written, rumours circulated, photographs
\nfaked. Julia’s unit in the Fiction Department had been taken off the
\nproduction of novels and was rushing out a series of atrocity pamphlets.
\nWinston, in addition to his regular work, spent long periods every day in
\ngoing through back files of ‘The Times’ and altering and embellishing news
\nitems which were to be quoted in speeches. Late at night, when crowds of
\nrowdy proles roamed the streets, the town had a curiously febrile air. The
\nrocket bombs crashed oftener than ever, and sometimes in the far distance
\nthere were enormous explosions which no one could explain and about which
\nthere were wild rumours.<\/p>\n
The new tune which was to be the theme-song of Hate Week (the Hate Song,
\nit was called) had already been composed and was being endlessly plugged
\non the telescreens. It had a savage, barking rhythm which could not exactly
\nbe called music, but resembled the beating of a drum. Roared out by
\nhundreds of voices to the tramp of marching feet, it was terrifying. The
\nproles had taken a fancy to it, and in the midnight streets it competed
\nwith the still-popular ‘It was only a hopeless fancy’. The Parsons children
\nplayed it at all hours of the night and day, unbearably, on a comb and a
\npiece of toilet paper. Winston’s evenings were fuller than ever. Squads of
\nvolunteers, organized by Parsons, were preparing the street for Hate Week,
\nstitching banners, painting posters, erecting flagstaffs on the roofs, and
\nperilously slinging wires across the street for the reception of streamers.
\nParsons boasted that Victory Mansions alone would display four hundred
\nmetres of bunting. He was in his native element and as happy as a lark.
\nThe heat and the manual work had even given him a pretext for reverting
\nto shorts and an open shirt in the evenings. He was everywhere at once,
\npushing, pulling, sawing, hammering, improvising, jollying everyone along
\nwith comradely exhortations and giving out from every fold of his body what
\nseemed an inexhaustible supply of acrid-smelling sweat.<\/p>\n
A new poster had suddenly appeared all over London. It had no caption,
\nand represented simply the monstrous figure of a Eurasian soldier, three
\nor four metres high, striding forward with expressionless Mongolian face
\nand enormous boots, a submachine gun pointed from his hip. From whatever
\nangle you looked at the poster, the muzzle of the gun, magnified by the
\nforeshortening, seemed to be pointed straight at you. The thing had been
\nplastered on every blank space on every wall, even outnumbering the
\nportraits of Big Brother. The proles, normally apathetic about the war,
\nwere being lashed into one of their periodical frenzies of patriotism.
\nAs though to harmonize with the general mood, the rocket bombs had been
\nkilling larger numbers of people than usual. One fell on a crowded film
\ntheatre in Stepney, burying several hundred victims among the ruins. The
\nwhole population of the neighbourhood turned out for a long, trailing
\nfuneral which went on for hours and was in effect an indignation meeting.
\nAnother bomb fell on a piece of waste ground which was used as a playground
\nand several dozen children were blown to pieces. There were further angry
\ndemonstrations, Goldstein was burned in effigy, hundreds of copies of the
\nposter of the Eurasian soldier were torn down and added to the flames, and
\na number of shops were looted in the turmoil; then a rumour flew round
\nthat spies were directing the rocket bombs by means of wireless waves, and
\nan old couple who were suspected of being of foreign extraction had their
\nhouse set on fire and perished of suffocation.<\/p>\n
In the room over Mr Charrington’s shop, when they could get there, Julia
\nand Winston lay side by side on a stripped bed under the open window,
\nnaked for the sake of coolness. The rat had never come back, but the bugs
\nhad multiplied hideously in the heat. It did not seem to matter. Dirty or
\nclean, the room was paradise. As soon as they arrived they would sprinkle
\neverything with pepper bought on the black market, tear off their clothes,
\nand make love with sweating bodies, then fall asleep and wake to find that
\nthe bugs had rallied and were massing for the counter-attack.<\/p>\n
Four, five, six–seven times they met during the month of June. Winston
\nhad dropped his habit of drinking gin at all hours. He seemed to have lost
\nthe need for it. He had grown fatter, his varicose ulcer had subsided,
\nleaving only a brown stain on the skin above his ankle, his fits of
\ncoughing in the early morning had stopped. The process of life had ceased
\nto be intolerable, he had no longer any impulse to make faces at the
\ntelescreen or shout curses at the top of his voice. Now that they had a
\nsecure hiding-place, almost a home, it did not even seem a hardship that
\nthey could only meet infrequently and for a couple of hours at a time.
\nWhat mattered was that the room over the junk-shop should exist. To know
\nthat it was there, inviolate, was almost the same as being in it. The room
\nwas a world, a pocket of the past where extinct animals could walk.
\nMr Charrington, thought Winston, was another extinct animal. He usually
\nstopped to talk with Mr Charrington for a few minutes on his way upstairs.
\nThe old man seemed seldom or never to go out of doors, and on the other
\nhand to have almost no customers. He led a ghostlike existence between the
\ntiny, dark shop, and an even tinier back kitchen where he prepared his
\nmeals and which contained, among other things, an unbelievably ancient
\ngramophone with an enormous horn. He seemed glad of the opportunity to
\ntalk. Wandering about among his worthless stock, with his long nose and
\nthick spectacles and his bowed shoulders in the velvet jacket, he had
\nalways vaguely the air of being a collector rather than a tradesman.
\nWith a sort of faded enthusiasm he would finger this scrap of rubbish or
\nthat–a china bottle-stopper, the painted lid of a broken snuffbox, a
\npinchbeck locket containing a strand of some long-dead baby’s hair–never
\nasking that Winston should buy it, merely that he should admire it. To
\ntalk to him was like listening to the tinkling of a worn-out musical-box.
\nHe had dragged out from the corners of his memory some more fragments of
\nforgotten rhymes. There was one about four and twenty blackbirds, and
\nanother about a cow with a crumpled horn, and another about the death
\nof poor Cock Robin. ‘It just occurred to me you might be interested,’ he
\nwould say with a deprecating little laugh whenever he produced a new
\nfragment. But he could never recall more than a few lines of any one
\nrhyme.<\/p>\n
Both of them knew–in a way, it was never out of their minds that what
\nwas now happening could not last long. There were times when the fact of
\nimpending death seemed as palpable as the bed they lay on, and they would
\ncling together with a sort of despairing sensuality, like a damned soul
\ngrasping at his last morsel of pleasure when the clock is within five
\nminutes of striking. But there were also times when they had the illusion
\nnot only of safety but of permanence. So long as they were actually in
\nthis room, they both felt, no harm could come to them. Getting there was
\ndifficult and dangerous, but the room itself was sanctuary. It was as when
\nWinston had gazed into the heart of the paperweight, with the feeling that
\nit would be possible to get inside that glassy world, and that once inside
\nit time could be arrested. Often they gave themselves up to daydreams of
\nescape. Their luck would hold indefinitely, and they would carry on their
\nintrigue, just like this, for the remainder of their natural lives. Or
\nKatharine would die, and by subtle manoeuvrings Winston and Julia would
\nsucceed in getting married. Or they would commit suicide together. Or
\nthey would disappear, alter themselves out of recognition, learn to speak
\nwith proletarian accents, get jobs in a factory and live out their lives
\nundetected in a back-street. It was all nonsense, as they both knew. In
\nreality there was no escape. Even the one plan that was practicable,
\nsuicide, they had no intention of carrying out. To hang on from day to day
\nand from week to week, spinning out a present that had no future, seemed
\nan unconquerable instinct, just as one’s lungs will always draw the next
\nbreath so long as there is air available.<\/p>\n
Sometimes, too, they talked of engaging in active rebellion against the
\nParty, but with no notion of how to take the first step. Even if the
\nfabulous Brotherhood was a reality, there still remained the difficulty
\nof finding one’s way into it. He told her of the strange intimacy that
\nexisted, or seemed to exist, between himself and O’Brien, and of the
\nimpulse he sometimes felt, simply to walk into O’Brien’s presence, announce
\nthat he was the enemy of the Party, and demand his help. Curiously enough,
\nthis did not strike her as an impossibly rash thing to do. She was used to
\njudging people by their faces, and it seemed natural to her that Winston
\nshould believe O’Brien to be trustworthy on the strength of a single flash
\nof the eyes. Moreover she took it for granted that everyone, or nearly
\neveryone, secretly hated the Party and would break the rules if he thought
\nit safe to do so. But she refused to believe that widespread, organized
\nopposition existed or could exist. The tales about Goldstein and his
\nunderground army, she said, were simply a lot of rubbish which the Party
\nhad invented for its own purposes and which you had to pretend to believe
\nin. Times beyond number, at Party rallies and spontaneous demonstrations,
\nshe had shouted at the top of her voice for the execution of people whose
\nnames she had never heard and in whose supposed crimes she had not the
\nfaintest belief. When public trials were happening she had taken her place
\nin the detachments from the Youth League who surrounded the courts from
\nmorning to night, chanting at intervals ‘Death to the traitors!’ During
\nthe Two Minutes Hate she always excelled all others in shouting insults
\nat Goldstein. Yet she had only the dimmest idea of who Goldstein was and
\nwhat doctrines he was supposed to represent. She had grown up since the
\nRevolution and was too young to remember the ideological battles of the
\nfifties and sixties. Such a thing as an independent political movement was
\noutside her imagination: and in any case the Party was invincible. It
\nwould always exist, and it would always be the same. You could only rebel
\nagainst it by secret disobedience or, at most, by isolated acts of
\nviolence such as killing somebody or blowing something up.<\/p>\n
In some ways she was far more acute than Winston, and far less susceptible
\nto Party propaganda. Once when he happened in some connexion to mention
\nthe war against Eurasia, she startled him by saying casually that in her
\nopinion the war was not happening. The rocket bombs which fell daily on
\nLondon were probably fired by the Government of Oceania itself, ‘just to
\nkeep people frightened’. This was an idea that had literally never occurred
\nto him. She also stirred a sort of envy in him by telling him that during
\nthe Two Minutes Hate her great difficulty was to avoid bursting out
\nlaughing. But she only questioned the teachings of the Party when they
\nin some way touched upon her own life. Often she was ready to accept
\nthe official mythology, simply because the difference between truth and
\nfalsehood did not seem important to her. She believed, for instance, having
\nlearnt it at school, that the Party had invented aeroplanes. (In his own
\nschooldays, Winston remembered, in the late fifties, it was only the
\nhelicopter that the Party claimed to have invented; a dozen years later,
\nwhen Julia was at school, it was already claiming the aeroplane; one
\ngeneration more, and it would be claiming the steam engine.) And when he
\ntold her that aeroplanes had been in existence before he was born and long
\nbefore the Revolution, the fact struck her as totally uninteresting. After
\nall, what did it matter who had invented aeroplanes? It was rather more
\nof a shock to him when he discovered from some chance remark that she did
\nnot remember that Oceania, four years ago, had been at war with Eastasia
\nand at peace with Eurasia. It was true that she regarded the whole war as
\na sham: but apparently she had not even noticed that the name of the enemy
\nhad changed. ‘I thought we’d always been at war with Eurasia,’ she said
\nvaguely. It frightened him a little. The invention of aeroplanes dated
\nfrom long before her birth, but the switchover in the war had happened
\nonly four years ago, well after she was grown up. He argued with her about
\nit for perhaps a quarter of an hour. In the end he succeeded in forcing
\nher memory back until she did dimly recall that at one time Eastasia and
\nnot Eurasia had been the enemy. But the issue still struck her as
\nunimportant. ‘Who cares?’ she said impatiently. ‘It’s always one bloody
\nwar after another, and one knows the news is all lies anyway.’<\/p>\n
Sometimes he talked to her of the Records Department and the impudent
\nforgeries that he committed there. Such things did not appear to horrify
\nher. She did not feel the abyss opening beneath her feet at the thought
\nof lies becoming truths. He told her the story of Jones, Aaronson, and
\nRutherford and the momentous slip of paper which he had once held between
\nhis fingers. It did not make much impression on her. At first, indeed, she
\nfailed to grasp the point of the story.<\/p>\n
‘Were they friends of yours?’ she said.<\/p>\n
‘No, I never knew them. They were Inner Party members. Besides, they were
\nfar older men than I was. They belonged to the old days, before the
\nRevolution. I barely knew them by sight.’<\/p>\n
‘Then what was there to worry about? People are being killed off all the
\ntime, aren’t they?’<\/p>\n
He tried to make her understand. ‘This was an exceptional case. It wasn’t
\njust a question of somebody being killed. Do you realize that the past,
\nstarting from yesterday, has been actually abolished? If it survives
\nanywhere, it’s in a few solid objects with no words attached to them, like
\nthat lump of glass there. Already we know almost literally nothing about
\nthe Revolution and the years before the Revolution. Every record has been
\ndestroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has
\nbeen repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed,
\nevery date has been altered. And that process is continuing day by day and
\nminute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless
\npresent in which the Party is always right. I know, of course, that the
\npast is falsified, but it would never be possible for me to prove it, even
\nwhen I did the falsification myself. After the thing is done, no evidence
\never remains. The only evidence is inside my own mind, and I don’t know
\nwith any certainty that any other human being shares my memories. Just in
\nthat one instance, in my whole life, I did possess actual concrete evidence
\nafter the event–years after it.’<\/p>\n
‘And what good was that?’<\/p>\n
‘It was no good, because I threw it away a few minutes later. But if the
\nsame thing happened today, I should keep it.’<\/p>\n
‘Well, I wouldn’t!’ said Julia. ‘I’m quite ready to take risks, but only
\nfor something worth while, not for bits of old newspaper. What could you
\nhave done with it even if you had kept it?’<\/p>\n
‘Not much, perhaps. But it was evidence. It might have planted a few doubts
\nhere and there, supposing that I’d dared to show it to anybody. I don’t
\nimagine that we can alter anything in our own lifetime. But one can imagine
\nlittle knots of resistance springing up here and there–small groups of
\npeople banding themselves together, and gradually growing, and even leaving
\na few records behind, so that the next generations can carry on where we
\nleave off.’<\/p>\n
‘I’m not interested in the next generation, dear. I’m interested in US.’<\/p>\n
‘You’re only a rebel from the waist downwards,’ he told her.<\/p>\n
She thought this brilliantly witty and flung her arms round him in delight.<\/p>\n
In the ramifications of party doctrine she had not the faintest interest.
\nWhenever he began to talk of the principles of Ingsoc, doublethink, the
\nmutability of the past, and the denial of objective reality, and to use
\nNewspeak words, she became bored and confused and said that she never paid
\nany attention to that kind of thing. One knew that it was all rubbish, so
\nwhy let oneself be worried by it? She knew when to cheer and when to boo,
\nand that was all one needed. If he persisted in talking of such subjects,
\nshe had a disconcerting habit of falling asleep. She was one of those
\npeople who can go to sleep at any hour and in any position. Talking to her,
\nhe realized how easy it was to present an appearance of orthodoxy while
\nhaving no grasp whatever of what orthodoxy meant. In a way, the world-view
\nof the Party imposed itself most successfully on people incapable of
\nunderstanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations
\nof reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was
\ndemanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to
\nnotice what was happening. By lack of understanding they remained sane.
\nThey simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm,
\nbecause it left no residue behind, just as a grain of corn will pass
\nundigested through the body of a bird.<\/p>\n
Chapter 6<\/p>\n
It had happened at last. The expected message had come. All his life, it
\nseemed to him, he had been waiting for this to happen.<\/p>\n
He was walking down the long corridor at the Ministry and he was almost
\nat the spot where Julia had slipped the note into his hand when he became
\naware that someone larger than himself was walking just behind him. The
\nperson, whoever it was, gave a small cough, evidently as a prelude to
\nspeaking. Winston stopped abruptly and turned. It was O’Brien.<\/p>\n
At last they were face to face, and it seemed that his only impulse was
\nto run away. His heart bounded violently. He would have been incapable of
\nspeaking. O’Brien, however, had continued forward in the same movement,
\nlaying a friendly hand for a moment on Winston’s arm, so that the two of
\nthem were walking side by side. He began speaking with the peculiar grave
\ncourtesy that differentiated him from the majority of Inner Party members.<\/p>\n
‘I had been hoping for an opportunity of talking to you,’ he said. ‘I was
\nreading one of your Newspeak articles in ‘The Times’ the other day. You
\ntake a scholarly interest in Newspeak, I believe?’<\/p>\n
Winston had recovered part of his self-possession. ‘Hardly scholarly,’ he
\nsaid. ‘I’m only an amateur. It’s not my subject. I have never had anything
\nto do with the actual construction of the language.’<\/p>\n
‘But you write it very elegantly,’ said O’Brien. ‘That is not only my own
\nopinion. I was talking recently to a friend of yours who is certainly an
\nexpert. His name has slipped my memory for the moment.’<\/p>\n
Again Winston’s heart stirred painfully. It was inconceivable that this
\nwas anything other than a reference to Syme. But Syme was not only dead,
\nhe was abolished, an unperson. Any identifiable reference to him would have
\nbeen mortally dangerous. O’Brien’s remark must obviously have been intended
\nas a signal, a codeword. By sharing a small act of thoughtcrime he had
\nturned the two of them into accomplices. They had continued to stroll
\nslowly down the corridor, but now O’Brien halted. With the curious,
\ndisarming friendliness that he always managed to put in to the gesture he
\nresettled his spectacles on his nose. Then he went on:<\/p>\n
‘What I had really intended to say was that in your article I noticed you
\nhad used two words which have become obsolete. But they have only become
\nso very recently. Have you seen the tenth edition of the Newspeak
\nDictionary?’<\/p>\n
‘No,’ said Winston. ‘I didn’t think it had been issued yet. We are still
\nusing the ninth in the Records Department.’<\/p>\n
‘The tenth edition is not due to appear for some months, I believe. But a
\nfew advance copies have been circulated. I have one myself. It might
\ninterest you to look at it, perhaps?’<\/p>\n
‘Very much so,’ said Winston, immediately seeing where this tended.<\/p>\n
‘Some of the new developments are most ingenious. The reduction in the
\nnumber of verbs–that is the point that will appeal to you, I think. Let
\nme see, shall I send a messenger to you with the dictionary? But I am
\nafraid I invariably forget anything of that kind. Perhaps you could pick
\nit up at my flat at some time that suited you? Wait. Let me give you my
\naddress.’<\/p>\n
They were standing in front of a telescreen. Somewhat absent-mindedly
\nO’Brien felt two of his pockets and then produced a small leather-covered
\nnotebook and a gold ink-pencil. Immediately beneath the telescreen, in
\nsuch a position that anyone who was watching at the other end of the
\ninstrument could read what he was writing, he scribbled an address, tore
\nout the page and handed it to Winston.<\/p>\n
‘I am usually at home in the evenings,’ he said. ‘If not, my servant will
\ngive you the dictionary.’<\/p>\n
He was gone, leaving Winston holding the scrap of paper, which this time
\nthere was no need to conceal. Nevertheless he carefully memorized what was
\nwritten on it, and some hours later dropped it into the memory hole along
\nwith a mass of other papers.<\/p>\n
They had been talking to one another for a couple of minutes at the most.
\nThere was only one meaning that the episode could possibly have. It had
\nbeen contrived as a way of letting Winston know O’Brien’s address. This
\nwas necessary, because except by direct enquiry it was never possible to
\ndiscover where anyone lived. There were no directories of any kind. ‘If
\nyou ever want to see me, this is where I can be found,’ was what O’Brien
\nhad been saying to him. Perhaps there would even be a message concealed
\nsomewhere in the dictionary. But at any rate, one thing was certain. The
\nconspiracy that he had dreamed of did exist, and he had reached the outer
\nedges of it.<\/p>\n
He knew that sooner or later he would obey O’Brien’s summons. Perhaps
\ntomorrow, perhaps after a long delay–he was not certain. What was
\nhappening was only the working-out of a process that had started years
\nago. The first step had been a secret, involuntary thought, the second
\nhad been the opening of the diary. He had moved from thoughts to words,
\nand now from words to actions. The last step was something that would
\nhappen in the Ministry of Love. He had accepted it. The end was contained
\nin the beginning. But it was frightening: or, more exactly, it was like
\na foretaste of death, like being a little less alive. Even while he was
\nspeaking to O’Brien, when the meaning of the words had sunk in, a chilly
\nshuddering feeling had taken possession of his body. He had the sensation
\nof stepping into the dampness of a grave, and it was not much better
\nbecause he had always known that the grave was there and waiting for him.<\/p>\n
Chapter 7<\/p>\n
Winston had woken up with his eyes full of tears. Julia rolled sleepily
\nagainst him, murmuring something that might have been ‘What’s the matter?’<\/p>\n
‘I dreamt–‘ he began, and stopped short. It was too complex to be put
\ninto words. There was the dream itself, and there was a memory connected
\nwith it that had swum into his mind in the few seconds after waking.<\/p>\n
He lay back with his eyes shut, still sodden in the atmosphere of the
\ndream. It was a vast, luminous dream in which his whole life seemed to
\nstretch out before him like a landscape on a summer evening after rain.
\nIt had all occurred inside the glass paperweight, but the surface of the
\nglass was the dome of the sky, and inside the dome everything was flooded
\nwith clear soft light in which one could see into interminable distances.
\nThe dream had also been comprehended by–indeed, in some sense it had
\nconsisted in–a gesture of the arm made by his mother, and made again
\nthirty years later by the Jewish woman he had seen on the news film,
\ntrying to shelter the small boy from the bullets, before the helicopter
\nblew them both to pieces.<\/p>\n
‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘that until this moment I believed I had murdered
\nmy mother?’<\/p>\n
‘Why did you murder her?’ said Julia, almost asleep.<\/p>\n
‘I didn’t murder her. Not physically.’<\/p>\n
In the dream he had remembered his last glimpse of his mother, and within
\na few moments of waking the cluster of small events surrounding it had all
\ncome back. It was a memory that he must have deliberately pushed out of
\nhis consciousness over many years. He was not certain of the date, but he
\ncould not have been less than ten years old, possibly twelve, when it had
\nhappened.<\/p>\n
His father had disappeared some time earlier, how much earlier he could
\nnot remember. He remembered better the rackety, uneasy circumstances of
\nthe time: the periodical panics about air-raids and the sheltering in Tube
\nstations, the piles of rubble everywhere, the unintelligible proclamations
\nposted at street corners, the gangs of youths in shirts all the same
\ncolour, the enormous queues outside the bakeries, the intermittent
\nmachine-gun fire in the distance–above all, the fact that there was
\nnever enough to eat. He remembered long afternoons spent with other boys
\nin scrounging round dustbins and rubbish heaps, picking out the ribs of
\ncabbage leaves, potato peelings, sometimes even scraps of stale breadcrust
\nfrom which they carefully scraped away the cinders; and also in waiting
\nfor the passing of trucks which travelled over a certain route and were
\nknown to carry cattle feed, and which, when they jolted over the bad
\npatches in the road, sometimes spilt a few fragments of oil-cake.<\/p>\n
When his father disappeared, his mother did not show any surprise or any
\nviolent grief, but a sudden change came over her. She seemed to have
\nbecome completely spiritless. It was evident even to Winston that she was
\nwaiting for something that she knew must happen. She did everything that
\nwas needed–cooked, washed, mended, made the bed, swept the floor, dusted
\nthe mantelpiece–always very slowly and with a curious lack of superfluous
\nmotion, like an artist’s lay-figure moving of its own accord. Her large
\nshapely body seemed to relapse naturally into stillness. For hours at a
\ntime she would sit almost immobile on the bed, nursing his young sister,
\na tiny, ailing, very silent child of two or three, with a face made simian
\nby thinness. Very occasionally she would take Winston in her arms and
\npress him against her for a long time without saying anything. He was
\naware, in spite of his youthfulness and selfishness, that this was somehow
\nconnected with the never-mentioned thing that was about to happen.<\/p>\n
He remembered the room where they lived, a dark, close-smelling room that
\nseemed half filled by a bed with a white counterpane. There was a gas ring
\nin the fender, and a shelf where food was kept, and on the landing outside
\nthere was a brown earthenware sink, common to several rooms. He remembered
\nhis mother’s statuesque body bending over the gas ring to stir at something
\nin a saucepan. Above all he remembered his continuous hunger, and the
\nfierce sordid battles at mealtimes. He would ask his mother naggingly,
\nover and over again, why there was not more food, he would shout and storm
\nat her (he even remembered the tones of his voice, which was beginning to
\nbreak prematurely and sometimes boomed in a peculiar way), or he would
\nattempt a snivelling note of pathos in his efforts to get more than his
\nshare. His mother was quite ready to give him more than his share. She
\ntook it for granted that he, ‘the boy’, should have the biggest portion;
\nbut however much she gave him he invariably demanded more. At every meal
\nshe would beseech him not to be selfish and to remember that his little
\nsister was sick and also needed food, but it was no use. He would cry out
\nwith rage when she stopped ladling, he would try to wrench the saucepan
\nand spoon out of her hands, he would grab bits from his sister’s plate.
\nHe knew that he was starving the other two, but he could not help it; he
\neven felt that he had a right to do it. The clamorous hunger in his belly
\nseemed to justify him. Between meals, if his mother did not stand guard,
\nhe was constantly pilfering at the wretched store of food on the shelf.<\/p>\n
One day a chocolate ration was issued. There had been no such issue for
\nweeks or months past. He remembered quite clearly that precious little
\nmorsel of chocolate. It was a two-ounce slab (they still talked about
\nounces in those days) between the three of them. It was obvious that it
\nought to be divided into three equal parts. Suddenly, as though he were
\nlistening to somebody else, Winston heard himself demanding in a loud
\nbooming voice that he should be given the whole piece. His mother told him
\nnot to be greedy. There was a long, nagging argument that went round and
\nround, with shouts, whines, tears, remonstrances, bargainings. His tiny
\nsister, clinging to her mother with both hands, exactly like a baby monkey,
\nsat looking over her shoulder at him with large, mournful eyes. In the
\nend his mother broke off three-quarters of the chocolate and gave it to
\nWinston, giving the other quarter to his sister. The little girl took hold
\nof it and looked at it dully, perhaps not knowing what it was. Winston
\nstood watching her for a moment. Then with a sudden swift spring he had
\nsnatched the piece of chocolate out of his sister’s hand and was fleeing
\nfor the door.<\/p>\n
‘Winston, Winston!’ his mother called after him. ‘Come back! Give your
\nsister back her chocolate!’<\/p>\n
He stopped, but did not come back. His mother’s anxious eyes were fixed on
\nhis face. Even now he was thinking about the thing, he did not know what
\nit was that was on the point of happening. His sister, conscious of having
\nbeen robbed of something, had set up a feeble wail. His mother drew her
\narm round the child and pressed its face against her breast. Something in
\nthe gesture told him that his sister was dying. He turned and fled down
\nthe stairs, with the chocolate growing sticky in his hand.<\/p>\n
He never saw his mother again. After he had devoured the chocolate he felt
\nsomewhat ashamed of himself and hung about in the streets for several
\nhours, until hunger drove him home. When he came back his mother had
\ndisappeared. This was already becoming normal at that time. Nothing was
\ngone from the room except his mother and his sister. They had not taken
\nany clothes, not even his mother’s overcoat. To this day he did not know
\nwith any certainty that his mother was dead. It was perfectly possible
\nthat she had merely been sent to a forced-labour camp. As for his sister,
\nshe might have been removed, like Winston himself, to one of the colonies
\nfor homeless children (Reclamation Centres, they were called) which had
\ngrown up as a result of the civil war, or she might have been sent to the
\nlabour camp along with his mother, or simply left somewhere or other
\nto die.<\/p>\n
The dream was still vivid in his mind, especially the enveloping protecting
\ngesture of the arm in which its whole meaning seemed to be contained. His
\nmind went back to another dream of two months ago. Exactly as his mother
\nhad sat on the dingy white-quilted bed, with the child clinging to her, so
\nshe had sat in the sunken ship, far underneath him, and drowning deeper
\nevery minute, but still looking up at him through the darkening water.<\/p>\n
He told Julia the story of his mother’s disappearance. Without opening her
\neyes she rolled over and settled herself into a more comfortable position.<\/p>\n
‘I expect you were a beastly little swine in those days,’ she said
\nindistinctly. ‘All children are swine.’<\/p>\n
‘Yes. But the real point of the story—-‘<\/p>\n
From her breathing it was evident that she was going off to sleep again.
\nHe would have liked to continue talking about his mother. He did not
\nsuppose, from what he could remember of her, that she had been an unusual
\nwoman, still less an intelligent one; and yet she had possessed a kind of
\nnobility, a kind of purity, simply because the standards that she obeyed
\nwere private ones. Her feelings were her own, and could not be altered
\nfrom outside. It would not have occurred to her that an action which is
\nineffectual thereby becomes meaningless. If you loved someone, you loved
\nhim, and when you had nothing else to give, you still gave him love. When
\nthe last of the chocolate was gone, his mother had clasped the child in
\nher arms. It was no use, it changed nothing, it did not produce more
\nchocolate, it did not avert the child’s death or her own; but it seemed
\nnatural to her to do it. The refugee woman in the boat had also covered
\nthe little boy with her arm, which was no more use against the bullets
\nthan a sheet of paper. The terrible thing that the Party had done was to
\npersuade you that mere impulses, mere feelings, were of no account, while
\nat the same time robbing you of all power over the material world. When
\nonce you were in the grip of the Party, what you felt or did not feel,
\nwhat you did or refrained from doing, made literally no difference.
\nWhatever happened you vanished, and neither you nor your actions were ever
\nheard of again. You were lifted clean out of the stream of history. And
\nyet to the people of only two generations ago this would not have seemed
\nall-important, because they were not attempting to alter history. They
\nwere governed by private loyalties which they did not question. What
\nmattered were individual relationships, and a completely helpless gesture,
\nan embrace, a tear, a word spoken to a dying man, could have value in
\nitself. The proles, it suddenly occurred to him, had remained in this
\ncondition. They were not loyal to a party or a country or an idea, they
\nwere loyal to one another. For the first time in his life he did not
\ndespise the proles or think of them merely as an inert force which would
\none day spring to life and regenerate the world. The proles had stayed
\nhuman. They had not become hardened inside. They had held on to the
\nprimitive emotions which he himself had to re-learn by conscious effort.
\nAnd in thinking this he remembered, without apparent relevance, how a few
\nweeks ago he had seen a severed hand lying on the pavement and had kicked
\nit into the gutter as though it had been a cabbage-stalk.<\/p>\n
‘The proles are human beings,’ he said aloud. ‘We are not human.’<\/p>\n
‘Why not?’ said Julia, who had woken up again.<\/p>\n
He thought for a little while. ‘Has it ever occurred to you,’ he said,
\n‘that the best thing for us to do would be simply to walk out of here
\nbefore it’s too late, and never see each other again?’<\/p>\n
‘Yes, dear, it has occurred to me, several times. But I’m not going to do
\nit, all the same.’<\/p>\n
‘We’ve been lucky,’ he said ‘but it can’t last much longer. You’re young.
\nYou look normal and innocent. If you keep clear of people like me, you
\nmight stay alive for another fifty years.’<\/p>\n
‘No. I’ve thought it all out. What you do, I’m going to do. And don’t be
\ntoo downhearted. I’m rather good at staying alive.’<\/p>\n
‘We may be together for another six months–a year–there’s no knowing.
\nAt the end we’re certain to be apart. Do you realize how utterly alone we
\nshall be? When once they get hold of us there will be nothing, literally
\nnothing, that either of us can do for the other. If I confess, they’ll
\nshoot you, and if I refuse to confess, they’ll shoot you just the same.
\nNothing that I can do or say, or stop myself from saying, will put off
\nyour death for as much as five minutes. Neither of us will even know
\nwhether the other is alive or dead. We shall be utterly without power of
\nany kind. The one thing that matters is that we shouldn’t betray one
\nanother, although even that can’t make the slightest difference.’<\/p>\n
‘If you mean confessing,’ she said, ‘we shall do that, right enough.
\nEverybody always confesses. You can’t help it. They torture you.’<\/p>\n
‘I don’t mean confessing. Confession is not betrayal. What you say or do
\ndoesn’t matter: only feelings matter. If they could make me stop loving
\nyou–that would be the real betrayal.’<\/p>\n
She thought it over. ‘They can’t do that,’ she said finally. ‘It’s the one
\nthing they can’t do. They can make you say anything–ANYTHING–but they
\ncan’t make you believe it. They can’t get inside you.’<\/p>\n
‘No,’ he said a little more hopefully, ‘no; that’s quite true. They can’t
\nget inside you. If you can FEEL that staying human is worth while, even
\nwhen it can’t have any result whatever, you’ve beaten them.’<\/p>\n
He thought of the telescreen with its never-sleeping ear. They could spy
\nupon you night and day, but if you kept your head you could still outwit
\nthem. With all their cleverness they had never mastered the secret of
\nfinding out what another human being was thinking. Perhaps that was less
\ntrue when you were actually in their hands. One did not know what happened
\ninside the Ministry of Love, but it was possible to guess: tortures, drugs,
\ndelicate instruments that registered your nervous reactions, gradual
\nwearing-down by sleeplessness and solitude and persistent questioning.
\nFacts, at any rate, could not be kept hidden. They could be tracked down
\nby enquiry, they could be squeezed out of you by torture. But if the object
\nwas not to stay alive but to stay human, what difference did it ultimately
\nmake? They could not alter your feelings: for that matter you could not
\nalter them yourself, even if you wanted to. They could lay bare in the
\nutmost detail everything that you had done or said or thought; but the
\ninner heart, whose workings were mysterious even to yourself, remained
\nimpregnable.<\/p>\n
Chapter 8<\/p>\n
They had done it, they had done it at last!<\/p>\n
The room they were standing in was long-shaped and softly lit. The
\ntelescreen was dimmed to a low murmur; the richness of the dark-blue carpet
\ngave one the impression of treading on velvet. At the far end of the room
\nO’Brien was sitting at a table under a green-shaded lamp, with a mass of
\npapers on either side of him. He had not bothered to look up when the
\nservant showed Julia and Winston in.<\/p>\n
Winston’s heart was thumping so hard that he doubted whether he would be
\nable to speak. They had done it, they had done it at last, was all he
\ncould think. It had been a rash act to come here at all, and sheer folly
\nto arrive together; though it was true that they had come by different
\nroutes and only met on O’Brien’s doorstep. But merely to walk into such a
\nplace needed an effort of the nerve. It was only on very rare occasions
\nthat one saw inside the dwelling-places of the Inner Party, or even
\npenetrated into the quarter of the town where they lived. The whole
\natmosphere of the huge block of flats, the richness and spaciousness of
\neverything, the unfamiliar smells of good food and good tobacco, the
\nsilent and incredibly rapid lifts sliding up and down, the white-jacketed
\nservants hurrying to and fro–everything was intimidating. Although he had
\na good pretext for coming here, he was haunted at every step by the fear
\nthat a black-uniformed guard would suddenly appear from round the corner,
\ndemand his papers, and order him to get out. O’Brien’s servant, however,
\nhad admitted the two of them without demur. He was a small, dark-haired
\nman in a white jacket, with a diamond-shaped, completely expressionless
\nface which might have been that of a Chinese. The passage down which he
\nled them was softly carpeted, with cream-papered walls and white
\nwainscoting, all exquisitely clean. That too was intimidating. Winston
\ncould not remember ever to have seen a passageway whose walls were not
\ngrimy from the contact of human bodies.<\/p>\n
O’Brien had a slip of paper between his fingers and seemed to be studying
\nit intently. His heavy face, bent down so that one could see the line of
\nthe nose, looked both formidable and intelligent. For perhaps twenty
\nseconds he sat without stirring. Then he pulled the speakwrite towards
\nhim and rapped out a message in the hybrid jargon of the Ministries:<\/p>\n
‘Items one comma five comma seven approved fullwise stop suggestion
\ncontained item six doubleplus ridiculous verging crimethink cancel stop
\nunproceed constructionwise antegetting plusfull estimates machinery
\noverheads stop end message.’<\/p>\n
He rose deliberately from his chair and came towards them across the
\nsoundless carpet. A little of the official atmosphere seemed to have fallen
\naway from him with the Newspeak words, but his expression was grimmer than
\nusual, as though he were not pleased at being disturbed. The terror that
\nWinston already felt was suddenly shot through by a streak of ordinary
\nembarrassment. It seemed to him quite possible that he had simply made a
\nstupid mistake. For what evidence had he in reality that O’Brien was any
\nkind of political conspirator? Nothing but a flash of the eyes and a single
\nequivocal remark: beyond that, only his own secret imaginings, founded on
\na dream. He could not even fall back on the pretence that he had come to
\nborrow the dictionary, because in that case Julia’s presence was impossible
\nto explain. As O’Brien passed the telescreen a thought seemed to strike
\nhim. He stopped, turned aside and pressed a switch on the wall. There was
\na sharp snap. The voice had stopped.<\/p>\n
Julia uttered a tiny sound, a sort of squeak of surprise. Even in the midst
\nof his panic, Winston was too much taken aback to be able to hold his
\ntongue.<\/p>\n
‘You can turn it off!’ he said.<\/p>\n
‘Yes,’ said O’Brien, ‘we can turn it off. We have that privilege.’<\/p>\n
He was opposite them now. His solid form towered over the pair of them,
\nand the expression on his face was still indecipherable. He was waiting,
\nsomewhat sternly, for Winston to speak, but about what? Even now it was
\nquite conceivable that he was simply a busy man wondering irritably why he
\nhad been interrupted. Nobody spoke. After the stopping of the telescreen
\nthe room seemed deadly silent. The seconds marched past, enormous. With
\ndifficulty Winston continued to keep his eyes fixed on O’Brien’s. Then
\nsuddenly the grim face broke down into what might have been the beginnings
\nof a smile. With his characteristic gesture O’Brien resettled his
\nspectacles on his nose.<\/p>\n
‘Shall I say it, or will you?’ he said.<\/p>\n
‘I will say it,’ said Winston promptly. ‘That thing is really turned off?’<\/p>\n
‘Yes, everything is turned off. We are alone.’<\/p>\n
‘We have come here because—-‘<\/p>\n
He paused, realizing for the first time the vagueness of
\nhis own motives. Since he did not in fact know what kind of
\nhelp he expected from O’Brien, it was not easy to say why he
\nhad come here. He went on, conscious that what he was saying
\nmust sound both feeble and pretentious:<\/p>\n
‘We believe that there is some kind of conspiracy, some kind of secret
\norganization working against the Party, and that you are involved in it.
\nWe want to join it and work for it. We are enemies of the Party. We
\ndisbelieve in the principles of Ingsoc. We are thought-criminals. We are
\nalso adulterers. I tell you this because we want to put ourselves at your
\nmercy. If you want us to incriminate ourselves in any other way, we are
\nready.’<\/p>\n
He stopped and glanced over his shoulder, with the feeling that the door
\nhad opened. Sure enough, the little yellow-faced servant had come in
\nwithout knocking. Winston saw that he was carrying a tray with a decanter
\nand glasses.<\/p>\n
‘Martin is one of us,’ said O’Brien impassively. ‘Bring the drinks over
\nhere, Martin. Put them on the round table. Have we enough chairs? Then
\nwe may as well sit down and talk in comfort. Bring a chair for yourself,
\nMartin. This is business. You can stop being a servant for the next ten
\nminutes.’<\/p>\n
The little man sat down, quite at his ease, and yet still with a
\nservant-like air, the air of a valet enjoying a privilege. Winston
\nregarded him out of the corner of his eye. It struck him that the man’s
\nwhole life was playing a part, and that he felt it to be dangerous to
\ndrop his assumed personality even for a moment. O’Brien took the decanter
\nby the neck and filled up the glasses with a dark-red liquid. It aroused
\nin Winston dim memories of something seen long ago on a wall or a
\nhoarding–a vast bottle composed of electric lights which seemed to move
\nup and down and pour its contents into a glass. Seen from the top the
\nstuff looked almost black, but in the decanter it gleamed like a ruby.
\nIt had a sour-sweet smell. He saw Julia pick up her glass and sniff at
\nit with frank curiosity.<\/p>\n
‘It is called wine,’ said O’Brien with a faint smile. ‘You will have read
\nabout it in books, no doubt. Not much of it gets to the Outer Party, I am
\nafraid.’ His face grew solemn again, and he raised his glass: ‘I think it
\nis fitting that we should begin by drinking a health. To our Leader: To
\nEmmanuel Goldstein.’<\/p>\n
Winston took up his glass with a certain eagerness. Wine was a thing he
\nhad read and dreamed about. Like the glass paperweight or Mr Charrington’s
\nhalf-remembered rhymes, it belonged to the vanished, romantic past, the
\nolden time as he liked to call it in his secret thoughts. For some reason
\nhe had always thought of wine as having an intensely sweet taste, like
\nthat of blackberry jam and an immediate intoxicating effect. Actually,
\nwhen he came to swallow it, the stuff was distinctly disappointing. The
\ntruth was that after years of gin-drinking he could barely taste it. He
\nset down the empty glass.<\/p>\n
‘Then there is such a person as Goldstein?’ he said.<\/p>\n
‘Yes, there is such a person, and he is alive. Where, I do not know.’<\/p>\n
‘And the conspiracy–the organization? Is it real? It is not simply an
\ninvention of the Thought Police?’<\/p>\n
‘No, it is real. The Brotherhood, we call it. You will never learn much
\nmore about the Brotherhood than that it exists and that you belong to it.
\nI will come back to that presently.’ He looked at his wrist-watch. ‘It is
\nunwise even for members of the Inner Party to turn off the telescreen for
\nmore than half an hour. You ought not to have come here together, and
\nyou will have to leave separately. You, comrade’–he bowed his head to
\nJulia–‘will leave first. We have about twenty minutes at our disposal.
\nYou will understand that I must start by asking you certain questions.
\nIn general terms, what are you prepared to do?’<\/p>\n
‘Anything that we are capable of,’ said Winston.<\/p>\n
O’Brien had turned himself a little in his chair so that he was facing
\nWinston. He almost ignored Julia, seeming to take it for granted that
\nWinston could speak for her. For a moment the lids flitted down over his
\neyes. He began asking his questions in a low, expressionless voice, as
\nthough this were a routine, a sort of catechism, most of whose answers
\nwere known to him already.<\/p>\n
‘You are prepared to give your lives?’<\/p>\n
‘Yes.’<\/p>\n
‘You are prepared to commit murder?’<\/p>\n
‘Yes.’<\/p>\n
‘To commit acts of sabotage which may cause the death of hundreds of
\ninnocent people?’<\/p>\n
‘Yes.’<\/p>\n
‘To betray your country to foreign powers?’<\/p>\n
‘Yes.’<\/p>\n
‘You are prepared to cheat, to forge, to blackmail, to corrupt the minds
\nof children, to distribute habit-forming drugs, to encourage prostitution,
\nto disseminate venereal diseases–to do anything which is likely to cause
\ndemoralization and weaken the power of the Party?’<\/p>\n
‘Yes.’<\/p>\n
‘If, for example, it would somehow serve our interests to throw sulphuric
\nacid in a child’s face–are you prepared to do that?’<\/p>\n
‘Yes.’<\/p>\n
‘You are prepared to lose your identity and live out the rest of your life
\nas a waiter or a dock-worker?’<\/p>\n
‘Yes.’<\/p>\n
‘You are prepared to commit suicide, if and when we order you to do so?’<\/p>\n
‘Yes.’<\/p>\n
‘You are prepared, the two of you, to separate and never see one another
\nagain?’<\/p>\n
‘No!’ broke in Julia.<\/p>\n
It appeared to Winston that a long time passed before he answered. For a
\nmoment he seemed even to have been deprived of the power of speech. His
\ntongue worked soundlessly, forming the opening syllables first of one word,
\nthen of the other, over and over again. Until he had said it, he did not
\nknow which word he was going to say. ‘No,’ he said finally.<\/p>\n
‘You did well to tell me,’ said O’Brien. ‘It is necessary for us to know
\neverything.’<\/p>\n
He turned himself toward Julia and added in a voice with somewhat more
\nexpression in it:<\/p>\n
‘Do you understand that even if he survives, it may be as a different
\nperson? We may be obliged to give him a new identity. His face, his
\nmovements, the shape of his hands, the colour of his hair–even his voice
\nwould be different. And you yourself might have become a different person.
\nOur surgeons can alter people beyond recognition. Sometimes it is
\nnecessary. Sometimes we even amputate a limb.’<\/p>\n
Winston could not help snatching another sidelong glance at Martin’s
\nMongolian face. There were no scars that he could see. Julia had turned a
\nshade paler, so that her freckles were showing, but she faced O’Brien
\nboldly. She murmured something that seemed to be assent.<\/p>\n
‘Good. Then that is settled.’<\/p>\n
There was a silver box of cigarettes on the table. With a rather
\nabsent-minded air O’Brien pushed them towards the others, took one himself,
\nthen stood up and began to pace slowly to and fro, as though he could think
\nbetter standing. They were very good cigarettes, very thick and
\nwell-packed, with an unfamiliar silkiness in the paper. O’Brien looked at
\nhis wrist-watch again.<\/p>\n
‘You had better go back to your Pantry, Martin,’ he said. ‘I shall switch
\non in a quarter of an hour. Take a good look at these comrades’ faces
\nbefore you go. You will be seeing them again. I may not.’<\/p>\n
Exactly as they had done at the front door, the little man’s dark eyes
\nflickered over their faces. There was not a trace of friendliness in his
\nmanner. He was memorizing their appearance, but he felt no interest in
\nthem, or appeared to feel none. It occurred to Winston that a synthetic
\nface was perhaps incapable of changing its expression. Without speaking
\nor giving any kind of salutation, Martin went out, closing the door
\nsilently behind him. O’Brien was strolling up and down, one hand in the
\npocket of his black overalls, the other holding his cigarette.<\/p>\n
‘You understand,’ he said, ‘that you will be fighting in the dark. You
\nwill always be in the dark. You will receive orders and you will obey them,
\nwithout knowing why. Later I shall send you a book from which you will
\nlearn the true nature of the society we live in, and the strategy by which
\nwe shall destroy it. When you have read the book, you will be full members
\nof the Brotherhood. But between the general aims that we are fighting for
\nand the immediate tasks of the moment, you will never know anything. I
\ntell you that the Brotherhood exists, but I cannot tell you whether it
\nnumbers a hundred members, or ten million. From your personal knowledge
\nyou will never be able to say that it numbers even as many as a dozen. You
\nwill have three or four contacts, who will be renewed from time to time as
\nthey disappear. As this was your first contact, it will be preserved. When
\nyou receive orders, they will come from me. If we find it necessary to
\ncommunicate with you, it will be through Martin. When you are finally
\ncaught, you will confess. That is unavoidable. But you will have very
\nlittle to confess, other than your own actions. You will not be able to
\nbetray more than a handful of unimportant people. Probably you will not
\neven betray me. By that time I may be dead, or I shall have become a
\ndifferent person, with a different face.’<\/p>\n
He continued to move to and fro over the soft carpet. In spite of the
\nbulkiness of his body there was a remarkable grace in his movements. It
\ncame out even in the gesture with which he thrust a hand into his pocket,
\nor manipulated a cigarette. More even than of strength, he gave an
\nimpression of confidence and of an understanding tinged by irony. However
\nmuch in earnest he might be, he had nothing of the single-mindedness that
\nbelongs to a fanatic. When he spoke of murder, suicide, venereal disease,
\namputated limbs, and altered faces, it was with a faint air of persiflage.
\n‘This is unavoidable,’ his voice seemed to say; ‘this is what we have got
\nto do, unflinchingly. But this is not what we shall be doing when life is
\nworth living again.’ A wave of admiration, almost of worship, flowed out
\nfrom Winston towards O’Brien. For the moment he had forgotten the shadowy
\nfigure of Goldstein. When you looked at O’Brien’s powerful shoulders and
\nhis blunt-featured face, so ugly and yet so civilized, it was impossible
\nto believe that he could be defeated. There was no stratagem that he was
\nnot equal to, no danger that he could not foresee. Even Julia seemed to
\nbe impressed. She had let her cigarette go out and was listening intently.
\nO’Brien went on:<\/p>\n
‘You will have heard rumours of the existence of the Brotherhood. No doubt
\nyou have formed your own picture of it. You have imagined, probably, a
\nhuge underworld of conspirators, meeting secretly in cellars, scribbling
\nmessages on walls, recognizing one another by codewords or by special
\nmovements of the hand. Nothing of the kind exists. The members of the
\nBrotherhood have no way of recognizing one another, and it is impossible
\nfor any one member to be aware of the identity of more than a few others.
\nGoldstein himself, if he fell into the hands of the Thought Police, could
\nnot give them a complete list of members, or any information that would
\nlead them to a complete list. No such list exists. The Brotherhood cannot
\nbe wiped out because it is not an organization in the ordinary sense.
\nNothing holds it together except an idea which is indestructible. You
\nwill never have anything to sustain you, except the idea. You will get no
\ncomradeship and no encouragement. When finally you are caught, you will
\nget no help. We never help our members. At most, when it is absolutely
\nnecessary that someone should be silenced, we are occasionally able to
\nsmuggle a razor blade into a prisoner’s cell. You will have to get used
\nto living without results and without hope. You will work for a while,
\nyou will be caught, you will confess, and then you will die. Those are
\nthe only results that you will ever see. There is no possibility that any
\nperceptible change will happen within our own lifetime. We are the dead.
\nOur only true life is in the future. We shall take part in it as handfuls
\nof dust and splinters of bone. But how far away that future may be, there
\nis no knowing. It might be a thousand years. At present nothing is possible
\nexcept to extend the area of sanity little by little. We cannot act
\ncollectively. We can only spread our knowledge outwards from individual to
\nindividual, generation after generation. In the face of the Thought Police
\nthere is no other way.’<\/p>\n
He halted and looked for the third time at his wrist-watch.<\/p>\n
‘It is almost time for you to leave, comrade,’ he said to Julia. ‘Wait.
\nThe decanter is still half full.’<\/p>\n
He filled the glasses and raised his own glass by the stem.<\/p>\n
‘What shall it be this time?’ he said, still with the same faint
\nsuggestion of irony. ‘To the confusion of the Thought Police? To the
\ndeath of Big Brother? To humanity? To the future?’<\/p>\n
‘To the past,’ said Winston.<\/p>\n
‘The past is more important,’ agreed O’Brien gravely.<\/p>\n
They emptied their glasses, and a moment later Julia stood up to go.
\nO’Brien took a small box from the top of a cabinet and handed her a flat
\nwhite tablet which he told her to place on her tongue. It was important,
\nhe said, not to go out smelling of wine: the lift attendants were very
\nobservant. As soon as the door had shut behind her he appeared to forget
\nher existence. He took another pace or two up and down, then stopped.<\/p>\n
‘There are details to be settled,’ he said. ‘I assume that you have a
\nhiding-place of some kind?’<\/p>\n
Winston explained about the room over Mr Charrington’s shop.<\/p>\n
‘That will do for the moment. Later we will arrange something else for you.
\nIt is important to change one’s hiding-place frequently. Meanwhile I shall
\nsend you a copy of THE BOOK’–even O’Brien, Winston noticed, seemed to
\npronounce the words as though they were in italics–‘Goldstein’s book, you
\nunderstand, as soon as possible. It may be some days before I can get hold
\nof one. There are not many in existence, as you can imagine. The Thought
\nPolice hunt them down and destroy them almost as fast as we can produce
\nthem. It makes very little difference. The book is indestructible. If
\nthe last copy were gone, we could reproduce it almost word for word. Do
\nyou carry a brief-case to work with you?’ he added.<\/p>\n
‘As a rule, yes.’<\/p>\n
‘What is it like?’<\/p>\n
‘Black, very shabby. With two straps.’<\/p>\n
‘Black, two straps, very shabby–good. One day in the fairly near
\nfuture–I cannot give a date–one of the messages among your morning’s
\nwork will contain a misprinted word, and you will have to ask for a
\nrepeat. On the following day you will go to work without your brief-case.
\nAt some time during the day, in the street, a man will touch you on the
\narm and say “I think you have dropped your brief-case.” The one he gives
\nyou will contain a copy of Goldstein’s book. You will return it within
\nfourteen days.’<\/p>\n
They were silent for a moment.<\/p>\n
‘There are a couple of minutes before you need go,’ said O’Brien. ‘We
\nshall meet again–if we do meet again—-‘<\/p>\n
Winston looked up at him. ‘In the place where there is no darkness?’
\nhe said hesitantly.<\/p>\n
O’Brien nodded without appearance of surprise. ‘In the place where there
\nis no darkness,’ he said, as though he had recognized the allusion. ‘And
\nin the meantime, is there anything that you wish to say before you leave?
\nAny message? Any question?.’<\/p>\n
Winston thought. There did not seem to be any further question that he
\nwanted to ask: still less did he feel any impulse to utter high-sounding
\ngeneralities. Instead of anything directly connected with O’Brien or the
\nBrotherhood, there came into his mind a sort of composite picture of the
\ndark bedroom where his mother had spent her last days, and the little room
\nover Mr Charrington’s shop, and the glass paperweight, and the steel
\nengraving in its rosewood frame. Almost at random he said:<\/p>\n
‘Did you ever happen to hear an old rhyme that begins “Oranges and lemons,
\nsay the bells of St Clement’s”?’<\/p>\n
Again O’Brien nodded. With a sort of grave courtesy he completed the
\nstanza:<\/p>\n
‘Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clement’s,
\n You owe me three farthings, say the bells of St Martin’s,
\n When will you pay me? say the bells of Old Bailey,
\n When I grow rich, say the bells of Shoreditch.’<\/p>\n
‘You knew the last line!’ said Winston.<\/p>\n
‘Yes, I knew the last line. And now, I am afraid, it is time for you to go.
\nBut wait. You had better let me give you one of these tablets.’<\/p>\n
As Winston stood up O’Brien held out a hand. His powerful grip crushed
\nthe bones of Winston’s palm. At the door Winston looked back, but O’Brien
\nseemed already to be in process of putting him out of mind. He was waiting
\nwith his hand on the switch that controlled the telescreen. Beyond him
\nWinston could see the writing-table with its green-shaded lamp and the
\nspeakwrite and the wire baskets deep-laden with papers. The incident was
\nclosed. Within thirty seconds, it occurred to him, O’Brien would be back
\nat his interrupted and important work on behalf of the Party.<\/p>\n
Chapter 9<\/p>\n
Winston was gelatinous with fatigue. Gelatinous was the right word. It had
\ncome into his head spontaneously. His body seemed to have not only the
\nweakness of a jelly, but its translucency. He felt that if he held up his
\nhand he would be able to see the light through it. All the blood and
\nlymph had been drained out of him by an enormous debauch of work, leaving
\nonly a frail structure of nerves, bones, and skin. All sensations seemed
\nto be magnified. His overalls fretted his shoulders, the pavement tickled
\nhis feet, even the opening and closing of a hand was an effort that made
\nhis joints creak.<\/p>\n
He had worked more than ninety hours in five days. So had everyone else in
\nthe Ministry. Now it was all over, and he had literally nothing to do, no
\nParty work of any description, until tomorrow morning. He could spend six
\nhours in the hiding-place and another nine in his own bed. Slowly, in
\nmild afternoon sunshine, he walked up a dingy street in the direction
\nof Mr Charrington’s shop, keeping one eye open for the patrols, but
\nirrationally convinced that this afternoon there was no danger of anyone
\ninterfering with him. The heavy brief-case that he was carrying bumped
\nagainst his knee at each step, sending a tingling sensation up and down
\nthe skin of his leg. Inside it was the book, which he had now had in his
\npossession for six days and had not yet opened, nor even looked at.<\/p>\n
On the sixth day of Hate Week, after the processions, the speeches, the
\nshouting, the singing, the banners, the posters, the films, the waxworks,
\nthe rolling of drums and squealing of trumpets, the tramp of marching feet,
\nthe grinding of the caterpillars of tanks, the roar of massed planes,
\nthe booming of guns–after six days of this, when the great orgasm was
\nquivering to its climax and the general hatred of Eurasia had boiled up
\ninto such delirium that if the crowd could have got their hands on the
\n2,000 Eurasian war-criminals who were to be publicly hanged on the last
\nday of the proceedings, they would unquestionably have torn them to
\npieces–at just this moment it had been announced that Oceania was not
\nafter all at war with Eurasia. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Eurasia
\nwas an ally.<\/p>\n
There was, of course, no admission that any change had taken place. Merely
\nit became known, with extreme suddenness and everywhere at once, that
\nEastasia and not Eurasia was the enemy. Winston was taking part in a
\ndemonstration in one of the central London squares at the moment when it
\nhappened. It was night, and the white faces and the scarlet banners were
\nluridly floodlit. The square was packed with several thousand people,
\nincluding a block of about a thousand schoolchildren in the uniform of the
\nSpies. On a scarlet-draped platform an orator of the Inner Party, a small
\nlean man with disproportionately long arms and a large bald skull over
\nwhich a few lank locks straggled, was haranguing the crowd. A little
\nRumpelstiltskin figure, contorted with hatred, he gripped the neck of the
\nmicrophone with one hand while the other, enormous at the end of a bony
\narm, clawed the air menacingly above his head. His voice, made metallic by
\nthe amplifiers, boomed forth an endless catalogue of atrocities, massacres,
\ndeportations, lootings, rapings, torture of prisoners, bombing of
\ncivilians, lying propaganda, unjust aggressions, broken treaties. It was
\nalmost impossible to listen to him without being first convinced and then
\nmaddened. At every few moments the fury of the crowd boiled over and the
\nvoice of the speaker was drowned by a wild beast-like roaring that rose
\nuncontrollably from thousands of throats. The most savage yells of all
\ncame from the schoolchildren. The speech had been proceeding for perhaps
\ntwenty minutes when a messenger hurried on to the platform and a scrap of
\npaper was slipped into the speaker’s hand. He unrolled and read it without
\npausing in his speech. Nothing altered in his voice or manner, or in the
\ncontent of what he was saying, but suddenly the names were different.
\nWithout words said, a wave of understanding rippled through the crowd.
\nOceania was at war with Eastasia! The next moment there was a tremendous
\ncommotion. The banners and posters with which the square was decorated
\nwere all wrong! Quite half of them had the wrong faces on them. It was
\nsabotage! The agents of Goldstein had been at work! There was a riotous
\ninterlude while posters were ripped from the walls, banners torn to shreds
\nand trampled underfoot. The Spies performed prodigies of activity in
\nclambering over the rooftops and cutting the streamers that fluttered from
\nthe chimneys. But within two or three minutes it was all over. The orator,
\nstill gripping the neck of the microphone, his shoulders hunched forward,
\nhis free hand clawing at the air, had gone straight on with his speech.
\nOne minute more, and the feral roars of rage were again bursting from the
\ncrowd. The Hate continued exactly as before, except that the target had
\nbeen changed.<\/p>\n
The thing that impressed Winston in looking back was that the speaker had
\nswitched from one line to the other actually in midsentence, not only
\nwithout a pause, but without even breaking the syntax. But at the moment
\nhe had other things to preoccupy him. It was during the moment of disorder
\nwhile the posters were being torn down that a man whose face he did not
\nsee had tapped him on the shoulder and said, ‘Excuse me, I think you’ve
\ndropped your brief-case.’ He took the brief-case abstractedly, without
\nspeaking. He knew that it would be days before he had an opportunity to
\nlook inside it. The instant that the demonstration was over he went
\nstraight to the Ministry of Truth, though the time was now nearly
\ntwenty-three hours. The entire staff of the Ministry had done likewise.
\nThe orders already issuing from the telescreen, recalling them to their
\nposts, were hardly necessary.<\/p>\n
Oceania was at war with Eastasia: Oceania had always been at war with
\nEastasia. A large part of the political literature of five years was now
\ncompletely obsolete. Reports and records of all kinds, newspapers, books,
\npamphlets, films, sound-tracks, photographs–all had to be rectified at
\nlightning speed. Although no directive was ever issued, it was known that
\nthe chiefs of the Department intended that within one week no reference
\nto the war with Eurasia, or the alliance with Eastasia, should remain in
\nexistence anywhere. The work was overwhelming, all the more so because
\nthe processes that it involved could not be called by their true
\nnames. Everyone in the Records Department worked eighteen hours in the
\ntwenty-four, with two three-hour snatches of sleep. Mattresses were brought
\nup from the cellars and pitched all over the corridors: meals consisted of
\nsandwiches and Victory Coffee wheeled round on trolleys by attendants from
\nthe canteen. Each time that Winston broke off for one of his spells of
\nsleep he tried to leave his desk clear of work, and each time that he
\ncrawled back sticky-eyed and aching, it was to find that another shower
\nof paper cylinders had covered the desk like a snowdrift, half-burying the
\nspeakwrite and overflowing on to the floor, so that the first job was
\nalways to stack them into a neat enough pile to give him room to work.
\nWhat was worst of all was that the work was by no means purely mechanical.
\nOften it was enough merely to substitute one name for another, but any
\ndetailed report of events demanded care and imagination. Even the
\ngeographical knowledge that one needed in transferring the war from one
\npart of the world to another was considerable.<\/p>\n
By the third day his eyes ached unbearably and his spectacles needed wiping
\nevery few minutes. It was like struggling with some crushing physical task,
\nsomething which one had the right to refuse and which one was nevertheless
\nneurotically anxious to accomplish. In so far as he had time to remember
\nit, he was not troubled by the fact that every word he murmured into the
\nspeakwrite, every stroke of his ink-pencil, was a deliberate lie. He was
\nas anxious as anyone else in the Department that the forgery should be
\nperfect. On the morning of the sixth day the dribble of cylinders slowed
\ndown. For as much as half an hour nothing came out of the tube; then one
\nmore cylinder, then nothing. Everywhere at about the same time the work
\nwas easing off. A deep and as it were secret sigh went through the
\nDepartment. A mighty deed, which could never be mentioned, had been
\nachieved. It was now impossible for any human being to prove by documentary
\nevidence that the war with Eurasia had ever happened. At twelve hundred it
\nwas unexpectedly announced that all workers in the Ministry were free till
\ntomorrow morning. Winston, still carrying the brief-case containing the
\nbook, which had remained between his feet while he worked and under his
\nbody while he slept, went home, shaved himself, and almost fell asleep in
\nhis bath, although the water was barely more than tepid.<\/p>\n
With a sort of voluptuous creaking in his joints he climbed the stair above
\nMr Charrington’s shop. He was tired, but not sleepy any longer. He opened
\nthe window, lit the dirty little oilstove and put on a pan of water for
\ncoffee. Julia would arrive presently: meanwhile there was the book. He
\nsat down in the sluttish armchair and undid the straps of the brief-case.<\/p>\n
A heavy black volume, amateurishly bound, with no name or title on the
\ncover. The print also looked slightly irregular. The pages were worn at
\nthe edges, and fell apart, easily, as though the book had passed through
\nmany hands. The inscription on the title-page ran:<\/p>\n
THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF
\n OLIGARCHICAL COLLECTIVISM
\n by
\n Emmanuel Goldstein<\/p>\n
Winston began reading:<\/p>\n
Chapter I
\nIgnorance is Strength<\/p>\n
Throughout recorded time, and probably since the end of the Neolithic Age,
\nthere have been three kinds of people in the world, the High, the Middle,
\nand the Low. They have been subdivided in many ways, they have borne
\ncountless different names, and their relative numbers, as well as their
\nattitude towards one another, have varied from age to age: but the
\nessential structure of society has never altered. Even after enormous
\nupheavals and seemingly irrevocable changes, the same pattern has always
\nreasserted itself, just as a gyroscope will always return to equilibrium,
\nhowever far it is pushed one way or the other.<\/p>\n
The aims of these groups are entirely irreconcilable…<\/p>\n
Winston stopped reading, chiefly in order to appreciate the fact that he
\nwas reading, in comfort and safety. He was alone: no telescreen, no ear at
\nthe keyhole, no nervous impulse to glance over his shoulder or cover the
\npage with his hand. The sweet summer air played against his cheek. From
\nsomewhere far away there floated the faint shouts of children: in the room
\nitself there was no sound except the insect voice of the clock. He settled
\ndeeper into the arm-chair and put his feet up on the fender. It was bliss,
\nit was eternity. Suddenly, as one sometimes does with a book of which one
\nknows that one will ultimately read and re-read every word, he opened it
\nat a different place and found himself at Chapter III. He went on reading:<\/p>\n
Chapter III
\nWar is Peace<\/p>\n
The splitting up of the world into three great super-states was an event
\nwhich could be and indeed was foreseen before the middle of the twentieth
\ncentury. With the absorption of Europe by Russia and of the British Empire
\nby the United States, two of the three existing powers, Eurasia and
\nOceania, were already effectively in being. The third, Eastasia, only
\nemerged as a distinct unit after another decade of confused fighting. The
\nfrontiers between the three super-states are in some places arbitrary, and
\nin others they fluctuate according to the fortunes of war, but in general
\nthey follow geographical lines. Eurasia comprises the whole of the northern
\npart of the European and Asiatic land-mass, from Portugal to the Bering
\nStrait. Oceania comprises the Americas, the Atlantic islands including the
\nBritish Isles, Australasia, and the southern portion of Africa. Eastasia,
\nsmaller than the others and with a less definite western frontier,
\ncomprises China and the countries to the south of it, the Japanese islands
\nand a large but fluctuating portion of Manchuria, Mongolia, and Tibet.<\/p>\n
In one combination or another, these three super-states are permanently at
\nwar, and have been so for the past twenty-five years. War, however, is no
\nlonger the desperate, annihilating struggle that it was in the early
\ndecades of the twentieth century. It is a warfare of limited aims between
\ncombatants who are unable to destroy one another, have no material cause
\nfor fighting and are not divided by any genuine ideological difference.
\nThis is not to say that either the conduct of war, or the prevailing
\nattitude towards it, has become less bloodthirsty or more chivalrous.
\nOn the contrary, war hysteria is continuous and universal in all countries,
\nand such acts as raping, looting, the slaughter of children, the reduction
\nof whole populations to slavery, and reprisals against prisoners which
\nextend even to boiling and burying alive, are looked upon as normal,
\nand, when they are committed by one’s own side and not by the enemy,
\nmeritorious. But in a physical sense war involves very small numbers of
\npeople, mostly highly-trained specialists, and causes comparatively few
\ncasualties. The fighting, when there is any, takes place on the vague
\nfrontiers whose whereabouts the average man can only guess at, or round
\nthe Floating Fortresses which guard strategic spots on the sea lanes. In
\nthe centres of civilization war means no more than a continuous shortage
\nof consumption goods, and the occasional crash of a rocket bomb which may
\ncause a few scores of deaths. War has in fact changed its character. More
\nexactly, the reasons for which war is waged have changed in their order of
\nimportance. Motives which were already present to some small extent in the
\ngreat wars of the early twentieth century have now become dominant and
\nare consciously recognized and acted upon.<\/p>\n
To understand the nature of the present war–for in spite of the regrouping
\nwhich occurs every few years, it is always the same war–one must realize
\nin the first place that it is impossible for it to be decisive. None of
\nthe three super-states could be definitively conquered even by the other
\ntwo in combination. They are too evenly matched, and their natural defences
\nare too formidable. Eurasia is protected by its vast land spaces, Oceania
\nby the width of the Atlantic and the Pacific, Eastasia by the fecundity
\nand industriousness of its inhabitants. Secondly, there is no longer, in
\na material sense, anything to fight about. With the establishment of
\nself-contained economies, in which production and consumption are geared
\nto one another, the scramble for markets which was a main cause of
\nprevious wars has come to an end, while the competition for raw materials
\nis no longer a matter of life and death. In any case each of the three
\nsuper-states is so vast that it can obtain almost all the materials that
\nit needs within its own boundaries. In so far as the war has a direct
\neconomic purpose, it is a war for labour power. Between the frontiers of
\nthe super-states, and not permanently in the possession of any of them,
\nthere lies a rough quadrilateral with its corners at Tangier, Brazzaville,
\nDarwin, and Hong Kong, containing within it about a fifth of the population
\nof the earth. It is for the possession of these thickly-populated regions,
\nand of the northern ice-cap, that the three powers are constantly
\nstruggling. In practice no one power ever controls the whole of the
\ndisputed area. Portions of it are constantly changing hands, and it is the
\nchance of seizing this or that fragment by a sudden stroke of treachery
\nthat dictates the endless changes of alignment.<\/p>\n
All of the disputed territories contain valuable minerals, and some of
\nthem yield important vegetable products such as rubber which in colder
\nclimates it is necessary to synthesize by comparatively expensive methods.
\nBut above all they contain a bottomless reserve of cheap labour. Whichever
\npower controls equatorial Africa, or the countries of the Middle East, or
\nSouthern India, or the Indonesian Archipelago, disposes also of the bodies
\nof scores or hundreds of millions of ill-paid and hard-working coolies.
\nThe inhabitants of these areas, reduced more or less openly to the status
\nof slaves, pass continually from conqueror to conqueror, and are expended
\nlike so much coal or oil in the race to turn out more armaments, to capture
\nmore territory, to control more labour power, to turn out more armaments,
\nto capture more territory, and so on indefinitely. It should be noted that
\nthe fighting never really moves beyond the edges of the disputed areas.
\nThe frontiers of Eurasia flow back and forth between the basin of the Congo
\nand the northern shore of the Mediterranean; the islands of the Indian
\nOcean and the Pacific are constantly being captured and recaptured by
\nOceania or by Eastasia; in Mongolia the dividing line between Eurasia and
\nEastasia is never stable; round the Pole all three powers lay claim to
\nenormous territories which in fact are largely uninhabited and unexplored:
\nbut the balance of power always remains roughly even, and the territory
\nwhich forms the heartland of each super-state always remains inviolate.
\nMoreover, the labour of the exploited peoples round the Equator is not
\nreally necessary to the world’s economy. They add nothing to the wealth of
\nthe world, since whatever they produce is used for purposes of war, and
\nthe object of waging a war is always to be in a better position in which
\nto wage another war. By their labour the slave populations allow the tempo
\nof continuous warfare to be speeded up. But if they did not exist, the
\nstructure of world society, and the process by which it maintains itself,
\nwould not be essentially different.<\/p>\n
The primary aim of modern warfare (in accordance with the principles of
\nDOUBLETHINK, this aim is simultaneously recognized and not recognized by
\nthe directing brains of the Inner Party) is to use up the products of the
\nmachine without raising the general standard of living. Ever since the end
\nof the nineteenth century, the problem of what to do with the surplus of
\nconsumption goods has been latent in industrial society. At present, when
\nfew human beings even have enough to eat, this problem is obviously not
\nurgent, and it might not have become so, even if no artificial processes
\nof destruction had been at work. The world of today is a bare, hungry,
\ndilapidated place compared with the world that existed before 1914, and
\nstill more so if compared with the imaginary future to which the people of
\nthat period looked forward. In the early twentieth century, the vision of
\na future society unbelievably rich, leisured, orderly, and efficient–a
\nglittering antiseptic world of glass and steel and snow-white concrete–was
\npart of the consciousness of nearly every literate person. Science and
\ntechnology were developing at a prodigious speed, and it seemed natural to
\nassume that they would go on developing. This failed to happen, partly
\nbecause of the impoverishment caused by a long series of wars and
\nrevolutions, partly because scientific and technical progress depended on
\nthe empirical habit of thought, which could not survive in a strictly
\nregimented society. As a whole the world is more primitive today than it
\nwas fifty years ago. Certain backward areas have advanced, and various
\ndevices, always in some way connected with warfare and police espionage,
\nhave been developed, but experiment and invention have largely stopped,
\nand the ravages of the atomic war of the nineteen-fifties have never been
\nfully repaired. Nevertheless the dangers inherent in the machine are still
\nthere. From the moment when the machine first made its appearance it
\nwas clear to all thinking people that the need for human drudgery, and
\ntherefore to a great extent for human inequality, had disappeared. If the
\nmachine were used deliberately for that end, hunger, overwork, dirt,
\nilliteracy, and disease could be eliminated within a few generations.
\nAnd in fact, without being used for any such purpose, but by a sort of
\nautomatic process–by producing wealth which it was sometimes impossible
\nnot to distribute–the machine did raise the living standards of the
\naverage human being very greatly over a period of about fifty years at
\nthe end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries.<\/p>\n
But it was also clear that an all-round increase in wealth threatened the
\ndestruction–indeed, in some sense was the destruction–of a hierarchical
\nsociety. In a world in which everyone worked short hours, had enough to
\neat, lived in a house with a bathroom and a refrigerator, and possessed
\na motor-car or even an aeroplane, the most obvious and perhaps the most
\nimportant form of inequality would already have disappeared. If it once
\nbecame general, wealth would confer no distinction. It was possible, no
\ndoubt, to imagine a society in which WEALTH, in the sense of personal
\npossessions and luxuries, should be evenly distributed, while POWER
\nremained in the hands of a small privileged caste. But in practice such
\na society could not long remain stable. For if leisure and security were
\nenjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally
\nstupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for
\nthemselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later
\nrealize that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep
\nit away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a
\nbasis of poverty and ignorance. To return to the agricultural past, as
\nsome thinkers about the beginning of the twentieth century dreamed of
\ndoing, was not a practicable solution. It conflicted with the tendency
\ntowards mechanization which had become quasi-instinctive throughout almost
\nthe whole world, and moreover, any country which remained industrially
\nbackward was helpless in a military sense and was bound to be dominated,
\ndirectly or indirectly, by its more advanced rivals.<\/p>\n
Nor was it a satisfactory solution to keep the masses in poverty by
\nrestricting the output of goods. This happened to a great extent during
\nthe final phase of capitalism, roughly between 1920 and 1940. The economy
\nof many countries was allowed to stagnate, land went out of cultivation,
\ncapital equipment was not added to, great blocks of the population were
\nprevented from working and kept half alive by State charity. But this,
\ntoo, entailed military weakness, and since the privations it inflicted
\nwere obviously unnecessary, it made opposition inevitable. The problem was
\nhow to keep the wheels of industry turning without increasing the real
\nwealth of the world. Goods must be produced, but they must not be
\ndistributed. And in practice the only way of achieving this was by
\ncontinuous warfare.<\/p>\n
The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives,
\nbut of the products of human labour. War is a way of shattering to pieces,
\nor pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea,
\nmaterials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable,
\nand hence, in the long run, too intelligent. Even when weapons of war are
\nnot actually destroyed, their manufacture is still a convenient way of
\nexpending labour power without producing anything that can be consumed.
\nA Floating Fortress, for example, has locked up in it the labour that
\nwould build several hundred cargo-ships. Ultimately it is scrapped as
\nobsolete, never having brought any material benefit to anybody, and with
\nfurther enormous labours another Floating Fortress is built. In principle
\nthe war effort is always so planned as to eat up any surplus that might
\nexist after meeting the bare needs of the population. In practice the needs
\nof the population are always underestimated, with the result that there is
\na chronic shortage of half the necessities of life; but this is looked on
\nas an advantage. It is deliberate policy to keep even the favoured groups
\nsomewhere near the brink of hardship, because a general state of scarcity
\nincreases the importance of small privileges and thus magnifies the
\ndistinction between one group and another. By the standards of the early
\ntwentieth century, even a member of the Inner Party lives an austere,
\nlaborious kind of life. Nevertheless, the few luxuries that he does enjoy
\nhis large, well-appointed flat, the better texture of his clothes, the
\nbetter quality of his food and drink and tobacco, his two or three
\nservants, his private motor-car or helicopter–set him in a different world
\nfrom a member of the Outer Party, and the members of the Outer Party have
\na similar advantage in comparison with the submerged masses whom we call
\n‘the proles’. The social atmosphere is that of a besieged city, where the
\npossession of a lump of horseflesh makes the difference between wealth and
\npoverty. And at the same time the consciousness of being at war, and
\ntherefore in danger, makes the handing-over of all power to a small caste
\nseem the natural, unavoidable condition of survival.<\/p>\n
War, it will be seen, accomplishes the necessary destruction, but
\naccomplishes it in a psychologically acceptable way. In principle it would
\nbe quite simple to waste the surplus labour of the world by building
\ntemples and pyramids, by digging holes and filling them up again, or even
\nby producing vast quantities of goods and then setting fire to them. But
\nthis would provide only the economic and not the emotional basis for a
\nhierarchical society. What is concerned here is not the morale of masses,
\nwhose attitude is unimportant so long as they are kept steadily at work,
\nbut the morale of the Party itself. Even the humblest Party member is
\nexpected to be competent, industrious, and even intelligent within narrow
\nlimits, but it is also necessary that he should be a credulous and ignorant
\nfanatic whose prevailing moods are fear, hatred, adulation, and orgiastic
\ntriumph. In other words it is necessary that he should have the mentality
\nappropriate to a state of war. It does not matter whether the war is
\nactually happening, and, since no decisive victory is possible, it does
\nnot matter whether the war is going well or badly. All that is needed is
\nthat a state of war should exist. The splitting of the intelligence which
\nthe Party requires of its members, and which is more easily achieved in an
\natmosphere of war, is now almost universal, but the higher up the ranks
\none goes, the more marked it becomes. It is precisely in the Inner Party
\nthat war hysteria and hatred of the enemy are strongest. In his capacity
\nas an administrator, it is often necessary for a member of the Inner Party
\nto know that this or that item of war news is untruthful, and he may often
\nbe aware that the entire war is spurious and is either not happening or
\nis being waged for purposes quite other than the declared ones: but such
\nknowledge is easily neutralized by the technique of DOUBLETHINK. Meanwhile
\nno Inner Party member wavers for an instant in his mystical belief that
\nthe war is real, and that it is bound to end victoriously, with Oceania
\nthe undisputed master of the entire world.<\/p>\n
All members of the Inner Party believe in this coming conquest as an
\narticle of faith. It is to be achieved either by gradually acquiring more
\nand more territory and so building up an overwhelming preponderance of
\npower, or by the discovery of some new and unanswerable weapon. The search
\nfor new weapons continues unceasingly, and is one of the very few remaining
\nactivities in which the inventive or speculative type of mind can find any
\noutlet. In Oceania at the present day, Science, in the old sense, has
\nalmost ceased to exist. In Newspeak there is no word for ‘Science’. The
\nempirical method of thought, on which all the scientific achievements of
\nthe past were founded, is opposed to the most fundamental principles of
\nIngsoc. And even technological progress only happens when its products can
\nin some way be used for the diminution of human liberty. In all the useful
\narts the world is either standing still or going backwards. The fields are
\ncultivated with horse-ploughs while books are written by machinery. But
\nin matters of vital importance–meaning, in effect, war and police
\nespionage–the empirical approach is still encouraged, or at least
\ntolerated. The two aims of the Party are to conquer the whole surface of
\nthe earth and to extinguish once and for all the possibility of independent
\nthought. There are therefore two great problems which the Party is
\nconcerned to solve. One is how to discover, against his will, what another
\nhuman being is thinking, and the other is how to kill several hundred
\nmillion people in a few seconds without giving warning beforehand. In
\nso far as scientific research still continues, this is its subject matter.
\nThe scientist of today is either a mixture of psychologist and inquisitor,
\nstudying with real ordinary minuteness the meaning of facial expressions,
\ngestures, and tones of voice, and testing the truth-producing effects of
\ndrugs, shock therapy, hypnosis, and physical torture; or he is chemist,
\nphysicist, or biologist concerned only with such branches of his special
\nsubject as are relevant to the taking of life. In the vast laboratories
\nof the Ministry of Peace, and in the experimental stations hidden in the
\nBrazilian forests, or in the Australian desert, or on lost islands of
\nthe Antarctic, the teams of experts are indefatigably at work. Some are
\nconcerned simply with planning the logistics of future wars; others devise
\nlarger and larger rocket bombs, more and more powerful explosives, and more
\nand more impenetrable armour-plating; others search for new and deadlier
\ngases, or for soluble poisons capable of being produced in such quantities
\nas to destroy the vegetation of whole continents, or for breeds of disease
\ngerms immunized against all possible antibodies; others strive to produce
\na vehicle that shall bore its way under the soil like a submarine under
\nthe water, or an aeroplane as independent of its base as a sailing-ship;
\nothers explore even remoter possibilities such as focusing the sun’s rays
\nthrough lenses suspended thousands of kilometres away in space, or
\nproducing artificial earthquakes and tidal waves by tapping the heat at
\nthe earth’s centre.<\/p>\n
But none of these projects ever comes anywhere near realization, and none
\nof the three super-states ever gains a significant lead on the others.
\nWhat is more remarkable is that all three powers already possess, in the
\natomic bomb, a weapon far more powerful than any that their present
\nresearches are likely to discover. Although the Party, according to its
\nhabit, claims the invention for itself, atomic bombs first appeared as
\nearly as the nineteen-forties, and were first used on a large scale about
\nten years later. At that time some hundreds of bombs were dropped on
\nindustrial centres, chiefly in European Russia, Western Europe, and
\nNorth America. The effect was to convince the ruling groups of all
\ncountries that a few more atomic bombs would mean the end of organized
\nsociety, and hence of their own power. Thereafter, although no formal
\nagreement was ever made or hinted at, no more bombs were dropped. All three
\npowers merely continue to produce atomic bombs and store them up against
\nthe decisive opportunity which they all believe will come sooner or later.
\nAnd meanwhile the art of war has remained almost stationary for thirty or
\nforty years. Helicopters are more used than they were formerly, bombing
\nplanes have been largely superseded by self-propelled projectiles, and the
\nfragile movable battleship has given way to the almost unsinkable Floating
\nFortress; but otherwise there has been little development. The tank, the
\nsubmarine, the torpedo, the machine gun, even the rifle and the hand
\ngrenade are still in use. And in spite of the endless slaughters reported
\nin the Press and on the telescreens, the desperate battles of earlier wars,
\nin which hundreds of thousands or even millions of men were often killed
\nin a few weeks, have never been repeated.<\/p>\n
None of the three super-states ever attempts any manoeuvre which involves
\nthe risk of serious defeat. When any large operation is undertaken, it is
\nusually a surprise attack against an ally. The strategy that all three
\npowers are following, or pretend to themselves that they are following,
\nis the same. The plan is, by a combination of fighting, bargaining, and
\nwell-timed strokes of treachery, to acquire a ring of bases completely
\nencircling one or other of the rival states, and then to sign a pact of
\nfriendship with that rival and remain on peaceful terms for so many years
\nas to lull suspicion to sleep. During this time rockets loaded with atomic
\nbombs can be assembled at all the strategic spots; finally they will all
\nbe fired simultaneously, with effects so devastating as to make retaliation
\nimpossible. It will then be time to sign a pact of friendship with the
\nremaining world-power, in preparation for another attack. This scheme, it
\nis hardly necessary to say, is a mere daydream, impossible of realization.
\nMoreover, no fighting ever occurs except in the disputed areas round the
\nEquator and the Pole: no invasion of enemy territory is ever undertaken.
\nThis explains the fact that in some places the frontiers between the
\nsuper-states are arbitrary. Eurasia, for example, could easily conquer the
\nBritish Isles, which are geographically part of Europe, or on the other
\nhand it would be possible for Oceania to push its frontiers to the Rhine
\nor even to the Vistula. But this would violate the principle, followed on
\nall sides though never formulated, of cultural integrity. If Oceania were
\nto conquer the areas that used once to be known as France and Germany, it
\nwould be necessary either to exterminate the inhabitants, a task of great
\nphysical difficulty, or to assimilate a population of about a hundred
\nmillion people, who, so far as technical development goes, are roughly on
\nthe Oceanic level. The problem is the same for all three super-states.
\nIt is absolutely necessary to their structure that there should be no
\ncontact with foreigners, except, to a limited extent, with war prisoners
\nand coloured slaves. Even the official ally of the moment is always
\nregarded with the darkest suspicion. War prisoners apart, the average
\ncitizen of Oceania never sets eyes on a citizen of either Eurasia or
\nEastasia, and he is forbidden the knowledge of foreign languages. If he
\nwere allowed contact with foreigners he would discover that they are
\ncreatures similar to himself and that most of what he has been told about
\nthem is lies. The sealed world in which he lives would be broken, and the
\nfear, hatred, and self-righteousness on which his morale depends might
\nevaporate. It is therefore realized on all sides that however often Persia,
\nor Egypt, or Java, or Ceylon may change hands, the main frontiers must
\nnever be crossed by anything except bombs.<\/p>\n
Under this lies a fact never mentioned aloud, but tacitly understood and
\nacted upon: namely, that the conditions of life in all three super-states
\nare very much the same. In Oceania the prevailing philosophy is called
\nIngsoc, in Eurasia it is called Neo-Bolshevism, and in Eastasia it is
\ncalled by a Chinese name usually translated as Death-Worship, but perhaps
\nbetter rendered as Obliteration of the Self. The citizen of Oceania is not
\nallowed to know anything of the tenets of the other two philosophies, but
\nhe is taught to execrate them as barbarous outrages upon morality and
\ncommon sense. Actually the three philosophies are barely distinguishable,
\nand the social systems which they support are not distinguishable at all.
\nEverywhere there is the same pyramidal structure, the same worship of
\nsemi-divine leader, the same economy existing by and for continuous
\nwarfare. It follows that the three super-states not only cannot conquer
\none another, but would gain no advantage by doing so. On the contrary,
\nso long as they remain in conflict they prop one another up, like three
\nsheaves of corn. And, as usual, the ruling groups of all three powers are
\nsimultaneously aware and unaware of what they are doing. Their lives are
\ndedicated to world conquest, but they also know that it is necessary that
\nthe war should continue everlastingly and without victory. Meanwhile the
\nfact that there IS no danger of conquest makes possible the denial of
\nreality which is the special feature of Ingsoc and its rival systems of
\nthought. Here it is necessary to repeat what has been said earlier, that
\nby becoming continuous war has fundamentally changed its character.<\/p>\n
In past ages, a war, almost by definition, was something that sooner or
\nlater came to an end, usually in unmistakable victory or defeat. In the
\npast, also, war was one of the main instruments by which human societies
\nwere kept in touch with physical reality. All rulers in all ages have tried
\nto impose a false view of the world upon their followers, but they could
\nnot afford to encourage any illusion that tended to impair military
\nefficiency. So long as defeat meant the loss of independence, or some other
\nresult generally held to be undesirable, the precautions against defeat
\nhad to be serious. Physical facts could not be ignored. In philosophy, or
\nreligion, or ethics, or politics, two and two might make five, but when
\none was designing a gun or an aeroplane they had to make four. Inefficient
\nnations were always conquered sooner or later, and the struggle for
\nefficiency was inimical to illusions. Moreover, to be efficient it was
\nnecessary to be able to learn from the past, which meant having a fairly
\naccurate idea of what had happened in the past. Newspapers and history
\nbooks were, of course, always coloured and biased, but falsification of
\nthe kind that is practised today would have been impossible. War was a
\nsure safeguard of sanity, and so far as the ruling classes were concerned
\nit was probably the most important of all safeguards. While wars could be
\nwon or lost, no ruling class could be completely irresponsible.<\/p>\n
But when war becomes literally continuous, it also ceases to be dangerous.
\nWhen war is continuous there is no such thing as military necessity.
\nTechnical progress can cease and the most palpable facts can be denied or
\ndisregarded. As we have seen, researches that could be called scientific
\nare still carried out for the purposes of war, but they are essentially a
\nkind of daydreaming, and their failure to show results is not important.
\nEfficiency, even military efficiency, is no longer needed. Nothing is
\nefficient in Oceania except the Thought Police. Since each of the three
\nsuper-states is unconquerable, each is in effect a separate universe within
\nwhich almost any perversion of thought can be safely practised. Reality
\nonly exerts its pressure through the needs of everyday life–the need to
\neat and drink, to get shelter and clothing, to avoid swallowing poison or
\nstepping out of top-storey windows, and the like. Between life and death,
\nand between physical pleasure and physical pain, there is still a
\ndistinction, but that is all. Cut off from contact with the outer world,
\nand with the past, the citizen of Oceania is like a man in interstellar
\nspace, who has no way of knowing which direction is up and which is down.
\nThe rulers of such a state are absolute, as the Pharaohs or the Caesars
\ncould not be. They are obliged to prevent their followers from starving
\nto death in numbers large enough to be inconvenient, and they are obliged
\nto remain at the same low level of military technique as their rivals; but
\nonce that minimum is achieved, they can twist reality into whatever shape
\nthey choose.<\/p>\n
The war, therefore, if we judge it by the standards of previous wars, is
\nmerely an imposture. It is like the battles between certain ruminant
\nanimals whose horns are set at such an angle that they are incapable of
\nhurting one another. But though it is unreal it is not meaningless. It
\neats up the surplus of consumable goods, and it helps to preserve the
\nspecial mental atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs. War, it will
\nbe seen, is now a purely internal affair. In the past, the ruling groups
\nof all countries, although they might recognize their common interest and
\ntherefore limit the destructiveness of war, did fight against one another,
\nand the victor always plundered the vanquished. In our own day they are
\nnot fighting against one another at all. The war is waged by each ruling
\ngroup against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make
\nor prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society
\nintact. The very word ‘war’, therefore, has become misleading. It would
\nprobably be accurate to say that by becoming continuous war has ceased to
\nexist. The peculiar pressure that it exerted on human beings between the
\nNeolithic Age and the early twentieth century has disappeared and been
\nreplaced by something quite different. The effect would be much the same
\nif the three super-states, instead of fighting one another, should agree
\nto live in perpetual peace, each inviolate within its own boundaries. For
\nin that case each would still be a self-contained universe, freed for ever
\nfrom the sobering influence of external danger. A peace that was truly
\npermanent would be the same as a permanent war. This–although the vast
\nmajority of Party members understand it only in a shallower sense–is the
\ninner meaning of the Party slogan: WAR IS PEACE.<\/p>\n
Winston stopped reading for a moment. Somewhere in remote distance a
\nrocket bomb thundered. The blissful feeling of being alone with the
\nforbidden book, in a room with no telescreen, had not worn off. Solitude
\nand safety were physical sensations, mixed up somehow with the tiredness
\nof his body, the softness of the chair, the touch of the faint breeze from
\nthe window that played upon his cheek. The book fascinated him, or more
\nexactly it reassured him. In a sense it told him nothing that was new, but
\nthat was part of the attraction. It said what he would have said, if it
\nhad been possible for him to set his scattered thoughts in order. It was
\nthe product of a mind similar to his own, but enormously more powerful,
\nmore systematic, less fear-ridden. The best books, he perceived, are those
\nthat tell you what you know already. He had just turned back to Chapter I
\nwhen he heard Julia’s footstep on the stair and started out of his chair
\nto meet her. She dumped her brown tool-bag on the floor and flung herself
\ninto his arms. It was more than a week since they had seen one another.<\/p>\n
‘I’ve got THE BOOK,’ he said as they disentangled themselves.<\/p>\n
‘Oh, you’ve got it? Good,’ she said without much interest, and almost
\nimmediately knelt down beside the oil stove to make the coffee.<\/p>\n
They did not return to the subject until they had been in bed for half an
\nhour. The evening was just cool enough to make it worth while to pull up
\nthe counterpane. From below came the familiar sound of singing and the
\nscrape of boots on the flagstones. The brawny red-armed woman whom Winston
\nhad seen there on his first visit was almost a fixture in the yard. There
\nseemed to be no hour of daylight when she was not marching to and fro
\nbetween the washtub and the line, alternately gagging herself with clothes
\npegs and breaking forth into lusty song. Julia had settled down on her
\nside and seemed to be already on the point of falling asleep. He reached
\nout for the book, which was lying on the floor, and sat up against the
\nbedhead.<\/p>\n
‘We must read it,’ he said. ‘You too. All members of the Brotherhood have
\nto read it.’<\/p>\n
‘You read it,’ she said with her eyes shut. ‘Read it aloud. That’s the
\nbest way. Then you can explain it to me as you go.’<\/p>\n
The clock’s hands said six, meaning eighteen. They had three or four hours
\nahead of them. He propped the book against his knees and began reading:<\/p>\n
Chapter I
\nIgnorance is Strength<\/p>\n
Throughout recorded time, and probably since the end of the Neolithic Age,
\nthere have been three kinds of people in the world, the High, the Middle,
\nand the Low. They have been subdivided in many ways, they have borne
\ncountless different names, and their relative numbers, as well as their
\nattitude towards one another, have varied from age to age: but the
\nessential structure of society has never altered. Even after enormous
\nupheavals and seemingly irrevocable changes, the same pattern has always
\nreasserted itself, just as a gyroscope will always return to equilibrium,
\nhowever far it is pushed one way or the other<\/p>\n
‘Julia, are you awake?’ said Winston.<\/p>\n
‘Yes, my love, I’m listening. Go on. It’s marvellous.’<\/p>\n
He continued reading:<\/p>\n
The aims of these three groups are entirely irreconcilable. The aim of
\nthe High is to remain where they are. The aim of the Middle is to change
\nplaces with the High. The aim of the Low, when they have an aim–for it
\nis an abiding characteristic of the Low that they are too much crushed
\nby drudgery to be more than intermittently conscious of anything outside
\ntheir daily lives–is to abolish all distinctions and create a society in
\nwhich all men shall be equal. Thus throughout history a struggle which is
\nthe same in its main outlines recurs over and over again. For long periods
\nthe High seem to be securely in power, but sooner or later there always
\ncomes a moment when they lose either their belief in themselves or their
\ncapacity to govern efficiently, or both. They are then overthrown by the
\nMiddle, who enlist the Low on their side by pretending to them that they
\nare fighting for liberty and justice. As soon as they have reached their
\nobjective, the Middle thrust the Low back into their old position of
\nservitude, and themselves become the High. Presently a new Middle group
\nsplits off from one of the other groups, or from both of them, and the
\nstruggle begins over again. Of the three groups, only the Low are never
\neven temporarily successful in achieving their aims. It would be an
\nexaggeration to say that throughout history there has been no progress of
\na material kind. Even today, in a period of decline, the average human
\nbeing is physically better off than he was a few centuries ago. But no
\nadvance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has
\never brought human equality a millimetre nearer. From the point of view of
\nthe Low, no historic change has ever meant much more than a change in the
\nname of their masters.<\/p>\n
By the late nineteenth century the recurrence of this pattern had become
\nobvious to many observers. There then rose schools of thinkers who
\ninterpreted history as a cyclical process and claimed to show that
\ninequality was the unalterable law of human life. This doctrine, of course,
\nhad always had its adherents, but in the manner in which it was now put
\nforward there was a significant change. In the past the need for a
\nhierarchical form of society had been the doctrine specifically of the
\nHigh. It had been preached by kings and aristocrats and by the priests,
\nlawyers, and the like who were parasitical upon them, and it had generally
\nbeen softened by promises of compensation in an imaginary world beyond the
\ngrave. The Middle, so long as it was struggling for power, had always made
\nuse of such terms as freedom, justice, and fraternity. Now, however, the
\nconcept of human brotherhood began to be assailed by people who were not
\nyet in positions of command, but merely hoped to be so before long. In the
\npast the Middle had made revolutions under the banner of equality, and
\nthen had established a fresh tyranny as soon as the old one was overthrown.
\nThe new Middle groups in effect proclaimed their tyranny beforehand.
\nSocialism, a theory which appeared in the early nineteenth century and was
\nthe last link in a chain of thought stretching back to the slave rebellions
\nof antiquity, was still deeply infected by the Utopianism of past ages.
\nBut in each variant of Socialism that appeared from about 1900 onwards the
\naim of establishing liberty and equality was more and more openly
\nabandoned. The new movements which appeared in the middle years of the
\ncentury, Ingsoc in Oceania, Neo-Bolshevism in Eurasia, Death-Worship, as
\nit is commonly called, in Eastasia, had the conscious aim of perpetuating
\nUNfreedom and INequality. These new movements, of course, grew out of the
\nold ones and tended to keep their names and pay lip-service to their
\nideology. But the purpose of all of them was to arrest progress and freeze
\nhistory at a chosen moment. The familiar pendulum swing was to happen once
\nmore, and then stop. As usual, the High were to be turned out by the
\nMiddle, who would then become the High; but this time, by conscious
\nstrategy, the High would be able to maintain their position permanently.<\/p>\n
The new doctrines arose partly because of the accumulation of historical
\nknowledge, and the growth of the historical sense, which had hardly existed
\nbefore the nineteenth century. The cyclical movement of history was now
\nintelligible, or appeared to be so; and if it was intelligible, then it
\nwas alterable. But the principal, underlying cause was that, as early
\nas the beginning of the twentieth century, human equality had become
\ntechnically possible. It was still true that men were not equal in their
\nnative talents and that functions had to be specialized in ways that
\nfavoured some individuals against others; but there was no longer any real
\nneed for class distinctions or for large differences of wealth. In earlier
\nages, class distinctions had been not only inevitable but desirable.
\nInequality was the price of civilization. With the development of machine
\nproduction, however, the case was altered. Even if it was still necessary
\nfor human beings to do different kinds of work, it was no longer necessary
\nfor them to live at different social or economic levels. Therefore, from
\nthe point of view of the new groups who were on the point of seizing power,
\nhuman equality was no longer an ideal to be striven after, but a danger to
\nbe averted. In more primitive ages, when a just and peaceful society was
\nin fact not possible, it had been fairly easy to believe it. The idea of
\nan earthly paradise in which men should live together in a state of
\nbrotherhood, without laws and without brute labour, had haunted the human
\nimagination for thousands of years. And this vision had had a certain hold
\neven on the groups who actually profited by each historical change. The
\nheirs of the French, English, and American revolutions had partly believed
\nin their own phrases about the rights of man, freedom of speech, equality
\nbefore the law, and the like, and have even allowed their conduct to be
\ninfluenced by them to some extent. But by the fourth decade of the
\ntwentieth century all the main currents of political thought were
\nauthoritarian. The earthly paradise had been discredited at exactly the
\nmoment when it became realizable. Every new political theory, by whatever
\nname it called itself, led back to hierarchy and regimentation. And in the
\ngeneral hardening of outlook that set in round about 1930, practices which
\nhad been long abandoned, in some cases for hundreds of years–imprisonment
\nwithout trial, the use of war prisoners as slaves, public executions,
\ntorture to extract confessions, the use of hostages, and the deportation
\nof whole populations–not only became common again, but were tolerated
\nand even defended by people who considered themselves enlightened and
\nprogressive.<\/p>\n
It was only after a decade of national wars, civil wars, revolutions, and
\ncounter-revolutions in all parts of the world that Ingsoc and its rivals
\nemerged as fully worked-out political theories. But they had been
\nforeshadowed by the various systems, generally called totalitarian, which
\nhad appeared earlier in the century, and the main outlines of the world
\nwhich would emerge from the prevailing chaos had long been obvious. What
\nkind of people would control this world had been equally obvious. The new
\naristocracy was made up for the most part of bureaucrats, scientists,
\ntechnicians, trade-union organizers, publicity experts, sociologists,
\nteachers, journalists, and professional politicians. These people, whose
\norigins lay in the salaried middle class and the upper grades of the
\nworking class, had been shaped and brought together by the barren world of
\nmonopoly industry and centralized government. As compared with their
\nopposite numbers in past ages, they were less avaricious, less tempted by
\nluxury, hungrier for pure power, and, above all, more conscious of what
\nthey were doing and more intent on crushing opposition. This last
\ndifference was cardinal. By comparison with that existing today, all the
\ntyrannies of the past were half-hearted and inefficient. The ruling groups
\nwere always infected to some extent by liberal ideas, and were content to
\nleave loose ends everywhere, to regard only the overt act and to be
\nuninterested in what their subjects were thinking. Even the Catholic Church
\nof the Middle Ages was tolerant by modern standards. Part of the reason
\nfor this was that in the past no government had the power to keep its
\ncitizens under constant surveillance. The invention of print, however,
\nmade it easier to manipulate public opinion, and the film and the radio
\ncarried the process further. With the development of television, and
\nthe technical advance which made it possible to receive and transmit
\nsimultaneously on the same instrument, private life came to an end. Every
\ncitizen, or at least every citizen important enough to be worth watching,
\ncould be kept for twenty-four hours a day under the eyes of the police
\nand in the sound of official propaganda, with all other channels of
\ncommunication closed. The possibility of enforcing not only complete
\nobedience to the will of the State, but complete uniformity of opinion
\non all subjects, now existed for the first time.<\/p>\n
After the revolutionary period of the fifties and sixties, society
\nregrouped itself, as always, into High, Middle, and Low. But the new High
\ngroup, unlike all its forerunners, did not act upon instinct but knew what
\nwas needed to safeguard its position. It had long been realized that the
\nonly secure basis for oligarchy is collectivism. Wealth and privilege
\nare most easily defended when they are possessed jointly. The so-called
\n‘abolition of private property’ which took place in the middle years of
\nthe century meant, in effect, the concentration of property in far fewer
\nhands than before: but with this difference, that the new owners were a
\ngroup instead of a mass of individuals. Individually, no member of the
\nParty owns anything, except petty personal belongings. Collectively, the
\nParty owns everything in Oceania, because it controls everything, and
\ndisposes of the products as it thinks fit. In the years following the
\nRevolution it was able to step into this commanding position almost
\nunopposed, because the whole process was represented as an act of
\ncollectivization. It had always been assumed that if the capitalist class
\nwere expropriated, Socialism must follow: and unquestionably the
\ncapitalists had been expropriated. Factories, mines, land, houses,
\ntransport–everything had been taken away from them: and since these
\nthings were no longer private property, it followed that they must be
\npublic property. Ingsoc, which grew out of the earlier Socialist movement
\nand inherited its phraseology, has in fact carried out the main item in
\nthe Socialist programme; with the result, foreseen and intended beforehand,
\nthat economic inequality has been made permanent.<\/p>\n
But the problems of perpetuating a hierarchical society go deeper than
\nthis. There are only four ways in which a ruling group can fall from power.
\nEither it is conquered from without, or it governs so inefficiently that
\nthe masses are stirred to revolt, or it allows a strong and discontented
\nMiddle group to come into being, or it loses its own self-confidence and
\nwillingness to govern. These causes do not operate singly, and as a rule
\nall four of them are present in some degree. A ruling class which could
\nguard against all of them would remain in power permanently. Ultimately
\nthe determining factor is the mental attitude of the ruling class itself.<\/p>\n
After the middle of the present century, the first danger had in reality
\ndisappeared. Each of the three powers which now divide the world is in
\nfact unconquerable, and could only become conquerable through slow
\ndemographic changes which a government with wide powers can easily avert.
\nThe second danger, also, is only a theoretical one. The masses never
\nrevolt of their own accord, and they never revolt merely because they are
\noppressed. Indeed, so long as they are not permitted to have standards of
\ncomparison, they never even become aware that they are oppressed. The
\nrecurrent economic crises of past times were totally unnecessary and are
\nnot now permitted to happen, but other and equally large dislocations
\ncan and do happen without having political results, because there is no
\nway in which discontent can become articulate. As for the problem of
\nover-production, which has been latent in our society since the development
\nof machine technique, it is solved by the device of continuous warfare
\n(see Chapter III), which is also useful in keying up public morale to the
\nnecessary pitch. From the point of view of our present rulers, therefore,
\nthe only genuine dangers are the splitting-off of a new group of able,
\nunder-employed, power-hungry people, and the growth of liberalism and
\nscepticism in their own ranks. The problem, that is to say, is educational.
\nIt is a problem of continuously moulding the consciousness both of the
\ndirecting group and of the larger executive group that lies immediately
\nbelow it. The consciousness of the masses needs only to be influenced in
\na negative way.<\/p>\n
Given this background, one could infer, if one did not know it already,
\nthe general structure of Oceanic society. At the apex of the pyramid comes
\nBig Brother. Big Brother is infallible and all-powerful. Every success,
\nevery achievement, every victory, every scientific discovery, all
\nknowledge, all wisdom, all happiness, all virtue, are held to issue
\ndirectly from his leadership and inspiration. Nobody has ever seen Big
\nBrother. He is a face on the hoardings, a voice on the telescreen. We
\nmay be reasonably sure that he will never die, and there is already
\nconsiderable uncertainty as to when he was born. Big Brother is the guise
\nin which the Party chooses to exhibit itself to the world. His function is
\nto act as a focusing point for love, fear, and reverence, emotions which
\nare more easily felt towards an individual than towards an organization.
\nBelow Big Brother comes the Inner Party. Its numbers limited to six
\nmillions, or something less than 2 per cent of the population of Oceania.
\nBelow the Inner Party comes the Outer Party, which, if the Inner Party is
\ndescribed as the brain of the State, may be justly likened to the hands.
\nBelow that come the dumb masses whom we habitually refer to as ‘the
\nproles’, numbering perhaps 85 per cent of the population. In the terms
\nof our earlier classification, the proles are the Low: for the slave
\npopulation of the equatorial lands who pass constantly from conqueror
\nto conqueror, are not a permanent or necessary part of the structure.<\/p>\n
In principle, membership of these three groups is not hereditary. The
\nchild of Inner Party parents is in theory not born into the Inner Party.
\nAdmission to either branch of the Party is by examination, taken at the
\nage of sixteen. Nor is there any racial discrimination, or any marked
\ndomination of one province by another. Jews, Negroes, South Americans of
\npure Indian blood are to be found in the highest ranks of the Party, and
\nthe administrators of any area are always drawn from the inhabitants of
\nthat area. In no part of Oceania do the inhabitants have the feeling that
\nthey are a colonial population ruled from a distant capital. Oceania has
\nno capital, and its titular head is a person whose whereabouts nobody
\nknows. Except that English is its chief LINGUA FRANCA and Newspeak its
\nofficial language, it is not centralized in any way. Its rulers are not
\nheld together by blood-ties but by adherence to a common doctrine. It is
\ntrue that our society is stratified, and very rigidly stratified, on what
\nat first sight appear to be hereditary lines. There is far less to-and-fro
\nmovement between the different groups than happened under capitalism or
\neven in the pre-industrial age. Between the two branches of the Party
\nthere is a certain amount of interchange, but only so much as will ensure
\nthat weaklings are excluded from the Inner Party and that ambitious
\nmembers of the Outer Party are made harmless by allowing them to rise.
\nProletarians, in practice, are not allowed to graduate into the Party. The
\nmost gifted among them, who might possibly become nuclei of discontent,
\nare simply marked down by the Thought Police and eliminated. But this
\nstate of affairs is not necessarily permanent, nor is it a matter of
\nprinciple. The Party is not a class in the old sense of the word. It does
\nnot aim at transmitting power to its own children, as such; and if there
\nwere no other way of keeping the ablest people at the top, it would be
\nperfectly prepared to recruit an entire new generation from the ranks of
\nthe proletariat. In the crucial years, the fact that the Party was not a
\nhereditary body did a great deal to neutralize opposition. The older kind
\nof Socialist, who had been trained to fight against something called
\n‘class privilege’ assumed that what is not hereditary cannot be permanent.
\nHe did not see that the continuity of an oligarchy need not be physical,
\nnor did he pause to reflect that hereditary aristocracies have always been
\nshortlived, whereas adoptive organizations such as the Catholic Church
\nhave sometimes lasted for hundreds or thousands of years. The essence of
\noligarchical rule is not father-to-son inheritance, but the persistence of
\na certain world-view and a certain way of life, imposed by the dead upon
\nthe living. A ruling group is a ruling group so long as it can nominate
\nits successors. The Party is not concerned with perpetuating its blood but
\nwith perpetuating itself. WHO wields power is not important, provided that
\nthe hierarchical structure remains always the same.<\/p>\n
All the beliefs, habits, tastes, emotions, mental attitudes that
\ncharacterize our time are really designed to sustain the mystique of
\nthe Party and prevent the true nature of present-day society from being
\nperceived. Physical rebellion, or any preliminary move towards rebellion,
\nis at present not possible. From the proletarians nothing is to be feared.
\nLeft to themselves, they will continue from generation to generation and
\nfrom century to century, working, breeding, and dying, not only without
\nany impulse to rebel, but without the power of grasping that the world
\ncould be other than it is. They could only become dangerous if the advance
\nof industrial technique made it necessary to educate them more highly;
\nbut, since military and commercial rivalry are no longer important, the
\nlevel of popular education is actually declining. What opinions the masses
\nhold, or do not hold, is looked on as a matter of indifference. They can
\nbe granted intellectual liberty because they have no intellect. In a Party
\nmember, on the other hand, not even the smallest deviation of opinion on
\nthe most unimportant subject can be tolerated.<\/p>\n
A Party member lives from birth to death under the eye of the Thought
\nPolice. Even when he is alone he can never be sure that he is alone.
\nWherever he may be, asleep or awake, working or resting, in his bath or in
\nbed, he can be inspected without warning and without knowing that he is
\nbeing inspected. Nothing that he does is indifferent. His friendships, his
\nrelaxations, his behaviour towards his wife and children, the expression
\nof his face when he is alone, the words he mutters in sleep, even the
\ncharacteristic movements of his body, are all jealously scrutinized. Not
\nonly any actual misdemeanour, but any eccentricity, however small, any
\nchange of habits, any nervous mannerism that could possibly be the symptom
\nof an inner struggle, is certain to be detected. He has no freedom of
\nchoice in any direction whatever. On the other hand his actions are not
\nregulated by law or by any clearly formulated code of behaviour. In Oceania
\nthere is no law. Thoughts and actions which, when detected, mean certain
\ndeath are not formally forbidden, and the endless purges, arrests,
\ntortures, imprisonments, and vaporizations are not inflicted as punishment
\nfor crimes which have actually been committed, but are merely the
\nwiping-out of persons who might perhaps commit a crime at some time in the
\nfuture. A Party member is required to have not only the right opinions,
\nbut the right instincts. Many of the beliefs and attitudes demanded of him
\nare never plainly stated, and could not be stated without laying bare the
\ncontradictions inherent in Ingsoc. If he is a person naturally orthodox
\n(in Newspeak a GOODTHINKER), he will in all circumstances know, without
\ntaking thought, what is the true belief or the desirable emotion. But in
\nany case an elaborate mental training, undergone in childhood and grouping
\nitself round the Newspeak words CRIMESTOP, BLACKWHITE, and DOUBLETHINK,
\nmakes him unwilling and unable to think too deeply on any subject whatever.<\/p>\n
A Party member is expected to have no private emotions and no respites
\nfrom enthusiasm. He is supposed to live in a continuous frenzy of hatred
\nof foreign enemies and internal traitors, triumph over victories, and
\nself-abasement before the power and wisdom of the Party. The discontents
\nproduced by his bare, unsatisfying life are deliberately turned outwards
\nand dissipated by such devices as the Two Minutes Hate, and the
\nspeculations which might possibly induce a sceptical or rebellious attitude
\nare killed in advance by his early acquired inner discipline. The first
\nand simplest stage in the discipline, which can be taught even to young
\nchildren, is called, in Newspeak, CRIMESTOP. CRIMESTOP means the faculty
\nof stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous
\nthought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to
\nperceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if
\nthey are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train
\nof thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. CRIMESTOP,
\nin short, means protective stupidity. But stupidity is not enough. On the
\ncontrary, orthodoxy in the full sense demands a control over one’s own
\nmental processes as complete as that of a contortionist over his body.
\nOceanic society rests ultimately on the belief that Big Brother is
\nomnipotent and that the Party is infallible. But since in reality Big
\nBrother is not omnipotent and the party is not infallible, there is need
\nfor an unwearying, moment-to-moment flexibility in the treatment of facts.
\nThe keyword here is BLACKWHITE. Like so many Newspeak words, this word has
\ntwo mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the
\nhabit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the
\nplain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to
\nsay that black is white when Party discipline demands this. But it means
\nalso the ability to BELIEVE that black is white, and more, to KNOW that
\nblack is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary.
\nThis demands a continuous alteration of the past, made possible by the
\nsystem of thought which really embraces all the rest, and which is known
\nin Newspeak as DOUBLETHINK.<\/p>\n
The alteration of the past is necessary for two reasons, one of which is
\nsubsidiary and, so to speak, precautionary. The subsidiary reason is that
\nthe Party member, like the proletarian, tolerates present-day conditions
\npartly because he has no standards of comparison. He must be cut off from
\nthe past, just as he must be cut off from foreign countries, because it is
\nnecessary for him to believe that he is better off than his ancestors and
\nthat the average level of material comfort is constantly rising. But by
\nfar the more important reason for the readjustment of the past is the
\nneed to safeguard the infallibility of the Party. It is not merely that
\nspeeches, statistics, and records of every kind must be constantly brought
\nup to date in order to show that the predictions of the Party were in
\nall cases right. It is also that no change in doctrine or in political
\nalignment can ever be admitted. For to change one’s mind, or even one’s
\npolicy, is a confession of weakness. If, for example, Eurasia or Eastasia
\n(whichever it may be) is the enemy today, then that country must always
\nhave been the enemy. And if the facts say otherwise then the facts must
\nbe altered. Thus history is continuously rewritten. This day-to-day
\nfalsification of the past, carried out by the Ministry of Truth, is as
\nnecessary to the stability of the regime as the work of repression and
\nespionage carried out by the Ministry of Love.<\/p>\n
The mutability of the past is the central tenet of Ingsoc. Past events,
\nit is argued, have no objective existence, but survive only in written
\nrecords and in human memories. The past is whatever the records and the
\nmemories agree upon. And since the Party is in full control of all records
\nand in equally full control of the minds of its members, it follows that
\nthe past is whatever the Party chooses to make it. It also follows that
\nthough the past is alterable, it never has been altered in any specific
\ninstance. For when it has been recreated in whatever shape is needed at
\nthe moment, then this new version IS the past, and no different past can
\never have existed. This holds good even when, as often happens, the same
\nevent has to be altered out of recognition several times in the course of
\na year. At all times the Party is in possession of absolute truth, and
\nclearly the absolute can never have been different from what it is now.
\nIt will be seen that the control of the past depends above all on the
\ntraining of memory. To make sure that all written records agree with
\nthe orthodoxy of the moment is merely a mechanical act. But it is also
\nnecessary to REMEMBER that events happened in the desired manner. And if
\nit is necessary to rearrange one’s memories or to tamper with written
\nrecords, then it is necessary to FORGET that one has done so. The trick of
\ndoing this can be learned like any other mental technique. It is learned
\nby the majority of Party members, and certainly by all who are intelligent
\nas well as orthodox. In Oldspeak it is called, quite frankly, ‘reality
\ncontrol’. In Newspeak it is called DOUBLETHINK, though DOUBLETHINK
\ncomprises much else as well.<\/p>\n
DOUBLETHINK means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s
\nmind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. The Party intellectual
\nknows in which direction his memories must be altered; he therefore knows
\nthat he is playing tricks with reality; but by the exercise of DOUBLETHINK
\nhe also satisfies himself that reality is not violated. The process has to
\nbe conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision,
\nbut it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of
\nfalsity and hence of guilt. DOUBLETHINK lies at the very heart of Ingsoc,
\nsince the essential act of the Party is to use conscious deception while
\nretaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty. To tell
\ndeliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that
\nhas become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to
\ndraw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the
\nexistence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the
\nreality which one denies–all this is indispensably necessary. Even in
\nusing the word DOUBLETHINK it is necessary to exercise DOUBLETHINK. For
\nby using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a
\nfresh act of DOUBLETHINK one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely,
\nwith the lie always one leap ahead of the truth. Ultimately it is by means
\nof DOUBLETHINK that the Party has been able–and may, for all we know,
\ncontinue to be able for thousands of years–to arrest the course of
\nhistory.<\/p>\n
All past oligarchies have fallen from power either because they ossified
\nor because they grew soft. Either they became stupid and arrogant, failed
\nto adjust themselves to changing circumstances, and were overthrown; or
\nthey became liberal and cowardly, made concessions when they should have
\nused force, and once again were overthrown. They fell, that is to say,
\neither through consciousness or through unconsciousness. It is the
\nachievement of the Party to have produced a system of thought in which
\nboth conditions can exist simultaneously. And upon no other intellectual
\nbasis could the dominion of the Party be made permanent. If one is to rule,
\nand to continue ruling, one must be able to dislocate the sense of reality.
\nFor the secret of rulership is to combine a belief in one’s own
\ninfallibility with the Power to learn from past mistakes.<\/p>\n
It need hardly be said that the subtlest practitioners of DOUBLETHINK are
\nthose who invented DOUBLETHINK and know that it is a vast system of mental
\ncheating. In our society, those who have the best knowledge of what is
\nhappening are also those who are furthest from seeing the world as it is.
\nIn general, the greater the understanding, the greater the delusion; the
\nmore intelligent, the less sane. One clear illustration of this is the
\nfact that war hysteria increases in intensity as one rises in the social
\nscale. Those whose attitude towards the war is most nearly rational are
\nthe subject peoples of the disputed territories. To these people the war
\nis simply a continuous calamity which sweeps to and fro over their bodies
\nlike a tidal wave. Which side is winning is a matter of complete
\nindifference to them. They are aware that a change of overlordship means
\nsimply that they will be doing the same work as before for new masters who
\ntreat them in the same manner as the old ones. The slightly more favoured
\nworkers whom we call ‘the proles’ are only intermittently conscious of the
\nwar. When it is necessary they can be prodded into frenzies of fear and
\nhatred, but when left to themselves they are capable of forgetting for
\nlong periods that the war is happening. It is in the ranks of the Party,
\nand above all of the Inner Party, that the true war enthusiasm is found.
\nWorld-conquest is believed in most firmly by those who know it to be
\nimpossible. This peculiar linking-together of opposites–knowledge with
\nignorance, cynicism with fanaticism–is one of the chief distinguishing
\nmarks of Oceanic society. The official ideology abounds with contradictions
\neven when there is no practical reason for them. Thus, the Party rejects
\nand vilifies every principle for which the Socialist movement originally
\nstood, and it chooses to do this in the name of Socialism. It preaches
\na contempt for the working class unexampled for centuries past, and it
\ndresses its members in a uniform which was at one time peculiar to manual
\nworkers and was adopted for that reason. It systematically undermines the
\nsolidarity of the family, and it calls its leader by a name which is a
\ndirect appeal to the sentiment of family loyalty. Even the names of the
\nfour Ministries by which we are governed exhibit a sort of impudence in
\ntheir deliberate reversal of the facts. The Ministry of Peace concerns
\nitself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love
\nwith torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation. These
\ncontradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from ordinary
\nhypocrisy; they are deliberate exercises in DOUBLETHINK. For it is only
\nby reconciling contradictions that power can be retained indefinitely.
\nIn no other way could the ancient cycle be broken. If human equality is
\nto be for ever averted–if the High, as we have called them, are to keep
\ntheir places permanently–then the prevailing mental condition must be
\ncontrolled insanity.<\/p>\n
But there is one question which until this moment we have almost ignored.
\nIt is; WHY should human equality be averted? Supposing that the mechanics
\nof the process have been rightly described, what is the motive for this
\nhuge, accurately planned effort to freeze history at a particular moment
\nof time?<\/p>\n
Here we reach the central secret. As we have seen. the mystique of the
\nParty, and above all of the Inner Party, depends upon DOUBLETHINK But
\ndeeper than this lies the original motive, the never-questioned instinct
\nthat first led to the seizure of power and brought DOUBLETHINK, the
\nThought Police, continuous warfare, and all the other necessary
\nparaphernalia into existence afterwards. This motive really consists…<\/p>\n
Winston became aware of silence, as one becomes aware of a new sound. It
\nseemed to him that Julia had been very still for some time past. She was
\nlying on her side, naked from the waist upwards, with her cheek pillowed
\non her hand and one dark lock tumbling across her eyes. Her breast rose
\nand fell slowly and regularly.<\/p>\n
‘Julia.’<\/p>\n
No answer.<\/p>\n
‘Julia, are you awake?’<\/p>\n
No answer. She was asleep. He shut the book, put it carefully on the floor,
\nlay down, and pulled the coverlet over both of them.<\/p>\n
He had still, he reflected, not learned the ultimate secret. He understood
\nHOW; he did not understand WHY. Chapter I, like Chapter III, had not
\nactually told him anything that he did not know, it had merely systematized
\nthe knowledge that he possessed already. But after reading it he knew
\nbetter than before that he was not mad. Being in a minority, even a
\nminority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was
\nuntruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you
\nwere not mad. A yellow beam from the sinking sun slanted in through the
\nwindow and fell across the pillow. He shut his eyes. The sun on his face
\nand the girl’s smooth body touching his own gave him a strong, sleepy,
\nconfident feeling. He was safe, everything was all right. He fell asleep
\nmurmuring ‘Sanity is not statistical,’ with the feeling that this remark
\ncontained in it a profound wisdom.<\/p>\n
When he woke it was with the sensation of having slept for a long time,
\nbut a glance at the old-fashioned clock told him that it was only
\ntwenty-thirty. He lay dozing for a while; then the usual deep-lunged
\nsinging struck up from the yard below:<\/p>\n
‘It was only an ‘opeless fancy,
\n It passed like an Ipril dye,
\n But a look an’ a word an’ the dreams they stirred
\n They ‘ave stolen my ‘eart awye!’<\/p>\n
The drivelling song seemed to have kept its popularity. You still heard it
\nall over the place. It had outlived the Hate Song. Julia woke at the
\nsound, stretched herself luxuriously, and got out of bed.<\/p>\n
‘I’m hungry,’ she said. ‘Let’s make some more coffee. Damn! The stove’s
\ngone out and the water’s cold.’ She picked the stove up and shook it.
\n‘There’s no oil in it.’<\/p>\n
‘We can get some from old Charrington, I expect.’<\/p>\n
‘The funny thing is I made sure it was full. I’m going to put my clothes
\non,’ she added. ‘It seems to have got colder.’<\/p>\n
Winston also got up and dressed himself. The indefatigable voice sang on:<\/p>\n
‘They sye that time ‘eals all things,
\n They sye you can always forget;
\n But the smiles an’ the tears acrorss the years
\n They twist my ‘eart-strings yet!’<\/p>\n
As he fastened the belt of his overalls he strolled across to the window.
\nThe sun must have gone down behind the houses; it was not shining into the
\nyard any longer. The flagstones were wet as though they had just been
\nwashed, and he had the feeling that the sky had been washed too, so fresh
\nand pale was the blue between the chimney-pots. Tirelessly the woman
\nmarched to and fro, corking and uncorking herself, singing and falling
\nsilent, and pegging out more diapers, and more and yet more. He wondered
\nwhether she took in washing for a living or was merely the slave of twenty
\nor thirty grandchildren. Julia had come across to his side; together they
\ngazed down with a sort of fascination at the sturdy figure below. As he
\nlooked at the woman in her characteristic attitude, her thick arms reaching
\nup for the line, her powerful mare-like buttocks protruded, it struck him
\nfor the first time that she was beautiful. It had never before occurred to
\nhim that the body of a woman of fifty, blown up to monstrous dimensions by
\nchildbearing, then hardened, roughened by work till it was coarse in the
\ngrain like an over-ripe turnip, could be beautiful. But it was so, and
\nafter all, he thought, why not? The solid, contourless body, like a block
\nof granite, and the rasping red skin, bore the same relation to the body
\nof a girl as the rose-hip to the rose. Why should the fruit be held
\ninferior to the flower?<\/p>\n
‘She’s beautiful,’ he murmured.<\/p>\n
‘She’s a metre across the hips, easily,’ said Julia.<\/p>\n
‘That is her style of beauty,’ said Winston.<\/p>\n
He held Julia’s supple waist easily encircled by his arm. From the hip to
\nthe knee her flank was against his. Out of their bodies no child would
\never come. That was the one thing they could never do. Only by word of
\nmouth, from mind to mind, could they pass on the secret. The woman down
\nthere had no mind, she had only strong arms, a warm heart, and a fertile
\nbelly. He wondered how many children she had given birth to. It might
\neasily be fifteen. She had had her momentary flowering, a year, perhaps,
\nof wild-rose beauty and then she had suddenly swollen like a fertilized
\nfruit and grown hard and red and coarse, and then her life had been
\nlaundering, scrubbing, darning, cooking, sweeping, polishing, mending,
\nscrubbing, laundering, first for children, then for grandchildren, over
\nthirty unbroken years. At the end of it she was still singing. The mystical
\nreverence that he felt for her was somehow mixed up with the aspect of
\nthe pale, cloudless sky, stretching away behind the chimney-pots into
\ninterminable distance. It was curious to think that the sky was the same
\nfor everybody, in Eurasia or Eastasia as well as here. And the people
\nunder the sky were also very much the same–everywhere, all over the world,
\nhundreds of thousands of millions of people just like this, people ignorant
\nof one another’s existence, held apart by walls of hatred and lies, and
\nyet almost exactly the same–people who had never learned to think but who
\nwere storing up in their hearts and bellies and muscles the power that
\nwould one day overturn the world. If there was hope, it lay in the proles!
\nWithout having read to the end of THE BOOK, he knew that that must be
\nGoldstein’s final message. The future belonged to the proles. And could he
\nbe sure that when their time came the world they constructed would not be
\njust as alien to him, Winston Smith, as the world of the Party? Yes,
\nbecause at the least it would be a world of sanity. Where there is
\nequality there can be sanity. Sooner or later it would happen, strength
\nwould change into consciousness. The proles were immortal, you could not
\ndoubt it when you looked at that valiant figure in the yard. In the end
\ntheir awakening would come. And until that happened, though it might be a
\nthousand years, they would stay alive against all the odds, like birds,
\npassing on from body to body the vitality which the Party did not share
\nand could not kill.<\/p>\n
‘Do you remember,’ he said, ‘the thrush that sang to us, that first day,
\nat the edge of the wood?’<\/p>\n
‘He wasn’t singing to us,’ said Julia. ‘He was singing to please himself.
\nNot even that. He was just singing.’<\/p>\n
The birds sang, the proles sang. the Party did not sing. All round the
\nworld, in London and New York, in Africa and Brazil, and in the mysterious,
\nforbidden lands beyond the frontiers, in the streets of Paris and Berlin,
\nin the villages of the endless Russian plain, in the bazaars of China and
\nJapan–everywhere stood the same solid unconquerable figure, made monstrous
\nby work and childbearing, toiling from birth to death and still singing.
\nOut of those mighty loins a race of conscious beings must one day come.
\nYou were the dead, theirs was the future. But you could share in that
\nfuture if you kept alive the mind as they kept alive the body, and passed
\non the secret doctrine that two plus two make four.<\/p>\n
‘We are the dead,’ he said.<\/p>\n
‘We are the dead,’ echoed Julia dutifully.<\/p>\n
‘You are the dead,’ said an iron voice behind them.<\/p>\n
They sprang apart. Winston’s entrails seemed to have turned into ice. He
\ncould see the white all round the irises of Julia’s eyes. Her face had
\nturned a milky yellow. The smear of rouge that was still on each cheekbone
\nstood out sharply, almost as though unconnected with the skin beneath.<\/p>\n
‘You are the dead,’ repeated the iron voice.<\/p>\n
‘It was behind the picture,’ breathed Julia.<\/p>\n
‘It was behind the picture,’ said the voice. ‘Remain exactly where you
\nare. Make no movement until you are ordered.’<\/p>\n
It was starting, it was starting at last! They could do nothing except
\nstand gazing into one another’s eyes. To run for life, to get out of the
\nhouse before it was too late–no such thought occurred to them. Unthinkable
\nto disobey the iron voice from the wall. There was a snap as though a catch
\nhad been turned back, and a crash of breaking glass. The picture had fallen
\nto the floor uncovering the telescreen behind it.<\/p>\n
‘Now they can see us,’ said Julia.<\/p>\n
‘Now we can see you,’ said the voice. ‘Stand out in the middle of the
\nroom. Stand back to back. Clasp your hands behind your heads. Do not touch
\none another.’<\/p>\n
They were not touching, but it seemed to him that he could feel Julia’s
\nbody shaking. Or perhaps it was merely the shaking of his own. He could
\njust stop his teeth from chattering, but his knees were beyond his control.
\nThere was a sound of trampling boots below, inside the house and outside.
\nThe yard seemed to be full of men. Something was being dragged across the
\nstones. The woman’s singing had stopped abruptly. There was a long, rolling
\nclang, as though the washtub had been flung across the yard, and then a
\nconfusion of angry shouts which ended in a yell of pain.<\/p>\n
‘The house is surrounded,’ said Winston.<\/p>\n
‘The house is surrounded,’ said the voice.<\/p>\n
He heard Julia snap her teeth together. ‘I suppose we may as well say
\ngood-bye,’ she said.<\/p>\n
‘You may as well say good-bye,’ said the voice. And then another quite
\ndifferent voice, a thin, cultivated voice which Winston had the impression
\nof having heard before, struck in; ‘And by the way, while we are on the
\nsubject, “Here comes a candle to light you to bed, here comes a chopper to
\nchop off your head”!’<\/p>\n
Something crashed on to the bed behind Winston’s back. The head of a ladder
\nhad been thrust through the window and had burst in the frame. Someone was
\nclimbing through the window. There was a stampede of boots up the stairs.
\nThe room was full of solid men in black uniforms, with iron-shod boots on
\ntheir feet and truncheons in their hands.<\/p>\n
Winston was not trembling any longer. Even his eyes he barely moved. One
\nthing alone mattered; to keep still, to keep still and not give them an
\nexcuse to hit you! A man with a smooth prize-fighter’s jowl in which the
\nmouth was only a slit paused opposite him balancing his truncheon
\nmeditatively between thumb and forefinger. Winston met his eyes. The
\nfeeling of nakedness, with one’s hands behind one’s head and one’s face
\nand body all exposed, was almost unbearable. The man protruded the tip
\nof a white tongue, licked the place where his lips should have been, and
\nthen passed on. There was another crash. Someone had picked up the glass
\npaperweight from the table and smashed it to pieces on the hearth-stone.<\/p>\n
The fragment of coral, a tiny crinkle of pink like a sugar rosebud from
\na cake, rolled across the mat. How small, thought Winston, how small it
\nalways was! There was a gasp and a thump behind him, and he received a
\nviolent kick on the ankle which nearly flung him off his balance. One of
\nthe men had smashed his fist into Julia’s solar plexus, doubling her up
\nlike a pocket ruler. She was thrashing about on the floor, fighting for
\nbreath. Winston dared not turn his head even by a millimetre, but sometimes
\nher livid, gasping face came within the angle of his vision. Even in his
\nterror it was as though he could feel the pain in his own body, the deadly
\npain which nevertheless was less urgent than the struggle to get back her
\nbreath. He knew what it was like; the terrible, agonizing pain which was
\nthere all the while but could not be suffered yet, because before all else
\nit was necessary to be able to breathe. Then two of the men hoisted her
\nup by knees and shoulders, and carried her out of the room like a sack.
\nWinston had a glimpse of her face, upside down, yellow and contorted, with
\nthe eyes shut, and still with a smear of rouge on either cheek; and that
\nwas the last he saw of her.<\/p>\n
He stood dead still. No one had hit him yet. Thoughts which came of their
\nown accord but seemed totally uninteresting began to flit through his
\nmind. He wondered whether they had got Mr Charrington. He wondered what
\nthey had done to the woman in the yard. He noticed that he badly wanted
\nto urinate, and felt a faint surprise, because he had done so only two or
\nthree hours ago. He noticed that the clock on the mantelpiece said nine,
\nmeaning twenty-one. But the light seemed too strong. Would not the light
\nbe fading at twenty-one hours on an August evening? He wondered whether
\nafter all he and Julia had mistaken the time–had slept the clock round
\nand thought it was twenty-thirty when really it was nought eight-thirty
\non the following morning. But he did not pursue the thought further.
\nIt was not interesting.<\/p>\n
There was another, lighter step in the passage. Mr Charrington came into
\nthe room. The demeanour of the black-uniformed men suddenly became more
\nsubdued. Something had also changed in Mr Charrington’s appearance. His
\neye fell on the fragments of the glass paperweight.<\/p>\n
‘Pick up those pieces,’ he said sharply.<\/p>\n
A man stooped to obey. The cockney accent had disappeared; Winston suddenly
\nrealized whose voice it was that he had heard a few moments ago on the
\ntelescreen. Mr Charrington was still wearing his old velvet jacket, but
\nhis hair, which had been almost white, had turned black. Also he was not
\nwearing his spectacles. He gave Winston a single sharp glance, as though
\nverifying his identity, and then paid no more attention to him. He was
\nstill recognizable, but he was not the same person any longer. His body
\nhad straightened, and seemed to have grown bigger. His face had undergone
\nonly tiny changes that had nevertheless worked a complete transformation.
\nThe black eyebrows were less bushy, the wrinkles were gone, the whole
\nlines of the face seemed to have altered; even the nose seemed shorter. It
\nwas the alert, cold face of a man of about five-and-thirty. It occurred to
\nWinston that for the first time in his life he was looking, with knowledge,
\nat a member of the Thought Police.<\/p>\n
PART THREE<\/p>\n
Chapter 1<\/p>\n
He did not know where he was. Presumably he was in the Ministry of Love,
\nbut there was no way of making certain. He was in a high-ceilinged
\nwindowless cell with walls of glittering white porcelain. Concealed lamps
\nflooded it with cold light, and there was a low, steady humming sound
\nwhich he supposed had something to do with the air supply. A bench, or
\nshelf, just wide enough to sit on ran round the wall, broken only by the
\ndoor and, at the end opposite the door, a lavatory pan with no wooden
\nseat. There were four telescreens, one in each wall.<\/p>\n
There was a dull aching in his belly. It had been there ever since they
\nhad bundled him into the closed van and driven him away. But he was also
\nhungry, with a gnawing, unwholesome kind of hunger. It might be twenty-four
\nhours since he had eaten, it might be thirty-six. He still did not know,
\nprobably never would know, whether it had been morning or evening when
\nthey arrested him. Since he was arrested he had not been fed.<\/p>\n
He sat as still as he could on the narrow bench, with his hands crossed
\non his knee. He had already learned to sit still. If you made unexpected
\nmovements they yelled at you from the telescreen. But the craving for food
\nwas growing upon him. What he longed for above all was a piece of bread.
\nHe had an idea that there were a few breadcrumbs in the pocket of his
\noveralls. It was even possible–he thought this because from time to time
\nsomething seemed to tickle his leg–that there might be a sizeable bit of
\ncrust there. In the end the temptation to find out overcame his fear; he
\nslipped a hand into his pocket.<\/p>\n
‘Smith!’ yelled a voice from the telescreen. ‘6079 Smith W.! Hands out of
\npockets in the cells!’<\/p>\n
He sat still again, his hands crossed on his knee. Before being brought
\nhere he had been taken to another place which must have been an ordinary
\nprison or a temporary lock-up used by the patrols. He did not know how
\nlong he had been there; some hours at any rate; with no clocks and no
\ndaylight it was hard to gauge the time. It was a noisy, evil-smelling
\nplace. They had put him into a cell similar to the one he was now in,
\nbut filthily dirty and at all times crowded by ten or fifteen people. The
\nmajority of them were common criminals, but there were a few political
\nprisoners among them. He had sat silent against the wall, jostled by dirty
\nbodies, too preoccupied by fear and the pain in his belly to take much
\ninterest in his surroundings, but still noticing the astonishing difference
\nin demeanour between the Party prisoners and the others. The Party
\nprisoners were always silent and terrified, but the ordinary criminals
\nseemed to care nothing for anybody. They yelled insults at the guards,
\nfought back fiercely when their belongings were impounded, wrote obscene
\nwords on the floor, ate smuggled food which they produced from mysterious
\nhiding-places in their clothes, and even shouted down the telescreen when
\nit tried to restore order. On the other hand some of them seemed to be on
\ngood terms with the guards, called them by nicknames, and tried to wheedle
\ncigarettes through the spyhole in the door. The guards, too, treated the
\ncommon criminals with a certain forbearance, even when they had to handle
\nthem roughly. There was much talk about the forced-labour camps to which
\nmost of the prisoners expected to be sent. It was ‘all right’ in the
\ncamps, he gathered, so long as you had good contacts and knew the ropes.
\nThere was bribery, favouritism, and racketeering of every kind, there was
\nhomosexuality and prostitution, there was even illicit alcohol distilled
\nfrom potatoes. The positions of trust were given only to the common
\ncriminals, especially the gangsters and the murderers, who formed a sort
\nof aristocracy. All the dirty jobs were done by the politicals.<\/p>\n
There was a constant come-and-go of prisoners of every description:
\ndrug-peddlers, thieves, bandits, black-marketeers, drunks, prostitutes.
\nSome of the drunks were so violent that the other prisoners had to combine
\nto suppress them. An enormous wreck of a woman, aged about sixty, with
\ngreat tumbling breasts and thick coils of white hair which had come down
\nin her struggles, was carried in, kicking and shouting, by four guards,
\nwho had hold of her one at each corner. They wrenched off the boots with
\nwhich she had been trying to kick them, and dumped her down across
\nWinston’s lap, almost breaking his thigh-bones. The woman hoisted herself
\nupright and followed them out with a yell of ‘F—- bastards!’ Then,
\nnoticing that she was sitting on something uneven, she slid off Winston’s
\nknees on to the bench.<\/p>\n
‘Beg pardon, dearie,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t ‘a sat on you, only the buggers
\nput me there. They dono ‘ow to treat a lady, do they?’ She paused, patted
\nher breast, and belched. ‘Pardon,’ she said, ‘I ain’t meself, quite.’<\/p>\n
She leant forward and vomited copiously on the floor.<\/p>\n
‘Thass better,’ she said, leaning back with closed eyes. ‘Never keep it
\ndown, thass what I say. Get it up while it’s fresh on your stomach, like.’<\/p>\n
She revived, turned to have another look at Winston and seemed immediately
\nto take a fancy to him. She put a vast arm round his shoulder and drew him
\ntowards her, breathing beer and vomit into his face.<\/p>\n
‘Wass your name, dearie?’ she said.<\/p>\n
‘Smith,’ said Winston.<\/p>\n
‘Smith?’ said the woman. ‘Thass funny. My name’s Smith too. Why,’ she
\nadded sentimentally, ‘I might be your mother!’<\/p>\n
She might, thought Winston, be his mother. She was about the right age and
\nphysique, and it was probable that people changed somewhat after twenty
\nyears in a forced-labour camp.<\/p>\n
No one else had spoken to him. To a surprising extent the ordinary
\ncriminals ignored the Party prisoners. ‘The polITS,’ they called them,
\nwith a sort of uninterested contempt. The Party prisoners seemed terrified
\nof speaking to anybody, and above all of speaking to one another. Only
\nonce, when two Party members, both women, were pressed close together on
\nthe bench, he overheard amid the din of voices a few hurriedly-whispered
\nwords; and in particular a reference to something called ‘room one-oh-one’,
\nwhich he did not understand.<\/p>\n
It might be two or three hours ago that they had brought him here. The
\ndull pain in his belly never went away, but sometimes it grew better and
\nsometimes worse, and his thoughts expanded or contracted accordingly. When
\nit grew worse he thought only of the pain itself, and of his desire for
\nfood. When it grew better, panic took hold of him. There were moments
\nwhen he foresaw the things that would happen to him with such actuality
\nthat his heart galloped and his breath stopped. He felt the smash of
\ntruncheons on his elbows and iron-shod boots on his shins; he saw himself
\ngrovelling on the floor, screaming for mercy through broken teeth. He
\nhardly thought of Julia. He could not fix his mind on her. He loved her
\nand would not betray her; but that was only a fact, known as he knew the
\nrules of arithmetic. He felt no love for her, and he hardly even wondered
\nwhat was happening to her. He thought oftener of O’Brien, with a flickering
\nhope. O’Brien might know that he had been arrested. The Brotherhood, he
\nhad said, never tried to save its members. But there was the razor blade;
\nthey would send the razor blade if they could. There would be perhaps five
\nseconds before the guard could rush into the cell. The blade would bite
\ninto him with a sort of burning coldness, and even the fingers that held
\nit would be cut to the bone. Everything came back to his sick body, which
\nshrank trembling from the smallest pain. He was not certain that he would
\nuse the razor blade even if he got the chance. It was more natural to exist
\nfrom moment to moment, accepting another ten minutes’ life even with the
\ncertainty that there was torture at the end of it.<\/p>\n
Sometimes he tried to calculate the number of porcelain bricks in the
\nwalls of the cell. It should have been easy, but he always lost count at
\nsome point or another. More often he wondered where he was, and what time
\nof day it was. At one moment he felt certain that it was broad daylight
\noutside, and at the next equally certain that it was pitch darkness. In
\nthis place, he knew instinctively, the lights would never be turned out.
\nIt was the place with no darkness: he saw now why O’Brien had seemed to
\nrecognize the allusion. In the Ministry of Love there were no windows. His
\ncell might be at the heart of the building or against its outer wall; it
\nmight be ten floors below ground, or thirty above it. He moved himself
\nmentally from place to place, and tried to determine by the feeling of his
\nbody whether he was perched high in the air or buried deep underground.<\/p>\n
There was a sound of marching boots outside. The steel door opened with
\na clang. A young officer, a trim black-uniformed figure who seemed to
\nglitter all over with polished leather, and whose pale, straight-featured
\nface was like a wax mask, stepped smartly through the doorway. He motioned
\nto the guards outside to bring in the prisoner they were leading. The
\npoet Ampleforth shambled into the cell. The door clanged shut again.<\/p>\n
Ampleforth made one or two uncertain movements from side to side, as
\nthough having some idea that there was another door to go out of, and then
\nbegan to wander up and down the cell. He had not yet noticed Winston’s
\npresence. His troubled eyes were gazing at the wall about a metre above
\nthe level of Winston’s head. He was shoeless; large, dirty toes were
\nsticking out of the holes in his socks. He was also several days away
\nfrom a shave. A scrubby beard covered his face to the cheekbones, giving
\nhim an air of ruffianism that went oddly with his large weak frame and
\nnervous movements.<\/p>\n
Winston roused himself a little from his lethargy. He must speak
\nto Ampleforth, and risk the yell from the telescreen. It was even
\nconceivable that Ampleforth was the bearer of the razor blade.<\/p>\n
‘Ampleforth,’ he said.<\/p>\n
There was no yell from the telescreen. Ampleforth paused, mildly startled.
\nHis eyes focused themselves slowly on Winston.<\/p>\n
‘Ah, Smith!’ he said. ‘You too!’<\/p>\n
‘What are you in for?’<\/p>\n
‘To tell you the truth–‘ He sat down awkwardly on the bench opposite
\nWinston. ‘There is only one offence, is there not?’ he said.<\/p>\n
‘And have you committed it?’<\/p>\n
‘Apparently I have.’<\/p>\n
He put a hand to his forehead and pressed his temples for a moment, as
\nthough trying to remember something.<\/p>\n
‘These things happen,’ he began vaguely. ‘I have been able to recall one
\ninstance–a possible instance. It was an indiscretion, undoubtedly. We
\nwere producing a definitive edition of the poems of Kipling. I allowed the
\nword “God” to remain at the end of a line. I could not help it!’ he added
\nalmost indignantly, raising his face to look at Winston. ‘It was impossible
\nto change the line. The rhyme was “rod”. Do you realize that there are only
\ntwelve rhymes to “rod” in the entire language? For days I had racked my
\nbrains. There WAS no other rhyme.’<\/p>\n
The expression on his face changed. The annoyance passed out of it and for
\na moment he looked almost pleased. A sort of intellectual warmth, the joy
\nof the pedant who has found out some useless fact, shone through the dirt
\nand scrubby hair.<\/p>\n
‘Has it ever occurred to you,’ he said, ‘that the whole history of English
\npoetry has been determined by the fact that the English language lacks
\nrhymes?’<\/p>\n
No, that particular thought had never occurred to Winston. Nor, in the
\ncircumstances, did it strike him as very important or interesting.<\/p>\n
‘Do you know what time of day it is?’ he said.<\/p>\n
Ampleforth looked startled again. ‘I had hardly thought about it. They
\narrested me–it could be two days ago–perhaps three.’ His eyes flitted
\nround the walls, as though he half expected to find a window somewhere.
\n‘There is no difference between night and day in this place. I do not see
\nhow one can calculate the time.’<\/p>\n
They talked desultorily for some minutes, then, without apparent reason,
\na yell from the telescreen bade them be silent. Winston sat quietly, his
\nhands crossed. Ampleforth, too large to sit in comfort on the narrow
\nbench, fidgeted from side to side, clasping his lank hands first round one
\nknee, then round the other. The telescreen barked at him to keep still.
\nTime passed. Twenty minutes, an hour–it was difficult to judge. Once more
\nthere was a sound of boots outside. Winston’s entrails contracted. Soon,
\nvery soon, perhaps in five minutes, perhaps now, the tramp of boots would
\nmean that his own turn had come.<\/p>\n
The door opened. The cold-faced young officer stepped into the cell. With
\na brief movement of the hand he indicated Ampleforth.<\/p>\n
‘Room 101,’ he said.<\/p>\n
Ampleforth marched clumsily out between the guards, his face vaguely
\nperturbed, but uncomprehending.<\/p>\n
What seemed like a long time passed. The pain in Winston’s belly had
\nrevived. His mind sagged round and round on the same trick, like a ball
\nfalling again and again into the same series of slots. He had only six
\nthoughts. The pain in his belly; a piece of bread; the blood and the
\nscreaming; O’Brien; Julia; the razor blade. There was another spasm in his
\nentrails, the heavy boots were approaching. As the door opened, the wave
\nof air that it created brought in a powerful smell of cold sweat. Parsons
\nwalked into the cell. He was wearing khaki shorts and a sports-shirt.<\/p>\n
This time Winston was startled into self-forgetfulness.<\/p>\n
‘YOU here!’ he said.<\/p>\n
Parsons gave Winston a glance in which there was neither interest nor
\nsurprise, but only misery. He began walking jerkily up and down, evidently
\nunable to keep still. Each time he straightened his pudgy knees it was
\napparent that they were trembling. His eyes had a wide-open, staring look,
\nas though he could not prevent himself from gazing at something in the
\nmiddle distance.<\/p>\n
‘What are you in for?’ said Winston.<\/p>\n
‘Thoughtcrime!’ said Parsons, almost blubbering. The tone of his voice
\nimplied at once a complete admission of his guilt and a sort of incredulous
\nhorror that such a word could be applied to himself. He paused opposite
\nWinston and began eagerly appealing to him: ‘You don’t think they’ll shoot
\nme, do you, old chap? They don’t shoot you if you haven’t actually done
\nanything–only thoughts, which you can’t help? I know they give you a fair
\nhearing. Oh, I trust them for that! They’ll know my record, won’t they?
\nYOU know what kind of chap I was. Not a bad chap in my way. Not brainy, of
\ncourse, but keen. I tried to do my best for the Party, didn’t I? I’ll get
\noff with five years, don’t you think? Or even ten years? A chap like me
\ncould make himself pretty useful in a labour-camp. They wouldn’t shoot me
\nfor going off the rails just once?’<\/p>\n
‘Are you guilty?’ said Winston.<\/p>\n
‘Of course I’m guilty!’ cried Parsons with a servile glance at the
\ntelescreen. ‘You don’t think the Party would arrest an innocent man,
\ndo you?’ His frog-like face grew calmer, and even took on a slightly
\nsanctimonious expression. ‘Thoughtcrime is a dreadful thing, old man,’
\nhe said sententiously. ‘It’s insidious. It can get hold of you without
\nyour even knowing it. Do you know how it got hold of me? In my sleep! Yes,
\nthat’s a fact. There I was, working away, trying to do my bit–never knew
\nI had any bad stuff in my mind at all. And then I started talking in my
\nsleep. Do you know what they heard me saying?’<\/p>\n
He sank his voice, like someone who is obliged for medical reasons to
\nutter an obscenity.<\/p>\n
‘”Down with Big Brother!” Yes, I said that! Said it over and over again,
\nit seems. Between you and me, old man, I’m glad they got me before it went
\nany further. Do you know what I’m going to say to them when I go up before
\nthe tribunal? “Thank you,” I’m going to say, “thank you for saving me
\nbefore it was too late.”‘<\/p>\n
‘Who denounced you?’ said Winston.<\/p>\n
‘It was my little daughter,’ said Parsons with a sort of doleful pride.
\n‘She listened at the keyhole. Heard what I was saying, and nipped off to
\nthe patrols the very next day. Pretty smart for a nipper of seven, eh?
\nI don’t bear her any grudge for it. In fact I’m proud of her. It shows I
\nbrought her up in the right spirit, anyway.’<\/p>\n
He made a few more jerky movements up and down, several times, casting a
\nlonging glance at the lavatory pan. Then he suddenly ripped down his
\nshorts.<\/p>\n
‘Excuse me, old man,’ he said. ‘I can’t help it. It’s the waiting.’<\/p>\n
He plumped his large posterior into the lavatory pan. Winston covered his
\nface with his hands.<\/p>\n
‘Smith!’ yelled the voice from the telescreen. ‘6079 Smith W.! Uncover your
\nface. No faces covered in the cells.’<\/p>\n
Winston uncovered his face. Parsons used the lavatory, loudly and
\nabundantly. It then turned out that the plug was defective and the cell
\nstank abominably for hours afterwards.<\/p>\n
Parsons was removed. More prisoners came and went, mysteriously. One, a
\nwoman, was consigned to ‘Room 101’, and, Winston noticed, seemed to shrivel
\nand turn a different colour when she heard the words. A time came when, if
\nit had been morning when he was brought here, it would be afternoon; or if
\nit had been afternoon, then it would be midnight. There were six prisoners
\nin the cell, men and women. All sat very still. Opposite Winston there sat
\na man with a chinless, toothy face exactly like that of some large,
\nharmless rodent. His fat, mottled cheeks were so pouched at the bottom
\nthat it was difficult not to believe that he had little stores of food
\ntucked away there. His pale-grey eyes flitted timorously from face to face
\nand turned quickly away again when he caught anyone’s eye.<\/p>\n
The door opened, and another prisoner was brought in whose appearance sent
\na momentary chill through Winston. He was a commonplace, mean-looking man
\nwho might have been an engineer or technician of some kind. But what was
\nstartling was the emaciation of his face. It was like a skull. Because of
\nits thinness the mouth and eyes looked disproportionately large, and the
\neyes seemed filled with a murderous, unappeasable hatred of somebody or
\nsomething.<\/p>\n
The man sat down on the bench at a little distance from Winston. Winston
\ndid not look at him again, but the tormented, skull-like face was as
\nvivid in his mind as though it had been straight in front of his eyes.
\nSuddenly he realized what was the matter. The man was dying of starvation.
\nThe same thought seemed to occur almost simultaneously to everyone in the
\ncell. There was a very faint stirring all the way round the bench. The
\neyes of the chinless man kept flitting towards the skull-faced man, then
\nturning guiltily away, then being dragged back by an irresistible
\nattraction. Presently he began to fidget on his seat. At last he stood up,
\nwaddled clumsily across the cell, dug down into the pocket of his overalls,
\nand, with an abashed air, held out a grimy piece of bread to the
\nskull-faced man.<\/p>\n
There was a furious, deafening roar from the telescreen. The chinless man
\njumped in his tracks. The skull-faced man had quickly thrust his hands
\nbehind his back, as though demonstrating to all the world that he refused
\nthe gift.<\/p>\n
‘Bumstead!’ roared the voice. ‘2713 Bumstead J.! Let fall that piece of
\nbread!’<\/p>\n
The chinless man dropped the piece of bread on the floor.<\/p>\n
‘Remain standing where you are,’ said the voice. ‘Face the door. Make no
\nmovement.’<\/p>\n
The chinless man obeyed. His large pouchy cheeks were quivering
\nuncontrollably. The door clanged open. As the young officer entered and
\nstepped aside, there emerged from behind him a short stumpy guard with
\nenormous arms and shoulders. He took his stand opposite the chinless man,
\nand then, at a signal from the officer, let free a frightful blow, with
\nall the weight of his body behind it, full in the chinless man’s mouth.
\nThe force of it seemed almost to knock him clear of the floor. His body
\nwas flung across the cell and fetched up against the base of the lavatory
\nseat. For a moment he lay as though stunned, with dark blood oozing from
\nhis mouth and nose. A very faint whimpering or squeaking, which seemed
\nunconscious, came out of him. Then he rolled over and raised himself
\nunsteadily on hands and knees. Amid a stream of blood and saliva, the two
\nhalves of a dental plate fell out of his mouth.<\/p>\n
The prisoners sat very still, their hands crossed on their knees. The
\nchinless man climbed back into his place. Down one side of his face the
\nflesh was darkening. His mouth had swollen into a shapeless cherry-coloured
\nmass with a black hole in the middle of it.<\/p>\n
From time to time a little blood dripped on to the breast of his overalls.
\nHis grey eyes still flitted from face to face, more guiltily than ever,
\nas though he were trying to discover how much the others despised him for
\nhis humiliation.<\/p>\n
The door opened. With a small gesture the officer indicated the
\nskull-faced man.<\/p>\n
‘Room 101,’ he said.<\/p>\n
There was a gasp and a flurry at Winston’s side. The man had actually
\nflung himself on his knees on the floor, with his hand clasped together.<\/p>\n
‘Comrade! Officer!’ he cried. ‘You don’t have to take me to that place!
\nHaven’t I told you everything already? What else is it you want to know?
\nThere’s nothing I wouldn’t confess, nothing! Just tell me what it is and
\nI’ll confess straight off. Write it down and I’ll sign it–anything!
\nNot room 101!’<\/p>\n
‘Room 101,’ said the officer.<\/p>\n
The man’s face, already very pale, turned a colour Winston would not have
\nbelieved possible. It was definitely, unmistakably, a shade of green.<\/p>\n
‘Do anything to me!’ he yelled. ‘You’ve been starving me for weeks. Finish
\nit off and let me die. Shoot me. Hang me. Sentence me to twenty-five
\nyears. Is there somebody else you want me to give away? Just say who it is
\nand I’ll tell you anything you want. I don’t care who it is or what you do
\nto them. I’ve got a wife and three children. The biggest of them isn’t six
\nyears old. You can take the whole lot of them and cut their throats in
\nfront of my eyes, and I’ll stand by and watch it. But not Room 101!’<\/p>\n
‘Room 101,’ said the officer.<\/p>\n
The man looked frantically round at the other prisoners, as though with
\nsome idea that he could put another victim in his own place. His eyes
\nsettled on the smashed face of the chinless man. He flung out a lean arm.<\/p>\n
‘That’s the one you ought to be taking, not me!’ he shouted. ‘You didn’t
\nhear what he was saying after they bashed his face. Give me a chance and
\nI’ll tell you every word of it. HE’S the one that’s against the Party, not
\nme.’ The guards stepped forward. The man’s voice rose to a shriek. ‘You
\ndidn’t hear him!’ he repeated. ‘Something went wrong with the telescreen.
\nHE’S the one you want. Take him, not me!’<\/p>\n
The two sturdy guards had stooped to take him by the arms. But just at
\nthis moment he flung himself across the floor of the cell and grabbed one
\nof the iron legs that supported the bench. He had set up a wordless
\nhowling, like an animal. The guards took hold of him to wrench him loose,
\nbut he clung on with astonishing strength. For perhaps twenty seconds
\nthey were hauling at him. The prisoners sat quiet, their hands crossed on
\ntheir knees, looking straight in front of them. The howling stopped; the
\nman had no breath left for anything except hanging on. Then there was a
\ndifferent kind of cry. A kick from a guard’s boot had broken the fingers
\nof one of his hands. They dragged him to his feet.<\/p>\n
‘Room 101,’ said the officer.<\/p>\n
The man was led out, walking unsteadily, with head sunken, nursing his
\ncrushed hand, all the fight had gone out of him.<\/p>\n
A long time passed. If it had been midnight when the skull-faced man was
\ntaken away, it was morning: if morning, it was afternoon. Winston was
\nalone, and had been alone for hours. The pain of sitting on the narrow
\nbench was such that often he got up and walked about, unreproved by the
\ntelescreen. The piece of bread still lay where the chinless man had
\ndropped it. At the beginning it needed a hard effort not to look at it,
\nbut presently hunger gave way to thirst. His mouth was sticky and
\nevil-tasting. The humming sound and the unvarying white light induced a
\nsort of faintness, an empty feeling inside his head. He would get up
\nbecause the ache in his bones was no longer bearable, and then would sit
\ndown again almost at once because he was too dizzy to make sure of
\nstaying on his feet. Whenever his physical sensations were a little under
\ncontrol the terror returned. Sometimes with a fading hope he thought of
\nO’Brien and the razor blade. It was thinkable that the razor blade might
\narrive concealed in his food, if he were ever fed. More dimly he thought
\nof Julia. Somewhere or other she was suffering perhaps far worse than he.
\nShe might be screaming with pain at this moment. He thought: ‘If I could
\nsave Julia by doubling my own pain, would I do it? Yes, I would.’ But that
\nwas merely an intellectual decision, taken because he knew that he ought
\nto take it. He did not feel it. In this place you could not feel anything,
\nexcept pain and foreknowledge of pain. Besides, was it possible, when you
\nwere actually suffering it, to wish for any reason that your own pain
\nshould increase? But that question was not answerable yet.<\/p>\n
The boots were approaching again. The door opened. O’Brien came in.<\/p>\n
Winston started to his feet. The shock of the sight had driven all
\ncaution out of him. For the first time in many years he forgot the
\npresence of the telescreen.<\/p>\n
‘They’ve got you too!’ he cried.<\/p>\n
‘They got me a long time ago,’ said O’Brien with a mild, almost regretful
\nirony. He stepped aside. From behind him there emerged a broad-chested
\nguard with a long black truncheon in his hand.<\/p>\n
‘You know this, Winston,’ said O’Brien. ‘Don’t deceive yourself. You did
\nknow it–you have always known it.’<\/p>\n
Yes, he saw now, he had always known it. But there was no time to think of
\nthat. All he had eyes for was the truncheon in the guard’s hand. It might
\nfall anywhere; on the crown, on the tip of the ear, on the upper arm, on
\nthe elbow—-<\/p>\n
The elbow! He had slumped to his knees, almost paralysed, clasping the
\nstricken elbow with his other hand. Everything had exploded into yellow
\nlight. Inconceivable, inconceivable that one blow could cause such pain!
\nThe light cleared and he could see the other two looking down at him. The
\nguard was laughing at his contortions. One question at any rate was
\nanswered. Never, for any reason on earth, could you wish for an increase
\nof pain. Of pain you could wish only one thing: that it should stop.
\nNothing in the world was so bad as physical pain. In the face of pain
\nthere are no heroes, no heroes, he thought over and over as he writhed
\non the floor, clutching uselessly at his disabled left arm.<\/p>\n
Chapter 2<\/p>\n
He was lying on something that felt like a camp bed, except that it was
\nhigher off the ground and that he was fixed down in some way so that he
\ncould not move. Light that seemed stronger than usual was falling on his
\nface. O’Brien was standing at his side, looking down at him intently. At
\nthe other side of him stood a man in a white coat, holding a hypodermic
\nsyringe.<\/p>\n
Even after his eyes were open he took in his surroundings only gradually.
\nHe had the impression of swimming up into this room from some quite
\ndifferent world, a sort of underwater world far beneath it. How long he
\nhad been down there he did not know. Since the moment when they arrested
\nhim he had not seen darkness or daylight. Besides, his memories were not
\ncontinuous. There had been times when consciousness, even the sort of
\nconsciousness that one has in sleep, had stopped dead and started again
\nafter a blank interval. But whether the intervals were of days or weeks
\nor only seconds, there was no way of knowing.<\/p>\n
With that first blow on the elbow the nightmare had started. Later he was
\nto realize that all that then happened was merely a preliminary, a routine
\ninterrogation to which nearly all prisoners were subjected. There was a
\nlong range of crimes–espionage, sabotage, and the like–to which everyone
\nhad to confess as a matter of course. The confession was a formality,
\nthough the torture was real. How many times he had been beaten, how long
\nthe beatings had continued, he could not remember. Always there were five
\nor six men in black uniforms at him simultaneously. Sometimes it was
\nfists, sometimes it was truncheons, sometimes it was steel rods, sometimes
\nit was boots. There were times when he rolled about the floor, as shameless
\nas an animal, writhing his body this way and that in an endless, hopeless
\neffort to dodge the kicks, and simply inviting more and yet more kicks,
\nin his ribs, in his belly, on his elbows, on his shins, in his groin,
\nin his testicles, on the bone at the base of his spine. There were times
\nwhen it went on and on until the cruel, wicked, unforgivable thing seemed
\nto him not that the guards continued to beat him but that he could not
\nforce himself into losing consciousness. There were times when his nerve
\nso forsook him that he began shouting for mercy even before the beating
\nbegan, when the mere sight of a fist drawn back for a blow was enough
\nto make him pour forth a confession of real and imaginary crimes. There
\nwere other times when he started out with the resolve of confessing
\nnothing, when every word had to be forced out of him between gasps of
\npain, and there were times when he feebly tried to compromise, when he
\nsaid to himself: ‘I will confess, but not yet. I must hold out till the
\npain becomes unbearable. Three more kicks, two more kicks, and then I will
\ntell them what they want.’ Sometimes he was beaten till he could hardly
\nstand, then flung like a sack of potatoes on to the stone floor of a cell,
\nleft to recuperate for a few hours, and then taken out and beaten again.
\nThere were also longer periods of recovery. He remembered them dimly,
\nbecause they were spent chiefly in sleep or stupor. He remembered a cell
\nwith a plank bed, a sort of shelf sticking out from the wall, and a tin
\nwash-basin, and meals of hot soup and bread and sometimes coffee. He
\nremembered a surly barber arriving to scrape his chin and crop his hair,
\nand businesslike, unsympathetic men in white coats feeling his pulse,
\ntapping his reflexes, turning up his eyelids, running harsh fingers over
\nhim in search for broken bones, and shooting needles into his arm to make
\nhim sleep.<\/p>\n
The beatings grew less frequent, and became mainly a threat, a horror
\nto which he could be sent back at any moment when his answers were
\nunsatisfactory. His questioners now were not ruffians in black uniforms
\nbut Party intellectuals, little rotund men with quick movements and
\nflashing spectacles, who worked on him in relays over periods which
\nlasted–he thought, he could not be sure–ten or twelve hours at a stretch.
\nThese other questioners saw to it that he was in constant slight pain, but
\nit was not chiefly pain that they relied on. They slapped his face, wrung
\nhis ears, pulled his hair, made him stand on one leg, refused him leave to
\nurinate, shone glaring lights in his face until his eyes ran with water;
\nbut the aim of this was simply to humiliate him and destroy his power of
\narguing and reasoning. Their real weapon was the merciless questioning
\nthat went on and on, hour after hour, tripping him up, laying traps for
\nhim, twisting everything that he said, convicting him at every step of
\nlies and self-contradiction until he began weeping as much from shame as
\nfrom nervous fatigue. Sometimes he would weep half a dozen times in a
\nsingle session. Most of the time they screamed abuse at him and threatened
\nat every hesitation to deliver him over to the guards again; but sometimes
\nthey would suddenly change their tune, call him comrade, appeal to him in
\nthe name of Ingsoc and Big Brother, and ask him sorrowfully whether even
\nnow he had not enough loyalty to the Party left to make him wish to
\nundo the evil he had done. When his nerves were in rags after hours of
\nquestioning, even this appeal could reduce him to snivelling tears. In the
\nend the nagging voices broke him down more completely than the boots and
\nfists of the guards. He became simply a mouth that uttered, a hand that
\nsigned, whatever was demanded of him. His sole concern was to find out
\nwhat they wanted him to confess, and then confess it quickly, before the
\nbullying started anew. He confessed to the assassination of eminent Party
\nmembers, the distribution of seditious pamphlets, embezzlement of public
\nfunds, sale of military secrets, sabotage of every kind. He confessed that
\nhe had been a spy in the pay of the Eastasian government as far back as
\n1968. He confessed that he was a religious believer, an admirer of
\ncapitalism, and a sexual pervert. He confessed that he had murdered his
\nwife, although he knew, and his questioners must have known, that his wife
\nwas still alive. He confessed that for years he had been in personal touch
\nwith Goldstein and had been a member of an underground organization which
\nhad included almost every human being he had ever known. It was easier to
\nconfess everything and implicate everybody. Besides, in a sense it was all
\ntrue. It was true that he had been the enemy of the Party, and in the eyes
\nof the Party there was no distinction between the thought and the deed.<\/p>\n
There were also memories of another kind. They stood out in his mind
\ndisconnectedly, like pictures with blackness all round them.<\/p>\n
He was in a cell which might have been either dark or light, because he
\ncould see nothing except a pair of eyes. Near at hand some kind of
\ninstrument was ticking slowly and regularly. The eyes grew larger and more
\nluminous. Suddenly he floated out of his seat, dived into the eyes, and
\nwas swallowed up.<\/p>\n
He was strapped into a chair surrounded by dials, under dazzling lights.
\nA man in a white coat was reading the dials. There was a tramp of heavy
\nboots outside. The door clanged open. The waxed-faced officer marched in,
\nfollowed by two guards.<\/p>\n
‘Room 101,’ said the officer.<\/p>\n
The man in the white coat did not turn round. He did not look at Winston
\neither; he was looking only at the dials.<\/p>\n
He was rolling down a mighty corridor, a kilometre wide, full of glorious,
\ngolden light, roaring with laughter and shouting out confessions at the
\ntop of his voice. He was confessing everything, even the things he had
\nsucceeded in holding back under the torture. He was relating the entire
\nhistory of his life to an audience who knew it already. With him were the
\nguards, the other questioners, the men in white coats, O’Brien, Julia,
\nMr Charrington, all rolling down the corridor together and shouting with
\nlaughter. Some dreadful thing which had lain embedded in the future had
\nsomehow been skipped over and had not happened. Everything was all right,
\nthere was no more pain, the last detail of his life was laid bare,
\nunderstood, forgiven.<\/p>\n
He was starting up from the plank bed in the half-certainty that he had
\nheard O’Brien’s voice. All through his interrogation, although he had
\nnever seen him, he had had the feeling that O’Brien was at his elbow, just
\nout of sight. It was O’Brien who was directing everything. It was he who
\nset the guards on to Winston and who prevented them from killing him. It
\nwas he who decided when Winston should scream with pain, when he should
\nhave a respite, when he should be fed, when he should sleep, when the
\ndrugs should be pumped into his arm. It was he who asked the questions and
\nsuggested the answers. He was the tormentor, he was the protector, he was
\nthe inquisitor, he was the friend. And once–Winston could not remember
\nwhether it was in drugged sleep, or in normal sleep, or even in a moment
\nof wakefulness–a voice murmured in his ear: ‘Don’t worry, Winston; you
\nare in my keeping. For seven years I have watched over you. Now the
\nturning-point has come. I shall save you, I shall make you perfect.’ He
\nwas not sure whether it was O’Brien’s voice; but it was the same voice
\nthat had said to him, ‘We shall meet in the place where there is no
\ndarkness,’ in that other dream, seven years ago.<\/p>\n
He did not remember any ending to his interrogation. There was a period of
\nblackness and then the cell, or room, in which he now was had gradually
\nmaterialized round him. He was almost flat on his back, and unable to move.
\nHis body was held down at every essential point. Even the back of his head
\nwas gripped in some manner. O’Brien was looking down at him gravely and
\nrather sadly. His face, seen from below, looked coarse and worn, with
\npouches under the eyes and tired lines from nose to chin. He was older
\nthan Winston had thought him; he was perhaps forty-eight or fifty. Under
\nhis hand there was a dial with a lever on top and figures running round
\nthe face.<\/p>\n
‘I told you,’ said O’Brien, ‘that if we met again it would be here.’<\/p>\n
‘Yes,’ said Winston.<\/p>\n
Without any warning except a slight movement of O’Brien’s hand, a wave of
\npain flooded his body. It was a frightening pain, because he could not see
\nwhat was happening, and he had the feeling that some mortal injury was
\nbeing done to him. He did not know whether the thing was really happening,
\nor whether the effect was electrically produced; but his body was being
\nwrenched out of shape, the joints were being slowly torn apart. Although
\nthe pain had brought the sweat out on his forehead, the worst of all was
\nthe fear that his backbone was about to snap. He set his teeth and
\nbreathed hard through his nose, trying to keep silent as long as possible.<\/p>\n
‘You are afraid,’ said O’Brien, watching his face, ‘that in another moment
\nsomething is going to break. Your especial fear is that it will be your
\nbackbone. You have a vivid mental picture of the vertebrae snapping apart
\nand the spinal fluid dripping out of them. That is what you are thinking,
\nis it not, Winston?’<\/p>\n
Winston did not answer. O’Brien drew back the lever on the dial. The wave
\nof pain receded almost as quickly as it had come.<\/p>\n
‘That was forty,’ said O’Brien. ‘You can see that the numbers on this dial
\nrun up to a hundred. Will you please remember, throughout our conversation,
\nthat I have it in my power to inflict pain on you at any moment and to
\nwhatever degree I choose? If you tell me any lies, or attempt to
\nprevaricate in any way, or even fall below your usual level of
\nintelligence, you will cry out with pain, instantly. Do you understand
\nthat?’<\/p>\n
‘Yes,’ said Winston.<\/p>\n
O’Brien’s manner became less severe. He resettled his spectacles
\nthoughtfully, and took a pace or two up and down. When he spoke his voice
\nwas gentle and patient. He had the air of a doctor, a teacher, even a
\npriest, anxious to explain and persuade rather than to punish.<\/p>\n
‘I am taking trouble with you, Winston,’ he said, ‘because you are worth
\ntrouble. You know perfectly well what is the matter with you. You have
\nknown it for years, though you have fought against the knowledge. You are
\nmentally deranged. You suffer from a defective memory. You are unable to
\nremember real events and you persuade yourself that you remember other
\nevents which never happened. Fortunately it is curable. You have never
\ncured yourself of it, because you did not choose to. There was a small
\neffort of the will that you were not ready to make. Even now, I am well
\naware, you are clinging to your disease under the impression that it is
\na virtue. Now we will take an example. At this moment, which power is
\nOceania at war with?’<\/p>\n
‘When I was arrested, Oceania was at war with Eastasia.’<\/p>\n
‘With Eastasia. Good. And Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia,
\nhas it not?’<\/p>\n
Winston drew in his breath. He opened his mouth to speak and then did not
\nspeak. He could not take his eyes away from the dial.<\/p>\n
‘The truth, please, Winston. YOUR truth. Tell me what you think you
\nremember.’<\/p>\n
‘I remember that until only a week before I was arrested, we were not at
\nwar with Eastasia at all. We were in alliance with them. The war was
\nagainst Eurasia. That had lasted for four years. Before that—-‘<\/p>\n
O’Brien stopped him with a movement of the hand.<\/p>\n
‘Another example,’ he said. ‘Some years ago you had a very serious delusion
\nindeed. You believed that three men, three one-time Party members named
\nJones, Aaronson, and Rutherford–men who were executed for treachery and
\nsabotage after making the fullest possible confession–were not guilty of
\nthe crimes they were charged with. You believed that you had seen
\nunmistakable documentary evidence proving that their confessions were
\nfalse. There was a certain photograph about which you had a hallucination.
\nYou believed that you had actually held it in your hands. It was a
\nphotograph something like this.’<\/p>\n
An oblong slip of newspaper had appeared between O’Brien’s fingers. For
\nperhaps five seconds it was within the angle of Winston’s vision. It was
\na photograph, and there was no question of its identity. It was THE
\nphotograph. It was another copy of the photograph of Jones, Aaronson, and
\nRutherford at the party function in New York, which he had chanced upon
\neleven years ago and promptly destroyed. For only an instant it was before
\nhis eyes, then it was out of sight again. But he had seen it,
\nunquestionably he had seen it! He made a desperate, agonizing effort to
\nwrench the top half of his body free. It was impossible to move so much as
\na centimetre in any direction. For the moment he had even forgotten the
\ndial. All he wanted was to hold the photograph in his fingers again, or at
\nleast to see it.<\/p>\n
‘It exists!’ he cried.<\/p>\n
‘No,’ said O’Brien.<\/p>\n
He stepped across the room. There was a memory hole in the opposite wall.
\nO’Brien lifted the grating. Unseen, the frail slip of paper was whirling
\naway on the current of warm air; it was vanishing in a flash of flame.
\nO’Brien turned away from the wall.<\/p>\n
‘Ashes,’ he said. ‘Not even identifiable ashes. Dust. It does not exist.
\nIt never existed.’<\/p>\n
‘But it did exist! It does exist! It exists in memory. I remember it.
\nYou remember it.’<\/p>\n
‘I do not remember it,’ said O’Brien.<\/p>\n
Winston’s heart sank. That was doublethink. He had a feeling of deadly
\nhelplessness. If he could have been certain that O’Brien was lying, it
\nwould not have seemed to matter. But it was perfectly possible that O’Brien
\nhad really forgotten the photograph. And if so, then already he would have
\nforgotten his denial of remembering it, and forgotten the act of
\nforgetting. How could one be sure that it was simple trickery? Perhaps
\nthat lunatic dislocation in the mind could really happen: that was the
\nthought that defeated him.<\/p>\n
O’Brien was looking down at him speculatively. More than ever he had the
\nair of a teacher taking pains with a wayward but promising child.<\/p>\n
‘There is a Party slogan dealing with the control of the past,’ he said.
\n‘Repeat it, if you please.’<\/p>\n
‘”Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present
\ncontrols the past,”‘ repeated Winston obediently.<\/p>\n
‘”Who controls the present controls the past,”‘ said O’Brien, nodding his
\nhead with slow approval. ‘Is it your opinion, Winston, that the past has
\nreal existence?’<\/p>\n
Again the feeling of helplessness descended upon Winston. His eyes flitted
\ntowards the dial. He not only did not know whether ‘yes’ or ‘no’ was the
\nanswer that would save him from pain; he did not even know which answer he
\nbelieved to be the true one.<\/p>\n
O’Brien smiled faintly. ‘You are no metaphysician, Winston,’ he said.
\n‘Until this moment you had never considered what is meant by existence. I
\nwill put it more precisely. Does the past exist concretely, in space? Is
\nthere somewhere or other a place, a world of solid objects, where the past
\nis still happening?’<\/p>\n
‘No.’<\/p>\n
‘Then where does the past exist, if at all?’<\/p>\n
‘In records. It is written down.’<\/p>\n
‘In records. And—-?’<\/p>\n
‘In the mind. In human memories.’<\/p>\n
‘In memory. Very well, then. We, the Party, control all records, and we
\ncontrol all memories. Then we control the past, do we not?’<\/p>\n
‘But how can you stop people remembering things?’ cried Winston again
\nmomentarily forgetting the dial. ‘It is involuntary. It is outside oneself.
\nHow can you control memory? You have not controlled mine!’<\/p>\n
O’Brien’s manner grew stern again. He laid his hand on the dial.<\/p>\n
‘On the contrary,’ he said, ‘YOU have not controlled it. That is what has
\nbrought you here. You are here because you have failed in humility, in
\nself-discipline. You would not make the act of submission which is the
\nprice of sanity. You preferred to be a lunatic, a minority of one. Only the
\ndisciplined mind can see reality, Winston. You believe that reality is
\nsomething objective, external, existing in its own right. You also believe
\nthat the nature of reality is self-evident. When you delude yourself into
\nthinking that you see something, you assume that everyone else sees the
\nsame thing as you. But I tell you, Winston, that reality is not external.
\nReality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. Not in the individual
\nmind, which can make mistakes, and in any case soon perishes: only in the
\nmind of the Party, which is collective and immortal. Whatever the Party
\nholds to be the truth, is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by
\nlooking through the eyes of the Party. That is the fact that you have got
\nto relearn, Winston. It needs an act of self-destruction, an effort of the
\nwill. You must humble yourself before you can become sane.’<\/p>\n
He paused for a few moments, as though to allow what he had been saying to
\nsink in.<\/p>\n
‘Do you remember,’ he went on, ‘writing in your diary, “Freedom is the
\nfreedom to say that two plus two make four”?’<\/p>\n
‘Yes,’ said Winston.<\/p>\n
O’Brien held up his left hand, its back towards Winston, with the thumb
\nhidden and the four fingers extended.<\/p>\n
‘How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?’<\/p>\n
‘Four.’<\/p>\n
‘And if the party says that it is not four but five–then how many?’<\/p>\n
‘Four.’<\/p>\n
The word ended in a gasp of pain. The needle of the dial had shot up to
\nfifty-five. The sweat had sprung out all over Winston’s body. The air tore
\ninto his lungs and issued again in deep groans which even by clenching his
\nteeth he could not stop. O’Brien watched him, the four fingers still
\nextended. He drew back the lever. This time the pain was only slightly
\neased.<\/p>\n
‘How many fingers, Winston?’<\/p>\n
‘Four.’<\/p>\n
The needle went up to sixty.<\/p>\n
‘How many fingers, Winston?’<\/p>\n
‘Four! Four! What else can I say? Four!’<\/p>\n
The needle must have risen again, but he did not look at it. The heavy,
\nstern face and the four fingers filled his vision. The fingers stood up
\nbefore his eyes like pillars, enormous, blurry, and seeming to vibrate,
\nbut unmistakably four.<\/p>\n
‘How many fingers, Winston?’<\/p>\n
‘Four! Stop it, stop it! How can you go on? Four! Four!’<\/p>\n
‘How many fingers, Winston?’<\/p>\n
‘Five! Five! Five!’<\/p>\n
‘No, Winston, that is no use. You are lying. You still think there are
\nfour. How many fingers, please?’<\/p>\n
‘Four! five! Four! Anything you like. Only stop it, stop the pain!’<\/p>\n
Abruptly he was sitting up with O’Brien’s arm round his shoulders. He had
\nperhaps lost consciousness for a few seconds. The bonds that had held his
\nbody down were loosened. He felt very cold, he was shaking uncontrollably,
\nhis teeth were chattering, the tears were rolling down his cheeks. For a
\nmoment he clung to O’Brien like a baby, curiously comforted by the heavy
\narm round his shoulders. He had the feeling that O’Brien was his protector,
\nthat the pain was something that came from outside, from some other source,
\nand that it was O’Brien who would save him from it.<\/p>\n
‘You are a slow learner, Winston,’ said O’Brien gently.<\/p>\n
‘How can I help it?’ he blubbered. ‘How can I help seeing what is in front
\nof my eyes? Two and two are four.’<\/p>\n
‘Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three.
\nSometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not
\neasy to become sane.’<\/p>\n
He laid Winston down on the bed. The grip of his limbs tightened again,
\nbut the pain had ebbed away and the trembling had stopped, leaving him
\nmerely weak and cold. O’Brien motioned with his head to the man in the
\nwhite coat, who had stood immobile throughout the proceedings. The man in
\nthe white coat bent down and looked closely into Winston’s eyes, felt his
\npulse, laid an ear against his chest, tapped here and there, then he
\nnodded to O’Brien.<\/p>\n
‘Again,’ said O’Brien.<\/p>\n
The pain flowed into Winston’s body. The needle must be at seventy,
\nseventy-five. He had shut his eyes this time. He knew that the fingers
\nwere still there, and still four. All that mattered was somehow to stay
\nalive until the spasm was over. He had ceased to notice whether he was
\ncrying out or not. The pain lessened again. He opened his eyes. O’Brien
\nhad drawn back the lever.<\/p>\n
‘How many fingers, Winston?’<\/p>\n
‘Four. I suppose there are four. I would see five if I could. I am trying
\nto see five.’<\/p>\n
‘Which do you wish: to persuade me that you see five, or really to see
\nthem?’<\/p>\n
‘Really to see them.’<\/p>\n
‘Again,’ said O’Brien.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the needle was eighty–ninety. Winston could not intermittently
\nremember why the pain was happening. Behind his screwed-up eyelids a
\nforest of fingers seemed to be moving in a sort of dance, weaving in and
\nout, disappearing behind one another and reappearing again. He was trying
\nto count them, he could not remember why. He knew only that it was
\nimpossible to count them, and that this was somehow due to the mysterious
\nidentity between five and four. The pain died down again. When he opened
\nhis eyes it was to find that he was still seeing the same thing.
\nInnumerable fingers, like moving trees, were still streaming past in
\neither direction, crossing and recrossing. He shut his eyes again.<\/p>\n
‘How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?’<\/p>\n
‘I don’t know. I don’t know. You will kill me if you do that again. Four,
\nfive, six–in all honesty I don’t know.’<\/p>\n
‘Better,’ said O’Brien.<\/p>\n
A needle slid into Winston’s arm. Almost in the same instant a blissful,
\nhealing warmth spread all through his body. The pain was already
\nhalf-forgotten. He opened his eyes and looked up gratefully at O’Brien.
\nAt sight of the heavy, lined face, so ugly and so intelligent, his heart
\nseemed to turn over. If he could have moved he would have stretched out
\na hand and laid it on O’Brien’s arm. He had never loved him so deeply as
\nat this moment, and not merely because he had stopped the pain. The old
\nfeeling, that at bottom it did not matter whether O’Brien was a friend
\nor an enemy, had come back. O’Brien was a person who could be talked to.
\nPerhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood. O’Brien
\nhad tortured him to the edge of lunacy, and in a little while, it was
\ncertain, he would send him to his death. It made no difference. In some
\nsense that went deeper than friendship, they were intimates: somewhere or
\nother, although the actual words might never be spoken, there was a place
\nwhere they could meet and talk. O’Brien was looking down at him with an
\nexpression which suggested that the same thought might be in his own mind.
\nWhen he spoke it was in an easy, conversational tone.<\/p>\n
‘Do you know where you are, Winston?’ he said.<\/p>\n
‘I don’t know. I can guess. In the Ministry of Love.’<\/p>\n
‘Do you know how long you have been here?’<\/p>\n
‘I don’t know. Days, weeks, months–I think it is months.’<\/p>\n
‘And why do you imagine that we bring people to this place?’<\/p>\n
‘To make them confess.’<\/p>\n
‘No, that is not the reason. Try again.’<\/p>\n
‘To punish them.’<\/p>\n
‘No!’ exclaimed O’Brien. His voice had changed extraordinarily, and his
\nface had suddenly become both stern and animated. ‘No! Not merely to
\nextract your confession, not to punish you. Shall I tell you why we have
\nbrought you here? To cure you! To make you sane! Will you understand,
\nWinston, that no one whom we bring to this place ever leaves our hands
\nuncured? We are not interested in those stupid crimes that you have
\ncommitted. The Party is not interested in the overt act: the thought is
\nall we care about. We do not merely destroy our enemies, we change them.
\nDo you understand what I mean by that?’<\/p>\n
He was bending over Winston. His face looked enormous because of its
\nnearness, and hideously ugly because it was seen from below. Moreover it
\nwas filled with a sort of exaltation, a lunatic intensity. Again Winston’s
\nheart shrank. If it had been possible he would have cowered deeper into
\nthe bed. He felt certain that O’Brien was about to twist the dial out of
\nsheer wantonness. At this moment, however, O’Brien turned away. He took a
\npace or two up and down. Then he continued less vehemently:<\/p>\n
‘The first thing for you to understand is that in this place there are no
\nmartyrdoms. You have read of the religious persecutions of the past. In
\nthe Middle Ages there was the Inquisition. It was a failure. It set out
\nto eradicate heresy, and ended by perpetuating it. For every heretic it
\nburned at the stake, thousands of others rose up. Why was that? Because
\nthe Inquisition killed its enemies in the open, and killed them while
\nthey were still unrepentant: in fact, it killed them because they were
\nunrepentant. Men were dying because they would not abandon their true
\nbeliefs. Naturally all the glory belonged to the victim and all the shame
\nto the Inquisitor who burned him. Later, in the twentieth century, there
\nwere the totalitarians, as they were called. There were the German Nazis
\nand the Russian Communists. The Russians persecuted heresy more cruelly
\nthan the Inquisition had done. And they imagined that they had learned
\nfrom the mistakes of the past; they knew, at any rate, that one must not
\nmake martyrs. Before they exposed their victims to public trial, they
\ndeliberately set themselves to destroy their dignity. They wore them down
\nby torture and solitude until they were despicable, cringing wretches,
\nconfessing whatever was put into their mouths, covering themselves with
\nabuse, accusing and sheltering behind one another, whimpering for mercy.
\nAnd yet after only a few years the same thing had happened over again.
\nThe dead men had become martyrs and their degradation was forgotten. Once
\nagain, why was it? In the first place, because the confessions that they
\nhad made were obviously extorted and untrue. We do not make mistakes of
\nthat kind. All the confessions that are uttered here are true. We make
\nthem true. And above all we do not allow the dead to rise up against us.
\nYou must stop imagining that posterity will vindicate you, Winston.
\nPosterity will never hear of you. You will be lifted clean out from the
\nstream of history. We shall turn you into gas and pour you into the
\nstratosphere. Nothing will remain of you, not a name in a register, not
\na memory in a living brain. You will be annihilated in the past as well
\nas in the future. You will never have existed.’<\/p>\n
Then why bother to torture me? thought Winston, with a momentary
\nbitterness. O’Brien checked his step as though Winston had uttered the
\nthought aloud. His large ugly face came nearer, with the eyes a little
\nnarrowed.<\/p>\n
‘You are thinking,’ he said, ‘that since we intend to destroy you utterly,
\nso that nothing that you say or do can make the smallest difference–in
\nthat case, why do we go to the trouble of interrogating you first? That is
\nwhat you were thinking, was it not?’<\/p>\n
‘Yes,’ said Winston.<\/p>\n
O’Brien smiled slightly. ‘You are a flaw in the pattern, Winston. You are
\na stain that must be wiped out. Did I not tell you just now that we are
\ndifferent from the persecutors of the past? We are not content with
\nnegative obedience, nor even with the most abject submission. When finally
\nyou surrender to us, it must be of your own free will. We do not destroy
\nthe heretic because he resists us: so long as he resists us we never
\ndestroy him. We convert him, we capture his inner mind, we reshape him.
\nWe burn all evil and all illusion out of him; we bring him over to our
\nside, not in appearance, but genuinely, heart and soul. We make him one of
\nourselves before we kill him. It is intolerable to us that an erroneous
\nthought should exist anywhere in the world, however secret and powerless
\nit may be. Even in the instant of death we cannot permit any deviation. In
\nthe old days the heretic walked to the stake still a heretic, proclaiming
\nhis heresy, exulting in it. Even the victim of the Russian purges could
\ncarry rebellion locked up in his skull as he walked down the passage
\nwaiting for the bullet. But we make the brain perfect before we blow it
\nout. The command of the old despotisms was “Thou shalt not”. The command
\nof the totalitarians was “Thou shalt”. Our command is “THOU ART”. No one
\nwhom we bring to this place ever stands out against us. Everyone is washed
\nclean. Even those three miserable traitors in whose innocence you once
\nbelieved–Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford–in the end we broke them down.
\nI took part in their interrogation myself. I saw them gradually worn down,
\nwhimpering, grovelling, weeping–and in the end it was not with pain or
\nfear, only with penitence. By the time we had finished with them they were
\nonly the shells of men. There was nothing left in them except sorrow for
\nwhat they had done, and love of Big Brother. It was touching to see
\nhow they loved him. They begged to be shot quickly, so that they could die
\nwhile their minds were still clean.’<\/p>\n
His voice had grown almost dreamy. The exaltation, the lunatic enthusiasm,
\nwas still in his face. He is not pretending, thought Winston, he is not a
\nhypocrite, he believes every word he says. What most oppressed him was the
\nconsciousness of his own intellectual inferiority. He watched the heavy
\nyet graceful form strolling to and fro, in and out of the range of his
\nvision. O’Brien was a being in all ways larger than himself. There was no
\nidea that he had ever had, or could have, that O’Brien had not long ago
\nknown, examined, and rejected. His mind CONTAINED Winston’s mind. But
\nin that case how could it be true that O’Brien was mad? It must be he,
\nWinston, who was mad. O’Brien halted and looked down at him. His voice had
\ngrown stern again.<\/p>\n
‘Do not imagine that you will save yourself, Winston, however completely
\nyou surrender to us. No one who has once gone astray is ever spared. And
\neven if we chose to let you live out the natural term of your life, still
\nyou would never escape from us. What happens to you here is for ever.
\nUnderstand that in advance. We shall crush you down to the point from
\nwhich there is no coming back. Things will happen to you from which you
\ncould not recover, if you lived a thousand years. Never again will you be
\ncapable of ordinary human feeling. Everything will be dead inside you.
\nNever again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living,
\nor laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be hollow.
\nWe shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves.’<\/p>\n
He paused and signed to the man in the white coat. Winston was aware of
\nsome heavy piece of apparatus being pushed into place behind his head.
\nO’Brien had sat down beside the bed, so that his face was almost on a
\nlevel with Winston’s.<\/p>\n
‘Three thousand,’ he said, speaking over Winston’s head to the man in the
\nwhite coat.<\/p>\n
Two soft pads, which felt slightly moist, clamped themselves against
\nWinston’s temples. He quailed. There was pain coming, a new kind of pain.
\nO’Brien laid a hand reassuringly, almost kindly, on his.<\/p>\n
‘This time it will not hurt,’ he said. ‘Keep your eyes fixed on mine.’<\/p>\n
At this moment there was a devastating explosion, or what seemed like an
\nexplosion, though it was not certain whether there was any noise. There
\nwas undoubtedly a blinding flash of light. Winston was not hurt, only
\nprostrated. Although he had already been lying on his back when the thing
\nhappened, he had a curious feeling that he had been knocked into that
\nposition. A terrific painless blow had flattened him out. Also something
\nhad happened inside his head. As his eyes regained their focus he
\nremembered who he was, and where he was, and recognized the face that was
\ngazing into his own; but somewhere or other there was a large patch of
\nemptiness, as though a piece had been taken out of his brain.<\/p>\n
‘It will not last,’ said O’Brien. ‘Look me in the eyes. What country is
\nOceania at war with?’<\/p>\n
Winston thought. He knew what was meant by Oceania and that he himself was
\na citizen of Oceania. He also remembered Eurasia and Eastasia; but who was
\nat war with whom he did not know. In fact he had not been aware that there
\nwas any war.<\/p>\n
‘I don’t remember.’<\/p>\n
‘Oceania is at war with Eastasia. Do you remember that now?’<\/p>\n
‘Yes.’<\/p>\n
‘Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia. Since the beginning of your
\nlife, since the beginning of the Party, since the beginning of history,
\nthe war has continued without a break, always the same war. Do you
\nremember that?’<\/p>\n
‘Yes.’<\/p>\n
‘Eleven years ago you created a legend about three men who had been
\ncondemned to death for treachery. You pretended that you had seen a piece
\nof paper which proved them innocent. No such piece of paper ever existed.
\nYou invented it, and later you grew to believe in it. You remember now the
\nvery moment at which you first invented it. Do you remember that?’<\/p>\n
‘Yes.’<\/p>\n
‘Just now I held up the fingers of my hand to you. You saw five fingers.
\nDo you remember that?’<\/p>\n
‘Yes.’<\/p>\n
O’Brien held up the fingers of his left hand, with the thumb concealed.<\/p>\n
‘There are five fingers there. Do you see five fingers?’<\/p>\n
‘Yes.’<\/p>\n
And he did see them, for a fleeting instant, before the scenery of his
\nmind changed. He saw five fingers, and there was no deformity. Then
\neverything was normal again, and the old fear, the hatred, and the
\nbewilderment came crowding back again. But there had been a moment–he did
\nnot know how long, thirty seconds, perhaps–of luminous certainty, when
\neach new suggestion of O’Brien’s had filled up a patch of emptiness and
\nbecome absolute truth, and when two and two could have been three as
\neasily as five, if that were what was needed. It had faded but before
\nO’Brien had dropped his hand; but though he could not recapture it, he
\ncould remember it, as one remembers a vivid experience at some period of
\none’s life when one was in effect a different person.<\/p>\n
‘You see now,’ said O’Brien, ‘that it is at any rate possible.’<\/p>\n
‘Yes,’ said Winston.<\/p>\n
O’Brien stood up with a satisfied air. Over to his left Winston saw the
\nman in the white coat break an ampoule and draw back the plunger of a
\nsyringe. O’Brien turned to Winston with a smile. In almost the old manner
\nhe resettled his spectacles on his nose.<\/p>\n
‘Do you remember writing in your diary,’ he said, ‘that it did not matter
\nwhether I was a friend or an enemy, since I was at least a person who
\nunderstood you and could be talked to? You were right. I enjoy talking to
\nyou. Your mind appeals to me. It resembles my own mind except that you
\nhappen to be insane. Before we bring the session to an end you can ask me
\na few questions, if you choose.’<\/p>\n
‘Any question I like?’<\/p>\n
‘Anything.’ He saw that Winston’s eyes were upon the dial. ‘It is switched
\noff. What is your first question?’<\/p>\n
‘What have you done with Julia?’ said Winston.<\/p>\n
O’Brien smiled again. ‘She betrayed you, Winston. Immediately–unreservedly.
\nI have seldom seen anyone come over to us so promptly. You would hardly
\nrecognize her if you saw her. All her rebelliousness, her deceit, her
\nfolly, her dirty-mindedness–everything has been burned out of her. It was
\na perfect conversion, a textbook case.’<\/p>\n
‘You tortured her?’<\/p>\n
O’Brien left this unanswered. ‘Next question,’ he said.<\/p>\n
‘Does Big Brother exist?’<\/p>\n
‘Of course he exists. The Party exists. Big Brother is the embodiment of
\nthe Party.’<\/p>\n
‘Does he exist in the same way as I exist?’<\/p>\n
‘You do not exist,’ said O’Brien.<\/p>\n
Once again the sense of helplessness assailed him. He knew, or he could
\nimagine, the arguments which proved his own nonexistence; but they were
\nnonsense, they were only a play on words. Did not the statement, ‘You do
\nnot exist’, contain a logical absurdity? But what use was it to say so?
\nHis mind shrivelled as he thought of the unanswerable, mad arguments with
\nwhich O’Brien would demolish him.<\/p>\n
‘I think I exist,’ he said wearily. ‘I am conscious of my own identity.
\nI was born and I shall die. I have arms and legs. I occupy a particular
\npoint in space. No other solid object can occupy the same point
\nsimultaneously. In that sense, does Big Brother exist?’<\/p>\n
‘It is of no importance. He exists.’<\/p>\n
‘Will Big Brother ever die?’<\/p>\n
‘Of course not. How could he die? Next question.’<\/p>\n
‘Does the Brotherhood exist?’<\/p>\n
‘That, Winston, you will never know. If we choose to set you free when we
\nhave finished with you, and if you live to be ninety years old, still you
\nwill never learn whether the answer to that question is Yes or No. As long
\nas you live it will be an unsolved riddle in your mind.’<\/p>\n
Winston lay silent. His breast rose and fell a little faster. He still had
\nnot asked the question that had come into his mind the first. He had got
\nto ask it, and yet it was as though his tongue would not utter it. There
\nwas a trace of amusement in O’Brien’s face. Even his spectacles seemed to
\nwear an ironical gleam. He knows, thought Winston suddenly, he knows what
\nI am going to ask! At the thought the words burst out of him:<\/p>\n
‘What is in Room 101?’<\/p>\n
The expression on O’Brien’s face did not change. He answered drily:<\/p>\n
‘You know what is in Room 101, Winston. Everyone knows what is in
\nRoom 101.’<\/p>\n
He raised a finger to the man in the white coat. Evidently the session was
\nat an end. A needle jerked into Winston’s arm. He sank almost instantly
\ninto deep sleep.<\/p>\n
Chapter 3<\/p>\n
‘There are three stages in your reintegration,’ said O’Brien. ‘There is
\nlearning, there is understanding, and there is acceptance. It is time for
\nyou to enter upon the second stage.’<\/p>\n
As always, Winston was lying flat on his back. But of late his bonds were
\nlooser. They still held him to the bed, but he could move his knees a
\nlittle and could turn his head from side to side and raise his arms from
\nthe elbow. The dial, also, had grown to be less of a terror. He could
\nevade its pangs if he was quick-witted enough: it was chiefly when he
\nshowed stupidity that O’Brien pulled the lever. Sometimes they got through
\na whole session without use of the dial. He could not remember how many
\nsessions there had been. The whole process seemed to stretch out over a
\nlong, indefinite time–weeks, possibly–and the intervals between the
\nsessions might sometimes have been days, sometimes only an hour or two.<\/p>\n
‘As you lie there,’ said O’Brien, ‘you have often wondered–you have even
\nasked me–why the Ministry of Love should expend so much time and trouble
\non you. And when you were free you were puzzled by what was essentially
\nthe same question. You could grasp the mechanics of the Society you lived
\nin, but not its underlying motives. Do you remember writing in your diary,
\n“I understand HOW: I do not understand WHY”? It was when you thought about
\n“why” that you doubted your own sanity. You have read THE BOOK,
\nGoldstein’s book, or parts of it, at least. Did it tell you anything that
\nyou did not know already?’<\/p>\n
‘You have read it?’ said Winston.<\/p>\n
‘I wrote it. That is to say, I collaborated in writing it. No book is
\nproduced individually, as you know.’<\/p>\n
‘Is it true, what it says?’<\/p>\n
‘As description, yes. The programme it sets forth is nonsense. The secret
\naccumulation of knowledge–a gradual spread of enlightenment–ultimately
\na proletarian rebellion–the overthrow of the Party. You foresaw yourself
\nthat that was what it would say. It is all nonsense. The proletarians will
\nnever revolt, not in a thousand years or a million. They cannot. I do
\nnot have to tell you the reason: you know it already. If you have ever
\ncherished any dreams of violent insurrection, you must abandon them. There
\nis no way in which the Party can be overthrown. The rule of the Party is
\nfor ever. Make that the starting-point of your thoughts.’<\/p>\n
He came closer to the bed. ‘For ever!’ he repeated. ‘And now let us get
\nback to the question of “how” and “why”. You understand well enough HOW
\nthe Party maintains itself in power. Now tell me WHY we cling to power.
\nWhat is our motive? Why should we want power? Go on, speak,’ he added as
\nWinston remained silent.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless Winston did not speak for another moment or two. A feeling of
\nweariness had overwhelmed him. The faint, mad gleam of enthusiasm had come
\nback into O’Brien’s face. He knew in advance what O’Brien would say. That
\nthe Party did not seek power for its own ends, but only for the good of
\nthe majority. That it sought power because men in the mass were frail,
\ncowardly creatures who could not endure liberty or face the truth, and
\nmust be ruled over and systematically deceived by others who were stronger
\nthan themselves. That the choice for mankind lay between freedom and
\nhappiness, and that, for the great bulk of mankind, happiness was better.
\nThat the party was the eternal guardian of the weak, a dedicated sect
\ndoing evil that good might come, sacrificing its own happiness to that of
\nothers. The terrible thing, thought Winston, the terrible thing was that
\nwhen O’Brien said this he would believe it. You could see it in his face.
\nO’Brien knew everything. A thousand times better than Winston he knew what
\nthe world was really like, in what degradation the mass of human beings
\nlived and by what lies and barbarities the Party kept them there. He had
\nunderstood it all, weighed it all, and it made no difference: all was
\njustified by the ultimate purpose. What can you do, thought Winston,
\nagainst the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your
\narguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy?<\/p>\n
‘You are ruling over us for our own good,’ he said feebly. ‘You believe
\nthat human beings are not fit to govern themselves, and therefore—-‘<\/p>\n
He started and almost cried out. A pang of pain had shot through his body.
\nO’Brien had pushed the lever of the dial up to thirty-five.<\/p>\n
‘That was stupid, Winston, stupid!’ he said. ‘You should know better than
\nto say a thing like that.’<\/p>\n
He pulled the lever back and continued:<\/p>\n
‘Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party
\nseeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good
\nof others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long
\nlife or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will
\nunderstand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the
\npast, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who
\nresembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the
\nRussian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never
\nhad the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps
\nthey even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a
\nlimited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where
\nhuman beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that
\nno one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is
\nnot a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order
\nto safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish
\nthe dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of
\ntorture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to
\nunderstand me?’<\/p>\n
Winston was struck, as he had been struck before, by the tiredness of
\nO’Brien’s face. It was strong and fleshy and brutal, it was full of
\nintelligence and a sort of controlled passion before which he felt himself
\nhelpless; but it was tired. There were pouches under the eyes, the skin
\nsagged from the cheekbones. O’Brien leaned over him, deliberately bringing
\nthe worn face nearer.<\/p>\n
‘You are thinking,’ he said, ‘that my face is old and tired. You are
\nthinking that I talk of power, and yet I am not even able to prevent the
\ndecay of my own body. Can you not understand, Winston, that the individual
\nis only a cell? The weariness of the cell is the vigour of the organism.
\nDo you die when you cut your fingernails?’<\/p>\n
He turned away from the bed and began strolling up and down again, one hand
\nin his pocket.<\/p>\n
‘We are the priests of power,’ he said. ‘God is power. But at present
\npower is only a word so far as you are concerned. It is time for you to
\ngather some idea of what power means. The first thing you must realize
\nis that power is collective. The individual only has power in so far as
\nhe ceases to be an individual. You know the Party slogan: “Freedom is
\nSlavery”. Has it ever occurred to you that it is reversible? Slavery is
\nfreedom. Alone–free–the human being is always defeated. It must be so,
\nbecause every human being is doomed to die, which is the greatest of all
\nfailures. But if he can make complete, utter submission, if he can escape
\nfrom his identity, if he can merge himself in the Party so that he IS the
\nParty, then he is all-powerful and immortal. The second thing for you to
\nrealize is that power is power over human beings. Over the body–but, above
\nall, over the mind. Power over matter–external reality, as you would call
\nit–is not important. Already our control over matter is absolute.’<\/p>\n
For a moment Winston ignored the dial. He made a violent effort to raise
\nhimself into a sitting position, and merely succeeded in wrenching his
\nbody painfully.<\/p>\n
‘But how can you control matter?’ he burst out. ‘You don’t even control
\nthe climate or the law of gravity. And there are disease, pain, death—-‘<\/p>\n
O’Brien silenced him by a movement of his hand. ‘We control matter because
\nwe control the mind. Reality is inside the skull. You will learn by
\ndegrees, Winston. There is nothing that we could not do. Invisibility,
\nlevitation–anything. I could float off this floor like a soap bubble if
\nI wish to. I do not wish to, because the Party does not wish it. You must
\nget rid of those nineteenth-century ideas about the laws of Nature. We
\nmake the laws of Nature.’<\/p>\n
‘But you do not! You are not even masters of this planet. What about
\nEurasia and Eastasia? You have not conquered them yet.’<\/p>\n
‘Unimportant. We shall conquer them when it suits us. And if we did not,
\nwhat difference would it make? We can shut them out of existence. Oceania
\nis the world.’<\/p>\n
‘But the world itself is only a speck of dust. And man is tiny–helpless!
\nHow long has he been in existence? For millions of years the earth was
\nuninhabited.’<\/p>\n
‘Nonsense. The earth is as old as we are, no older. How could it be older?
\nNothing exists except through human consciousness.’<\/p>\n
‘But the rocks are full of the bones of extinct animals–mammoths and
\nmastodons and enormous reptiles which lived here long before man was ever
\nheard of.’<\/p>\n
‘Have you ever seen those bones, Winston? Of course not. Nineteenth-century
\nbiologists invented them. Before man there was nothing. After man, if he
\ncould come to an end, there would be nothing. Outside man there is
\nnothing.’<\/p>\n
‘But the whole universe is outside us. Look at the stars! Some of them are
\na million light-years away. They are out of our reach for ever.’<\/p>\n
‘What are the stars?’ said O’Brien indifferently. ‘They are bits of fire
\na few kilometres away. We could reach them if we wanted to. Or we could
\nblot them out. The earth is the centre of the universe. The sun and the
\nstars go round it.’<\/p>\n
Winston made another convulsive movement. This time he did not say
\nanything. O’Brien continued as though answering a spoken objection:<\/p>\n
‘For certain purposes, of course, that is not true. When we navigate the
\nocean, or when we predict an eclipse, we often find it convenient to
\nassume that the earth goes round the sun and that the stars are millions
\nupon millions of kilometres away. But what of it? Do you suppose it is
\nbeyond us to produce a dual system of astronomy? The stars can be near
\nor distant, according as we need them. Do you suppose our mathematicians
\nare unequal to that? Have you forgotten doublethink?’<\/p>\n
Winston shrank back upon the bed. Whatever he said, the swift answer
\ncrushed him like a bludgeon. And yet he knew, he KNEW, that he was in the
\nright. The belief that nothing exists outside your own mind–surely there
\nmust be some way of demonstrating that it was false? Had it not been
\nexposed long ago as a fallacy? There was even a name for it, which he
\nhad forgotten. A faint smile twitched the corners of O’Brien’s mouth as
\nhe looked down at him.<\/p>\n
‘I told you, Winston,’ he said, ‘that metaphysics is not your strong
\npoint. The word you are trying to think of is solipsism. But you are
\nmistaken. This is not solipsism. Collective solipsism, if you like. But
\nthat is a different thing: in fact, the opposite thing. All this is a
\ndigression,’ he added in a different tone. ‘The real power, the power we
\nhave to fight for night and day, is not power over things, but over men.’
\nHe paused, and for a moment assumed again his air of a schoolmaster
\nquestioning a promising pupil: ‘How does one man assert his power over
\nanother, Winston?’<\/p>\n
Winston thought. ‘By making him suffer,’ he said.<\/p>\n
‘Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is
\nsuffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his
\nown? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing
\nhuman minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of
\nyour own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are
\ncreating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that
\nthe old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a
\nworld of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not
\nless but MORE merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will
\nbe progress towards more pain. The old civilizations claimed that they
\nwere founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world
\nthere will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement.
\nEverything else we shall destroy–everything. Already we are breaking down
\nthe habits of thought which have survived from before the Revolution. We
\nhave cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and
\nbetween man and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend
\nany longer. But in the future there will be no wives and no friends.
\nChildren will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from
\na hen. The sex instinct will be eradicated. Procreation will be an annual
\nformality like the renewal of a ration card. We shall abolish the orgasm.
\nOur neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except
\nloyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of
\nBig Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over
\na defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When
\nwe are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science. There will be
\nno distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity,
\nno enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be
\ndestroyed. But always–do not forget this, Winston–always there will be
\nthe intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing
\nsubtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory,
\nthe sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a
\npicture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face–for ever.’<\/p>\n
He paused as though he expected Winston to speak. Winston had tried to
\nshrink back into the surface of the bed again. He could not say anything.
\nHis heart seemed to be frozen. O’Brien went on:<\/p>\n
‘And remember that it is for ever. The face will always be there to be
\nstamped upon. The heretic, the enemy of society, will always be there, so
\nthat he can be defeated and humiliated over again. Everything that you
\nhave undergone since you have been in our hands–all that will continue,
\nand worse. The espionage, the betrayals, the arrests, the tortures, the
\nexecutions, the disappearances will never cease. It will be a world of
\nterror as much as a world of triumph. The more the Party is powerful, the
\nless it will be tolerant: the weaker the opposition, the tighter the
\ndespotism. Goldstein and his heresies will live for ever. Every day, at
\nevery moment, they will be defeated, discredited, ridiculed, spat upon and
\nyet they will always survive. This drama that I have played out with you
\nduring seven years will be played out over and over again generation after
\ngeneration, always in subtler forms. Always we shall have the heretic here
\nat our mercy, screaming with pain, broken up, contemptible–and in the end
\nutterly penitent, saved from himself, crawling to our feet of his own
\naccord. That is the world that we are preparing, Winston. A world of
\nvictory after victory, triumph after triumph after triumph: an endless
\npressing, pressing, pressing upon the nerve of power. You are beginning,
\nI can see, to realize what that world will be like. But in the end you
\nwill do more than understand it. You will accept it, welcome it, become
\npart of it.’<\/p>\n
Winston had recovered himself sufficiently to speak. ‘You can’t!’ he said
\nweakly.<\/p>\n
‘What do you mean by that remark, Winston?’<\/p>\n
‘You could not create such a world as you have just described. It is a
\ndream. It is impossible.’<\/p>\n
‘Why?’<\/p>\n
‘It is impossible to found a civilization on fear and hatred and cruelty.
\nIt would never endure.’<\/p>\n
‘Why not?’<\/p>\n
‘It would have no vitality. It would disintegrate. It would commit
\nsuicide.’<\/p>\n
‘Nonsense. You are under the impression that hatred is more exhausting
\nthan love. Why should it be? And if it were, what difference would that
\nmake? Suppose that we choose to wear ourselves out faster. Suppose that we
\nquicken the tempo of human life till men are senile at thirty. Still what
\ndifference would it make? Can you not understand that the death of the
\nindividual is not death? The party is immortal.’<\/p>\n
As usual, the voice had battered Winston into helplessness. Moreover he
\nwas in dread that if he persisted in his disagreement O’Brien would twist
\nthe dial again. And yet he could not keep silent. Feebly, without
\narguments, with nothing to support him except his inarticulate horror of
\nwhat O’Brien had said, he returned to the attack.<\/p>\n
‘I don’t know–I don’t care. Somehow you will fail. Something will defeat
\nyou. Life will defeat you.’<\/p>\n
‘We control life, Winston, at all its levels. You are imagining that there
\nis something called human nature which will be outraged by what we do and
\nwill turn against us. But we create human nature. Men are infinitely
\nmalleable. Or perhaps you have returned to your old idea that the
\nproletarians or the slaves will arise and overthrow us. Put it out of your
\nmind. They are helpless, like the animals. Humanity is the Party. The
\nothers are outside–irrelevant.’<\/p>\n
‘I don’t care. In the end they will beat you. Sooner or later they will
\nsee you for what you are, and then they will tear you to pieces.’<\/p>\n
‘Do you see any evidence that that is happening? Or any reason why it
\nshould?’<\/p>\n
‘No. I believe it. I KNOW that you will fail. There is something in the
\nuniverse–I don’t know, some spirit, some principle–that you will never
\novercome.’<\/p>\n
‘Do you believe in God, Winston?’<\/p>\n
‘No.’<\/p>\n
‘Then what is it, this principle that will defeat us?’<\/p>\n
‘I don’t know. The spirit of Man.’<\/p>\n
‘And do you consider yourself a man?’<\/p>\n
‘Yes.’<\/p>\n
‘If you are a man, Winston, you are the last man. Your kind is extinct; we
\nare the inheritors. Do you understand that you are ALONE? You are outside
\nhistory, you are non-existent.’ His manner changed and he said more
\nharshly: ‘And you consider yourself morally superior to us, with our lies
\nand our cruelty?’<\/p>\n
‘Yes, I consider myself superior.’<\/p>\n
O’Brien did not speak. Two other voices were speaking. After a moment
\nWinston recognized one of them as his own. It was a sound-track of the
\nconversation he had had with O’Brien, on the night when he had enrolled
\nhimself in the Brotherhood. He heard himself promising to lie, to steal,
\nto forge, to murder, to encourage drug-taking and prostitution, to
\ndisseminate venereal diseases, to throw vitriol in a child’s face. O’Brien
\nmade a small impatient gesture, as though to say that the demonstration
\nwas hardly worth making. Then he turned a switch and the voices stopped.<\/p>\n
‘Get up from that bed,’ he said.<\/p>\n
The bonds had loosened themselves. Winston lowered himself to the floor
\nand stood up unsteadily.<\/p>\n
‘You are the last man,’ said O’Brien. ‘You are the guardian of the human
\nspirit. You shall see yourself as you are. Take off your clothes.’<\/p>\n
Winston undid the bit of string that held his overalls together. The zip
\nfastener had long since been wrenched out of them. He could not remember
\nwhether at any time since his arrest he had taken off all his clothes at
\none time. Beneath the overalls his body was looped with filthy yellowish
\nrags, just recognizable as the remnants of underclothes. As he slid
\nthem to the ground he saw that there was a three-sided mirror at the far
\nend of the room. He approached it, then stopped short. An involuntary cry
\nhad broken out of him.<\/p>\n
‘Go on,’ said O’Brien. ‘Stand between the wings of the mirror. You shall
\nsee the side view as well.’<\/p>\n
He had stopped because he was frightened. A bowed, grey-coloured,
\nskeleton-like thing was coming towards him. Its actual appearance was
\nfrightening, and not merely the fact that he knew it to be himself. He
\nmoved closer to the glass. The creature’s face seemed to be protruded,
\nbecause of its bent carriage. A forlorn, jailbird’s face with a nobby
\nforehead running back into a bald scalp, a crooked nose, and
\nbattered-looking cheekbones above which his eyes were fierce and watchful.
\nThe cheeks were seamed, the mouth had a drawn-in look. Certainly it was
\nhis own face, but it seemed to him that it had changed more than he had
\nchanged inside. The emotions it registered would be different from the
\nones he felt. He had gone partially bald. For the first moment he had
\nthought that he had gone grey as well, but it was only the scalp that was
\ngrey. Except for his hands and a circle of his face, his body was grey all
\nover with ancient, ingrained dirt. Here and there under the dirt there
\nwere the red scars of wounds, and near the ankle the varicose ulcer was an
\ninflamed mass with flakes of skin peeling off it. But the truly frightening
\nthing was the emaciation of his body. The barrel of the ribs was as narrow
\nas that of a skeleton: the legs had shrunk so that the knees were thicker
\nthan the thighs. He saw now what O’Brien had meant about seeing the side
\nview. The curvature of the spine was astonishing. The thin shoulders were
\nhunched forward so as to make a cavity of the chest, the scraggy neck
\nseemed to be bending double under the weight of the skull. At a guess he
\nwould have said that it was the body of a man of sixty, suffering from
\nsome malignant disease.<\/p>\n
‘You have thought sometimes,’ said O’Brien, ‘that my face–the face of a
\nmember of the Inner Party–looks old and worn. What do you think of your
\nown face?’<\/p>\n
He seized Winston’s shoulder and spun him round so that he was facing him.<\/p>\n
‘Look at the condition you are in!’ he said. ‘Look at this filthy grime
\nall over your body. Look at the dirt between your toes. Look at that
\ndisgusting running sore on your leg. Do you know that you stink like a
\ngoat? Probably you have ceased to notice it. Look at your emaciation. Do
\nyou see? I can make my thumb and forefinger meet round your bicep. I could
\nsnap your neck like a carrot. Do you know that you have lost twenty-five
\nkilograms since you have been in our hands? Even your hair is coming out
\nin handfuls. Look!’ He plucked at Winston’s head and brought away a tuft
\nof hair. ‘Open your mouth. Nine, ten, eleven teeth left. How many had you
\nwhen you came to us? And the few you have left are dropping out of your
\nhead. Look here!’<\/p>\n
He seized one of Winston’s remaining front teeth between his powerful
\nthumb and forefinger. A twinge of pain shot through Winston’s jaw. O’Brien
\nhad wrenched the loose tooth out by the roots. He tossed it across the
\ncell.<\/p>\n
‘You are rotting away,’ he said; ‘you are falling to pieces. What are you?
\nA bag of filth. Now turn around and look into that mirror again. Do you
\nsee that thing facing you? That is the last man. If you are human, that is
\nhumanity. Now put your clothes on again.’<\/p>\n
Winston began to dress himself with slow stiff movements. Until now he had
\nnot seemed to notice how thin and weak he was. Only one thought stirred in
\nhis mind: that he must have been in this place longer than he had imagined.
\nThen suddenly as he fixed the miserable rags round himself a feeling of
\npity for his ruined body overcame him. Before he knew what he was doing
\nhe had collapsed on to a small stool that stood beside the bed and burst
\ninto tears. He was aware of his ugliness, his gracelessness, a bundle of
\nbones in filthy underclothes sitting weeping in the harsh white light: but
\nhe could not stop himself. O’Brien laid a hand on his shoulder, almost
\nkindly.<\/p>\n
‘It will not last for ever,’ he said. ‘You can escape from it whenever you
\nchoose. Everything depends on yourself.’<\/p>\n
‘You did it!’ sobbed Winston. ‘You reduced me to this state.’<\/p>\n
‘No, Winston, you reduced yourself to it. This is what you accepted when
\nyou set yourself up against the Party. It was all contained in that first
\nact. Nothing has happened that you did not foresee.’<\/p>\n
He paused, and then went on:<\/p>\n
‘We have beaten you, Winston. We have broken you up. You have seen what
\nyour body is like. Your mind is in the same state. I do not think there
\ncan be much pride left in you. You have been kicked and flogged and
\ninsulted, you have screamed with pain, you have rolled on the floor in
\nyour own blood and vomit. You have whimpered for mercy, you have betrayed
\neverybody and everything. Can you think of a single degradation that has
\nnot happened to you?’<\/p>\n
Winston had stopped weeping, though the tears were still oozing out of his
\neyes. He looked up at O’Brien.<\/p>\n
‘I have not betrayed Julia,’ he said.<\/p>\n
O’Brien looked down at him thoughtfully. ‘No,’ he said; ‘no; that is
\nperfectly true. You have not betrayed Julia.’<\/p>\n
The peculiar reverence for O’Brien, which nothing seemed able to destroy,
\nflooded Winston’s heart again. How intelligent, he thought, how
\nintelligent! Never did O’Brien fail to understand what was said to him.
\nAnyone else on earth would have answered promptly that he HAD betrayed
\nJulia. For what was there that they had not screwed out of him under the
\ntorture? He had told them everything he knew about her, her habits, her
\ncharacter, her past life; he had confessed in the most trivial detail
\neverything that had happened at their meetings, all that he had said to
\nher and she to him, their black-market meals, their adulteries, their
\nvague plottings against the Party–everything. And yet, in the sense in
\nwhich he intended the word, he had not betrayed her. He had not stopped
\nloving her; his feelings towards her had remained the same. O’Brien had
\nseen what he meant without the need for explanation.<\/p>\n
‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘how soon will they shoot me?’<\/p>\n
‘It might be a long time,’ said O’Brien. ‘You are a difficult case. But
\ndon’t give up hope. Everyone is cured sooner or later. In the end we shall
\nshoot you.’<\/p>\n
Chapter 4<\/p>\n
He was much better. He was growing fatter and stronger every day, if it
\nwas proper to speak of days.<\/p>\n
The white light and the humming sound were the same as ever, but the cell
\nwas a little more comfortable than the others he had been in. There was a
\npillow and a mattress on the plank bed, and a stool to sit on. They had
\ngiven him a bath, and they allowed him to wash himself fairly frequently
\nin a tin basin. They even gave him warm water to wash with. They had given
\nhim new underclothes and a clean suit of overalls. They had dressed his
\nvaricose ulcer with soothing ointment. They had pulled out the remnants
\nof his teeth and given him a new set of dentures.<\/p>\n
Weeks or months must have passed. It would have been possible now to keep
\ncount of the passage of time, if he had felt any interest in doing so,
\nsince he was being fed at what appeared to be regular intervals. He was
\ngetting, he judged, three meals in the twenty-four hours; sometimes he
\nwondered dimly whether he was getting them by night or by day. The food
\nwas surprisingly good, with meat at every third meal. Once there was even
\na packet of cigarettes. He had no matches, but the never-speaking guard
\nwho brought his food would give him a light. The first time he tried to
\nsmoke it made him sick, but he persevered, and spun the packet out for
\na long time, smoking half a cigarette after each meal.<\/p>\n
They had given him a white slate with a stump of pencil tied to the
\ncorner. At first he made no use of it. Even when he was awake he was
\ncompletely torpid. Often he would lie from one meal to the next almost
\nwithout stirring, sometimes asleep, sometimes waking into vague reveries
\nin which it was too much trouble to open his eyes. He had long grown
\nused to sleeping with a strong light on his face. It seemed to make no
\ndifference, except that one’s dreams were more coherent. He dreamed a
\ngreat deal all through this time, and they were always happy dreams. He
\nwas in the Golden Country, or he was sitting among enormous glorious,
\nsunlit ruins, with his mother, with Julia, with O’Brien–not doing
\nanything, merely sitting in the sun, talking of peaceful things. Such
\nthoughts as he had when he was awake were mostly about his dreams. He
\nseemed to have lost the power of intellectual effort, now that the
\nstimulus of pain had been removed. He was not bored, he had no desire
\nfor conversation or distraction. Merely to be alone, not to be beaten
\nor questioned, to have enough to eat, and to be clean all over, was
\ncompletely satisfying.<\/p>\n
By degrees he came to spend less time in sleep, but he still felt no
\nimpulse to get off the bed. All he cared for was to lie quiet and feel the
\nstrength gathering in his body. He would finger himself here and there,
\ntrying to make sure that it was not an illusion that his muscles were
\ngrowing rounder and his skin tauter. Finally it was established beyond a
\ndoubt that he was growing fatter; his thighs were now definitely thicker
\nthan his knees. After that, reluctantly at first, he began exercising
\nhimself regularly. In a little while he could walk three kilometres,
\nmeasured by pacing the cell, and his bowed shoulders were growing
\nstraighter. He attempted more elaborate exercises, and was astonished and
\nhumiliated to find what things he could not do. He could not move out of a
\nwalk, he could not hold his stool out at arm’s length, he could not stand
\non one leg without falling over. He squatted down on his heels, and found
\nthat with agonizing pains in thigh and calf he could just lift himself to
\na standing position. He lay flat on his belly and tried to lift his weight
\nby his hands. It was hopeless, he could not raise himself a centimetre.
\nBut after a few more days–a few more mealtimes–even that feat was
\naccomplished. A time came when he could do it six times running. He began
\nto grow actually proud of his body, and to cherish an intermittent belief
\nthat his face also was growing back to normal. Only when he chanced to put
\nhis hand on his bald scalp did he remember the seamed, ruined face that
\nhad looked back at him out of the mirror.<\/p>\n
His mind grew more active. He sat down on the plank bed, his back against
\nthe wall and the slate on his knees, and set to work deliberately at the
\ntask of re-educating himself.<\/p>\n
He had capitulated, that was agreed. In reality, as he saw now, he had
\nbeen ready to capitulate long before he had taken the decision. From the
\nmoment when he was inside the Ministry of Love–and yes, even during those
\nminutes when he and Julia had stood helpless while the iron voice from the
\ntelescreen told them what to do–he had grasped the frivolity, the
\nshallowness of his attempt to set himself up against the power of the
\nParty. He knew now that for seven years the Thought Police had watched him
\nlike a beetle under a magnifying glass. There was no physical act, no word
\nspoken aloud, that they had not noticed, no train of thought that they had
\nnot been able to infer. Even the speck of whitish dust on the cover of his
\ndiary they had carefully replaced. They had played sound-tracks to him,
\nshown him photographs. Some of them were photographs of Julia and himself.
\nYes, even… He could not fight against the Party any longer. Besides,
\nthe Party was in the right. It must be so; how could the immortal,
\ncollective brain be mistaken? By what external standard could you check
\nits judgements? Sanity was statistical. It was merely a question of
\nlearning to think as they thought. Only—-!<\/p>\n
The pencil felt thick and awkward in his fingers. He began to write down
\nthe thoughts that came into his head. He wrote first in large clumsy
\ncapitals:<\/p>\n
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY<\/p>\n
Then almost without a pause he wrote beneath it:<\/p>\n
TWO AND TWO MAKE FIVE<\/p>\n
But then there came a sort of check. His mind, as though shying away from
\nsomething, seemed unable to concentrate. He knew that he knew what came
\nnext, but for the moment he could not recall it. When he did recall it,
\nit was only by consciously reasoning out what it must be: it did not come
\nof its own accord. He wrote:<\/p>\n
GOD IS POWER<\/p>\n
He accepted everything. The past was alterable. The past never had been
\naltered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war
\nwith Eastasia. Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford were guilty of the crimes
\nthey were charged with. He had never seen the photograph that disproved
\ntheir guilt. It had never existed, he had invented it. He remembered
\nremembering contrary things, but those were false memories, products of
\nself-deception. How easy it all was! Only surrender, and everything else
\nfollowed. It was like swimming against a current that swept you backwards
\nhowever hard you struggled, and then suddenly deciding to turn round and
\ngo with the current instead of opposing it. Nothing had changed except
\nyour own attitude: the predestined thing happened in any case. He hardly
\nknew why he had ever rebelled. Everything was easy, except—-!<\/p>\n
Anything could be true. The so-called laws of Nature were nonsense. The
\nlaw of gravity was nonsense. ‘If I wished,’ O’Brien had said, ‘I could
\nfloat off this floor like a soap bubble.’ Winston worked it out. ‘If he
\nTHINKS he floats off the floor, and if I simultaneously THINK I see him
\ndo it, then the thing happens.’ Suddenly, like a lump of submerged wreckage
\nbreaking the surface of water, the thought burst into his mind: ‘It doesn’t
\nreally happen. We imagine it. It is hallucination.’ He pushed the thought
\nunder instantly. The fallacy was obvious. It presupposed that somewhere
\nor other, outside oneself, there was a ‘real’ world where ‘real’ things
\nhappened. But how could there be such a world? What knowledge have we of
\nanything, save through our own minds? All happenings are in the mind.
\nWhatever happens in all minds, truly happens.<\/p>\n
He had no difficulty in disposing of the fallacy, and he was in no danger
\nof succumbing to it. He realized, nevertheless, that it ought never to
\nhave occurred to him. The mind should develop a blind spot whenever a
\ndangerous thought presented itself. The process should be automatic,
\ninstinctive. CRIMESTOP, they called it in Newspeak.<\/p>\n
He set to work to exercise himself in crimestop. He presented himself with
\npropositions–‘the Party says the earth is flat’, ‘the party says that
\nice is heavier than water’–and trained himself in not seeing or not
\nunderstanding the arguments that contradicted them. It was not easy.
\nIt needed great powers of reasoning and improvisation. The arithmetical
\nproblems raised, for instance, by such a statement as ‘two and two make
\nfive’ were beyond his intellectual grasp. It needed also a sort of
\nathleticism of mind, an ability at one moment to make the most delicate
\nuse of logic and at the next to be unconscious of the crudest logical
\nerrors. Stupidity was as necessary as intelligence, and as difficult to
\nattain.<\/p>\n
All the while, with one part of his mind, he wondered how soon they would
\nshoot him. ‘Everything depends on yourself,’ O’Brien had said; but he knew
\nthat there was no conscious act by which he could bring it nearer. It
\nmight be ten minutes hence, or ten years. They might keep him for years in
\nsolitary confinement, they might send him to a labour-camp, they might
\nrelease him for a while, as they sometimes did. It was perfectly possible
\nthat before he was shot the whole drama of his arrest and interrogation
\nwould be enacted all over again. The one certain thing was that death
\nnever came at an expected moment. The tradition–the unspoken tradition:
\nsomehow you knew it, though you never heard it said–was that they shot
\nyou from behind; always in the back of the head, without warning, as you
\nwalked down a corridor from cell to cell.<\/p>\n
One day–but ‘one day’ was not the right expression; just as probably it
\nwas in the middle of the night: once–he fell into a strange, blissful
\nreverie. He was walking down the corridor, waiting for the bullet. He knew
\nthat it was coming in another moment. Everything was settled, smoothed
\nout, reconciled. There were no more doubts, no more arguments, no more
\npain, no more fear. His body was healthy and strong. He walked easily,
\nwith a joy of movement and with a feeling of walking in sunlight. He was
\nnot any longer in the narrow white corridors in the Ministry of Love, he
\nwas in the enormous sunlit passage, a kilometre wide, down which he had
\nseemed to walk in the delirium induced by drugs. He was in the Golden
\nCountry, following the foot-track across the old rabbit-cropped pasture.
\nHe could feel the short springy turf under his feet and the gentle sunshine
\non his face. At the edge of the field were the elm trees, faintly stirring,
\nand somewhere beyond that was the stream where the dace lay in the green
\npools under the willows.<\/p>\n
Suddenly he started up with a shock of horror. The sweat broke out on his
\nbackbone. He had heard himself cry aloud:<\/p>\n
‘Julia! Julia! Julia, my love! Julia!’<\/p>\n
For a moment he had had an overwhelming hallucination of her presence. She
\nhad seemed to be not merely with him, but inside him. It was as though she
\nhad got into the texture of his skin. In that moment he had loved her far
\nmore than he had ever done when they were together and free. Also he knew
\nthat somewhere or other she was still alive and needed his help.<\/p>\n
He lay back on the bed and tried to compose himself. What had he done? How
\nmany years had he added to his servitude by that moment of weakness?<\/p>\n
In another moment he would hear the tramp of boots outside. They could not
\nlet such an outburst go unpunished. They would know now, if they had not
\nknown before, that he was breaking the agreement he had made with them.
\nHe obeyed the Party, but he still hated the Party. In the old days he had
\nhidden a heretical mind beneath an appearance of conformity. Now he had
\nretreated a step further: in the mind he had surrendered, but he had hoped
\nto keep the inner heart inviolate. He knew that he was in the wrong, but
\nhe preferred to be in the wrong. They would understand that–O’Brien would
\nunderstand it. It was all confessed in that single foolish cry.<\/p>\n
He would have to start all over again. It might take years. He ran a hand
\nover his face, trying to familiarize himself with the new shape. There
\nwere deep furrows in the cheeks, the cheekbones felt sharp, the nose
\nflattened. Besides, since last seeing himself in the glass he had been
\ngiven a complete new set of teeth. It was not easy to preserve
\ninscrutability when you did not know what your face looked like. In any
\ncase, mere control of the features was not enough. For the first time he
\nperceived that if you want to keep a secret you must also hide it from
\nyourself. You must know all the while that it is there, but until it is
\nneeded you must never let it emerge into your consciousness in any shape
\nthat could be given a name. From now onwards he must not only think right;
\nhe must feel right, dream right. And all the while he must keep his hatred
\nlocked up inside him like a ball of matter which was part of himself and
\nyet unconnected with the rest of him, a kind of cyst.<\/p>\n
One day they would decide to shoot him. You could not tell when it would
\nhappen, but a few seconds beforehand it should be possible to guess. It
\nwas always from behind, walking down a corridor. Ten seconds would be
\nenough. In that time the world inside him could turn over. And then
\nsuddenly, without a word uttered, without a check in his step, without the
\nchanging of a line in his face–suddenly the camouflage would be down and
\nbang! would go the batteries of his hatred. Hatred would fill him like an
\nenormous roaring flame. And almost in the same instant bang! would go the
\nbullet, too late, or too early. They would have blown his brain to pieces
\nbefore they could reclaim it. The heretical thought would be unpunished,
\nunrepented, out of their reach for ever. They would have blown a hole in
\ntheir own perfection. To die hating them, that was freedom.<\/p>\n
He shut his eyes. It was more difficult than accepting an intellectual
\ndiscipline. It was a question of degrading himself, mutilating himself. He
\nhad got to plunge into the filthiest of filth. What was the most horrible,
\nsickening thing of all? He thought of Big Brother. The enormous face
\n(because of constantly seeing it on posters he always thought of it as
\nbeing a metre wide), with its heavy black moustache and the eyes that
\nfollowed you to and fro, seemed to float into his mind of its own accord.
\nWhat were his true feelings towards Big Brother?<\/p>\n
There was a heavy tramp of boots in the passage. The steel door swung open
\nwith a clang. O’Brien walked into the cell. Behind him were the waxen-faced
\nofficer and the black-uniformed guards.<\/p>\n
‘Get up,’ said O’Brien. ‘Come here.’<\/p>\n
Winston stood opposite him. O’Brien took Winston’s shoulders between his
\nstrong hands and looked at him closely.<\/p>\n
‘You have had thoughts of deceiving me,’ he said. ‘That was stupid.
\nStand up straighter. Look me in the face.’<\/p>\n
He paused, and went on in a gentler tone:<\/p>\n
‘You are improving. Intellectually there is very little wrong with you.
\nIt is only emotionally that you have failed to make progress. Tell me,
\nWinston–and remember, no lies: you know that I am always able to detect
\na lie–tell me, what are your true feelings towards Big Brother?’<\/p>\n
‘I hate him.’<\/p>\n
‘You hate him. Good. Then the time has come for you to take the last step.
\nYou must love Big Brother. It is not enough to obey him: you must love
\nhim.’<\/p>\n
He released Winston with a little push towards the guards.<\/p>\n
‘Room 101,’ he said.<\/p>\n
Chapter 5<\/p>\n
At each stage of his imprisonment he had known, or seemed to know,
\nwhereabouts he was in the windowless building. Possibly there were slight
\ndifferences in the air pressure. The cells where the guards had beaten him
\nwere below ground level. The room where he had been interrogated by
\nO’Brien was high up near the roof. This place was many metres underground,
\nas deep down as it was possible to go.<\/p>\n
It was bigger than most of the cells he had been in. But he hardly noticed
\nhis surroundings. All he noticed was that there were two small tables
\nstraight in front of him, each covered with green baize. One was only a
\nmetre or two from him, the other was further away, near the door. He was
\nstrapped upright in a chair, so tightly that he could move nothing, not
\neven his head. A sort of pad gripped his head from behind, forcing him to
\nlook straight in front of him.<\/p>\n
For a moment he was alone, then the door opened and O’Brien came in.<\/p>\n
‘You asked me once,’ said O’Brien, ‘what was in Room 101. I told you that
\nyou knew the answer already. Everyone knows it. The thing that is in
\nRoom 101 is the worst thing in the world.’<\/p>\n
The door opened again. A guard came in, carrying something made of wire,
\na box or basket of some kind. He set it down on the further table. Because
\nof the position in which O’Brien was standing. Winston could not see what
\nthe thing was.<\/p>\n
‘The worst thing in the world,’ said O’Brien, ‘varies from individual to
\nindividual. It may be burial alive, or death by fire, or by drowning, or
\nby impalement, or fifty other deaths. There are cases where it is some
\nquite trivial thing, not even fatal.’<\/p>\n
He had moved a little to one side, so that Winston had a better view of
\nthe thing on the table. It was an oblong wire cage with a handle on top
\nfor carrying it by. Fixed to the front of it was something that looked
\nlike a fencing mask, with the concave side outwards. Although it was three
\nor four metres away from him, he could see that the cage was divided
\nlengthways into two compartments, and that there was some kind of creature
\nin each. They were rats.<\/p>\n
‘In your case,’ said O’Brien, ‘the worst thing in the world happens to be
\nrats.’<\/p>\n
A sort of premonitory tremor, a fear of he was not certain what, had
\npassed through Winston as soon as he caught his first glimpse of the cage.
\nBut at this moment the meaning of the mask-like attachment in front of it
\nsuddenly sank into him. His bowels seemed to turn to water.<\/p>\n
‘You can’t do that!’ he cried out in a high cracked voice. ‘You couldn’t,
\nyou couldn’t! It’s impossible.’<\/p>\n
‘Do you remember,’ said O’Brien, ‘the moment of panic that used to occur
\nin your dreams? There was a wall of blackness in front of you, and a
\nroaring sound in your ears. There was something terrible on the other side
\nof the wall. You knew that you knew what it was, but you dared not drag it
\ninto the open. It was the rats that were on the other side of the wall.’<\/p>\n
‘O’Brien!’ said Winston, making an effort to control his voice. ‘You know
\nthis is not necessary. What is it that you want me to do?’<\/p>\n
O’Brien made no direct answer. When he spoke it was in the schoolmasterish
\nmanner that he sometimes affected. He looked thoughtfully into the
\ndistance, as though he were addressing an audience somewhere behind
\nWinston’s back.<\/p>\n
‘By itself,’ he said, ‘pain is not always enough. There are occasions when
\na human being will stand out against pain, even to the point of death.
\nBut for everyone there is something unendurable–something that cannot be
\ncontemplated. Courage and cowardice are not involved. If you are falling
\nfrom a height it is not cowardly to clutch at a rope. If you have come up
\nfrom deep water it is not cowardly to fill your lungs with air. It is
\nmerely an instinct which cannot be destroyed. It is the same with the
\nrats. For you, they are unendurable. They are a form of pressure that you
\ncannot withstand, even if you wished to. You will do what is required of
\nyou.’<\/p>\n
‘But what is it, what is it? How can I do it if I don’t know what it is?’<\/p>\n
O’Brien picked up the cage and brought it across to the nearer table.
\nHe set it down carefully on the baize cloth. Winston could hear the blood
\nsinging in his ears. He had the feeling of sitting in utter loneliness.
\nHe was in the middle of a great empty plain, a flat desert drenched with
\nsunlight, across which all sounds came to him out of immense distances.
\nYet the cage with the rats was not two metres away from him. They were
\nenormous rats. They were at the age when a rat’s muzzle grows blunt and
\nfierce and his fur brown instead of grey.<\/p>\n
‘The rat,’ said O’Brien, still addressing his invisible audience,
\n‘although a rodent, is carnivorous. You are aware of that. You will have
\nheard of the things that happen in the poor quarters of this town. In some
\nstreets a woman dare not leave her baby alone in the house, even for five
\nminutes. The rats are certain to attack it. Within quite a small time they
\nwill strip it to the bones. They also attack sick or dying people. They
\nshow astonishing intelligence in knowing when a human being is helpless.’<\/p>\n
There was an outburst of squeals from the cage. It seemed to reach Winston
\nfrom far away. The rats were fighting; they were trying to get at each
\nother through the partition. He heard also a deep groan of despair.
\nThat, too, seemed to come from outside himself.<\/p>\n
O’Brien picked up the cage, and, as he did so, pressed something in it.
\nThere was a sharp click. Winston made a frantic effort to tear himself
\nloose from the chair. It was hopeless; every part of him, even his head,
\nwas held immovably. O’Brien moved the cage nearer. It was less than a
\nmetre from Winston’s face.<\/p>\n
‘I have pressed the first lever,’ said O’Brien. ‘You understand the
\nconstruction of this cage. The mask will fit over your head, leaving no
\nexit. When I press this other lever, the door of the cage will slide up.
\nThese starving brutes will shoot out of it like bullets. Have you ever
\nseen a rat leap through the air? They will leap on to your face and bore
\nstraight into it. Sometimes they attack the eyes first. Sometimes they
\nburrow through the cheeks and devour the tongue.’<\/p>\n
The cage was nearer; it was closing in. Winston heard a succession of
\nshrill cries which appeared to be occurring in the air above his head. But
\nhe fought furiously against his panic. To think, to think, even with a
\nsplit second left–to think was the only hope. Suddenly the foul musty
\nodour of the brutes struck his nostrils. There was a violent convulsion of
\nnausea inside him, and he almost lost consciousness. Everything had gone
\nblack. For an instant he was insane, a screaming animal. Yet he came out
\nof the blackness clutching an idea. There was one and only one way to save
\nhimself. He must interpose another human being, the BODY of another human
\nbeing, between himself and the rats.<\/p>\n
The circle of the mask was large enough now to shut out the vision of
\nanything else. The wire door was a couple of hand-spans from his face. The
\nrats knew what was coming now. One of them was leaping up and down, the
\nother, an old scaly grandfather of the sewers, stood up, with his pink
\nhands against the bars, and fiercely sniffed the air. Winston could see
\nthe whiskers and the yellow teeth. Again the black panic took hold of him.
\nHe was blind, helpless, mindless.<\/p>\n
‘It was a common punishment in Imperial China,’ said O’Brien as
\ndidactically as ever.<\/p>\n
The mask was closing on his face. The wire brushed his cheek. And then–no,
\nit was not relief, only hope, a tiny fragment of hope. Too late, perhaps
\ntoo late. But he had suddenly understood that in the whole world there was
\njust ONE person to whom he could transfer his punishment–ONE body that he
\ncould thrust between himself and the rats. And he was shouting frantically,
\nover and over.<\/p>\n
‘Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia! I don’t care what you do
\nto her. Tear her face off, strip her to the bones. Not me! Julia! Not me!’<\/p>\n
He was falling backwards, into enormous depths, away from the rats. He was
\nstill strapped in the chair, but he had fallen through the floor, through
\nthe walls of the building, through the earth, through the oceans, through
\nthe atmosphere, into outer space, into the gulfs between the stars–always
\naway, away, away from the rats. He was light years distant, but O’Brien
\nwas still standing at his side. There was still the cold touch of wire
\nagainst his cheek. But through the darkness that enveloped him he heard
\nanother metallic click, and knew that the cage door had clicked shut and
\nnot open.<\/p>\n
Chapter 6<\/p>\n
The Chestnut Tree was almost empty. A ray of sunlight slanting through a
\nwindow fell on dusty table-tops. It was the lonely hour of fifteen. A
\ntinny music trickled from the telescreens.<\/p>\n
Winston sat in his usual corner, gazing into an empty glass. Now and again
\nhe glanced up at a vast face which eyed him from the opposite wall.
\nBIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption said. Unbidden, a waiter came and
\nfilled his glass up with Victory Gin, shaking into it a few drops from
\nanother bottle with a quill through the cork. It was saccharine flavoured
\nwith cloves, the speciality of the cafe.<\/p>\n
Winston was listening to the telescreen. At present only music was coming
\nout of it, but there was a possibility that at any moment there might be
\na special bulletin from the Ministry of Peace. The news from the African
\nfront was disquieting in the extreme. On and off he had been worrying
\nabout it all day. A Eurasian army (Oceania was at war with Eurasia:
\nOceania had always been at war with Eurasia) was moving southward at
\nterrifying speed. The mid-day bulletin had not mentioned any definite
\narea, but it was probable that already the mouth of the Congo was a
\nbattlefield. Brazzaville and Leopoldville were in danger. One did not have
\nto look at the map to see what it meant. It was not merely a question of
\nlosing Central Africa: for the first time in the whole war, the territory
\nof Oceania itself was menaced.<\/p>\n
A violent emotion, not fear exactly but a sort of undifferentiated
\nexcitement, flared up in him, then faded again. He stopped thinking about
\nthe war. In these days he could never fix his mind on any one subject for
\nmore than a few moments at a time. He picked up his glass and drained it
\nat a gulp. As always, the gin made him shudder and even retch slightly.
\nThe stuff was horrible. The cloves and saccharine, themselves disgusting
\nenough in their sickly way, could not disguise the flat oily smell; and
\nwhat was worst of all was that the smell of gin, which dwelt with him
\nnight and day, was inextricably mixed up in his mind with the smell of
\nthose—-<\/p>\n
He never named them, even in his thoughts, and so far as it was possible
\nhe never visualized them. They were something that he was half-aware of,
\nhovering close to his face, a smell that clung to his nostrils. As the gin
\nrose in him he belched through purple lips. He had grown fatter since they
\nreleased him, and had regained his old colour–indeed, more than regained
\nit. His features had thickened, the skin on nose and cheekbones was
\ncoarsely red, even the bald scalp was too deep a pink. A waiter, again
\nunbidden, brought the chessboard and the current issue of ‘The Times’,
\nwith the page turned down at the chess problem. Then, seeing that Winston’s
\nglass was empty, he brought the gin bottle and filled it. There was no
\nneed to give orders. They knew his habits. The chessboard was always
\nwaiting for him, his corner table was always reserved; even when the place
\nwas full he had it to himself, since nobody cared to be seen sitting too
\nclose to him. He never even bothered to count his drinks. At irregular
\nintervals they presented him with a dirty slip of paper which they said
\nwas the bill, but he had the impression that they always undercharged him.
\nIt would have made no difference if it had been the other way about. He
\nhad always plenty of money nowadays. He even had a job, a sinecure, more
\nhighly-paid than his old job had been.<\/p>\n
The music from the telescreen stopped and a voice took over. Winston raised
\nhis head to listen. No bulletins from the front, however. It was merely a
\nbrief announcement from the Ministry of Plenty. In the preceding quarter,
\nit appeared, the Tenth Three-Year Plan’s quota for bootlaces had been
\noverfulfilled by 98 per cent.<\/p>\n
He examined the chess problem and set out the pieces. It was a tricky
\nending, involving a couple of knights. ‘White to play and mate in two
\nmoves.’ Winston looked up at the portrait of Big Brother. White always
\nmates, he thought with a sort of cloudy mysticism. Always, without
\nexception, it is so arranged. In no chess problem since the beginning of
\nthe world has black ever won. Did it not symbolize the eternal, unvarying
\ntriumph of Good over Evil? The huge face gazed back at him, full of calm
\npower. White always mates.<\/p>\n
The voice from the telescreen paused and added in a different and much
\ngraver tone: ‘You are warned to stand by for an important announcement at
\nfifteen-thirty. Fifteen-thirty! This is news of the highest importance.
\nTake care not to miss it. Fifteen-thirty!’ The tinkling music struck up
\nagain.<\/p>\n
Winston’s heart stirred. That was the bulletin from the front; instinct
\ntold him that it was bad news that was coming. All day, with little spurts
\nof excitement, the thought of a smashing defeat in Africa had been in and
\nout of his mind. He seemed actually to see the Eurasian army swarming
\nacross the never-broken frontier and pouring down into the tip of Africa
\nlike a column of ants. Why had it not been possible to outflank them in
\nsome way? The outline of the West African coast stood out vividly in his
\nmind. He picked up the white knight and moved it across the board. THERE
\nwas the proper spot. Even while he saw the black horde racing southward he
\nsaw another force, mysteriously assembled, suddenly planted in their rear,
\ncutting their communications by land and sea. He felt that by willing it he
\nwas bringing that other force into existence. But it was necessary to act
\nquickly. If they could get control of the whole of Africa, if they had
\nairfields and submarine bases at the Cape, it would cut Oceania in two. It
\nmight mean anything: defeat, breakdown, the redivision of the world, the
\ndestruction of the Party! He drew a deep breath. An extraordinary medley
\nof feeling–but it was not a medley, exactly; rather it was successive
\nlayers of feeling, in which one could not say which layer was
\nundermost–struggled inside him.<\/p>\n
The spasm passed. He put the white knight back in its place, but for the
\nmoment he could not settle down to serious study of the chess problem.
\nHis thoughts wandered again. Almost unconsciously he traced with his
\nfinger in the dust on the table:<\/p>\n
2+2=5<\/p>\n
‘They can’t get inside you,’ she had said. But they could get inside you.
\n‘What happens to you here is FOR EVER,’ O’Brien had said. That was a true
\nword. There were things, your own acts, from which you could never recover.
\nSomething was killed in your breast: burnt out, cauterized out.<\/p>\n
He had seen her; he had even spoken to her. There was no danger in it. He
\nknew as though instinctively that they now took almost no interest in his
\ndoings. He could have arranged to meet her a second time if either of them
\nhad wanted to. Actually it was by chance that they had met. It was in the
\nPark, on a vile, biting day in March, when the earth was like iron and
\nall the grass seemed dead and there was not a bud anywhere except a few
\ncrocuses which had pushed themselves up to be dismembered by the wind. He
\nwas hurrying along with frozen hands and watering eyes when he saw her not
\nten metres away from him. It struck him at once that she had changed in
\nsome ill-defined way. They almost passed one another without a sign, then
\nhe turned and followed her, not very eagerly. He knew that there was no
\ndanger, nobody would take any interest in him. She did not speak. She
\nwalked obliquely away across the grass as though trying to get rid of him,
\nthen seemed to resign herself to having him at her side. Presently they
\nwere in among a clump of ragged leafless shrubs, useless either for
\nconcealment or as protection from the wind. They halted. It was vilely
\ncold. The wind whistled through the twigs and fretted the occasional,
\ndirty-looking crocuses. He put his arm round her waist.<\/p>\n
There was no telescreen, but there must be hidden microphones: besides,
\nthey could be seen. It did not matter, nothing mattered. They could have
\nlain down on the ground and done THAT if they had wanted to. His flesh
\nfroze with horror at the thought of it. She made no response whatever to
\nthe clasp of his arm; she did not even try to disengage herself. He knew
\nnow what had changed in her. Her face was sallower, and there was a long
\nscar, partly hidden by the hair, across her forehead and temple; but that
\nwas not the change. It was that her waist had grown thicker, and, in a
\nsurprising way, had stiffened. He remembered how once, after the explosion
\nof a rocket bomb, he had helped to drag a corpse out of some ruins, and
\nhad been astonished not only by the incredible weight of the thing, but by
\nits rigidity and awkwardness to handle, which made it seem more like stone
\nthan flesh. Her body felt like that. It occurred to him that the texture
\nof her skin would be quite different from what it had once been.<\/p>\n
He did not attempt to kiss her, nor did they speak. As they walked back
\nacross the grass, she looked directly at him for the first time. It
\nwas only a momentary glance, full of contempt and dislike. He wondered
\nwhether it was a dislike that came purely out of the past or whether it
\nwas inspired also by his bloated face and the water that the wind kept
\nsqueezing from his eyes. They sat down on two iron chairs, side by side
\nbut not too close together. He saw that she was about to speak. She moved
\nher clumsy shoe a few centimetres and deliberately crushed a twig. Her
\nfeet seemed to have grown broader, he noticed.<\/p>\n
‘I betrayed you,’ she said baldly.<\/p>\n
‘I betrayed you,’ he said.<\/p>\n
She gave him another quick look of dislike.<\/p>\n
‘Sometimes,’ she said, ‘they threaten you with something something you
\ncan’t stand up to, can’t even think about. And then you say, “Don’t do it
\nto me, do it to somebody else, do it to so-and-so.” And perhaps you might
\npretend, afterwards, that it was only a trick and that you just said it to
\nmake them stop and didn’t really mean it. But that isn’t true. At the time
\nwhen it happens you do mean it. You think there’s no other way of saving
\nyourself, and you’re quite ready to save yourself that way. You WANT it to
\nhappen to the other person. You don’t give a damn what they suffer. All
\nyou care about is yourself.’<\/p>\n
‘All you care about is yourself,’ he echoed.<\/p>\n
‘And after that, you don’t feel the same towards the other person any
\nlonger.’<\/p>\n
‘No,’ he said, ‘you don’t feel the same.’<\/p>\n
There did not seem to be anything more to say. The wind plastered their
\nthin overalls against their bodies. Almost at once it became embarrassing
\nto sit there in silence: besides, it was too cold to keep still. She said
\nsomething about catching her Tube and stood up to go.<\/p>\n
‘We must meet again,’ he said.<\/p>\n
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘we must meet again.’<\/p>\n
He followed irresolutely for a little distance, half a pace behind her.
\nThey did not speak again. She did not actually try to shake him off, but
\nwalked at just such a speed as to prevent his keeping abreast of her.
\nHe had made up his mind that he would accompany her as far as the Tube
\nstation, but suddenly this process of trailing along in the cold seemed
\npointless and unbearable. He was overwhelmed by a desire not so much to
\nget away from Julia as to get back to the Chestnut Tree Cafe, which had
\nnever seemed so attractive as at this moment. He had a nostalgic vision
\nof his corner table, with the newspaper and the chessboard and the
\never-flowing gin. Above all, it would be warm in there. The next moment,
\nnot altogether by accident, he allowed himself to become separated from
\nher by a small knot of people. He made a half-hearted attempt to catch up,
\nthen slowed down, turned, and made off in the opposite direction. When he
\nhad gone fifty metres he looked back. The street was not crowded, but
\nalready he could not distinguish her. Any one of a dozen hurrying figures
\nmight have been hers. Perhaps her thickened, stiffened body was no longer
\nrecognizable from behind.<\/p>\n
‘At the time when it happens,’ she had said, ‘you do mean it.’ He had
\nmeant it. He had not merely said it, he had wished it. He had wished that
\nshe and not he should be delivered over to the—-<\/p>\n
Something changed in the music that trickled from the telescreen. A
\ncracked and jeering note, a yellow note, came into it. And then–perhaps
\nit was not happening, perhaps it was only a memory taking on the semblance
\nof sound–a voice was singing:<\/p>\n
‘Under the spreading chestnut tree
\n I sold you and you sold me—-‘<\/p>\n
The tears welled up in his eyes. A passing waiter noticed that his glass
\nwas empty and came back with the gin bottle.<\/p>\n
He took up his glass and sniffed at it. The stuff grew not less but more
\nhorrible with every mouthful he drank. But it had become the element he
\nswam in. It was his life, his death, and his resurrection. It was gin that
\nsank him into stupor every night, and gin that revived him every morning.
\nWhen he woke, seldom before eleven hundred, with gummed-up eyelids and
\nfiery mouth and a back that seemed to be broken, it would have been
\nimpossible even to rise from the horizontal if it had not been for the
\nbottle and teacup placed beside the bed overnight. Through the midday
\nhours he sat with glazed face, the bottle handy, listening to the
\ntelescreen. From fifteen to closing-time he was a fixture in the Chestnut
\nTree. No one cared what he did any longer, no whistle woke him, no
\ntelescreen admonished him. Occasionally, perhaps twice a week, he went
\nto a dusty, forgotten-looking office in the Ministry of Truth and did
\na little work, or what was called work. He had been appointed to a
\nsub-committee of a sub-committee which had sprouted from one of the
\ninnumerable committees dealing with minor difficulties that arose in the
\ncompilation of the Eleventh Edition of the Newspeak Dictionary. They were
\nengaged in producing something called an Interim Report, but what it was
\nthat they were reporting on he had never definitely found out. It was
\nsomething to do with the question of whether commas should be placed
\ninside brackets, or outside. There were four others on the committee, all
\nof them persons similar to himself. There were days when they assembled
\nand then promptly dispersed again, frankly admitting to one another that
\nthere was not really anything to be done. But there were other days when
\nthey settled down to their work almost eagerly, making a tremendous show
\nof entering up their minutes and drafting long memoranda which were never
\nfinished–when the argument as to what they were supposedly arguing about
\ngrew extraordinarily involved and abstruse, with subtle haggling over
\ndefinitions, enormous digressions, quarrels–threats, even, to appeal to
\nhigher authority. And then suddenly the life would go out of them and
\nthey would sit round the table looking at one another with extinct eyes,
\nlike ghosts fading at cock-crow.<\/p>\n
The telescreen was silent for a moment. Winston raised his head again. The
\nbulletin! But no, they were merely changing the music. He had the map of
\nAfrica behind his eyelids. The movement of the armies was a diagram: a
\nblack arrow tearing vertically southward, and a white arrow horizontally
\neastward, across the tail of the first. As though for reassurance he
\nlooked up at the imperturbable face in the portrait. Was it conceivable
\nthat the second arrow did not even exist?<\/p>\n
His interest flagged again. He drank another mouthful of gin, picked up
\nthe white knight and made a tentative move. Check. But it was evidently
\nnot the right move, because—-<\/p>\n
Uncalled, a memory floated into his mind. He saw a candle-lit room with a
\nvast white-counterpaned bed, and himself, a boy of nine or ten, sitting on
\nthe floor, shaking a dice-box, and laughing excitedly. His mother was
\nsitting opposite him and also laughing.<\/p>\n
It must have been about a month before she disappeared. It was a moment of
\nreconciliation, when the nagging hunger in his belly was forgotten and his
\nearlier affection for her had temporarily revived. He remembered the day
\nwell, a pelting, drenching day when the water streamed down the window-pane
\nand the light indoors was too dull to read by. The boredom of the two
\nchildren in the dark, cramped bedroom became unbearable. Winston whined
\nand grizzled, made futile demands for food, fretted about the room pulling
\neverything out of place and kicking the wainscoting until the neighbours
\nbanged on the wall, while the younger child wailed intermittently. In the
\nend his mother said, ‘Now be good, and I’ll buy you a toy. A lovely
\ntoy–you’ll love it’; and then she had gone out in the rain, to a little
\ngeneral shop which was still sporadically open nearby, and came back with
\na cardboard box containing an outfit of Snakes and Ladders. He could still
\nremember the smell of the damp cardboard. It was a miserable outfit. The
\nboard was cracked and the tiny wooden dice were so ill-cut that they
\nwould hardly lie on their sides. Winston looked at the thing sulkily and
\nwithout interest. But then his mother lit a piece of candle and they sat
\ndown on the floor to play. Soon he was wildly excited and shouting with
\nlaughter as the tiddly-winks climbed hopefully up the ladders and then
\ncame slithering down the snakes again, almost to the starting-point. They
\nplayed eight games, winning four each. His tiny sister, too young to
\nunderstand what the game was about, had sat propped up against a bolster,
\nlaughing because the others were laughing. For a whole afternoon they had
\nall been happy together, as in his earlier childhood.<\/p>\n
He pushed the picture out of his mind. It was a false memory. He was
\ntroubled by false memories occasionally. They did not matter so long as
\none knew them for what they were. Some things had happened, others had not
\nhappened. He turned back to the chessboard and picked up the white knight
\nagain. Almost in the same instant it dropped on to the board with a
\nclatter. He had started as though a pin had run into him.<\/p>\n
A shrill trumpet-call had pierced the air. It was the bulletin! Victory!
\nIt always meant victory when a trumpet-call preceded the news. A sort of
\nelectric drill ran through the cafe. Even the waiters had started and
\npricked up their ears.<\/p>\n
The trumpet-call had let loose an enormous volume of noise. Already an
\nexcited voice was gabbling from the telescreen, but even as it started
\nit was almost drowned by a roar of cheering from outside. The news had
\nrun round the streets like magic. He could hear just enough of what was
\nissuing from the telescreen to realize that it had all happened, as he had
\nforeseen; a vast seaborne armada had secretly assembled a sudden blow in
\nthe enemy’s rear, the white arrow tearing across the tail of the black.
\nFragments of triumphant phrases pushed themselves through the din: ‘Vast
\nstrategic manoeuvre–perfect co-ordination–utter rout–half a million
\nprisoners–complete demoralization–control of the whole of Africa–bring
\nthe war within measurable distance of its end–victory–greatest victory
\nin human history–victory, victory, victory!’<\/p>\n
Under the table Winston’s feet made convulsive movements. He had not
\nstirred from his seat, but in his mind he was running, swiftly running,
\nhe was with the crowds outside, cheering himself deaf. He looked up again
\nat the portrait of Big Brother. The colossus that bestrode the world!
\nThe rock against which the hordes of Asia dashed themselves in vain! He
\nthought how ten minutes ago–yes, only ten minutes–there had still been
\nequivocation in his heart as he wondered whether the news from the front
\nwould be of victory or defeat. Ah, it was more than a Eurasian army that
\nhad perished! Much had changed in him since that first day in the Ministry
\nof Love, but the final, indispensable, healing change had never happened,
\nuntil this moment.<\/p>\n
The voice from the telescreen was still pouring forth its tale of prisoners
\nand booty and slaughter, but the shouting outside had died down a little.
\nThe waiters were turning back to their work. One of them approached with
\nthe gin bottle. Winston, sitting in a blissful dream, paid no attention
\nas his glass was filled up. He was not running or cheering any longer. He
\nwas back in the Ministry of Love, with everything forgiven, his soul white
\nas snow. He was in the public dock, confessing everything, implicating
\neverybody. He was walking down the white-tiled corridor, with the feeling
\nof walking in sunlight, and an armed guard at his back. The long-hoped-for
\nbullet was entering his brain.<\/p>\n
He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn
\nwhat kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless
\nmisunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast!
\nTwo gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all
\nright, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won
\nthe victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.<\/p>\n
THE END<\/p>\n
APPENDIX.<\/p>\n
The Principles of Newspeak<\/p>\n
Newspeak was the official language of Oceania and had been devised to meet
\nthe ideological needs of Ingsoc, or English Socialism. In the year 1984
\nthere was not as yet anyone who used Newspeak as his sole means of
\ncommunication, either in speech or writing. The leading articles in
\n‘The Times’ were written in it, but this was a TOUR DE FORCE which could
\nonly be carried out by a specialist. It was expected that Newspeak would
\nhave finally superseded Oldspeak (or Standard English, as we should
\ncall it) by about the year 2050. Meanwhile it gained ground steadily, all
\nParty members tending to use Newspeak words and grammatical constructions
\nmore and more in their everyday speech. The version in use in 1984, and
\nembodied in the Ninth and Tenth Editions of the Newspeak Dictionary, was
\na provisional one, and contained many superfluous words and archaic
\nformations which were due to be suppressed later. It is with the final,
\nperfected version, as embodied in the Eleventh Edition of the Dictionary,
\nthat we are concerned here.<\/p>\n
The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression
\nfor the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc,
\nbut to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that
\nwhen Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten,
\na heretical thought–that is, a thought diverging from the principles of
\nIngsoc–should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is
\ndependent on words. Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and
\noften very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could
\nproperly wish to express, while excluding all other meanings and also the
\npossibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done partly
\nby the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable
\nwords and by stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and
\nso far as possible of all secondary meanings whatever. To give a single
\nexample. The word FREE still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be
\nused in such statements as ‘This dog is free from lice’ or ‘This field is
\nfree from weeds’. It could not be used in its old sense of ‘politically
\nfree’ or ‘intellectually free’ since political and intellectual freedom no
\nlonger existed even as concepts, and were therefore of necessity nameless.
\nQuite apart from the suppression of definitely heretical words, reduction
\nof vocabulary was regarded as an end in itself, and no word that could be
\ndispensed with was allowed to survive. Newspeak was designed not to extend
\nbut to DIMINISH the range of thought, and this purpose was indirectly
\nassisted by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum.<\/p>\n
Newspeak was founded on the English language as we now know it, though
\nmany Newspeak sentences, even when not containing newly-created words,
\nwould be barely intelligible to an English-speaker of our own day. Newspeak
\nwords were divided into three distinct classes, known as the A vocabulary,
\nthe B vocabulary (also called compound words), and the C vocabulary.
\nIt will be simpler to discuss each class separately, but the grammatical
\npeculiarities of the language can be dealt with in the section devoted to
\nthe A vocabulary, since the same rules held good for all three categories.<\/p>\n
THE A VOCABULARY. The A vocabulary consisted of the words needed for the
\nbusiness of everyday life–for such things as eating, drinking, working,
\nputting on one’s clothes, going up and down stairs, riding in vehicles,
\ngardening, cooking, and the like. It was composed almost entirely of words
\nthat we already possess words like HIT, RUN, DOG, TREE, SUGAR, HOUSE,
\nFIELD–but in comparison with the present-day English vocabulary their
\nnumber was extremely small, while their meanings were far more rigidly
\ndefined. All ambiguities and shades of meaning had been purged out of
\nthem. So far as it could be achieved, a Newspeak word of this class was
\nsimply a staccato sound expressing ONE clearly understood concept. It
\nwould have been quite impossible to use the A vocabulary for literary
\npurposes or for political or philosophical discussion. It was intended
\nonly to express simple, purposive thoughts, usually involving concrete
\nobjects or physical actions.<\/p>\n
The grammar of Newspeak had two outstanding peculiarities. The first of
\nthese was an almost complete interchangeability between different parts of
\nspeech. Any word in the language (in principle this applied even to very
\nabstract words such as IF or WHEN) could be used either as verb, noun,
\nadjective, or adverb. Between the verb and the noun form, when they were
\nof the same root, there was never any variation, this rule of itself
\ninvolving the destruction of many archaic forms. The word THOUGHT, for
\nexample, did not exist in Newspeak. Its place was taken by THINK, which
\ndid duty for both noun and verb. No etymological principle was followed
\nhere: in some cases it was the original noun that was chosen for retention,
\nin other cases the verb. Even where a noun and verb of kindred meaning
\nwere not etymologically connected, one or other of them was frequently
\nsuppressed. There was, for example, no such word as CUT, its meaning being
\nsufficiently covered by the noun-verb KNIFE. Adjectives were formed by
\nadding the suffix -FUL to the noun-verb, and adverbs by adding -WISE. Thus
\nfor example, SPEEDFUL meant ‘rapid’ and SPEEDWISE meant ‘quickly’. Certain
\nof our present-day adjectives, such as GOOD, STRONG, BIG, BLACK, SOFT,
\nwere retained, but their total number was very small. There was little
\nneed for them, since almost any adjectival meaning could be arrived at by
\nadding -FUL to a noun-verb. None of the now-existing adverbs was retained,
\nexcept for a very few already ending in -WISE: the -WISE termination was
\ninvariable. The word WELL, for example, was replaced by GOODWISE.<\/p>\n
In addition, any word–this again applied in principle to every word in
\nthe language–could be negatived by adding the affix UN-, or could be
\nstrengthened by the affix PLUS-, or, for still greater emphasis,
\nDOUBLEPLUS-. Thus, for example, UNCOLD meant ‘warm’, while PLUSCOLD and
\nDOUBLEPLUSCOLD meant, respectively, ‘very cold’ and ‘superlatively cold’.
\nIt was also possible, as in present-day English, to modify the meaning of
\nalmost any word by prepositional affixes such as ANTE-, POST-, UP-, DOWN-,
\netc. By such methods it was found possible to bring about an enormous
\ndiminution of vocabulary. Given, for instance, the word GOOD, there was no
\nneed for such a word as BAD, since the required meaning was equally
\nwell–indeed, better–expressed by UNGOOD. All that was necessary, in any
\ncase where two words formed a natural pair of opposites, was to decide
\nwhich of them to suppress. DARK, for example, could be replaced by UNLIGHT,
\nor LIGHT by UNDARK, according to preference.<\/p>\n
The second distinguishing mark of Newspeak grammar was its regularity.
\nSubject to a few exceptions which are mentioned below all inflexions
\nfollowed the same rules. Thus, in all verbs the preterite and the past
\nparticiple were the same and ended in -ED. The preterite of STEAL was
\nSTEALED, the preterite of THINK was THINKED, and so on throughout the
\nlanguage, all such forms as SWAM, GAVE, BROUGHT, SPOKE, TAKEN, etc., being
\nabolished. All plurals were made by adding -S or -ES as the case might be.
\nThe plurals OF MAN, OX, LIFE, were MANS, OXES, LIFES. Comparison of
\nadjectives was invariably made by adding -ER, -EST (GOOD, GOODER, GOODEST),
\nirregular forms and the MORE, MOST formation being suppressed.<\/p>\n
The only classes of words that were still allowed to inflect irregularly
\nwere the pronouns, the relatives, the demonstrative adjectives, and the
\nauxiliary verbs. All of these followed their ancient usage, except that
\nWHOM had been scrapped as unnecessary, and the SHALL, SHOULD tenses had
\nbeen dropped, all their uses being covered by WILL and WOULD. There were
\nalso certain irregularities in word-formation arising out of the need for
\nrapid and easy speech. A word which was difficult to utter, or was liable
\nto be incorrectly heard, was held to be ipso facto a bad word; occasionally
\ntherefore, for the sake of euphony, extra letters were inserted into a word
\nor an archaic formation was retained. But this need made itself felt
\nchiefly in connexion with the B vocabulary. WHY so great an importance was
\nattached to ease of pronunciation will be made clear later in this essay.<\/p>\n
THE B VOCABULARY. The B vocabulary consisted of words which had been
\ndeliberately constructed for political purposes: words, that is to say,
\nwhich not only had in every case a political implication, but were intended
\nto impose a desirable mental attitude upon the person using them. Without
\na full understanding of the principles of Ingsoc it was difficult to use
\nthese words correctly. In some cases they could be translated into
\nOldspeak, or even into words taken from the A vocabulary, but this usually
\ndemanded a long paraphrase and always involved the loss of certain
\novertones. The B words were a sort of verbal shorthand, often packing
\nwhole ranges of ideas into a few syllables, and at the same time more
\naccurate and forcible than ordinary language.<\/p>\n
The B words were in all cases compound words. [Compound words such as
\nSPEAKWRITE, were of course to be found in the A vocabulary, but these were
\nmerely convenient abbreviations and had no special ideological colour.]
\nThey consisted of two or more words, or portions of words, welded together
\nin an easily pronounceable form. The resulting amalgam was always a
\nnoun-verb, and inflected according to the ordinary rules. To take a single
\nexample: the word GOODTHINK, meaning, very roughly, ‘orthodoxy’, or, if
\none chose to regard it as a verb, ‘to think in an orthodox manner’. This
\ninflected as follows: noun-verb, GOODTHINK; past tense and past participle,
\nGOODTHINKED; present participle, GOOD-THINKING; adjective, GOODTHINKFUL;
\nadverb, GOODTHINKWISE; verbal noun, GOODTHINKER.<\/p>\n
The B words were not constructed on any etymological plan. The words of
\nwhich they were made up could be any parts of speech, and could be placed
\nin any order and mutilated in any way which made them easy to pronounce
\nwhile indicating their derivation. In the word CRIMETHINK (thoughtcrime),
\nfor instance, the THINK came second, whereas in THINKPOL (Thought Police)
\nit came first, and in the latter word POLICE had lost its second syllable.
\nBecause of the great difficulty in securing euphony, irregular formations
\nwere commoner in the B vocabulary than in the A vocabulary. For example,
\nthe adjective forms of MINITRUE, MINIPAX, and MINILUV were, respectively,
\nMINITRUTHFUL, MINIPEACEFUL, and MINILOVELY, simply because -TRUEFUL,
\n-PAXFUL, and -LOVEFUL were slightly awkward to pronounce. In principle,
\nhowever, all B words could inflect, and all inflected in exactly the
\nsame way.<\/p>\n
Some of the B words had highly subtilized meanings, barely intelligible to
\nanyone who had not mastered the language as a whole. Consider, for example,
\nsuch a typical sentence from a ‘Times’ leading article as OLDTHINKERS
\nUNBELLYFEEL INGSOC. The shortest rendering that one could make of this
\nin Oldspeak would be: ‘Those whose ideas were formed before the Revolution
\ncannot have a full emotional understanding of the principles of English
\nSocialism.’ But this is not an adequate translation. To begin with, in
\norder to grasp the full meaning of the Newspeak sentence quoted above,
\none would have to have a clear idea of what is meant by INGSOC. And in
\naddition, only a person thoroughly grounded in Ingsoc could appreciate
\nthe full force of the word BELLYFEEL, which implied a blind, enthusiastic
\nacceptance difficult to imagine today; or of the word OLDTHINK, which was
\ninextricably mixed up with the idea of wickedness and decadence. But the
\nspecial function of certain Newspeak words, of which OLDTHINK was one,
\nwas not so much to express meanings as to destroy them. These words,
\nnecessarily few in number, had had their meanings extended until they
\ncontained within themselves whole batteries of words which, as they were
\nsufficiently covered by a single comprehensive term, could now be scrapped
\nand forgotten. The greatest difficulty facing the compilers of the Newspeak
\nDictionary was not to invent new words, but, having invented them, to make
\nsure what they meant: to make sure, that is to say, what ranges of words
\nthey cancelled by their existence.<\/p>\n
As we have already seen in the case of the word FREE, words which had
\nonce borne a heretical meaning were sometimes retained for the sake of
\nconvenience, but only with the undesirable meanings purged out of them.
\nCountless other words such as HONOUR, JUSTICE, MORALITY, INTERNATIONALISM,
\nDEMOCRACY, SCIENCE, and RELIGION had simply ceased to exist. A few blanket
\nwords covered them, and, in covering them, abolished them. All words
\ngrouping themselves round the concepts of liberty and equality, for
\ninstance, were contained in the single word CRIMETHINK, while all words
\ngrouping themselves round the concepts of objectivity and rationalism
\nwere contained in the single word OLDTHINK. Greater precision would have
\nbeen dangerous. What was required in a Party member was an outlook similar
\nto that of the ancient Hebrew who knew, without knowing much else, that
\nall nations other than his own worshipped ‘false gods’. He did not need to
\nknow that these gods were called Baal, Osiris, Moloch, Ashtaroth, and the
\nlike: probably the less he knew about them the better for his orthodoxy.
\nHe knew Jehovah and the commandments of Jehovah: he knew, therefore, that
\nall gods with other names or other attributes were false gods. In somewhat
\nthe same way, the party member knew what constituted right conduct, and in
\nexceedingly vague, generalized terms he knew what kinds of departure from
\nit were possible. His sexual life, for example, was entirely regulated by
\nthe two Newspeak words SEXCRIME (sexual immorality) and GOODSEX (chastity).
\nSEXCRIME covered all sexual misdeeds whatever. It covered fornication,
\nadultery, homosexuality, and other perversions, and, in addition, normal
\nintercourse practised for its own sake. There was no need to enumerate
\nthem separately, since they were all equally culpable, and, in principle,
\nall punishable by death. In the C vocabulary, which consisted of scientific
\nand technical words, it might be necessary to give specialized names to
\ncertain sexual aberrations, but the ordinary citizen had no need of them.
\nHe knew what was meant by GOODSEX–that is to say, normal intercourse
\nbetween man and wife, for the sole purpose of begetting children, and
\nwithout physical pleasure on the part of the woman: all else was SEXCRIME.
\nIn Newspeak it was seldom possible to follow a heretical thought further
\nthan the perception that it WAS heretical: beyond that point the necessary
\nwords were nonexistent.<\/p>\n
No word in the B vocabulary was ideologically neutral. A great many were
\neuphemisms. Such words, for instance, as JOYCAMP (forced-labour camp) or
\nMINIPAX (Ministry of Peace, i.e. Ministry of War) meant almost the exact
\nopposite of what they appeared to mean. Some words, on the other hand,
\ndisplayed a frank and contemptuous understanding of the real nature of
\nOceanic society. An example was PROLEFEED, meaning the rubbishy
\nentertainment and spurious news which the Party handed out to the masses.
\nOther words, again, were ambivalent, having the connotation ‘good’ when
\napplied to the Party and ‘bad’ when applied to its enemies. But in
\naddition there were great numbers of words which at first sight appeared
\nto be mere abbreviations and which derived their ideological colour not
\nfrom their meaning, but from their structure.<\/p>\n
So far as it could be contrived, everything that had or might have
\npolitical significance of any kind was fitted into the B vocabulary. The
\nname of every organization, or body of people, or doctrine, or country, or
\ninstitution, or public building, was invariably cut down into the familiar
\nshape; that is, a single easily pronounced word with the smallest number
\nof syllables that would preserve the original derivation. In the Ministry
\nof Truth, for example, the Records Department, in which Winston Smith
\nworked, was called RECDEP, the Fiction Department was called FICDEP, the
\nTeleprogrammes Department was called TELEDEP, and so on. This was not
\ndone solely with the object of saving time. Even in the early decades of
\nthe twentieth century, telescoped words and phrases had been one of the
\ncharacteristic features of political language; and it had been noticed
\nthat the tendency to use abbreviations of this kind was most marked in
\ntotalitarian countries and totalitarian organizations. Examples were such
\nwords as NAZI, GESTAPO, COMINTERN, INPRECORR, AGITPROP. In the beginning
\nthe practice had been adopted as it were instinctively, but in Newspeak
\nit was used with a conscious purpose. It was perceived that in thus
\nabbreviating a name one narrowed and subtly altered its meaning, by
\ncutting out most of the associations that would otherwise cling to it.
\nThe words COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL, for instance, call up a composite
\npicture of universal human brotherhood, red flags, barricades, Karl Marx,
\nand the Paris Commune. The word COMINTERN, on the other hand, suggests
\nmerely a tightly-knit organization and a well-defined body of doctrine.
\nIt refers to something almost as easily recognized, and as limited in
\npurpose, as a chair or a table. COMINTERN is a word that can be uttered
\nalmost without taking thought, whereas COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL is a phrase
\nover which one is obliged to linger at least momentarily. In the same way,
\nthe associations called up by a word like MINITRUE are fewer and more
\ncontrollable than those called up by MINISTRY OF TRUTH. This accounted not
\nonly for the habit of abbreviating whenever possible, but also for the
\nalmost exaggerated care that was taken to make every word easily
\npronounceable.<\/p>\n
In Newspeak, euphony outweighed every consideration other than exactitude
\nof meaning. Regularity of grammar was always sacrificed to it when it
\nseemed necessary. And rightly so, since what was required, above all for
\npolitical purposes, was short clipped words of unmistakable meaning which
\ncould be uttered rapidly and which roused the minimum of echoes in the
\nspeaker’s mind. The words of the B vocabulary even gained in force from
\nthe fact that nearly all of them were very much alike. Almost invariably
\nthese words–GOODTHINK, MINIPAX, PROLEFEED, SEXCRIME, JOYCAMP, INGSOC,
\nBELLYFEEL, THINKPOL, and countless others–were words of two or three
\nsyllables, with the stress distributed equally between the first syllable
\nand the last. The use of them encouraged a gabbling style of speech, at
\nonce staccato and monotonous. And this was exactly what was aimed at. The
\nintention was to make speech, and especially speech on any subject not
\nideologically neutral, as nearly as possible independent of consciousness.
\nFor the purposes of everyday life it was no doubt necessary, or sometimes
\nnecessary, to reflect before speaking, but a Party member called upon to
\nmake a political or ethical judgement should be able to spray forth the
\ncorrect opinions as automatically as a machine gun spraying forth bullets.
\nHis training fitted him to do this, the language gave him an almost
\nfoolproof instrument, and the texture of the words, with their harsh sound
\nand a certain wilful ugliness which was in accord with the spirit of
\nIngsoc, assisted the process still further.<\/p>\n
So did the fact of having very few words to choose from. Relative to our
\nown, the Newspeak vocabulary was tiny, and new ways of reducing it were
\nconstantly being devised. Newspeak, indeed, differed from most all other
\nlanguages in that its vocabulary grew smaller instead of larger every
\nyear. Each reduction was a gain, since the smaller the area of choice,
\nthe smaller the temptation to take thought. Ultimately it was hoped to
\nmake articulate speech issue from the larynx without involving the higher
\nbrain centres at all. This aim was frankly admitted in the Newspeak word
\nDUCKSPEAK, meaning ‘to quack like a duck’. Like various other words in
\nthe B vocabulary, DUCKSPEAK was ambivalent in meaning. Provided that the
\nopinions which were quacked out were orthodox ones, it implied nothing but
\npraise, and when ‘The Times’ referred to one of the orators of the Party
\nas a DOUBLEPLUSGOOD DUCKSPEAKER it was paying a warm and valued compliment.<\/p>\n
THE C VOCABULARY. The C vocabulary was supplementary to the others and
\nconsisted entirely of scientific and technical terms. These resembled the
\nscientific terms in use today, and were constructed from the same roots,
\nbut the usual care was taken to define them rigidly and strip them of
\nundesirable meanings. They followed the same grammatical rules as the
\nwords in the other two vocabularies. Very few of the C words had any
\ncurrency either in everyday speech or in political speech. Any scientific
\nworker or technician could find all the words he needed in the list devoted
\nto his own speciality, but he seldom had more than a smattering of the
\nwords occurring in the other lists. Only a very few words were common to
\nall lists, and there was no vocabulary expressing the function of Science
\nas a habit of mind, or a method of thought, irrespective of its particular
\nbranches. There was, indeed, no word for ‘Science’, any meaning that it
\ncould possibly bear being already sufficiently covered by the word INGSOC.<\/p>\n
From the foregoing account it will be seen that in Newspeak the expression
\nof unorthodox opinions, above a very low level, was well-nigh impossible.
\nIt was of course possible to utter heresies of a very crude kind, a
\nspecies of blasphemy. It would have been possible, for example, to say
\nBIG BROTHER IS UNGOOD. But this statement, which to an orthodox ear merely
\nconveyed a self-evident absurdity, could not have been sustained by
\nreasoned argument, because the necessary words were not available. Ideas
\ninimical to Ingsoc could only be entertained in a vague wordless form,
\nand could only be named in very broad terms which lumped together and
\ncondemned whole groups of heresies without defining them in doing so.
\nOne could, in fact, only use Newspeak for unorthodox purposes by
\nillegitimately translating some of the words back into Oldspeak. For
\nexample, ALL MANS ARE EQUAL was a possible Newspeak sentence, but only
\nin the same sense in which ALL MEN ARE REDHAIRED is a possible Oldspeak
\nsentence. It did not contain a grammatical error, but it expressed
\na palpable untruth–i.e. that all men are of equal size, weight, or
\nstrength. The concept of political equality no longer existed, and this
\nsecondary meaning had accordingly been purged out of the word EQUAL.
\nIn 1984, when Oldspeak was still the normal means of communication,
\nthe danger theoretically existed that in using Newspeak words one might
\nremember their original meanings. In practice it was not difficult for
\nany person well grounded in DOUBLETHINK to avoid doing this, but within
\na couple of generations even the possibility of such a lapse would have
\nvanished. A person growing up with Newspeak as his sole language would no
\nmore know that EQUAL had once had the secondary meaning of ‘politically
\nequal’, or that FREE had once meant ‘intellectually free’, than for
\ninstance, a person who had never heard of chess would be aware of the
\nsecondary meanings attaching to QUEEN and ROOK. There would be many
\ncrimes and errors which it would be beyond his power to commit, simply
\nbecause they were nameless and therefore unimaginable. And it was to be
\nforeseen that with the passage of time the distinguishing characteristics
\nof Newspeak would become more and more pronounced–its words growing
\nfewer and fewer, their meanings more and more rigid, and the chance of
\nputting them to improper uses always diminishing.<\/p>\n
When Oldspeak had been once and for all superseded, the last link with
\nthe past would have been severed. History had already been rewritten,
\nbut fragments of the literature of the past survived here and there,
\nimperfectly censored, and so long as one retained one’s knowledge of
\nOldspeak it was possible to read them. In the future such fragments, even
\nif they chanced to survive, would be unintelligible and untranslatable.
\nIt was impossible to translate any passage of Oldspeak into Newspeak unless
\nit either referred to some technical process or some very simple everyday
\naction, or was already orthodox (GOODTHINKFUL would be the Newspeak
\nexpression) in tendency. In practice this meant that no book written before
\napproximately 1960 could be translated as a whole. Pre-revolutionary
\nliterature could only be subjected to ideological translation–that is,
\nalteration in sense as well as language. Take for example the well-known
\npassage from the Declaration of Independence:<\/p>\n
WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF-EVIDENT, THAT ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL,
\nTHAT THEY ARE ENDOWED BY THEIR CREATOR WITH CERTAIN INALIENABLE RIGHTS,
\nTHAT AMONG THESE ARE LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.
\nTHAT TO SECURE THESE RIGHTS, GOVERNMENTS ARE INSTITUTED AMONG MEN,
\nDERIVING THEIR POWERS FROM THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED. THAT WHENEVER
\nANY FORM OF GOVERNMENT BECOMES DESTRUCTIVE OF THOSE ENDS, IT IS THE RIGHT
\nOF THE PEOPLE TO ALTER OR ABOLISH IT, AND TO INSTITUTE NEW GOVERNMENT…<\/p>\n
It would have been quite impossible to render this into Newspeak while
\nkeeping to the sense of the original. The nearest one could come to doing
\nso would be to swallow the whole passage up in the single word CRIMETHINK.
\nA full translation could only be an ideological translation, whereby
\nJefferson’s words would be changed into a panegyric on absolute government.<\/p>\n
A good deal of the literature of the past was, indeed, already being
\ntransformed in this way. Considerations of prestige made it desirable to
\npreserve the memory of certain historical figures, while at the same time
\nbringing their achievements into line with the philosophy of Ingsoc.
\nVarious writers, such as Shakespeare, Milton, Swift, Byron, Dickens, and
\nsome others were therefore in process of translation: when the task had
\nbeen completed, their original writings, with all else that survived of
\nthe literature of the past, would be destroyed. These translations were
\na slow and difficult business, and it was not expected that they would
\nbe finished before the first or second decade of the twenty-first
\ncentury. There were also large quantities of merely utilitarian
\nliterature–indispensable technical manuals, and the like–that had to
\nbe treated in the same way. It was chiefly in order to allow time for
\nthe preliminary work of translation that the final adoption of Newspeak
\nhad been fixed for so late a date as 2050.<\/p>\n
THE END<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Title: Nineteen eighty-four Author: George Orwell (pseudonym of Eric Blair) (1903-1950) PART ONE Chapter 1 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-38300","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/38300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/38300\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}