1984.txt

        NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR

        GEORGE ORWELL


        PART I

        I

     It  was a  bright cold  day  in April,  and the  clocks were  striking
thirteen.  Winston Smith,  his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to
escape  the  vile wind, slipped quickly  through the glass doors of Victory
Mansions,  though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from
entering along with him.
     The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats. At one end of it
a  coloured  poster, too large  for indoor display,  had been tacked to the
wall. It depicted simply an enormous face, more than a metre wide: the face
of  a  man of about  forty-five, with a  heavy black moustache and ruggedly
handsome  features.  Winston made for the  stairs. It was no use trying the
lift.  Even at the  best of times it was seldom working, and at present the
electric  current  was cut  off during  daylight hours. It  was part of the
economy  drive in preparation for Hate Week. The flat was seven flights up,
and  Winston, who  was thirty-nine and had a varicose ulcer above his right
ankle,  went  slowly, resting  several times  on the  way. On each landing,
opposite  the lift-shaft,  the poster with the enormous face gazed from the
wall.  It  was one of  those pictures which are  so contrived that the eyes
follow  you  about when you move.  BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption
beneath it ran.
     Inside the flat a fruity voice was reading out a list of figures which
had something to do with the production of pig-iron. The voice came from an
oblong  metal plaque  like a dulled mirror which formed part of the surface
of  the  right-hand wall.  Winston  turned  a  switch  and the  voice  sank
somewhat,  though the words were still distinguishable. The instrument (the
telescreen,  it was  called)  could be  dimmed,  but there  was  no way  of
shutting  it off completely. He moved over to the window: a smallish, frail
figure,  the meagreness  of his body merely emphasized by the blue overalls
which  were  the uniform  of the  party. His  hair was  very fair, his face
naturally  sanguine, his  skin roughened  by  coarse soap  and blunt  razor
blades and the cold of the winter that had just ended.
     Outside,  even  through the  shut window-pane,  the world looked cold.
Down  in the street little eddies of wind were whirling dust and torn paper
into  spirals,  and though  the sun was  shining and the  sky a harsh blue,
there  seemed  to be  no colour  in anything, except  the posters that were
plastered  everywhere. The  blackmoustachio'd  face gazed  down from  every
commanding  corner. There  was one on the house-front immediately opposite.
BIG  BROTHER IS  WATCHING YOU, the caption said, while the dark eyes looked
deep  into Winston's  own. Down at street level another poster, torn at one
corner,  flapped fitfully  in the wind, alternately covering and uncovering
the  single word  INGSOC. In  the far  distance a  helicopter skimmed  down
between  the  roofs, hovered for  an instant  like a bluebottle, and darted
away  again with  a curving flight. It was the police patrol, snooping into
people's  windows.  The patrols  did not matter,  however. Only the Thought
Police mattered.
     Behind Winston's back the voice from the telescreen was still babbling
away  about  pig-iron and the  overfulfilment of the Ninth Three-Year Plan.
The  telescreen received  and  transmitted simultaneously.  Any sound  that
Winston  made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by
it,  moreover, so long  as he remained within the field of vision which the
metal  plaque  commanded, he could  be seen as well  as heard. There was of
course  no way  of knowing  whether  you were  being watched  at any  given
moment.  How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any
individual  wire  was guesswork. It  was even conceivable that they watched
everybody  all the  time. But  at any  rate they  could plug  in your  wire
whenever  they  wanted to.  You had  to live  -- did  live, from habit that
became  instinct  -- in  the  assumption  that  every  sound you  made  was
overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.
     Winston  kept his back turned to the telescreen. It was safer, though,
as  he well  knew, even  a  back can  be  revealing. A  kilometre away  the
Ministry  of  Truth, his  place of  work, towered vast  and white above the
grimy landscape. This, he thought with a sort of vague distaste -- this was
London,  chief city  of Airstrip One, itself the third most populous of the
provinces  of  Oceania. He tried to  squeeze out some childhood memory that
should  tell him whether London had always been quite like this. Were there
always  these  vistas of  rotting  nineteenth-century  houses, their  sides
shored  up with  baulks of timber, their windows patched with cardboard and
their  roofs with  corrugated iron, their crazy garden walls sagging in all
directions?  And the bombed sites where the plaster dust swirled in the air
and  the  willow-herb straggled  over the  heaps of  rubble; and the places
where  the bombs had  cleared a larger patch and there had sprung up sordid
colonies  of  wooden dwellings like  chicken-houses? But  it was no use, he
could  not  remember: nothing remained of  his childhood except a series of
bright-lit   tableaux   occurring   against  no   background   and   mostly
unintelligible.
     The  Ministry of  Truth -- Minitrue, in Newspeak[1] -- was startlingly
different  from  any other  object in  sight. It  was an enormous pyramidal
structure  of glittering white concrete, soaring up, terrace after terrace,
300  metres into the  air. From where Winston stood it was just possible to
read,  picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans
of the Party:

        WAR IS PEACE
        FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
        IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

     The  Ministry  of Truth  contained, it was  said, three thousand rooms
above  ground level, and corresponding ramifications below. Scattered about
London  there were  just three  other buildings  of similar  appearance and
size.  So completely  did they dwarf the surrounding architecture that from
the roof of Victory Mansions you could see all four of them simultaneously.
They  were the  homes  of  the four  Ministries  between  which the  entire
apparatus of government was divided. The Ministry of Truth, which concerned
itself with news, entertainment, education, and the fine arts. The Ministry
of  Peace,  which concerned  itself with  war. The  Ministry of Love, which
maintained law and order. And the Ministry of Plenty, which was responsible
for economic affairs. Their names, in Newspeak: Minitrue, Minipax, Miniluv,
and Miniplenty.
     The  Ministry  of Love was  the really  frightening one. There were no
windows  in it at  all. Winston had never been inside the Ministry of Love,
nor  within  half a  kilometre of  it. It  was a  place impossible to enter
except on official business, and then only by penetrating through a maze of
barbed-wire  entanglements, steel doors, and hidden machine-gun nests. Even
the  streets leading  up to its outer barriers were roamed by gorilla-faced
guards in black uniforms, armed with jointed truncheons.
     Winston  turned round  abruptly.  He  had set  his  features into  the
expression of quiet optimism which it was advisable to wear when facing the
telescreen.  He crossed  the room  into the  tiny kitchen.  By leaving  the
Ministry  at this  time of day he  had sacrificed his lunch in the canteen,
and  he  was aware that there  was no food in  the kitchen except a hunk of
dark-coloured  bread which had got to be saved for tomorrow's breakfast. He
took  down from the  shelf a bottle of colourless liquid with a plain white
label  marked VICTORY GIN.  It gave off a sickly, oily smell, as of Chinese
rice-spirit.  Winston  poured out nearly  a teacupful, nerved himself for a
shock, and gulped it down like a dose of medicine.
     Instantly  his face  turned scarlet and the water ran out of his eyes.
The  stuff was like nitric acid, and moreover, in swallowing it one had the
sensation of being hit on the back of the head with a rubber club. The next
moment,  however, the burning in his belly died down and the world began to
look  more cheerful.  He took  a cigarette  from a  crumpled packet  marked
VICTORY  CIGARETTES and incautiously held it upright, whereupon the tobacco
fell  out  on to the floor.  With the next  he was more successful. He went
back  to  the living-room and sat  down at a  small table that stood to the
left  of the  telescreen. From the table  drawer he took out a penholder, a
bottle  of ink, and  a thick, quarto-sized blank book with a red back and a
marbled cover.
     For  some  reason the telescreen in  the living-room was in an unusual
position. Instead of being placed, as was normal, in the end wall, where it
could  command the  whole room,  it was  in the  longer wall,  opposite the
window.  To one side  of it there was a shallow alcove in which Winston was
now  sitting, and  which,  when the  flats were  built,  had probably  been
intended  to  hold bookshelves. By sitting  in the alcove, and keeping well
back,  Winston  was able to remain  outside the range of the telescreen, so
far  as sight went.  He could be heard, of course, but so long as he stayed
in  his  present position he  could not be seen.  It was partly the unusual
geography  of the room  that had suggested to him the thing that he was now
about to do.
     But  it had also been suggested by the book that he had just taken out
of the drawer. It was a peculiarly beautiful book. Its smooth creamy paper,
a  little yellowed by age, was of a kind that had not been manufactured for
at  least forty years past. He could guess, however, that the book was much
older  than  that. He had  seen it  lying in the  window of a frowsy little
junk-shop in a slummy quarter of the town (just what quarter he did not now
remember)  and  had been stricken  immediately by an overwhelming desire to
possess  it. Party  members were  supposed not  to go  into ordinary  shops
('dealing  on the  free  market', it  was  called), but  the  rule was  not
strictly  kept,  because there  were various things,  such as shoelaces and
razor  blades, which it  was impossible to get hold of in any other way. He
had given a quick glance up and down the street and then had slipped inside
and bought the book for two dollars fifty. At the time he was not conscious
of  wanting it  for any particular purpose. He had carried it guiltily home
in  his  briefcase. Even with nothing  written in it, it was a compromising
possession.
     The  thing that  he was about to do  was to open a diary. This was not
illegal  (nothing was illegal, since there were no longer any laws), but if
detected  it was  reasonably certain that it would be punished by death, or
at least by twenty-five years in a forced-labour camp. Winston fitted a nib
into  the  penholder and sucked  it to  get the grease  off. The pen was an
archaic  instrument,  seldom used even  for signatures, and he had procured
one,  furtively and  with some difficulty, simply because of a feeling that
the  beautiful creamy  paper deserved  to  be written  on with  a real  nib
instead  of being scratched with an ink-pencil. Actually he was not used to
writing  by hand.  Apart from  very short  notes, it  was usual  to dictate
everything  into the  speak-write which  was of  course impossible  for his
present  purpose. He dipped the pen into the ink and then faltered for just
a  second. A tremor  had gone through his bowels. To mark the paper was the
decisive act. In small clumsy letters he wrote:

        April 4th, 1984.

     He  sat back. A sense of complete helplessness had descended upon him.
To  begin with,  he did not know  with any certainty that this was 1984. It
must  be round  about that date, since  he was fairly sure that his age was
thirty-nine,  and he believed that he had been born in 1944 or 1945; but it
was never possible nowadays to pin down any date within a year or two.
     For  whom, it  suddenly occurred to him to wonder, was he writing this
diary?  For the future, for the unborn. His mind hovered for a moment round
the  doubtful date on the page, and then fetched up with a bump against the
Newspeak  word doublethink. For the first time the magnitude of what he had
undertaken  came home to him. How could you communicate with the future? It
was of its nature impossible. Either the future would resemble the present,
in which case it would not listen to him: or it would be different from it,
and his predicament would be meaningless.
     For  some time he sat gazing stupidly at the paper. The telescreen had
changed  over to strident military music. It was curious that he seemed not
merely  to have  lost the  power of  expressing himself,  but even  to have
forgotten  what  it was that  he had originally  intended to say. For weeks
past he had been making ready for this moment, and it had never crossed his
mind that anything would be needed except courage. The actual writing would
be  easy. All  he had  to  do was  to  transfer to  paper the  interminable
restless  monologue  that had  been running inside  his head, literally for
years.  At this  moment, however, even the monologue had dried up. Moreover
his  varicose ulcer  had begun itching unbearably. He dared not scratch it,
because  if  he did so it  always became inflamed. The seconds were ticking
by.  He was conscious  of nothing except the blankness of the page in front
of  him, the itching of the skin above his ankle, the blaring of the music,
and a slight booziness caused by the gin.
     Suddenly  he  began writing in  sheer panic, only imperfectly aware of
what  he was  setting down. His small but childish handwriting straggled up
and  down the page, shedding first its capital letters and finally even its
full stops:

        April  4th, 1984. Last night to the flicks. All war films. One very
good  one  of  a ship  full  of  refugees  being  bombed somewhere  in  the
Mediterranean. Audience much amused by shots of a great huge fat man trying
to swim away with a helicopter after him, first you saw him wallowing along
in  the  water like  a porpoise,  then you saw  him through the helicopters
gunsights,  then he was full of holes and the sea round him turned pink and
he  sank  as suddenly  as though the  holes had let  in the water, audience
shouting  with laughter  when he  sank.  then you  saw a  lifeboat full  of
children  with a helicopter hovering over it. there was a middle-aged woman
might  have  been a jewess  sitting up  in the bow  with a little boy about
three  years  old in her arms.  little boy screaming with fright and hiding
his  head between her  breasts as if he was trying to burrow right into her
and  the  woman putting her arms  round him and comforting him although she
was  blue  with fright  herself, all  the time  covering him  up as much as
possible  as if  she thought her arms  could keep the bullets off him. then
the  helicopter planted a 20 kilo bomb in among them terrific flash and the
boat  went all  to matchwood. then there  was a wonderful shot of a child's
arm  going up up up right up into the air a helicopter with a camera in its
nose  must  have followed it  up and  there was a  lot of applause from the
party  seats but  a woman  down in  the prole  part of  the house  suddenly
started  kicking up a fuss and shouting they didnt oughter of showed it not
in  front  of kids they  didnt it aint  right not in  front of kids it aint
until the police turned her turned her out i dont suppose anything happened
to her nobody cares what the proles say typical prole reaction they never--

     Winston  stopped writing,  partly because he was suffering from cramp.
He  did not know what had made him pour out this stream of rubbish. But the
curious thing was that while he was doing so a totally different memory had
clarified  itself in  his mind, to the  point where he almost felt equal to
writing  it  down. It was, he  now realized, because of this other incident
that he had suddenly decided to come home and begin the diary today.
     It  had happened that morning at the Ministry, if anything so nebulous
could be said to happen.
     It  was  nearly eleven  hundred, and in  the Records Department, where
Winston  worked, they  were dragging  the chairs  out of  the cubicles  and
grouping  them  in the centre  of the hall  opposite the big telescreen, in
preparation  for the Two Minutes Hate. Winston was just taking his place in
one of the middle rows when two people whom he knew by sight, but had never
spoken  to, came unexpectedly into the room. One of them was a girl whom he
often  passed in the  corridors. He did not know her name, but he knew that
she  worked in the Fiction Department. Presumably -- since he had sometimes
seen  her with oily hands and carrying a spanner -- she had some mechanical
job  on one  of the novel-writing machines. She was a bold-looking girl, of
about  twenty-seven, with  thick hair, a freckled face, and swift, athletic
movements. A narrow scarlet sash, emblem of the Junior Anti-Sex League, was
wound several times round the waist of her overalls, just tightly enough to
bring  out  the shapeliness of her  hips. Winston had disliked her from the
very  first moment of seeing her. He knew the reason. It was because of the
atmosphere  of hockey-fields and cold baths and community hikes and general
clean-mindedness  which  she managed  to carry about  with her. He disliked
nearly  all women,  and especially the young and pretty ones. It was always
the  women,  and above  all  the  young ones,  who  were  the most  bigoted
adherents  of  the Party, the swallowers  of slogans, the amateur spies and
nosers-out of unorthodoxy. But this particular girl gave him the impression
of  being  more dangerous than most.  Once when they passed in the corridor
she  gave him a quick sidelong glance which seemed to pierce right into him
and  for a  moment had  filled him  with black  terror. The  idea had  even
crossed his mind that she might be an agent of the Thought Police. That, it
was  true, was  very  unlikely.  Still, he  continued  to  feel a  peculiar
uneasiness,  which  had fear mixed up  in it as well as hostility, whenever
she was anywhere near him.
     The  other person was a man named O'Brien, a member of the Inner Party
and holder of some post so important and remote that Winston had only a dim
idea  of its nature. A momentary hush passed over the group of people round
the  chairs  as they  saw  the  black overalls  of  an  Inner Party  member
approaching. O'Brien was a large, burly man with a thick neck and a coarse,
humorous,  brutal face.  In spite  of his  formidable appearance  he had  a
certain charm of manner. He had a trick of resettling his spectacles on his
nose  which  was curiously disarming  -- in some indefinable way, curiously
civilized.  It  was a  gesture which,  if anyone had  still thought in such
terms,  might have  recalled  an eighteenth-century  nobleman offering  his
snuffbox.  Winston had seen O'Brien perhaps a dozen times in almost as many
years. He felt deeply drawn to him, and not solely because he was intrigued
by  the  contrast between  O'Brien's urbane  manner and his prize-fighter's
physique.  Much more it was because of a secretly held belief -- or perhaps
not  even a belief, merely a hope -- that O'Brien's political orthodoxy was
not  perfect.  Something in his  face suggested it irresistibly. And again,
perhaps  it was  not even  unorthodoxy that  was written  in his  face, but
simply  intelligence. But  at any  rate he  had the  appearance of  being a
person that you could talk to if somehow you could cheat the telescreen and
get  him  alone. Winston had never  made the smallest effort to verify this
guess: indeed, there was no way of doing so. At this moment O'Brien glanced
at  his  wrist-watch, saw that it  was nearly eleven hundred, and evidently
decided  to  stay in the Records  Department until the Two Minutes Hate was
over.  He took a chair in the same row as Winston, a couple of places away.
A  small, sandy-haired  woman who worked in the next cubicle to Winston was
between them. The girl with dark hair was sitting immediately behind.
     The  next moment  a hideous,  grinding  speech, as  of some  monstrous
machine  running  without oil, burst from  the big telescreen at the end of
the room. It was a noise that set one's teeth on edge and bristled the hair
at the back of one's neck. The Hate had started.
     As usual, the face of Emmanuel Goldstein, the Enemy of the People, had
flashed  on to  the screen.  There  were hisses  here and  there among  the
audience.  The little  sandy-haired woman gave a squeak of mingled fear and
disgust.  Goldstein was the renegade and backslider who once, long ago (how
long  ago, nobody quite remembered), had been one of the leading figures of
the Party, almost on a level with Big Brother himself, and then had engaged
in  counter-revolutionary activities,  had been condemned to death, and had
mysteriously  escaped  and disappeared.  The programmes  of the Two Minutes
Hate  varied from day to day, but there was none in which Goldstein was not
the  principal  figure. He was the  primal traitor, the earliest defiler of
the   Party's  purity.   All  subsequent  crimes  against  the  Party,  all
treacheries, acts of sabotage, heresies, deviations, sprang directly out of
his  teaching. Somewhere  or  other he  was still  alive  and hatching  his
conspiracies: perhaps somewhere beyond the sea, under the protection of his
foreign  paymasters, perhaps  even -- so it was occasionally rumoured -- in
some hiding-place in Oceania itself.
     Winston's  diaphragm  was constricted. He  could never see the face of
Goldstein without a painful mixture of emotions. It was a lean Jewish face,
with  a  great fuzzy aureole  of white  hair and a  small goatee beard -- a
clever  face, and  yet somehow inherently despicable, with a kind of senile
silliness in the long thin nose, near the end of which a pair of spectacles
was  perched. It  resembled the face of  a sheep, and the voice, too, had a
sheep-like quality. Goldstein was delivering his usual venomous attack upon
the  doctrines of the Party -- an attack so exaggerated and perverse that a
child  should have  been able  to see  through it,  and yet  just plausible
enough  to fill  one with an alarmed feeling that other people, less level-
headed  than oneself, might  be taken in by it. He was abusing Big Brother,
he  was denouncing  the dictatorship  of the  Party, he  was demanding  the
immediate  conclusion  of peace with  Eurasia, he was advocating freedom of
speech,  freedom of  the Press, freedom of assembly, freedom of thought, he
was  crying  hysterically that the revolution  had been betrayed -- and all
this  in rapid  polysyllabic  speech which  was  a sort  of  parody of  the
habitual  style  of the orators  of the  Party, and even contained Newspeak
words:  more  Newspeak words, indeed,  than any Party member would normally
use  in real life. And all the while, lest one should be in any doubt as to
the reality which Goldstein's specious claptrap covered, behind his head on
the  telescreen  there marched the endless  columns of the Eurasian army --
row  after row  of solid-looking men with expressionless Asiatic faces, who
swam up to the surface of the screen and vanished, to be replaced by others
exactly  similar. The dull rhythmic tramp of the soldiers" boots formed the
background to Goldstein's bleating voice.
     Before  the  Hate had  proceeded  for  thirty seconds,  uncontrollable
exclamations  of  rage were breaking out  from half the people in the room.
The  self-satisfied sheep-like face on the screen, and the terrifying power
of  the  Eurasian army behind  it, were too much  to be borne: besides, the
sight   or   even  the  thought   of  Goldstein  produced  fear  and  anger
automatically. He was an object of hatred more constant than either Eurasia
or  Eastasia, since when Oceania was at war with one of these Powers it was
generally  at peace  with the other. But what was strange was that although
Goldstein  was  hated and despised  by everybody,  although every day and a
thousand  times  a day, on platforms,  on the telescreen, in newspapers, in
books,  his theories  were  refuted,  smashed, ridiculed,  held  up to  the
general  gaze  for the  pitiful rubbish that  they were --  in spite of all
this,  his  influence never  seemed to  grow less.  Always there were fresh
dupes  waiting  to be  seduced by  him. A  day never  passed when spies and
saboteurs  acting under  his directions  were not  unmasked by  the Thought
Police. He was the commander of a vast shadowy army, an underground network
of  conspirators dedicated  to the overthrow of the State. The Brotherhood,
its  name was  supposed  to be.  There  were also  whispered  stories of  a
terrible book, a compendium of all the heresies, of which Goldstein was the
author  and  which circulated clandestinely  here and  there. It was a book
without  a title. People referred to it, if at all, simply as the book. But
one knew of such things only through vague rumours. Neither the Brotherhood
nor  the book was a subject that any ordinary Party member would mention if
there was a way of avoiding it.
     In its second minute the Hate rose to a frenzy. People were leaping up
and  down  in their places and  shouting at the  tops of their voices in an
effort to drown the maddening bleating voice that came from the screen. The
little sandy-haired woman had turned bright pink, and her mouth was opening
and  shutting  like that  of a  landed fish. Even  O'Brien's heavy face was
flushed.  He  was sitting  very straight  in his  chair, his powerful chest
swelling  and quivering  as though he were  standing up to the assault of a
wave.  The dark-haired  girl behind  Winston had  begun crying  out 'Swine!
Swine!  Swine!' and  suddenly she picked up a heavy Newspeak dictionary and
flung  it  at the screen.  It struck Goldstein's  nose and bounced off; the
voice  continued  inexorably. In a  lucid moment  Winston found that he was
shouting with the others and kicking his heel violently against the rung of
his  chair. The horrible  thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one
was  obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to
avoid   joining   in.  Within  thirty   seconds  any  pretence  was  always
unnecessary.  A hideous  ecstasy of  fear and  vindictiveness, a  desire to
kill,  to  torture, to smash faces  in with a sledge-hammer, seemed to flow
through  the  whole group of  people like  an electric current, turning one
even  against  one's will into a  grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the
rage  that one  felt was  an abstract,  undirected emotion  which could  be
switched  from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp. Thus, at
one  moment Winston's  hatred was not turned against Goldstein at all, but,
on  the  contrary, against Big Brother,  the Party, and the Thought Police;
and  at such  moments his heart went  out to the lonely, derided heretic on
the  screen, sole guardian  of truth and sanity in a world of lies. And yet
the very next instant he was at one with the people about him, and all that
was said of Goldstein seemed to him to be true. At those moments his secret
loathing  of Big  Brother changed into adoration, and Big Brother seemed to
tower  up, an  invincible, fearless protector, standing like a rock against
the  hordes  of  Asia,  and  Goldstein, in  spite  of  his  isolation,  his
helplessness, and the doubt that hung about his very existence, seemed like
some sinister enchanter, capable by the mere power of his voice of wrecking
the structure of civilization.
     It  was even  possible, at moments, to switch one's hatred this way or
that by a voluntary act. Suddenly, by the sort of violent effort with which
one  wrenches one's  head  away from  the pillow  in  a nightmare,  Winston
succeeded  in  transferring his hatred  from the face  on the screen to the
dark-haired  girl  behind  him.  Vivid,  beautiful  hallucinations  flashed
through  his mind.  He would flog her  to death with a rubber truncheon. He
would  tie  her naked to  a stake  and shoot her  full of arrows like Saint
Sebastian.  He would ravish her and cut her throat at the moment of climax.
Better  than before, moreover, he realized why it was that he hated her. He
hated  her because  she was young and pretty and sexless, because he wanted
to go to bed with her and would never do so, because round her sweet supple
waist, which seemed to ask you to encircle it with your arm, there was only
the odious scarlet sash, aggressive symbol of chastity.
     The  Hate  rose to  its climax.  The voice of  Goldstein had become an
actual  sheep's bleat,  and for an instant  the face changed into that of a
sheep. Then the sheep-face melted into the figure of a Eurasian soldier who
seemed to be advancing, huge and terrible, his sub-machine gun roaring, and
seeming  to  spring out of the  surface of the  screen, so that some of the
people  in the front row actually flinched backwards in their seats. But in
the  same moment, drawing a deep sigh of relief from everybody, the hostile
figure   melted  into   the  face  of  Big  Brother,  black-haired,  black-
moustachio'd, full of power and mysterious calm, and so vast that it almost
filled  up  the screen.  Nobody heard  what Big Brother  was saying. It was
merely  a few words of encouragement, the sort of words that are uttered in
the   din   of  battle,  not  distinguishable  individually  but  restoring
confidence  by the fact of being spoken. Then the face of Big Brother faded
away  again, and  instead the three slogans  of the Party stood out in bold
capitals:

        WAR IS PEACE
        FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
        IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

     But  the face  of Big Brother seemed to persist for several seconds on
the  screen,  as though the impact  that it had made on everyone's eyeballs
was  too  vivid to wear off  immediately. The little sandy-haired woman had
flung  herself forward  over the back of  the chair in front of her. With a
tremulous  murmur that  sounded like  'My Saviour!'  she extended  her arms
towards  the screen. Then she buried her face in her hands. It was apparent
that she was uttering a prayer.
     At  this  moment the entire  group of people  broke into a deep, slow,
rhythmical chant of 'B-B!....B-B!....' -- over and over again, very slowly,
with  a long  pause between the first 'B' and the second-a heavy, murmurous
sound,  somehow curiously  savage, in the background of which one seemed to
hear  the stamp of naked feet and the throbbing of tom-toms. For perhaps as
much  as  thirty seconds they kept  it up. It  was a refrain that was often
heard  in moments of  overwhelming emotion. Partly it was a sort of hymn to
the  wisdom  and majesty of  Big Brother,  but still more  it was an act of
self-hypnosis,  a deliberate drowning of consciousness by means of rhythmic
noise.  Winston's entrails  seemed to grow cold. In the Two Minutes Hate he
could not help sharing in the general delirium, but this sub-human chanting
of  'B-B!....B-B!' always filled him with horror. Of course he chanted with
the rest: it was impossible to do otherwise. To dissemble your feelings, to
control  your face,  to do what everyone else was doing, was an instinctive
reaction.  But  there was a  space of a couple  of seconds during which the
expression  of  his eyes  might conceivably  have betrayed  him. And it was
exactly  at this  moment that the significant thing happened -- if, indeed,
it did happen.
     Momentarily  he caught  O'Brien's eye.  O'Brien had  stood up.  He had
taken  off his spectacles and was in the act of resettling them on his nose
with  his characteristic gesture. But there was a fraction of a second when
their  eyes met, and  for as long as it took to happen Winston knew -- yes,
he  knew! --  that  O'Brien was  thinking  the same  thing  as himself.  An
unmistakable  message had  passed. It  was as  though their  two minds  had
opened  and the thoughts were flowing from one into the other through their
eyes.  'I am  with  you,' O'Brien  seemed  to  be saying  to  him. 'I  know
precisely  what you  are  feeling. I  know all  about  your contempt,  your
hatred,  your  disgust. But don't  worry, I am on  your side!' And then the
flash  of  intelligence was gone, and  O'Brien's face was as inscrutable as
everybody else's.
     That  was  all, and he was  already uncertain whether it had happened.
Such incidents never had any sequel. All that they did was to keep alive in
him  the  belief, or hope, that  others besides himself were the enemies of
the  Party. Perhaps  the rumours of vast underground conspiracies were true
after  all -- perhaps the Brotherhood really existed! It was impossible, in
spite  of  the endless arrests  and confessions  and executions, to be sure
that  the Brotherhood  was not simply a  myth. Some days he believed in it,
some  days  not. There was  no evidence,  only fleeting glimpses that might
mean  anything  or  nothing:  snatches  of  overheard  conversation,  faint
scribbles  on lavatory walls -- once, even, when two strangers met, a small
movement  of  the hand which had  looked as though  it might be a signal of
recognition.  It was all guesswork: very likely he had imagined everything.
He  had gone back to his cubicle without looking at O'Brien again. The idea
of  following up  their momentary contact hardly crossed his mind. It would
have  been  inconceivably dangerous even  if he had  known how to set about
doing  it. For  a  second, two  seconds, they  had  exchanged an  equivocal
glance,  and that  was the end of  the story. But even that was a memorable
event, in the locked loneliness in which one had to live.
     Winston  roused himself and sat up straighter. He let out a belch. The
gin was rising from his stomach.
     His  eyes re-focused  on the  page. He  discovered that  while he  sat
helplessly  musing he had also been writing, as though by automatic action.
And  it was  no longer the same cramped, awkward handwriting as before. His
pen  had  slid voluptuously over  the smooth  paper, printing in large neat
capitals--

        DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER
        DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER
        DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER
        DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER
        DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER

over and over again, filling half a page.
     He  could not help feeling a twinge of panic. It was absurd, since the
writing  of those  particular words was not more dangerous than the initial
act  of opening the  diary, but for a moment he was tempted to tear out the
spoiled pages and abandon the enterprise altogether.
     He  did not  do so,  however,  because he  knew that  it was  useless.
Whether  he wrote  DOWN  WITH BIG  BROTHER, or  whether  he refrained  from
writing  it, made  no difference.  Whether he  went on  with the  diary, or
whether  he did  not go on with  it, made no difference. The Thought Police
would  get  him  just the  same.  He  had  committed  -- would  still  have
committed,  even  if he had  never set pen to  paper -- the essential crime
that  contained  all  others  in  itself.  Thoughtcrime,  they  called  it.
Thoughtcrime  was  not a thing that  could be concealed for ever. You might
dodge  successfully  for a while, even  for years, but sooner or later they
were bound to get you.
     It  was  always at night --  the arrests invariably happened at night.
The  sudden  jerk out of  sleep, the rough  hand shaking your shoulder, the
lights  glaring in your  eyes, the ring of hard faces round the bed. In the
vast  majority of cases there was no trial, no report of the arrest. People
simply disappeared, always during the night. Your name was removed from the
registers, every record of everything you had ever done was wiped out, your
one-time  existence was  denied  and then  forgotten.  You were  abolished,
annihilated: vapourized was the usual word.
     For  a moment he was seized by a kind of hysteria. He began writing in
a hurried untidy scrawl:

        theyll  shoot  me i don't  care theyll shoot me  in the back of the
neck i dont care down with big brother they always shoot you in the back of
the neck i dont care down with big brother--

     He  sat back  in his chair, slightly ashamed of himself, and laid down
the  pen. The next moment he started violently. There was a knocking at the
door.
     Already!  He sat as  still as a mouse, in the futile hope that whoever
it  was  might go  away after  a single  attempt. But  no, the knocking was
repeated.  The worst thing of all would be to delay. His heart was thumping
like a drum, but his face, from long habit, was probably expressionless. He
got up and moved heavily towards the door.



        II

     As  he put his  hand to the door-knob Winston saw that he had left the
diary  open on the table. DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER was written all over it, in
letters  almost  big enough  to  be  legible across  the  room.  It was  an
inconceivably  stupid  thing to  have done.  But, he  realized, even in his
panic  he  had not wanted  to smudge the creamy  paper by shutting the book
while the ink was wet.
     He  drew in  his breath and opened  the door. Instantly a warm wave of
relief  flowed through him. A colourless, crushed-looking woman, with wispy
hair and a lined face, was standing outside.
     'Oh,  comrade,' she  began  in a  dreary, whining  sort  of voice,  'I
thought  I heard you come in. Do you think you could come across and have a
look at our kitchen sink? It's got blocked up and--'
     It  was Mrs.  Parsons, the  wife  of a  neighbour on  the same  floor.
('Mrs.'  was a  word  somewhat discountenanced  by the  Party  -- you  were
supposed  to  call everyone  'comrade' --  but with some  women one used it
instinctively.)  She  was a woman of  about thirty, but looking much older.
One  had  the impression  that there was  dust in the  creases of her face.
Winston  followed  her down the passage.  These amateur repair jobs were an
almost  daily irritation. Victory Mansions were old flats, built in 1930 or
thereabouts, and were falling to pieces. The plaster flaked constantly from
ceilings  and  walls, the pipes burst  in every hard frost, the roof leaked
whenever  there  was snow, the  heating system  was usually running at half
steam  when it  was not  closed down  altogether from  motives of  economy.
Repairs,  except  what you could  do for yourself,  had to be sanctioned by
remote  committees which  were liable  to  hold up  even the  mending of  a
window-pane for two years.
     'Of  course it's  only  because  Tom isn't  home,'  said Mrs.  Parsons
vaguely.
     The  Parsons" flat was bigger than Winston's, and dingy in a different
way.  Everything had  a battered, trampled-on look, as though the place had
just  been visited  by  some  large violent  animal.  Games impedimenta  --
hockey-sticks,  boxing-gloves,  a burst  football, a  pair of sweaty shorts
turned  inside out --  lay all over the floor, and on the table there was a
litter  of dirty  dishes and  dog-eared exercise-books.  On the  walls were
scarlet  banners of the Youth League and the Spies, and a full-sized poster
of  Big  Brother. There was  the usual  boiled-cabbage smell, common to the
whole  building, but it  was shot through by a sharper reek of sweat, which
--  one knew this  at the first sniff, though it was hard to say how -- was
the sweat of some person not present at the moment. In another room someone
with  a comb  and a piece of toilet  paper was trying to keep tune with the
military music which was still issuing from the telescreen.
     'It's  the  children,' said  Mrs. Parsons, casting a half-apprehensive
glance at the door. 'They haven't been out today. And of course--'
     She  had a  habit of  breaking off  her sentences  in the  middle. The
kitchen  sink was  full nearly to the brim with filthy greenish water which
smelt  worse than  ever of  cabbage. Winston  knelt down  and examined  the
angle-joint  of  the pipe. He  hated using his  hands, and he hated bending
down, which was always liable to start him coughing. Mrs. Parsons looked on
helplessly.
     'Of  course if Tom  was home he'd put it right in a moment,' she said.
'He loves anything like that. He's ever so good with his hands, Tom is.'
     Parsons was Winston's fellow-employee at the Ministry of Truth. He was
a  fattish but  active  man of  paralysing stupidity,  a  mass of  imbecile
enthusiasms  --  one of those  completely unquestioning, devoted drudges on
whom,  more  even than  on the  Thought Police, the  stability of the Party
depended.  At thirty-five  he had  just been  unwillingly evicted  from the
Youth League, and before graduating into the Youth League he had managed to
stay  on in the  Spies for a year beyond the statutory age. At the Ministry
he  was  employed in some  subordinate post  for which intelligence was not
required,  but  on the  other hand  he was  a leading  figure on the Sports
Committee  and all  the other  committees engaged  in organizing  community
hikes,   spontaneous   demonstrations,  savings  campaigns,  and  voluntary
activities  generally. He would inform you with quiet pride, between whiffs
of his pipe, that he had put in an appearance at the Community Centre every
evening  for the past four years. An overpowering smell of sweat, a sort of
unconscious  testimony to the strenuousness of his life, followed him about
wherever he went, and even remained behind him after he had gone.
     'Have  you got  a spanner?' said Winston, fiddling with the nut on the
angle-joint.
     'A  spanner,' said Mrs. Parsons, immediately becoming invertebrate. 'I
don't know, I'm sure. Perhaps the children--'
     There  was a  trampling of boots and  another blast on the comb as the
children  charged  into the living-room.  Mrs. Parsons brought the spanner.
Winston  let  out the water and  disgustedly removed the clot of human hair
that  had blocked  up the pipe. He  cleaned his fingers as best he could in
the cold water from the tap and went back into the other room.
     'Up with your hands!' yelled a savage voice.
     A  handsome,  tough-looking boy of nine  had popped up from behind the
table  and  was menacing him  with a toy  automatic pistol, while his small
sister,  about two  years younger, made the same gesture with a fragment of
wood.  Both of  them were dressed in  the blue shorts, grey shirts, and red
neckerchiefs  which were the uniform of the Spies. Winston raised his hands
above  his head,  but with  an  uneasy feeling,  so vicious  was the  boy's
demeanour, that it was not altogether a game.
     'You're a traitor!' yelled the boy. 'You're a thought-criminal! You're
a  Eurasian  spy! I'll shoot  you, I'll vaporize you,  I'll send you to the
salt mines!'
     Suddenly  they  were both  leaping round  him, shouting 'Traitor!' and
'Thought-criminal!'   the  little  girl  imitating  her  brother  in  every
movement. It was somehow slightly frightening, like the gambolling of tiger
cubs  which  will  soon grow  up  into  man-eaters.  There  was a  sort  of
calculating  ferocity  in the boy's  eye, a quite  evident desire to hit or
kick  Winston and a consciousness of being very nearly big enough to do so.
It was a good job it was not a real pistol he was holding, Winston thought.
     Mrs. Parsons" eyes flitted nervously from Winston to the children, and
back again. In the better light of the living-room he noticed with interest
that there actually was dust in the creases of her face.
     'They  do get  so noisy,' she said. 'They're disappointed because they
couldn't  go  to see the hanging,  that's what it  is. I'm too busy to take
them. and Tom won't be back from work in time.'
     'Why  can't  we go  and see the  hanging?' roared the  boy in his huge
voice.
     'Want to see the hanging! Want to see the hanging!' chanted the little
girl, still capering round.
     Some  Eurasian  prisoners, guilty of war  crimes, were to be hanged in
the  Park that  evening, Winston  remembered.  This happened  about once  a
month,  and was  a popular spectacle. Children always clamoured to be taken
to  see it. He took his leave of Mrs. Parsons and made for the door. But he
had  not gone six steps down the passage when something hit the back of his
neck  an agonizingly painful blow. It was as though a red-hot wire had been
jabbed  into him.  He spun round just  in time to see Mrs. Parsons dragging
her son back into the doorway while the boy pocketed a catapult.
     'Goldstein!' bellowed the boy as the door closed on him. But what most
struck Winston was the look of helpless fright on the woman's greyish face.
     Back  in the  flat he stepped quickly past the telescreen and sat down
at  the table  again, still rubbing his neck. The music from the telescreen
had stopped. Instead, a clipped military voice was reading out, with a sort
of  brutal relish,  a  description of  the armaments  of  the new  Floating
Fortress  which  had just  been  anchored  between  lceland and  the  Faroe
lslands.
     With  those children, he thought, that wretched woman must lead a life
of  terror.  Another year, two years,  and they would be watching her night
and  day for  symptoms of  unorthodoxy. Nearly  all children  nowadays were
horrible.  What was worst of all was that by means of such organizations as
the Spies they were systematically turned into ungovernable little savages,
and  yet  this produced in  them no tendency  whatever to rebel against the
discipline  of the  Party.  On  the contrary,  they  adored  the Party  and
everything  connected with it. The songs, the processions, the banners, the
hiking, the drilling with dummy rifles, the yelling of slogans, the worship
of  Big  Brother -- it was  all a sort of  glorious game to them. All their
ferocity  was  turned outwards,  against the enemies  of the State, against
foreigners,  traitors,  saboteurs, thought-criminals.  It was almost normal
for  people  over thirty to  be frightened of  their own children. And with
good  reason, for  hardly a week passed  in which the Times did not carry a
paragraph  describing  how some eavesdropping  little sneak -- 'child hero'
was the phrase generally used -- had overheard some compromising remark and
denounced its parents to the Thought Police.
     The  sting of  the catapult bullet had  worn off. He picked up his pen
half-heartedly,  wondering whether he could find something more to write in
the diary. Suddenly he began thinking of O'Brien again.
     Years ago -- how long was it? Seven years it must be -- he had dreamed
that  he was  walking through a pitch-dark room. And someone sitting to one
side  of him had said as he passed: 'We shall meet in the place where there
is  no darkness.' It was said very quietly, almost casually -- a statement,
not  a command. He had walked on without pausing. What was curious was that
at  the time, in  the dream, the words had not made much impression on him.
It  was  only  later and  by  degrees  that  they  had seemed  to  take  on
significance.  He  could not  now remember  whether it  was before or after
having  the dream that he had seen O'Brien for the first time, nor could he
remember  when  he had first identified  the voice as O'Brien's. But at any
rate  the identification  existed. It was O'Brien who had spoken to him out
of the dark.
     Winston  had never been able to feel sure -- even after this morning's
flash  of the eyes it was still impossible to be sure whether O'Brien was a
friend  or  an enemy. Nor did  it even seem  to matter greatly. There was a
link  of  understanding between  them,  more  important than  affection  or
partisanship.  'We shall  meet in the place where there is no darkness,' he
had  said.  Winston did not  know what  it meant, only  that in some way or
another it would come true.
     The  voice from  the  telescreen  paused. A  trumpet  call, clear  and
beautiful, floated into the stagnant air. The voice continued raspingly:
     'Attention!  Your  attention,  please!  A newsflash  has  this  moment
arrived  from the  Malabar front.  Our  forces in  South India  have won  a
glorious  victory. I  am  authorized to  say  that the  action  we are  now
reporting  may  well bring the  war within  measurable distance of its end.
Here is the newsflash--'
     Bad news coming, thought Winston. And sure enough, following on a gory
description of the annihilation of a Eurasian army, with stupendous figures
of killed and prisoners, came the announcement that, as from next week, the
chocolate ration would be reduced from thirty grammes to twenty.
     Winston  belched  again. The  gin was wearing  off, leaving a deflated
feeling.  The  telescreen --  perhaps to celebrate  the victory, perhaps to
drown  the memory  of the lost chocolate -- crashed into 'Oceania, 'tis for
thee'.  You  were supposed to  stand to  attention. However, in his present
position he was invisible.
     'Oceania,  'tis  for thee'  gave way to  lighter music. Winston walked
over  to the window,  keeping his back to the telescreen. The day was still
cold  and  clear. Somewhere  far away  a rocket bomb  exploded with a dull,
reverberating  roar. About  twenty or thirty of them a week were falling on
London at present.
     Down  in the  street the wind flapped  the torn poster to and fro, and
the  word  INGSOC  fitfully  appeared  and  vanished.  Ingsoc.  The  sacred
principles of Ingsoc. Newspeak, doublethink, the mutability of the past. He
felt  as though he were wandering in the forests of the sea bottom, lost in
a  monstrous world where he himself was the monster. He was alone. The past
was  dead, the future was unimaginable. What certainty had he that a single
human creature now living was on his side? And what way of knowing that the
dominion  of the Party would not endure for ever? Like an answer, the three
slogans on the white face of the Ministry of Truth came back to him:

        WAR IS PEACE
        FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
        IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

     He  took  a twenty-five cent  piece out of  his pocket. There, too, in
tiny  clear  lettering, the same  slogans were  inscribed, and on the other
face  of  the coin  the head  of Big Brother.  Even from  the coin the eyes
pursued  you. On  coins, on stamps, on  the covers of books, on banners, on
posters,  and on  the wrappings of a cigarette packet -- everywhere. Always
the  eyes watching  you  and the  voice enveloping  you.  Asleep or  awake,
working  or  eating, indoors or out  of doors, in the  bath or in bed -- no
escape.  Nothing was  your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your
skull.
     The  sun had  shifted round, and the myriad windows of the Ministry of
Truth,  with the  light  no longer  shining  on them,  looked  grim as  the
loopholes  of  a fortress. His  heart quailed before the enormous pyramidal
shape.  It was too strong, it could not be stormed. A thousand rocket bombs
would  not  batter it down.  He wondered again for  whom he was writing the
diary.  For the future, for the past -- for an age that might be imaginary.
And  in front of  him there lay not death but annihilation. The diary would
be  reduced  to ashes and himself  to vapour. Only the Thought Police would
read  what he had written, before they wiped it out of existence and out of
memory.  How could  you make appeal to  the future when not a trace of you,
not  even an anonymous word scribbled on a piece of paper, could physically
survive?
     The  telescreen struck  fourteen. He must leave in ten minutes. He had
to be back at work by fourteen-thirty.
     Curiously,  the chiming  of the hour seemed to have put new heart into
him.  He was  a lonely ghost uttering  a truth that nobody would ever hear.
But  so long  as he uttered it,  in some obscure way the continuity was not
broken.  It was  not by making yourself  heard but by staying sane that you
carried  on the human  heritage. He went back to the table, dipped his pen,
and wrote:

        To  the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free, when
men  are different from one another and do not live alone -- to a time when
truth exists and what is done cannot be undone:
        From  the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude, from the age
of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink -- greetings!

     He  was already dead,  he reflected. It seemed to him that it was only
now,  when he  had begun to be  able to formulate his thoughts, that he had
taken  the decisive step. The consequences of every act are included in the
act itself. He wrote:

        Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime IS death.

     Now  he  had recognized himself  as a dead  man it became important to
stay  alive  as long  as  possible.  Two fingers  of  his  right hand  were
inkstained.  It was  exactly the kind of detail that might betray you. Some
nosing  zealot in  the Ministry (a woman, probably: someone like the little
sandy-haired  woman  or the  dark-haired girl  from the Fiction Department)
might  start  wondering why he had  been writing during the lunch interval,
why  he had used an old-fashioned pen, what he had been writing -- and then
drop  a hint  in  the appropriate  quarter.  He went  to  the bathroom  and
carefully  scrubbed the  ink away  with  the gritty  dark-brown soap  which
rasped  your  skin like sandpaper  and was  therefore well adapted for this
purpose.
     He  put the diary away in the drawer. It was quite useless to think of
hiding it, but he could at least make sure whether or not its existence had
been discovered. A hair laid across the page-ends was too obvious. With the
tip  of his  finger he picked up  an identifiable grain of whitish dust and
deposited  it on  the corner of the  cover, where it was bound to be shaken
off if the book was moved.



        III

     Winston was dreaming of his mother.
     He must, he thought, have been ten or eleven years old when his mother
had  disappeared. She was a tall, statuesque, rather silent woman with slow
movements  and magnificent fair hair. His father he remembered more vaguely
as  dark and  thin, dressed always in neat dark clothes (Winston remembered
especially  the  very  thin  soles  of  his  father's  shoes)  and  wearing
spectacles. The two of them must evidently have been swallowed up in one of
the first great purges of the fifties.
     At  this moment his mother was sitting in some place deep down beneath
him,  with his young  sister in her arms. He did not remember his sister at
all,  except  as a tiny,  feeble baby,  always silent, with large, watchful
eyes.  Both  of them  were  looking  up at  him.  They  were down  in  some
subterranean  place --  the bottom of a  well, for instance, or a very deep
grave -- but it was a place which, already far below him, was itself moving
downwards.  They  were in the  saloon of a sinking  ship, looking up at him
through  the darkening water. There was still air in the saloon, they could
still  see him and  he them, but all the while they were sinking down, down
into the green waters which in another moment must hide them from sight for
ever.  He was out in the light and air while they were being sucked down to
death, and they were down there because he was up here. He knew it and they
knew  it, and  he could  see the  knowledge in  their faces.  There was  no
reproach  either in their faces or in their hearts, only the knowledge that
they  must die in  order that he might remain alive, and that this was part
of the unavoidable order of things.
     He could not remember what had happened, but he knew in his dream that
in  some way the  lives of his mother and his sister had been sacrificed to
his   own.  It   was  one  of  those  dreams  which,  while  retaining  the
characteristic  dream scenery,  are  a continuation  of one's  intellectual
life,  and in  which one becomes aware  of facts and ideas which still seem
new  and  valuable after one  is awake. The  thing that now suddenly struck
Winston  was  that his  mother's death,  nearly thirty  years ago, had been
tragic  and  sorrowful in  a way  that was no  longer possible. Tragedy, he
perceived,  belonged  to the ancient  time, to a  time when there was still
privacy,  love,  and friendship, and when  the members of a family stood by
one another without needing to know the reason. His mother's memory tore at
his  heart because  she had  died loving  him, when  he was  too young  and
selfish  to  love her in  return, and because  somehow, he did not remember
how, she had sacrificed herself to a conception of loyalty that was private
and  unalterable. Such  things, he saw, could not happen today. Today there
were  fear, hatred, and pain, but no dignity of emotion, no deep or complex
sorrows.  All this he seemed to see in the large eyes of his mother and his
sister, looking up at him through the green water, hundreds of fathoms down
and still sinking.
     Suddenly  he  was standing on short  springy turf, on a summer evening
when  the slanting rays of the sun gilded the ground. The landscape that he
was  looking  at recurred  so often in  his dreams that  he was never fully
certain  whether  or not he  had seen  it in the  real world. In his waking
thoughts  he  called it  the Golden  Country. It  was an old, rabbit-bitten
pasture,  with  a foot-track  wandering across  it and  a molehill here and
there.  In the ragged hedge on the opposite side of the field the boughs of
the  elm  trees were swaying very  faintly in the breeze, their leaves just
stirring  in dense masses like women's hair. Somewhere near at hand, though
out  of sight,  there  was  a clear,  slow-moving  stream  where dace  were
swimming in the pools under the willow trees.
     The girl with dark hair was coming towards them across the field. With
what  seemed a  single movement  she tore  off her  clothes and  flung them
disdainfully aside. Her body was white and smooth, but it aroused no desire
in him, indeed he barely looked at it. What overwhelmed him in that instant
was admiration for the gesture with which she had thrown her clothes aside.
With  its grace and carelessness it seemed to annihilate a whole culture, a
whole  system of  thought, as  though  Big Brother  and the  Party and  the
Thought  Police  could all be  swept into  nothingness by a single splendid
movement  of the arm. That too was a gesture belonging to the ancient time.
Winston woke up with the word 'Shakespeare' on his lips.
     The  telescreen  was  giving  forth  an  ear-splitting  whistle  which
continued on the same note for thirty seconds. It was nought seven fifteen,
getting-up time for office workers. Winston wrenched his body out of bed --
naked, for a member of the Outer Party received only 3,000 clothing coupons
annually, and a suit of pyjamas was 600 -- and seized a dingy singlet and a
pair  of  shorts that were  lying across a  chair. The Physical Jerks would
begin  in  three minutes.  The next moment  he was doubled  up by a violent
coughing  fit  which nearly  always attacked  him soon  after waking up. It
emptied his lungs so completely that he could only begin breathing again by
lying  on his back and taking a series of deep gasps. His veins had swelled
with the effort of the cough, and the varicose ulcer had started itching.
     'Thirty  to  forty group!' yapped  a piercing female voice. 'Thirty to
forty group! Take your places, please. Thirties to forties!'
     Winston sprang to attention in front of the telescreen, upon which the
image  of a youngish woman, scrawny but muscular, dressed in tunic and gym-
shoes, had already appeared.
     'Arms  bending and stretching!' she rapped out. 'Take your time by me.
One,  two, three, four! One, two, three, four! Come on, comrades, put a bit
of life into it! One, two, three four! One two, three, four!...'
     The  pain  of the coughing  fit had not  quite driven out of Winston's
mind  the  impression made by his  dream, and the rhythmic movements of the
exercise  restored  it somewhat. As he  mechanically shot his arms back and
forth,  wearing on his face the look of grim enjoyment which was considered
proper  during the  Physical  Jerks, he  was struggling  to  think his  way
backward into the dim period of his early childhood. It was extraordinarily
difficult.  Beyond  the late  fifties everything faded.  When there were no
external records that you could refer to, even the outline of your own life
lost its sharpness. You remembered huge events which had quite probably not
happened,  you remembered  the detail  of incidents  without being  able to
recapture  their atmosphere, and there were long blank periods to which you
could assign nothing. Everything had been different then. Even the names of
countries,  and their  shapes on the map, had been different. Airstrip One,
for  instance,  had not  been so called  in those days:  it had been called
England  or Britain, though London, he felt fairly certain, had always been
called London.
     Winston  could not definitely remember a time when his country had not
been  at war, but it was evident that there had been a fairly long interval
of  peace during his childhood, because one of his early memories was of an
air  raid  which appeared to take  everyone by surprise. Perhaps it was the
time when the atomic bomb had fallen on Colchester. He did not remember the
raid  itself,  but he did  remember his father's  hand clutching his own as
they  hurried down, down, down into some place deep in the earth, round and
round  a  spiral staircase which  rang under his  feet and which finally so
wearied  his legs  that he began whimpering  and they had to stop and rest.
His  mother, in her slow, dreamy way, was following a long way behind them.
She  was  carrying his baby  sister --  or perhaps it  was only a bundle of
blankets  that she  was carrying: he was not certain whether his sister had
been  born then. Finally they had emerged into a noisy, crowded place which
he had realized to be a Tube station.
     There  were people sitting all over the stone-flagged floor, and other
people, packed tightly together, were sitting on metal bunks, one above the
other.  Winston  and his mother and  father found themselves a place on the
floor,  and near them an old man and an old woman were sitting side by side
on  a  bunk. The old  man had on  a decent dark suit  and a black cloth cap
pushed  back from  very white hair: his  face was scarlet and his eyes were
blue  and full of  tears. He reeked of gin. It seemed to breathe out of his
skin  in place of  sweat, and one could have fancied that the tears welling
from  his  eyes were  pure  gin.  But though  slightly  drunk  he was  also
suffering under some grief that was genuine and unbearable. In his childish
way  Winston  grasped that  some terrible thing,  something that was beyond
forgiveness  and could never be remedied, had just happened. It also seemed
to him that he knew what it was. Someone whom the old man loved -- a little
granddaughter,  perhaps  -- had been killed.  Every few minutes the old man
kept repeating:
     'We  didn't ought to 'ave trusted 'em. I said so, Ma, didn't I? That's
what  comes of  trusting 'em. I said  so all along. We didn't ought to 'ave
trusted the buggers.'
     But  which buggers they didn't ought to have trusted Winston could not
now remember.
     Since  about that  time,  war had  been  literally continuous,  though
strictly  speaking it  had not always been the same war. For several months
during  his childhood  there had  been confused  street fighting  in London
itself,  some of  which he remembered vividly. But to trace out the history
of  the  whole period,  to say who  was fighting whom  at any given moment,
would  have been utterly impossible, since no written record, and no spoken
word,  ever  made mention of any  other alignment than the existing one. At
this moment, for example, in 1984 (if it was 1984), Oceania was at war with
Eurasia  and  in alliance with Eastasia.  In no public or private utterance
was  it  ever admitted that  the three powers had  at any time been grouped
along  different  lines. Actually, as  Winston well  knew, it was only four
years  since  Oceania had  been at  war with Eastasia  and in alliance with
Eurasia. But that was merely a piece of furtive knowledge which he happened
to  possess  because  his  memory was  not  satisfactorily  under  control.
Officially  the  change of partners had  never happened. Oceania was at war
with  Eurasia:  therefore Oceania had always  been at war with Eurasia. The
enemy  of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that
any past or future agreement with him was impossible.
     The  frightening thing, he reflected for the ten thousandth time as he
forced  his shoulders  painfully backward  (with hands  on hips,  they were
gyrating  their bodies  from the waist, an exercise that was supposed to be
good  for the back  muscles) -- the frightening thing was that it might all
be  true. If the  Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this
or  that event, it never happened -- that, surely, was more terrifying than
mere torture and death?
     The  Party said  that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia.
He,  Winston Smith,  knew that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as
short a time as four years ago. But where did that knowledge exist? Only in
his  own consciousness,  which in any case must soon be annihilated. And if
all  others accepted the lie which the Party imposed -- if all records told
the  same tale  -- then the lie  passed into history and became truth. 'Who
controls  the  past,' ran  the  Party  slogan,  'controls the  future:  who
controls  the  present controls the past.'  And yet the past, though of its
nature  alterable,  never had been altered.  Whatever was true now was true
from  everlasting to  everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed
was  an  unending  series  of  victories over  your  own  memory.  'Reality
control', they called it: in Newspeak, 'doublethink'
     'Stand easy!' barked the instructress, a little more genially.
     Winston  sank his arms to his sides and slowly refilled his lungs with
air. His mind slid away into the labyrinthine world of doublethink. To know
and  not  to know, to  be conscious  of complete truthfulness while telling
carefully  constructed  lies, to  hold  simultaneously  two opinions  which
cancelled  out,  knowing them to be  contradictory and believing in both of
them,  to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim
to  it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the
guardian  of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then
to  draw  it back into memory  again at the  moment when it was needed, and
then  promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process
to  the process  itself. That  was  the ultimate  subtlety: consciously  to
induce  unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the
act  of hypnosis  you  had  just performed.  Even  to  understand the  word
'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink.
     The  instructress  had called them  to attention again. 'And now let's
see which of us can touch our toes!' she said enthusiastically. 'Right over
from the hips, please, comrades. One-two! One-two!...'
     Winston  loathed this  exercise, which sent shooting pains all the way
from  his heels  to his  buttocks and  often ended  by bringing  on another
coughing  fit.  The half-pleasant quality  went out of his meditations. The
past,  he reflected,  had not  merely been  altered, it  had been  actually
destroyed.  For  how could  you establish  even the  most obvious fact when
there  existed  no record outside your  own memory? He tried to remember in
what  year  he had first  heard mention of Big  Brother. He thought it must
have been at some time in the sixties, but it was impossible to be certain.
In  the  Party histories, of course,  Big Brother figured as the leader and
guardian  of the  Revolution since its very earliest days. His exploits had
been  gradually  pushed backwards in  time until already they extended into
the fabulous world of the forties and the thirties, when the capitalists in
their  strange cylindrical hats still rode through the streets of London in
great gleaming motor-cars or horse carriages with glass sides. There was no
knowing  how  much of this  legend was true  and how much invented. Winston
could  not even  remember  at what  date  the Party  itself  had come  into
existence.  He  did not  believe he  had ever heard  the word Ingsoc before
1960, but it was possible that in its Oldspeak form -- 'English Socialism',
that is to say -- it had been current earlier. Everything melted into mist.
Sometimes,  indeed, you could put your finger on a definite lie. It was not
true,  for  example, as  was claimed  in the Party  history books, that the
Party  had invented aeroplanes. He remembered aeroplanes since his earliest
childhood.  But you could prove nothing. There was never any evidence. Just
once  in  his whole life he  had held in his hands unmistakable documentary
proof of the falsification of an historical fact. And on that occasion--
     'Smith!'  screamed the shrewish voice from the telescreen. '6079 Smith
W.!  Yes, you! Bend  lower, please! You can do better than that. You're not
trying. Lower, please! That's better, comrade. Now stand at ease, the whole
squad, and watch me.'
     A  sudden  hot sweat had broken  out all over Winston's body. His face
remained  completely inscrutable. Never show dismay! Never show resentment!
A  single flicker of  the eyes could give you away. He stood watching while
the  instructress raised  her arms above her  head and -- one could not say
gracefully,  but  with remarkable neatness  and efficiency -- bent over and
tucked the first joint of her fingers under her toes.
     'There,  comrades!  That's how  I want  to see you  doing it. Watch me
again. I'm thirty-nine and I've had four children. Now look.' She bent over
again.  'You see  my knees aren't bent. You  can all do it if you want to,'
she  added as  she straightened  herself  up. 'Anyone  under forty-five  is
perfectly  capable of touching his toes. We don't all have the privilege of
fighting  in the front line, but at least we can all keep fit. Remember our
boys on the Malabar front! And the sailors in the Floating Fortresses! Just
think what they have to put up with. Now try again. That's better, comrade,
that's  much  better,' she  added encouragingly as  Winston, with a violent
lunge, succeeded in touching his toes with knees unbent, for the first time
in several years.



        IV

     With  the  deep, unconscious sigh  which not  even the nearness of the
telescreen  could  prevent him  from uttering when  his day's work started,
Winston  pulled  the  speakwrite  towards  him,  blew  the  dust  from  its
mouthpiece,  and  put on  his  spectacles.  Then  he unrolled  and  clipped
together four small cylinders of paper which had already flopped out of the
pneumatic tube on the right-hand side of his desk.
     In the walls of the cubicle there were three orifices. To the right of
the speakwrite, a small pneumatic tube for written messages, to the left, a
larger  one for  newspapers; and  in the  side wall,  within easy  reach of
Winston's  arm, a  large oblong slit protected by a wire grating. This last
was  for the disposal of waste paper. Similar slits existed in thousands or
tens  of  thousands throughout the building,  not only in every room but at
short  intervals in  every corridor.  For some  reason they  were nicknamed
memory  holes. When  one knew that any document was due for destruction, or
even  when one saw  a scrap of waste paper lying about, it was an automatic
action  to lift  the  flap of  the  nearest  memory hole  and  drop it  in,
whereupon it would be whirled away on a current of warm air to the enormous
furnaces which were hidden somewhere in the recesses of the building.
     Winston  examined the  four slips of paper which he had unrolled. Each
contained  a message of only one or two lines, in the abbreviated jargon --
not  actually  Newspeak, but consisting  largely of Newspeak words -- which
was used in the Ministry for internal purposes. They ran:

        times 17.3.84 bb speech malreported africa rectify
        times  19.12.83 forecasts  3  yp 4th  quarter  83 misprints  verify
current issue
        times 14.2.84 miniplenty malquoted chocolate rectify
        times 3.12.83 reporting bb dayorder doubleplusungood refs unpersons
rewrite fullwise upsub antefiling

     With  a faint  feeling of satisfaction Winston laid the fourth message
aside. It was an intricate and responsible job and had better be dealt with
last.  The  other three were  routine matters,  though the second one would
probably mean some tedious wading through lists of figures.
     Winston  dialled  'back numbers' on  the telescreen and called for the
appropriate issues of the Times, which slid out of the pneumatic tube after
only  a few  minutes"  delay.  The messages  he  had  received referred  to
articles  or news  items which  for one  reason or  another it  was thought
necessary  to  alter, or,  as the  official phrase had  it, to rectify. For
example,  it  appeared from the Times  of the seventeenth of March that Big
Brother,  in  his speech of the  previous day, had predicted that the South
Indian front would remain quiet but that a Eurasian offensive would shortly
be  launched  in North Africa. As  it happened, the Eurasian Higher Command
had  launched its  offensive in South India and left North Africa alone. It
was  therefore necessary to rewrite a paragraph of Big Brother's speech, in
such  a way as to make him predict the thing that had actually happened. Or
again,  the Times  of the nineteenth of December had published the official
forecasts  of  the output  of various  classes of  consumption goods in the
fourth  quarter of  1983, which  was also  the sixth  quarter of  the Ninth
Three-Year  Plan. Today's issue contained a statement of the actual output,
from  which  it appeared that the  forecasts were in every instance grossly
wrong.  Winston's  job was to  rectify the  original figures by making them
agree  with the later ones. As for the third message, it referred to a very
simple  error which  could be set right  in a couple of minutes. As short a
time  ago as  February, the  Ministry  of Plenty  had issued  a promise  (a
'categorical  pledge' were  the  official  words) that  there  would be  no
reduction  of  the chocolate  ration during 1984.  Actually, as Winston was
aware, the chocolate ration was to be reduced from thirty grammes to twenty
at  the end of  the present week. All that was needed was to substitute for
the  original promise  a warning  that it  would probably  be necessary  to
reduce the ration at some time in April.
     As soon as Winston had dealt with each of the messages, he clipped his
speakwritten  corrections  to the appropriate  copy of the Times and pushed
them  into the pneumatic tube. Then, with a movement which was as nearly as
possible  unconscious,  he crumpled  up the original  message and any notes
that  he  himself had  made, and  dropped them  into the  memory hole to be
devoured by the flames.
     What  happened  in the  unseen labyrinth to  which the pneumatic tubes
led,  he did not  know in detail, but he did know in general terms. As soon
as  all  the corrections which  happened to  be necessary in any particular
number  of the  Times had been assembled and collated, that number would be
reprinted,  the  original copy destroyed,  and the corrected copy placed on
the  files in  its stead. This process of continuous alteration was applied
not  only to  newspapers, but  to books,  periodicals, pamphlets,  posters,
leaflets,  films,  sound-tracks, cartoons, photographs  -- to every kind of
literature  or documentation  which might conceivably hold any political or
ideological  significance. Day  by day and almost minute by minute the past
was  brought  up to  date. In this  way every prediction  made by the Party
could  be  shown by documentary evidence  to have been correct, nor was any
item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs
of  the  moment, ever  allowed  to  remain on  record.  All  history was  a
palimpsest,   scraped  clean  and  reinscribed  exactly  as  often  as  was
necessary.  In no case would it have been possible, once the deed was done,
to prove that any falsification had taken place. The largest section of the
Records  Department, far  larger  than  the one  on  which Winston  worked,
consisted simply of persons whose duty it was to track down and collect all
copies  of books, newspapers, and other documents which had been superseded
and were due for destruction. A number of the Times which might, because of
changes  in political  alignment,  or mistaken  prophecies  uttered by  Big
Brother, have been rewritten a dozen times still stood on the files bearing
its original date, and no other copy existed to contradict it. Books, also,
were  recalled and  rewritten again and again, and were invariably reissued
without  any admission  that any alteration had been made. Even the written
instructions  which Winston received, and which he invariably got rid of as
soon  as  he had dealt  with them,  never stated or  implied that an act of
forgery  was  to be committed:  always the  reference was to slips, errors,
misprints,  or  misquotations which  it was  necessary to  put right in the
interests of accuracy.
     But  actually,  he thought as  he re-adjusted the Ministry of Plenty's
figures,  it  was not even  forgery. It was  merely the substitution of one
piece  of nonsense  for another. Most of the material that you were dealing
with had no connexion with anything in the real world, not even the kind of
connexion that is contained in a direct lie. Statistics were just as much a
fantasy  in  their original version as  in their rectified version. A great
deal  of the  time you were expected to  make them up out of your head. For
example,  the Ministry  of Plenty's  forecast had  estimated the  output of
boots  for the quarter at 145 million pairs. The actual output was given as
sixty-two millions. Winston, however, in rewriting the forecast, marked the
figure  down  to fifty-seven millions,  so as to  allow for the usual claim
that  the quota had been overfulfilled. In any case, sixty-two millions was
no  nearer the  truth than fifty-seven millions, or than 145 millions. Very
likely  no boots  had been produced at all. Likelier still, nobody knew how
many  had been  produced, much  less  cared. All  one knew  was that  every
quarter astronomical numbers of boots were produced on paper, while perhaps
half  the  population of  Oceania went  barefoot. And so  it was with every
class  of recorded  fact,  great or  small. Everything  faded  away into  a
shadow-world  in which,  finally,  even the  date of  the  year had  become
uncertain.
     Winston  glanced across  the hall. In the corresponding cubicle on the
other  side a  small, precise-looking, dark-chinned man named Tillotson was
working  steadily  away, with a folded  newspaper on his knee and his mouth
very close to the mouthpiece of the speakwrite. He had the air of trying to
keep  what  he was saying  a secret between  himself and the telescreen. He
looked  up,  and  his  spectacles  darted  a  hostile  flash  in  Winston's
direction.
     Winston  hardly knew  Tillotson,  and had  no idea  what  work he  was
employed  on.  People in the Records  Department did not readily talk about
their  jobs. In  the long, windowless hall, with its double row of cubicles
and  its  endless  rustle  of  papers and  hum  of  voices  murmuring  into
speakwrites, there were quite a dozen people whom Winston did not even know
by  name, though he  daily saw them hurrying to and fro in the corridors or
gesticulating  in the Two Minutes Hate. He knew that in the cubicle next to
him  the  little woman  with sandy  hair toiled  day in  day out, simply at
tracking  down and deleting from the Press the names of people who had been
vaporized  and were therefore considered never to have existed. There was a
certain  fitness in this, since her own husband had been vaporized a couple
of  years earlier.  And a  few cubicles  away a  mild, ineffectual,  dreamy
creature named Ampleforth, with very hairy ears and a surprising talent for
juggling  with rhymes and metres, was engaged in producing garbled versions
--  definitive  texts, they  were  called  --  of  poems which  had  become
ideologically  offensive,  but which for  one reason  or another were to be
retained  in the  anthologies. And  this hall,  with its  fifty workers  or
thereabouts,  was  only one sub-section, a  single cell, as it were, in the
huge complexity of the Records Department. Beyond, above, below, were other
swarms  of workers engaged in an unimaginable multitude of jobs. There were
the  huge  printing-shops with their sub-editors, their typography experts,
and their elaborately equipped studios for the faking of photographs. There
was  the tele-programmes section with its engineers, its producers, and its
teams of actors specially chosen for their skill in imitating voices. There
were  the armies of  reference clerks whose job was simply to draw up lists
of  books  and periodicals which  were due for  recall. There were the vast
repositories  where the  corrected documents  were stored,  and the  hidden
furnaces  where the original copies were destroyed. And somewhere or other,
quite anonymous, there were the directing brains who co-ordinated the whole
effort  and laid down the lines of policy which made it necessary that this
fragment of the past should be preserved, that one falsified, and the other
rubbed out of existence.
     And the Records Department, after all, was itself only a single branch
of the Ministry of Truth, whose primary job was not to reconstruct the past
but  to  supply the citizens  of Oceania with newspapers, films, textbooks,
telescreen  programmes, plays,  novels --  with every  conceivable kind  of
information, instruction, or entertainment, from a statue to a slogan, from
a  lyric poem to a biological treatise, and from a child's spelling-book to
a  Newspeak  dictionary. And  the  Ministry  had  not  only to  supply  the
multifarious  needs of the party, but also to repeat the whole operation at
a  lower level for  the benefit of the proletariat. There was a whole chain
of  separate departments dealing with proletarian literature, music, drama,
and   entertainment  generally.  Here  were  produced  rubbishy  newspapers
containing  almost  nothing except  sport, crime and astrology, sensational
five-cent  novelettes,  films oozing with  sex, and sentimental songs which
were   composed  entirely   by  mechanical  means  on  a  special  kind  of
kaleidoscope known as a versificator. There was even a whole sub-section --
Pornosec, it was called in Newspeak -- engaged in producing the lowest kind
of  pornography,  which was sent  out in sealed  packets and which no Party
member, other than those who worked on it, was permitted to look at.
     Three  messages  had slid out of  the pneumatic tube while Winston was
working,  but they  were simple matters, and he had disposed of them before
the Two Minutes Hate interrupted him. When the Hate was over he returned to
his  cubicle, took  the  Newspeak  dictionary from  the  shelf, pushed  the
speakwrite  to  one side, cleaned  his spectacles,  and settled down to his
main job of the morning.
     Winston's  greatest pleasure in life was in his work. Most of it was a
tedious  routine, but  included in it there were also jobs so difficult and
intricate  that you  could lose  yourself in  them as  in the  depths of  a
mathematical problem -- delicate pieces of forgery in which you had nothing
to  guide  you except your  knowledge of the  principles of Ingsoc and your
estimate of what the Party wanted you to say. Winston was good at this kind
of  thing. On occasion he had even been entrusted with the rectification of
the  Times  leading articles,  which were written  entirely in Newspeak. He
unrolled the message that he had set aside earlier. It ran:

        times 3.12.83 reporting bb dayorder doubleplusungood refs unpersons
rewrite fullwise upsub antefiling

     In Oldspeak (or standard English) this might be rendered:

        The  reporting  of Big Brother's Order  for the Day in the Times of
December  3rd 1983 is extremely unsatisfactory and makes references to non-
existent  persons. Rewrite  it  in full  and submit  your  draft to  higher
authority before filing.

     Winston  read  through the offending  article. Big Brother's Order for
the  Day,  it seemed, had  been chiefly devoted to  praising the work of an
organization known as FFCC, which supplied cigarettes and other comforts to
the  sailors in  the  Floating  Fortresses. A  certain  Comrade Withers,  a
prominent  member of  the Inner  Party, had  been singled  out for  special
mention  and  awarded a decoration,  the Order of Conspicuous Merit, Second
Class.
     Three  months  later FFCC had  suddenly been dissolved with no reasons
given.  One could  assume  that  Withers and  his  associates  were now  in
disgrace, but there had been no report of the matter in the Press or on the
telescreen.  That  was to be  expected, since  it was unusual for political
offenders  to be  put on trial or even publicly denounced. The great purges
involving  thousands of people, with public trials of traitors and thought-
criminals  who  made abject confession  of their crimes and were afterwards
executed,  were  special show-pieces  not occurring oftener  than once in a
couple  of years. More commonly, people who had incurred the displeasure of
the  Party simply  disappeared and were never heard of again. One never had
the smallest clue as to what had happened to them. In some cases they might
not  even  be dead. Perhaps thirty  people personally known to Winston, not
counting his parents, had disappeared at one time or another.
     Winston  stroked his  nose gently  with a  paper-clip. In  the cubicle
across  the way  Comrade Tillotson was still crouching secretively over his
speakwrite.  He raised  his head for a moment: again the hostile spectacle-
flash.  Winston wondered  whether Comrade Tillotson was engaged on the same
job  as himself. It was perfectly possible. So tricky a piece of work would
never  be entrusted to  a single person: on the other hand, to turn it over
to  a  committee would  be to admit  openly that an  act of fabrication was
taking  place. Very likely  as many as a dozen people were now working away
on rival versions of what Big Brother had actually said. And presently some
master  brain  in the Inner Party  would select this version or that, would
re-edit  it  and set  in motion the  complex processes of cross-referencing
that  would be  required,  and then  the  chosen lie  would  pass into  the
permanent records and become truth.
     Winston  did  not know why Withers  had been disgraced. Perhaps it was
for  corruption or incompetence. Perhaps Big Brother was merely getting rid
of  a too-popular  subordinate. Perhaps Withers or someone close to him had
been suspected of heretical tendencies. Or perhaps -- what was likeliest of
all  -- the thing had simply happened because purges and vaporizations were
a  necessary part of the mechanics of government. The only real clue lay in
the  words 'refs unpersons', which indicated that Withers was already dead.
You  could not  invariably assume  this  to be  the case  when people  were
arrested. Sometimes they were released and allowed to remain at liberty for
as  much  as a year  or two years  before being executed. Very occasionally
some  person  whom you  had believed  dead long since  would make a ghostly
reappearance  at some  public trial  where he  would implicate  hundreds of
others  by his  testimony before  vanishing, this  time for  ever. Withers,
however,  was already  an unperson. He did not exist: he had never existed.
Winston  decided that it would not be enough simply to reverse the tendency
of  Big Brother's  speech. It  was better  to make  it deal  with something
totally unconnected with its original subject.
     He  might turn  the speech into the usual denunciation of traitors and
thought-criminals,  but  that was a  little too  obvious, while to invent a
victory  at the  front, or  some triumph  of over-production  in the  Ninth
Three-Year Plan, might complicate the records too much. What was needed was
a piece of pure fantasy. Suddenly there sprang into his mind, ready made as
it  were, the  image of a certain  Comrade Ogilvy, who had recently died in
battle,  in heroic  circumstances. There  were occasions  when Big  Brother
devoted  his Order  for the Day to commemorating some humble, rank-and-file
Party  member  whose life and death  he held up  as an example worthy to be
followed.  Today he  should commemorate  Comrade Ogilvy.  It was  true that
there  was no such person as Comrade Ogilvy, but a few lines of print and a
couple of faked photographs would soon bring him into existence.
     Winston  thought for  a moment, then pulled the speakwrite towards him
and  began dictating  in  Big Brother's  familiar style:  a  style at  once
military and pedantic, and, because of a trick of asking questions and then
promptly  answering  them  ('What  lessons  do we  learn  from  this  fact,
comrades?  The lesson -- which is also one of the fundamental principles of
Ingsoc -- that,' etc., etc.), easy to imitate.
     At the age of three Comrade Ogilvy had refused all toys except a drum,
a  sub-machine  gun, and a model  helicopter. At six  -- a year early, by a
special  relaxation of the rules -- he had joined the Spies, at nine he had
been  a troop  leader. At eleven he  had denounced his uncle to the Thought
Police  after overhearing  a conversation  which  appeared to  him to  have
criminal  tendencies. At  seventeen he had been a district organizer of the
Junior  Anti-Sex League.  At nine teen he had designed a hand-grenade which
had  been adopted  by the Ministry of  Peace and which, at its first trial,
had  killed thirty-one  Eurasian prisoners in one burst. At twenty-three he
had  perished in  action. Pursued by enemy jet planes while flying over the
Indian  Ocean with  important despatches, he had weighted his body with his
machine gun and leapt out of the helicopter into deep water, despatches and
all  --  an end, said  Big Brother, which  it was impossible to contemplate
without feelings of envy. Big Brother added a few remarks on the purity and
single-mindedness  of Comrade Ogilvy's life. He was a total abstainer and a
nonsmoker, had no recreations except a daily hour in the gymnasium, and had
taken  a vow of celibacy, believing marriage and the care of a family to be
incompatible  with a  twenty-four-hour-a-day devotion  to duty.  He had  no
subjects  of  conversation except the  principles of  Ingsoc, and no aim in
life except the defeat of the Eurasian enemy and the hunting-down of spies,
saboteurs, thoughtcriminals, and traitors generally.
     Winston debated with himself whether to award Comrade Ogilvy the Order
of  Conspicuous Merit:  in the  end he  decided against  it because  of the
unnecessary cross-referencing that it would entail.
     Once  again he glanced at his rival in the opposite cubicle. Something
seemed  to tell him  with certainty that Tillotson was busy on the same job
as himself. There was no way of knowing whose job would finally be adopted,
but he felt a profound conviction that it would be his own. Comrade Ogilvy,
unimagined  an hour ago,  was now a fact. It struck him as curious that you
could  create  dead men but not  living ones. Comrade Ogilvy, who had never
existed  in the present,  now existed in the past, and when once the act of
forgery  was forgotten,  he would exist just as authentically, and upon the
same evidence, as Charlemagne or Julius Caesar.



        V

     In the low-ceilinged canteen, deep underground, the lunch queue jerked
slowly  forward. The room was already very full and deafeningly noisy. From
the grille at the counter the steam of stew came pouring forth, with a sour
metallic  smell  which did not quite  overcome the fumes of Victory Gin. On
the  far side  of the room there was  a small bar, a mere hole in the wall,
where gin could be bought at ten cents the large nip.
     'Just the man I was looking for,' said a voice at Winston's back.
     He  turned  round. It was his  friend Syme, who worked in the Research
Department.  Perhaps  'friend' was not exactly  the right word. You did not
have friends nowadays, you had comrades: but there were some comrades whose
society  was pleasanter  than that  of others.  Syme was  a philologist,  a
specialist  in Newspeak. Indeed, he was one of the enormous team of experts
now  engaged in  compiling the Eleventh Edition of the Newspeak Dictionary.
He  was  a tiny creature,  smaller than Winston,  with dark hair and large,
protuberant  eyes,  at once  mournful and derisive,  which seemed to search
your face closely while he was speaking to you.
     'I wanted to ask you whether you'd got any razor blades,' he said.
     'Not  one!' said  Winston with a sort of guilty haste. 'I've tried all
over the place. They don't exist any longer.'
     Everyone  kept asking you for razor blades. Actually he had two unused
ones  which he was  hoarding up. There had been a famine of them for months
past.  At any given moment there was some necessary article which the Party
shops  were  unable to supply.  Sometimes it  was buttons, sometimes it was
darning  wool, sometimes  it was shoelaces; at present it was razor blades.
You  could  only get hold  of them,  if at all,  by scrounging more or less
furtively on the 'free' market.
     'I've been using the same blade for six weeks,' he added untruthfully.
     The  queue  gave another  jerk forward.  As they  halted he turned and
faced  Syme again. Each of them took a greasy metal tray from a pile at the
end of the counter.
     'Did you go and see the prisoners hanged yesterday?' said Syme.
     'I  was  working,' said Winston indifferently.  'I shall see it on the
flicks, I suppose.'
     'A very inadequate substitute,' said Syme.
     His  mocking  eyes roved over  Winston's face.  'I know you,' the eyes
seemed  to say,  'I see through you. I  know very well why you didn't go to
see  those  prisoners hanged.' In  an intellectual way, Syme was venomously
orthodox.  He  would talk  with  a  disagreeable gloating  satisfaction  of
helicopter  raids on enemy villages, and trials and confessions of thought-
criminals,  the executions  in the cellars of the Ministry of Love. Talking
to  him  was largely  a matter of  getting him away  from such subjects and
entangling him, if possible, in the technicalities of Newspeak, on which he
was  authoritative and  interesting. Winston turned his head a little aside
to avoid the scrutiny of the large dark eyes.
     'It  was a  good hanging,' said Syme reminiscently. 'I think it spoils
it when they tie their feet together. I like to see them kicking. And above
all,  at the end, the tongue sticking right out, and blue -- a quite bright
blue. That's the detail that appeals to me.'
     'Nex', please!' yelled the white-aproned prole with the ladle.
     Winston and Syme pushed their trays beneath the grille. On to each was
dumped  swiftly  the regulation  lunch -- a  metal pannikin of pinkish-grey
stew,  a hunk of bread, a cube of cheese, a mug of milkless Victory Coffee,
and one saccharine tablet.
     'There's a table over there, under that telescreen,' said Syme. 'Let's
pick up a gin on the way.'
     The gin was served out to them in handleless china mugs. They threaded
their way across the crowded room and unpacked their trays on to the metal-
topped  table,  on one corner of  which someone had  left a pool of stew, a
filthy  liquid  mess that had the  appearance of vomit. Winston took up his
mug  of  gin, paused  for an instant  to collect his  nerve, and gulped the
oily-tasting  stuff down.  When he had winked  the tears out of his eyes he
suddenly  discovered  that he was  hungry. He began swallowing spoonfuls of
the  stew, which,  in among  its general  sloppiness, had  cubes of  spongy
pinkish  stuff  which was probably  a preparation  of meat. Neither of them
spoke  again till  they  had emptied  their pannikins.  From  the table  at
Winston's  left, a  little behind his back, someone was talking rapidly and
continuously,  a  harsh gabble  almost like  the quacking  of a duck, which
pierced the general uproar of the room.
     'How is the Dictionary getting on?' said Winston, raising his voice to
overcome the noise.
     'Slowly,' said Syme. 'I'm on the adjectives. It's fascinating.'
     He had brightened up immediately at the mention of Newspeak. He pushed
his  pannikin aside, took up his hunk of bread in one delicate hand and his
cheese  in the other, and leaned across the table so as to be able to speak
without shouting.
     'The  Eleventh Edition  is the  definitive edition,'  he said.  'We're
getting  the language into  its final shape -- the shape it's going to have
when  nobody speaks anything else. When we've finished with it, people like
you  will have to  learn it all over again. You think, I dare say, that our
chief  job  is inventing new  words. But not a  bit of it! We're destroying
words  --  scores of them,  hundreds of them,  every day. We're cutting the
language down to the bone. The Eleventh Edition won't contain a single word
that will become obsolete before the year 2050.'
     He  bit  hungrily into his bread  and swallowed a couple of mouthfuls,
then  continued  speaking, with a  sort of  pedant's passion. His thin dark
face  had  become animated, his eyes  had lost their mocking expression and
grown almost dreamy.
     'It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course the great
wastage  is  in the verbs  and adjectives, but  there are hundreds of nouns
that  can be got rid of as well. It isn't only the synonyms; there are also
the  antonyms.  After all, what justification  is there for a word which is
simply  the  opposite of some  other word? A  word contains its opposite in
itself.  Take  "good", for instance.  If you have  a word like "good", what
need  is  there for  a word  like "bad"? "Ungood"  will do  just as well --
better,  because it's  an exact opposite, which the other is not. Or again,
if  you want a  stronger version of "good", what sense is there in having a
whole string of vague useless words like "excellent" and "splendid" and all
the rest of them? "Plusgood" covers the meaning, or "doubleplusgood" if you
want something stronger still. Of course we use those forms already. but in
the  final  version of  Newspeak there'll  be nothing else.  In the end the
whole  notion of goodness  and badness will be covered by only six words --
in  reality, only  one word. Don't you  see the beauty of that, Winston? It
was B.B.'s idea originally, of course,' he added as an afterthought.
     A sort of vapid eagerness flitted across Winston's face at the mention
of  Big  Brother. Nevertheless Syme  immediately detected a certain lack of
enthusiasm.
     'You haven't a real appreciation of Newspeak, Winston,' he said almost
sadly. 'Even when you write it you're still thinking in Oldspeak. I've read
some of those pieces that you write in the Times occasionally. They're good
enough,  but  they're translations. In your  heart you'd prefer to stick to
Oldspeak,  with  all its vagueness  and its  useless shades of meaning. You
don't  grasp the  beauty of  the  destruction of  words. Do  you know  that
Newspeak  is  the only language in  the world whose vocabulary gets smaller
every year?'
     Winston did know that, of course. He smiled, sympathetically he hoped,
not  trusting himself  to speak. Syme bit off another fragment of the dark-
coloured bread, chewed it briefly, and went on:
     'Don't  you see that  the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range
of  thought?  In the  end we shall  make thoughtcrime literally impossible,
because  there will be  no words in which to express it. Every concept that
can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning
rigidly  defined and  all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten.
Already,  in  the Eleventh Edition, we're  not far from that point. But the
process  will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year
fewer  and fewer  words, and  the range  of consciousness  always a  little
smaller.  Even  now, of course, there's  no reason or excuse for committing
thoughtcrime.  It's  merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control.
But  in the end  there won't be any need even for that. The Revolution will
be  complete when the language is perfect. Newspeak is Ingsoc and Ingsoc is
Newspeak,'  he  added with  a sort  of mystical  satisfaction. 'Has it ever
occurred  to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a
single  human being  will be alive who could understand such a conversation
as we are having now?'
     'Except--' began Winston doubtfully, and he stopped.
     It  had been on  the tip of his tongue to say 'Except the proles,' but
he  checked himself,  not feeling fully certain that this remark was not in
some way unorthodox. Syme, however, had divined what he was about to say.
     'The  proles  are not human  beings,' he  said carelessly. 'By 2050 --
earlier,  probably -- all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared.
The  whole  literature of  the  past  will  have been  destroyed.  Chaucer,
Shakespeare,  Milton, Byron -- they'll exist only in Newspeak versions, not
merely   changed  into  something  different,  but  actually  changed  into
something contradictory of what they used to be. Even the literature of the
Party  will change.  Even the  slogans will  change. How  could you  have a
slogan  like "freedom  is slavery"  when the  concept of  freedom has  been
abolished?  The  whole climate of thought  will be different. In fact there
will  be no  thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking
-- not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.'
     One  of these  days, thought Winston with sudden deep conviction, Syme
will  be  vaporized. He is too  intelligent. He sees too clearly and speaks
too  plainly.  The  Party does  not  like  such  people.  One day  he  will
disappear. It is written in his face.
     Winston had finished his bread and cheese. He turned a little sideways
in  his chair to  drink his mug of coffee. At the table on his left the man
with the strident voice was still talking remorselessly away. A young woman
who  was perhaps  his  secretary, and  who  was sitting  with  her back  to
Winston,  was listening  to  him and  seemed to  be  eagerly agreeing  with
everything  that he said. From time to time Winston caught some such remark
as 'I think you're so right, I do so agree with you', uttered in a youthful
and  rather silly  feminine voice. But the other voice never stopped for an
instant,  even  when the girl was  speaking. Winston knew the man by sight,
though  he knew no  more about him than that he held some important post in
the  Fiction Department.  He was  a man  of about  thirty, with  a muscular
throat  and a  large, mobile mouth. His  head was thrown back a little, and
because  of  the angle at  which he was  sitting, his spectacles caught the
light  and  presented to Winston two  blank discs instead of eyes. What was
slightly horrible, was that from the stream of sound that poured out of his
mouth  it  was almost  impossible to  distinguish a  single word. Just once
Winston caught a phrase -- 'complete and final elimination of Goldsteinism'
-- jerked out very rapidly and, as it seemed, all in one piece, like a line
of  type cast  solid. For  the rest  it was  just a  noise, a  quack-quack-
quacking.  And  yet, though  you could  not actually hear  what the man was
saying, you could not be in any doubt about its general nature. He might be
denouncing  Goldstein  and  demanding  sterner  measures  against  thought-
criminals  and saboteurs, he might be fulminating against the atrocities of
the  Eurasian army,  he might be praising  Big Brother or the heroes on the
Malabar  front --  it made  no difference.  Whatever it  was, you  could be
certain  that every  word of  it  was pure  orthodoxy, pure  Ingsoc. As  he
watched  the eyeless  face with the jaw moving rapidly up and down, Winston
had a curious feeling that this was not a real human being but some kind of
dummy. It was not the man's brain that was speaking, it was his larynx. The
stuff  that was coming out of him consisted of words, but it was not speech
in  the  true sense:  it was  a noise uttered  in unconsciousness, like the
quacking of a duck.
     Syme  had fallen silent for a moment, and with the handle of his spoon
was  tracing patterns in the puddle of stew. The voice from the other table
quacked rapidly on, easily audible in spite of the surrounding din.
     'There  is  a word in Newspeak,'  said Syme, 'I don't know whether you
know  it: duckspeak,  to quack like a  duck. It is one of those interesting
words  that have  two contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it is
abuse, applied to someone you agree with, it is praise.'
     Unquestionably  Syme  will be  vaporized,  Winston  thought again.  He
thought it with a kind of sadness, although well knowing that Syme despised
him and slightly disliked him, and was fully capable of denouncing him as a
thought-criminal  if  he saw any  reason for  doing so. There was something
subtly  wrong  with Syme.  There was something  that he lacked: discretion,
aloofness,  a sort  of saving  stupidity.  You could  not say  that he  was
unorthodox.  He believed  in the  principles  of Ingsoc,  he venerated  Big
Brother,  he  rejoiced over  victories, he hated  heretics, not merely with
sincerity   but  with  a  sort  of  restless  zeal,  an  up-to-dateness  of
information,  which the ordinary Party member did not approach. Yet a faint
air  of disreputability always clung to him. He said things that would have
been  better unsaid, he had read too many books, he frequented the Chestnut
Tree  Cafe, haunt of  painters and musicians. There was no law, not even an
unwritten  law,  against frequenting the  Chestnut Tree Cafe, yet the place
was  somehow ill-omened. The old, discredited leaders of the Party had been
used to gather there before they were finally purged. Goldstein himself, it
was said, had sometimes been seen there, years and decades ago. Syme's fate
was  not difficult to  foresee. And yet it was a fact that if Syme grasped,
even  for three  seconds, the nature of his, Winston's, secret opinions, he
would  betray  him instantly to the  Thought police. So would anybody else,
for  that  matter: but Syme more  than most. Zeal was not enough. Orthodoxy
was unconsciousness.
     Syme looked up. 'Here comes Parsons,' he said.
     Something  in the tone of his voice seemed to add, 'that bloody fool'.
Parsons, Winston's fellow-tenant at Victory Mansions, was in fact threading
his  way across the  room -- a tubby, middle-sized man with fair hair and a
froglike  face.  At thirty-five he  was already putting  on rolls of fat at
neck  and  waistline, but  his movements  were brisk  and boyish. His whole
appearance  was that of  a little boy grown large, so much so that although
he  was  wearing the regulation  overalls, it  was almost impossible not to
think  of  him as  being dressed  in the  blue shorts,  grey shirt, and red
neckerchief  of  the Spies. In visualizing  him one saw always a picture of
dimpled  knees  and sleeves  rolled back from  pudgy forearms. Parsons did,
indeed,  invariably  revert to  shorts when  a community  hike or any other
physical  activity  gave him an  excuse for doing  so. He greeted them both
with  a  cheery 'Hullo,  hullo!' and sat  down at the  table, giving off an
intense smell of sweat. Beads of moisture stood out all over his pink face.
His  powers of  sweating were  extraordinary. At  the Community  Centre you
could  always tell when he had been playing table-tennis by the dampness of
the  bat  handle. Syme had produced  a strip of  paper on which there was a
long  column  of words, and was  studying it with an ink-pencil between his
fingers.
     'Look  at  him working away in  the lunch hour,' said Parsons, nudging
Winston.  'Keenness, eh? What's that you've got there, old boy? Something a
bit  too  brainy for me,  I expect.  Smith, old boy,  I'll tell you why I'm
chasing you. It's that sub you forgot to give me.'
     'Which  sub  is that?' said  Winston, automatically feeling for money.
About  a  quarter  of  one's  salary had  to  be  earmarked  for  voluntary
subscriptions,  which were  so numerous that it was difficult to keep track
of them.
     'For Hate Week. You know -- the house-by-house fund. I'm treasurer for
our  block. We're making  an all-out effort -- going to put on a tremendous
show. I tell you, it won't be my fault if old Victory Mansions doesn't have
the  biggest outfit  of flags in the whole street. Two dollars you promised
me.'
     Winston  found and  handed over  two creased  and filthy  notes, which
Parsons  entered in  a  small  notebook, in  the  neat  handwriting of  the
illiterate.
     'By the way, old boy,' he said. 'I hear that little beggar of mine let
fly at you with his catapult yesterday. I gave him a good dressing-down for
it. In fact I told him I'd take the catapult away if he does it again.'
     'I  think he  was a little upset  at not going to the execution,' said
Winston.
     'Ah,  well -- what  I mean to say, shows the right spirit, doesn't it?
Mischievous little beggars they are, both of them, but talk about keenness!
All  they think about is the Spies, and the war, of course. D'you know what
that  little girl  of mine did last  Saturday, when her troop was on a hike
out  Berkhamsted way?  She got two other  girls to go with her, slipped off
from  the hike, and spent the whole afternoon following a strange man. They
kept  on  his tail for  two hours, right through  the woods, and then, when
they got into Amersham, handed him over to the patrols.'
     'What  did they  do that  for?'  said Winston,  somewhat taken  aback.
Parsons went on triumphantly:
     'My  kid made sure  he was some kind of enemy agent -- might have been
dropped  by parachute, for instance. But here's the point, old boy. What do
you  think put her on to him in the first place? She spotted he was wearing
a  funny kind  of shoes -- said  she'd never seen anyone wearing shoes like
that  before.  So the chances  were he was a  foreigner. Pretty smart for a
nipper of seven, eh?'
     'What happened to the man?' said Winston.
     'Ah,  that  I couldn't  say, of  course. But  I wouldn't be altogether
surprised  if--' Parsons made the motion of aiming a rifle, and clicked his
tongue for the explosion.
     'Good,'  said Syme  abstractedly, without looking up from his strip of
paper.
     'Of course we can't afford to take chances,' agreed Winston dutifully.
     'What I mean to say, there is a war on,' said Parsons.
     As  though  in confirmation of  this, a  trumpet call floated from the
telescreen  just above their heads. However, it was not the proclamation of
a  military victory this time, but merely an announcement from the Ministry
of Plenty.
     'Comrades!'  cried  an eager  youthful voice. 'Attention, comrades! We
have  glorious news for you. We have won the battle for production! Returns
now  completed of  the output of all classes of consumption goods show that
the  standard of living has risen by no less than 20 per cent over the past
year.  All  over Oceania this  morning there were irrepressible spontaneous
demonstrations  when  workers marched  out  of  factories and  offices  and
paraded  through  the streets  with banners voicing  their gratitude to Big
Brother for the new, happy life which his wise leadership has bestowed upon
us. Here are some of the completed figures. Foodstuffs--'
     The phrase 'our new, happy life' recurred several times. It had been a
favourite  of late  with the  Ministry  of Plenty.  Parsons, his  attention
caught  by the trumpet call, sat listening with a sort of gaping solemnity,
a  sort  of edified  boredom. He could  not follow the  figures, but he was
aware  that they  were in some way  a cause for satisfaction. He had lugged
out  a huge and filthy pipe which was already half full of charred tobacco.
With  the  tobacco ration at  100 grammes a week  it was seldom possible to
fill  a pipe  to the top. Winston  was smoking a Victory Cigarette which he
held  carefully horizontal.  The new ration did not start till tomorrow and
he  had only  four cigarettes left. For  the moment he had shut his ears to
the  remoter noises and was listening to the stuff that streamed out of the
telescreen.  It  appeared that there  had even been demonstrations to thank
Big  Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grammes a week. And
only  yesterday, he reflected, it had been announced that the ration was to
be  reduced to  twenty grammes  a  week. Was  it possible  that they  could
swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it. Parsons
swallowed  it easily, with the stupidity of an animal. The eyeless creature
at  the other  table swallowed it fanatically, passionately, with a furious
desire to track down, denounce, and vaporize anyone who should suggest that
last  week  the ration had  been thirty grammes. Syme,  too -- in some more
complex  way, involving doublethink, Syme swallowed it. Was he, then, alone
in the possession of a memory?
     The  fabulous  statistics continued to  pour out of the telescreen. As
compared  with  last year there  was more  food, more clothes, more houses,
more furniture, more cooking-pots, more fuel, more ships, more helicopters,
more  books,  more babies -- more  of everything except disease, crime, and
insanity.  Year by  year and minute by minute, everybody and everything was
whizzing rapidly upwards. As Syme had done earlier Winston had taken up his
spoon  and was dabbling in the pale-coloured gravy that dribbled across the
table,  drawing a  long  streak of  it  out into  a  pattern. He  meditated
resentfully  on the physical texture of life. Had it always been like this?
Had  food always  tasted like  this? He  looked round  the canteen.  A low-
ceilinged,  crowded  room, its walls  grimy from the contact of innumerable
bodies; battered metal tables and chairs, placed so close together that you
sat with elbows touching; bent spoons, dented trays, coarse white mugs; all
surfaces  greasy,  grime in every crack;  and a sourish, composite smell of
bad  gin and bad coffee and metallic stew and dirty clothes. Always in your
stomach  and in  your skin there was  a sort of protest, a feeling that you
had  been cheated of something that you had a right to. It was true that he
had  no  memories of anything greatly  different. In any time that he could
accurately  remember,  there had  never been  quite enough  to eat, one had
never  had socks or underclothes that were not full of holes, furniture had
always  been battered  and rickety, rooms underheated, tube trains crowded,
houses falling to pieces, bread dark-coloured, tea a rarity, coffee filthy-
tasting,  cigarettes insufficient  --  nothing cheap  and plentiful  except
synthetic gin. And though, of course, it grew worse as one's body aged, was
it not a sign that this was not the natural order of things, if one's heart
sickened at the discomfort and dirt and scarcity, the interminable winters,
the stickiness of one's socks, the lifts that never worked, the cold water,
the  gritty  soap, the  cigarettes that  came to pieces,  the food with its
strange  evil  tastes? Why should one  feel it to be intolerable unless one
had some kind of ancestral memory that things had once been different?
     He looked round the canteen again. Nearly everyone was ugly, and would
still  have  been ugly even  if dressed otherwise  than in the uniform blue
overalls.  On the far  side of the room, sitting at a table alone, a small,
curiously  beetle-like  man was drinking  a cup  of coffee, his little eyes
darting  suspicious  glances from  side to  side. How  easy it was, thought
Winston,  if you did  not look about you, to believe that the physical type
set  up by  the Party  as an  ideal-tall muscular  youths and  deep-bosomed
maidens,  blond-haired,  vital,  sunburnt,  carefree --  existed  and  even
predominated. Actually, so far as he could judge, the majority of people in
Airstrip  One  were small, dark, and  ill-favoured. It was curious how that
beetle-like  type proliferated in the Ministries: little dumpy men, growing
stout  very early  in life, with short legs, swift scuttling movements, and
fat  inscrutable faces with very small eyes. It was the type that seemed to
flourish best under the dominion of the Party.
     The  announcement from the Ministry of Plenty ended on another trumpet
call  and gave  way to tinny music. Parsons, stirred to vague enthusiasm by
the bombardment of figures, took his pipe out of his mouth.
     'The  Ministry  of Plenty's certainly  done a  good job this year,' he
said  with a  knowing shake  of his  head. 'By  the way,  Smith old  boy, I
suppose you haven't got any razor blades you can let me have?'
     'Not one,' said Winston. 'I've been using the same blade for six weeks
myself.'
     'Ah, well -- just thought I'd ask you, old boy.'
     'Sorry,' said Winston.
     The  quacking  voice from the  next table, temporarily silenced during
the  Ministry's  announcement, had started  up again,  as loud as ever. For
some  reason Winston  suddenly found himself thinking of Mrs. Parsons, with
her  wispy hair  and the dust in  the creases of her face. Within two years
those  children would be denouncing her to the Thought Police. Mrs. Parsons
would  be  vaporized. Syme would  be vaporized. Winston would be vaporized.
O'Brien  would  be vaporized.  Parsons, on  the other  hand, would never be
vaporized.  The eyeless  creature with  the quacking  voice would  never be
vaporized.  The  little beetle-like  men who scuttle  so nimbly through the
labyrinthine  corridors of  Ministries they, too, would never be vaporized.
And  the girl  with dark hair, the  girl from the Fiction Department -- she
would   never  be   vaporized  either.  It  seemed  to  him  that  he  knew
instinctively  who would  survive and who would perish: though just what it
was that made for survival, it was not easy to say.
     At  this moment he was dragged out of his reverie with a violent jerk.
The  girl at the next table had turned partly round and was looking at him.
It  was the girl  with dark hair. She was looking at him in a sidelong way,
but  with curious intensity. The instant she caught his eye she looked away
again.
     The sweat started out on Winston's backbone. A horrible pang of terror
went through him. It was gone almost at once, but it left a sort of nagging
uneasiness behind. Why was she watching him? Why did she keep following him
about?  Unfortunately he could not remember whether she had already been at
the  table when he arrived, or had come there afterwards. But yesterday, at
any  rate, during  the Two Minutes Hate, she had sat immediately behind him
when  there was no apparent need to do so. Quite likely her real object had
been to listen to him and make sure whether he was shouting loudly enough.
     His  earlier thought  returned to him: probably she was not actually a
member of the Thought Police, but then it was precisely the amateur spy who
was  the  greatest danger  of all.  He did not  know how  long she had been
looking  at him,  but perhaps  for  as much  as  five minutes,  and it  was
possible  that  his features had  not been  perfectly under control. It was
terribly  dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public
place  or  within range of a  telescreen. The smallest thing could give you
away.  A nervous  tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering
to yourself -- anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality,
of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on
your  face (to  look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example)
was  itself a punishable offence. There was even a word for it in Newspeak:
facecrime, it was called.
     The  girl had turned  her back on him again. Perhaps after all she was
not really following him about, perhaps it was coincidence that she had sat
so  close to him  two days running. His cigarette had gone out, and he laid
it  carefully  on the edge  of the table. He  would finish smoking it after
work,  if he  could keep the tobacco  in it. Quite likely the person at the
next table was a spy of the Thought Police, and quite likely he would be in
the  cellars of the Ministry of Love within three days, but a cigarette end
must  not  be wasted. Syme had  folded up his  strip of paper and stowed it
away in his pocket. Parsons had begun talking again.
     'Did  I ever tell  you, old boy,' he said, chuckling round the stem of
his  pipe, 'about  the time when those  two nippers of mine set fire to the
old  market-woman's  skirt because they  saw her  wrapping up sausages in a
poster  of  B.B.? Sneaked up  behind her and  set fire to  it with a box of
matches. Burned her quite badly, I believe. Little beggars, eh? But keen as
mustard!  That's a first-rate training they give them in the Spies nowadays
-- better than in my day, even. What d'you think's the latest thing they've
served  them out  with? Ear  trumpets  for listening  through keyholes!  My
little  girl brought  one home  the  other night  --  tried it  out on  our
sitting-room  door,  and reckoned she could  hear twice as much as with her
ear  to the hole. Of course it's only a toy, mind you. Still, gives 'em the
right idea, eh?'
     At  this moment  the telescreen let out a piercing whistle. It was the
signal to return to work. All three men sprang to their feet to join in the
struggle  round the  lifts, and the remaining tobacco fell out of Winston's
cigarette.



        VI

     Winston was writing in his diary:

        It was three years ago. It was on a dark evening, in a narrow side-
street  near one  of the  big  railway stations.  She was  standing near  a
doorway  in the  wall, under a street  lamp that hardly gave any light. She
had a young face, painted very thick. It was really the paint that appealed
to  me,  the whiteness of it,  like a mask,  and the bright red lips. Party
women  never paint their faces. There was nobody else in the street, and no
telescreens. She said two dollars. I--

     For  the  moment it was too  difficult to go  on. He shut his eyes and
pressed  his  fingers against them,  trying to  squeeze out the vision that
kept  recurring. He had an almost overwhelming temptation to shout a string
of  filthy words  at the top of his  voice. Or to bang his head against the
wall,  to kick over the table, and hurl the inkpot through the window -- to
do  any violent  or noisy or painful  thing that might black out the memory
that was tormenting him.
     Your  worst  enemy, he reflected, was  your own nervous system. At any
moment  the  tension inside  you was  liable to  translate itself into some
visible symptom. He thought of a man whom he had passed in the street a few
weeks  back; a quite ordinary-looking man, a Party member, aged thirty-five
to  forty, tallish  and thin, carrying a brief-case. They were a few metres
apart when the left side of the man's face was suddenly contorted by a sort
of  spasm. It happened  again just as they were passing one another: it was
only  a  twitch, a quiver,  rapid as the clicking  of a camera shutter, but
obviously  habitual. He remembered thinking at the time: That poor devil is
done  for. And  what was frightening was that the action was quite possibly
unconscious. The most deadly danger of all was talking in your sleep. There
was no way of guarding against that, so far as he could see.
     He drew his breath and went on writing:

        I  went  with her through the  doorway and across a backyard into a
basement  kitchen.  There was  a bed  against the  wall, and  a lamp on the
table, turned down very low. She--

     His   teeth   were  set  on  edge.   He  would  have  liked  to  spit.
Simultaneously  with  the woman  in  the  basement  kitchen he  thought  of
Katharine,  his wife. Winston was married -- had been married, at any rate:
probably  he still was married, so far as he knew his wife was not dead. He
seemed  to breathe  again the warm stuffy odour of the basement kitchen, an
odour  compounded of bugs and dirty clothes and villainous cheap scent, but
nevertheless  alluring,  because no woman of  the Party ever used scent, or
could  be imagined as doing so. Only the proles used scent. In his mind the
smell of it was inextricably mixed up with fornication.
     When  he had  gone with that woman  it had been his first lapse in two
years or thereabouts. Consorting with prostitutes was forbidden, of course,
but it was one of those rules that you could occasionally nerve yourself to
break.  It  was dangerous,  but it  was not a  life-and-death matter. To be
caught with a prostitute might mean five years in a forced-labour camp: not
more,  if you  had committed  no  other offence.  And it  was easy  enough,
provided  that you could avoid being caught in the act. The poorer quarters
swarmed  with  women who were ready  to sell themselves. Some could even be
purchased for a bottle of gin, which the proles were not supposed to drink.
Tacitly the Party was even inclined to encourage prostitution, as an outlet
for instincts which could not be altogether suppressed. Mere debauchery did
not  matter very  much, so  long as  it was  furtive and  joyless and  only
involved  the women  of a  submerged and  despised class.  The unforgivable
crime  was promiscuity between Party members. But -- though this was one of
the  crimes that the accused in the great purges invariably confessed to --
it was difficult to imagine any such thing actually happening.
     The  aim  of the  Party was not  merely to prevent  men and women from
forming  loyalties  which it  might  not  be  able  to control.  Its  real,
undeclared purpose was to remove all pleasure from the sexual act. Not love
so  much as eroticism was the enemy, inside marriage as well as outside it.
All  marriages between  Party members  had to  be approved  by a  committee
appointed  for  the purpose, and --  though the principle was never clearly
stated  --  permission was always refused  if the couple concerned gave the
impression   of  being  physically  attracted  to  one  another.  The  only
recognized purpose of marriage was to beget children for the service of the
Party.  Sexual  intercourse was  to be  looked on  as a slightly disgusting
minor  operation, like having an enema. This again was never put into plain
words,  but in  an indirect way it  was rubbed into every Party member from
childhood  onwards. There  were even organizations such as the Junior Anti-
Sex  League, which advocated complete celibacy for both sexes. All children
were  to  be begotten by artificial  insemination (artsem, it was called in
Newspeak)  and brought  up in public institutions. This, Winston was aware,
was  not meant  altogether seriously,  but somehow  it fitted  in with  the
general  ideology of  the  Party. The  Party  was trying  to  kill the  sex
instinct,  or, if it  could not be killed, then to distort it and dirty it.
He  did not  know why this was so,  but it seemed natural that it should be
so.  And as  far as  the  women were  concerned, the  Party's efforts  were
largely successful.
     He  thought again  of Katharine. It must be nine, ten -- nearly eleven
years  since they had  parted. It was curious how seldom he thought of her.
For  days  at a  time he  was capable of  forgetting that  he had ever been
married.  They  had only been together  for about fifteen months. The Party
did  not permit divorce, but it rather encouraged separation in cases where
there were no children.
     Katharine  was a  tall, fair-haired girl, very straight, with splendid
movements. She had a bold, aquiline face, a face that one might have called
noble  until  one discovered that  there was  as nearly as possible nothing
behind  it. Very early in her married life he had decided -- though perhaps
it  was only  that he knew her  more intimately than he knew most people --
that  she had without exception the most stupid, vulgar, empty mind that he
had  ever  encountered. She had  not a  thought in her  head that was not a
slogan,  and there  was no  imbecility, absolutely  none that  she was  not
capable  of swallowing if the Party handed it out to her. 'The human sound-
track'  he nicknamed her  in his own mind. Yet he could have endured living
with her if it had not been for just one thing -- sex.
     As  soon as he touched her she seemed to wince and stiffen. To embrace
her  was  like embracing a  jointed wooden image.  And what was strange was
that even when she was clasping him against her he had the feeling that she
was  simultaneously pushing him away with all her strength. The rigidlty of
her  muscles  managed to convey  that impression.  She would lie there with
shut  eyes,  neither resisting  nor  co-operating  but submitting.  It  was
extraordinarily  embarrassing, and,  after a while, horrible. But even then
he  could have borne living with her if it had been agreed that they should
remain  celibate.  But curiously enough  it was Katharine who refused this.
They  must,  she said,  produce a  child if they  could. So the performance
continued  to happen,  once a  week quite  regulariy, whenever  it was  not
impossible.  She even used to remind him of it in the morning, as something
which  had to be done that evening and which must not be forgotten. She had
two  names for it.  One was 'making a baby', and the other was 'our duty to
the  Party' (yes, she had actually used that phrase). Quite soon he grew to
have  a  feeling of positive  dread when the  appointed day came round. But
luckily no child appeared, and in the end she agreed to give up trying, and
soon afterwards they parted.
     Winston sighed inaudibly. He picked up his pen again and wrote:

        She threw herself down on the bed, and at once, without any kind of
preliminary in the most coarse, horrible way you can imagine, pulled up her
skirt. I--

     He  saw himself standing there in the dim lamplight, with the smell of
bugs  and cheap scent in his nostrils, and in his heart a feeling of defeat
and  resentment which even  at that moment was mixed up with the thought of
Katharine's white body, frozen for ever by the hypnotic power of the Party.
Why  did it  always have to be like  this? Why could he not have a woman of
his  own instead of these filthy scuffles at intervals of years? But a real
love  affair  was an almost unthinkable  event. The women of the Party were
all  alike.  Chastity was  as deep  ingrained in them  as Party loyalty. By
careful  early  conditioning, by games and  cold water, by the rubbish that
was  dinned into  them at school and  in the Spies and the Youth League, by
lectures,  parades, songs,  slogans, and martial music, the natural feeling
had  been driven  out of  them.  His reason  told  him that  there must  be
exceptions, but his heart did not believe it. They were all impregnable, as
the  Party intended that they should be. And what he wanted, more even than
to  be loved,  was to break down that  wall of virtue, even if it were only
once  in  his whole  life.  The  sexual  act, successfully  performed,  was
rebellion.  Desire was thoughtcrime. Even to have awakened Katharine, if he
could  have achieved it, would have been like a seduction, although she was
his wife.
     But the rest of the story had got to be written down. He wrote:

        I turned up the lamp. When I saw her in the light--

     After  the  darkness the feeble light  of the paraffin lamp had seemed
very  bright.  For the first  time he could see  the woman properly. He had
taken  a step towards  her and then halted, full of lust and terror. He was
painfully  conscious of  the  risk he  had  taken in  coming  here. It  was
perfectly  possible  that the patrols  would catch him  on the way out: for
that  matter they  might be waiting outside  the door at this moment. If he
went away without even doing what he had come here to do--!
     It had got to be written down, it had got to be confessed. What he had
suddenly  seen in  the lamplight was that  the woman was old. The paint was
plastered so thick on her face that it looked as though it might crack like
a  cardboard mask.  There were streaks of  white in her hair; but the truly
dreadful  detail  was that  her mouth  had fallen  a little open, revealing
nothing except a cavernous blackness. She had no teeth at all.
     He wrote hurriedly, in scrabbling handwriting:

        When I saw her in the light she was quite an old woman, fifty years
old at least. But I went ahead and did it just the same.

     He  pressed  his fingers against his  eyelids again. He had written it
down  at last,  but it made no  difference. The therapy had not worked. The
urge to shout filthy words at the top of his voice was as strong as ever.



        VII

        If there is hope, wrote Winston, it lies in the proles.

     If  there was  hope, it must lie  in the proles, because only there in
those  swarming  disregarded masses,  85  per  cent  of the  population  of
Oceania,  could the force to destroy the Party ever be generated. The Party
could  not  be overthrown from within.  Its enemies, if it had any enemies,
had  no way of  coming together or even of identifying one another. Even if
the  legendary Brotherhood  existed,  as  just possibly  it  might, it  was
inconceivable  that its  members could ever assemble in larger numbers than
twos  and threes.  Rebellion meant a look  in the eyes, an inflexion of the
voice,  at the  most, an occasional whispered word. But the proles, if only
they  could  somehow become conscious of  their own strength. would have no
need  to conspire. They  needed only to rise up and shake themselves like a
horse  shaking off flies. If they chose they could blow the Party to pieces
tomorrow  morning. Surely  sooner or later it  must occur to them to do it?
And yet--!
     He  remembered how once he had been walking down a crowded street when
a tremendous shout of hundreds of voices women's voices -- had burst from a
side-street  a little way ahead. It was a great formidable cry of anger and
despair,  a  deep,  loud  'Oh-o-o-o-oh!'  that went  humming  on  like  the
reverberation of a bell. His heart had leapt. It's started! he had thought.
A riot! The proles are breaking loose at last! When he had reached the spot
it was to see a mob of two or three hundred women crowding round the stalls
of a street market, with faces as tragic as though they had been the doomed
passengers  on a sinking ship. But at this moment the general despair broke
down  into a  multitude of individual quarrels. It appeared that one of the
stalls  had been  selling tin saucepans. They were wretched, flimsy things,
but  cooking-pots of  any kind were always difficult to get. Now the supply
had unexpectedly given out. The successful women, bumped and jostled by the
rest,  were trying  to make off with their saucepans while dozens of others
clamoured  round the stall, accusing the stall-keeper of favouritism and of
having  more saucepans  somewhere in reserve. There was a fresh outburst of
yells.  Two bloated  women, one of them  with her hair coming down, had got
hold  of the same  saucepan and were trying to tear it out of one another's
hands.  For a moment  they were both tugging, and then the handle came off.
Winston  watched them  disgustedly. And yet, just for a moment, what almost
frightening  power had sounded in that cry from only a few hundred throats!
Why  was it  that they  could  never shout  like that  about anything  that
mattered?
     He wrote:

        Until  they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after
they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.

     That, he reflected, might almost have been a transcription from one of
the  Party  textbooks. The Party claimed,  of course, to have liberated the
proles  from  bondage.  Before  the  Revolution  they  had  been  hideously
oppressed  by the capitalists, they had been starved and flogged, women had
been  forced  to work in the  coal mines (women  still did work in the coal
mines,  as a matter  of fact), children had been sold into the factories at
the  age of six. But simultaneously, true to the Principles of doublethink,
the Party taught that the proles were natural inferiors who must be kept in
subjection,  like  animals, by  the application  of a  few simple rules. In
reality  very  little was known  about the proles.  It was not necessary to
know  much. So  long  as they  continued  to work  and  breed, their  other
activities  were without importance. Left to themselves, like cattle turned
loose  upon the  plains of Argentina, they  had reverted to a style of life
that appeared to be natural to them, a sort of ancestral pattern. They were
born, they grew up in the gutters, they went to work at twelve, they passed
through a brief blossoming-period of beauty and sexual desire, they married
at  twenty, they  were middle-aged at thirty, they died, for the most part,
at  sixty. Heavy  physical  work,  the care  of  home  and children,  petty
quarrels  with neighbours,  films, football, beer, and above all, gambling,
filled  up  the horizon  of their  minds. To  keep them  in control was not
difficult.  A  few agents  of the  Thought Police  moved always among them,
spreading   false  rumours   and  marking  down  and  eliminating  the  few
individuals  who were  judged capable of becoming dangerous; but no attempt
was  made to  indoctrinate them with the  ideology of the Party. It was not
desirable  that the  proles should have strong political feelings. All that
was  required of them was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to
whenever  it was  necessary to  make  them accept  longer working-hours  or
shorter  rations. And even when they became discontented, as they sometimes
did,  their  discontent led  nowhere, because  being without general ideas,
they  could  only focus it  on petty  specific grievances. The larger evils
invariably  escaped their notice. The great majority of proles did not even
have telescreens in their homes. Even the civil police interfered with them
very  little.  There was  a vast  amount of criminality  in London, a whole
world-within-a-world  of  thieves, bandits, prostitutes, drug-peddlers, and
racketeers of every description; but since it all happened among the proles
themselves,  it was  of no importance. In all questions of morals they were
allowed  to follow their ancestral code. The sexual puritanism of the Party
was  not  imposed  upon  them. Promiscuity  went  unpunished,  divorce  was
permitted.  For  that  matter,  even  religious  worship  would  have  been
permitted  if the proles  had shown any sign of needing or wanting it. They
were beneath suspicion. As the Party slogan put it: 'Proles and animals are
free.'
     Winston  reached down  and cautiously scratched his varicose ulcer. It
had  begun  itching again.  The thing  you invariably came  back to was the
impossibility  of  knowing what life  before the Revolution had really been
like.  He  took out of  the drawer a copy  of a children's history textbook
which  he had  borrowed from Mrs. Parsons, and began copying a passage into
the diary:
     In  the old  days (it ran), before the glorious Revolution, London was
not  the beautiful city that we know today. It was a dark, dirty, miserable
place  where hardly  anybody  had  enough to  eat  and  where hundreds  and
thousands  of poor people had no boots on their feet and not even a roof to
sleep  under. Children no older than you had to work twelve hours a day for
cruel masters who flogged them with whips if they worked too slowly and fed
them  on  nothing but  stale breadcrusts  and water. But  in among all this
terrible poverty there were just a few great big beautiful houses that were
lived in by rich men who had as many as thirty servants to look after them.
These rich men were called capitalists. They were fat, ugly men with wicked
faces,  like the one  in the picture on the opposite page. You can see that
he  is  dressed in a long  black coat which was  called a frock coat, and a
queer,  shiny hat shaped like a stovepipe, which was called a top hat. This
was the uniform of the capitalists, and no one else was allowed to wear it.
The  capitalists owned everything in the world, and everyone else was their
slave.  They owned all the land, all the houses, all the factories, and all
the  money. If  anyone disobeyed them they could throw them into prison, or
they  could  take his job  away and starve him  to death. When any ordinary
person  spoke to a capitalist he had to cringe and bow to him, and take off
his  cap  and address  him as 'Sir'.  The chief of  all the capitalists was
called the King, and--
     But  he knew the  rest of the catalogue. There would be mention of the
bishops  in their  lawn  sleeves, the  judges in  their  ermine robes,  the
pillory, the stocks, the treadmill, the cat-o'-nine tails, the Lord Mayor's
Banquet,  and the  practice  of  kissing the  Pope's  toe.  There was  also
something  called  the jus  primae  noctis,  which  would probably  not  be
mentioned  in a  textbook  for children.  It  was the  law  by which  every
capitalist  had  the right  to sleep with  any woman working  in one of his
factories.
     How  could you tell how much of it was lies? It might be true that the
average  human  being was  better  off  now than  he  had  been before  the
Revolution.  The only evidence to the contrary was the mute protest in your
own  bones,  the instinctive feeling that  the conditions you lived in were
intolerable  and that  at some other time they must have been different. It
struck  him  that the truly characteristic  thing about modern life was not
its  cruelty  and insecurity,  but simply its  bareness, its dinginess, its
listlessness.  Life, if  you looked about you, bore no resemblance not only
to  the lies  that streamed out of  the telescreens, but even to the ideals
that  the Party was  trying to achieve. Great areas of it, even for a Party
member, were neutral and non-political, a matter of slogging through dreary
jobs,  fighting for a place on the Tube, darning a worn-out sock, cadging a
saccharine  tablet,  saving a cigarette end.  The ideal set up by the Party
was  something huge,  terrible,  and glittering  -- a  world  of steel  and
concrete,  of monstrous  machines and  terrifying  weapons --  a nation  of
warriors  and fanatics, marching forward in perfect unity, all thinking the
same thoughts and shouting the same slogans, perpetually working, fighting,
triumphing,  persecuting --  three hundred million people all with the same
face. The reality was decaying, dingy cities where underfed people shuffled
to  and  fro in  leaky shoes, in  patched-up nineteenth-century houses that
smelt  always of  cabbage and bad lavatories.  He seemed to see a vision of
London,  vast and ruinous, city of a million dustbins, and mixed up with it
was  a  picture of  Mrs. Parsons, a  woman with lined  face and wispy hair,
fiddling helplessly with a blocked waste-pipe.
     He  reached down  and scratched  his ankle  again. Day  and night  the
telescreens bruised your ears with statistics proving that people today had
more  food,  more clothes,  better houses, better  recreations -- that they
lived  longer,  worked shorter  hours,  were  bigger, healthier,  stronger,
happier,  more intelligent, better educated, than the people of fifty years
ago. Not a word of it could ever be proved or disproved. The Party claimed,
for  example, that  today 40 per cent of adult proles were literate: before
the  Revolution,  it was  said, the number  had only been  15 per cent. The
Party claimed that the infant mortality rate was now only 160 per thousand,
whereas  before the Revolution it had been 300 -- and so it went on. It was
like  a single  equation with  two  unknowns. It  might very  well be  that
literally  every word  in  the  history books,  even  the  things that  one
accepted  without  question, was pure fantasy.  For all he knew there might
never have been any such law as the jus primae noctis, or any such creature
as a capitalist, or any such garment as a top hat.
     Everything  faded into  mist. The  past  was erased,  the erasure  was
forgotten,  the lie became truth. Just once in his life he had possessed --
after  the event:  that was what counted -- concrete, unmistakable evidence
of  an act of falsification. He had held it between his fingers for as long
as  thirty  seconds. In 1973, it  must have been --  at any rate, it was at
about  the  time when he and  Katharine had parted. But the really relevant
date was seven or eight years earlier.
     The  story really began in the middle sixties, the period of the great
purges  in which the original leaders of the Revolution were wiped out once
and for all. By 1970 none of them was left, except Big Brother himself. All
the   rest  had  by  that  time  been  exposed  as  traitors  and  counter-
revolutionaries.  Goldstein had  fled and was hiding no one knew where, and
of  the  others, a few had  simply disappeared, while the majority had been
executed  after spectacular  public trials at which they made confession of
their  crimes.  Among  the  last  survivors were  three  men  named  Jones,
Aaronson,  and  Rutherford. It must have  been in 1965 that these three had
been  arrested. As often happened, they had vanished for a year or more, so
that  one did  not know  whether  they were  alive  or dead,  and then  had
suddenly  been  brought forth  to incriminate themselves  in the usual way.
They  had confessed  to intelligence with the enemy (at that date, too, the
enemy  was  Eurasia), embezzlement  of public funds,  the murder of various
trusted  Party members,  intrigues against  the leadership  of Big  Brother
which had started long before the Revolution happened, and acts of sabotage
causing  the death  of hundreds of thousands of people. After confessing to
these  things  they had been  pardoned, reinstated  in the Party, and given
posts  which were  in fact sinecures but which sounded important. All three
had  written long,  abject articles in the Times, analysing the reasons for
their defection and promising to make amends.
     Some  time after  their release Winston had actually seen all three of
them  in the  Chestnut  Tree  Cafe. He  remembered  the  sort of  terrified
fascination  with which  he had watched them  out of the corner of his eye.
They  were men  far older than himself, relics of the ancient world, almost
the  last  great figures left  over from the heroic  days of the Party. The
glamour  of the  underground struggle and the civil war still faintly clung
to  them. He  had the feeling, though  already at that time facts and dates
were  growing  blurry, that he had  known their names years earlier than he
had  known that  of  Big  Brother. But  also  they  were outlaws,  enemies,
untouchables, doomed with absolute certainty to extinction within a year or
two.  No one who  had once fallen into the hands of the Thought Police ever
escaped in the end. They were corpses waiting to be sent back to the grave.
     There was no one at any of the tables nearest to them. It was not wise
even  to be seen  in the neighbourhood of such people. They were sitting in
silence  before glasses  of the  gin flavoured  with cloves  which was  the
speciality  of  the cafe. Of the  three, it was Rutherford whose appearance
had most impressed Winston. Rutherford had once been a famous caricaturist,
whose  brutal cartoons  had helped  to inflame  popular opinion  before and
during  the Revolution.  Even now,  at  long intervals,  his cartoons  were
appearing  in the  Times.  They were  simply an  imitation  of his  earlier
manner,  and  curiously  lifeless  and unconvincing.  Always  they  were  a
rehashing  of the  ancient  themes --  slum  tenements, starving  children,
street  battles, capitalists  in top  hats --  even on  the barricades  the
capitalists  still  seemed to cling to  their top hats an endless, hopeless
effort  to get  back into the past. He  was a monstrous man, with a mane of
greasy  grey hair, his face pouched and seamed, with thick negroid lips. At
one  time he  must  have been  immensely  strong; now  his  great body  was
sagging, sloping, bulging, falling away in every direction. He seemed to be
breaking up before one's eyes, like a mountain crumbling.
     It  was the lonely hour of fifteen. Winston could not now remember how
he had come to be in the cafe at such a time. The place was almost empty. A
tinny  music was trickling from the telescreens. The three men sat in their
corner  almost  motionless, never speaking. Uncommanded, the waiter brought
fresh glasses of gin. There was a chessboard on the table beside them, with
the pieces set out but no game started. And then, for perhaps half a minute
in  all,  something happened  to the  telescreens. The  tune that they were
playing  changed, and the tone of the music changed too. There came into it
--  but it  was something  hard to  describe. It  was a  peculiar, cracked,
braying,  jeering  note: in his  mind Winston called  it a yellow note. And
then a voice from the telescreen was singing:

        Under the spreading chestnut tree
        I sold you and you sold me:
        There lie they, and here lie we
        Under the spreading chestnut tree.

     The  three  men never  stirred.  But  when  Winston glanced  again  at
Rutherford's ruinous face, he saw that his eyes were full of tears. And for
the  first  time he  noticed, with  a kind  of inward  shudder, and yet not
knowing  at what he shuddered, that both Aaronson and Rutherford had broken
noses.
     A  little later  all three were re-arrested. It appeared that they had
engaged  in  fresh conspiracies from  the very  moment of their release. At
their  second trial they confessed to all their old crimes over again, with
a whole string of new ones. They were executed, and their fate was recorded
in  the  Party histories,  a warning  to posterity.  About five years after
this,  in  1973, Winston  was unrolling  a wad of  documents which had just
flopped out of the pneumatic tube on to his desk when he came on a fragment
of  paper  which had  evidently been  slipped in among  the others and then
forgotten.  The instant he had flattened it out he saw its significance. It
was a half-page torn out of the Times of about ten years earlier -- the top
half  of the  page, so  that it  included the  date --  and it  contained a
photograph  of the  delegates at some Party function in New York. Prominent
in  the middle of the group were Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford. There was
no  mistaking  them, in  any case  their names  were in  the caption at the
bottom.
     The  point was that at both trials all three men had confessed that on
that  date  they had  been on Eurasian  soil. They had  flown from a secret
airfield  in Canada to a rendezvous somewhere in Siberia, and had conferred
with  members of  the Eurasian  General Staff,  to whom  they had  betrayed
important  military secrets. The date had stuck in Winston's memory because
it  chanced to  be midsummer day; but  the whole story must be on record in
countless other places as well. There was only one possible conclusion: the
confessions were lies.
     Of  course, this  was not  in itself  a discovery.  Even at  that time
Winston  had not imagined  that the people who were wiped out in the purges
had  actually committed  the crimes that they were accused of. But this was
concrete  evidence; it  was a fragment of the abolished past, like a fossil
bone  which turns up in the wrong stratum and destroys a geological theory.
It was enough to blow the Party to atoms, if in some way it could have been
published to the world and its significance made known.
     He had gone straight on working. As soon as he saw what the photograph
was,  and what it  meant, he had covered it up with another sheet of paper.
Luckily,  when  he unrolled it,  it had been  upside-down from the point of
view of the telescreen.
     He took his scribbling pad on his knee and pushed back his chair so as
to  get  as far  away from  the telescreen  as possible.  To keep your face
expressionless  was  not  difficult,  and  even  your  breathing  could  be
controlled,  with an  effort: but you could not control the beating of your
heart,  and the telescreen  was quite delicate enough to pick it up. He let
what he judged to be ten minutes go by, tormented all the while by the fear
that  some accident  --  a  sudden draught  blowing  across  his desk,  for
instance -- would betray him. Then, without uncovering it again, he dropped
the  photograph  into the memory hole,  along with some other waste papers.
Within another minute, perhaps, it would have crumbled into ashes.
     That  was ten -- eleven years ago. Today, probably, he would have kept
that  photograph.  It was  curious that the  fact of having  held it in his
fingers  seemed  to him to make  a difference even now, when the photograph
itself,  as well as the event it recorded, was only memory. Was the Party's
hold  upon  the past less strong,  he wondered, because a piece of evidence
which existed no longer had once existed?
     But  today,  supposing that  it could be  somehow resurrected from its
ashes, the photograph might not even be evidence. Already, at the time when
he  made his  discovery, Oceania was no  longer at war with Eurasia, and it
must  have been  to the  agents of  Eastasia that  the three  dead men  had
betrayed  their  country. Since then  there had  been other changes -- two,
three, he could not remember how many. Very likely the confessions had been
rewritten  and  rewritten until the original  facts and dates no longer had
the   smallest  significance.  The  past  not  only  changed,  but  changed
continuously.  What most afflicted him with the sense of nightmare was that
he  had never clearly understood why the huge imposture was undertaken. The
immediate  advantages of falsifying the past were obvious, but the ultimate
motive was mysterious. He took up his pen again and wrote:

        I understand HOW: I do not understand WHY.

     He  wondered, as he had many times wondered before, whether he himself
was  a lunatic. Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one. At one time
it had been a sign of madness to believe that the earth goes round the sun;
today,  to believe  that the  past  is inalterable.  He might  be alone  in
holding that belief, and if alone, then a lunatic. But the thought of being
a lunatic did not greatly trouble him: the horror was that he might also be
wrong.
     He picked up the children's history book and looked at the portrait of
Big Brother which formed its frontispiece. The hypnotic eyes gazed into his
own.  It was  as though  some huge  force were  pressing down  upon you  --
something  that penetrated inside your skull, battering against your brain,
frightening  you  out of your beliefs,  persuading you, almost, to deny the
evidence  of your senses.  In the end the Party would announce that two and
two  made  five, and you  would have to believe  it. It was inevitable that
they  should  make that claim sooner  or later: the logic of their position
demanded  it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence
of  external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of
heresies  was common sense. And what was terrifying was not that they would
kill  you for  thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after
all,  how  do we  know that  two and  two make  four? Or  that the force of
gravity  works? Or that  the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the
external  world  exist  only  in  the  mind, and  if  the  mind  itself  is
controllable what then?
     But  no! His courage seemed suddenly to stiffen of its own accord. The
face of O'Brien, not called up by any obvious association, had floated into
his mind. He knew, with more certainty than before, that O'Brien was on his
side.  He was  writing the diary for  O'Brien -- to O'Brien: it was like an
interminable  letter which  no one would ever read, but which was addressed
to a particular person and took its colour from that fact.
     The  Party told  you to reject the  evidence of your eyes and ears. It
was  their  final, most essential command.  His heart sank as he thought of
the  enormous power  arrayed against  him, the  ease with  which any  Party
intellectual  would overthrow  him in debate, the subtle arguments which he
would  not be  able to understand, much  less answer. And yet he was in the
right!  They were  wrong and he was  right. The obvious, the silly, and the
true  had got to  be defended. Truisms are true, hold on to that! The solid
world  exists, its  laws do  not  change. Stones  are hard,  water is  wet,
objects  unsupported fall towards the earth's centre. With the feeling that
he was speaking to O'Brien, and also that he was setting forth an important
axiom, he wrote:

        Freedom  is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that
is granted, all else follows.



        VIII

     From somewhere at the bottom of a passage the smell of roasting coffee
--  real  coffee, not Victory Coffee  -- came floating out into the street.
Winston  paused  involuntarily. For perhaps two  seconds he was back in the
half-forgotten  world of  his childhood. Then a door banged, seeming to cut
off the smell as abruptly as though it had been a sound.
     He  had walked  several kilometres  over pavements,  and his  varicose
ulcer  was throbbing.  This was the second  time in three weeks that he had
missed  an evening at  the Community Centre: a rash act, since you could be
certain  that  the number of  your attendances  at the Centre was carefully
checked. In principle a Party member had no spare time, and was never alone
except  in  bed. It  was assumed that  when he was  not working, eating, or
sleeping he would be taking part in some kind of communal recreation: to do
anything  that  suggested a  taste for solitude,  even to go  for a walk by
yourself,  was always  slightly  dangerous.  There was  a  word  for it  in
Newspeak:  ownlife,  it was called, meaning individualism and eccentricity.
But  this evening as he came out of the Ministry the balminess of the April
air  had  tempted him. The sky  was a warmer blue  than he had seen it that
year,  and suddenly  the long,  noisy evening  at the  Centre, the  boring,
exhausting  games, the lectures, the creaking camaraderie oiled by gin, had
seemed  intolerable.  On impulse he  had turned  away from the bus-stop and
wandered  off  into the labyrinth  of London,  first south, then east, then
north  again, losing  himself among unknown streets and hardly bothering in
which direction he was going.
     'If  there  is hope,'  he had  written in  the diary,  'it lies in the
proles.'  The words  kept coming back to him, statement of a mystical truth
and  a  palpable absurdity.  He was somewhere  in the vague, brown-coloured
slums to the north and east of what had once been Saint Pancras Station. He
was  walking up  a cobbled street of little two-storey houses with battered
doorways  which  gave straight  on  the  pavement  and which  were  somehow
curiously  suggestive of  ratholes. There were puddles of filthy water here
and  there  among the  cobbles. In and  out of the  dark doorways, and down
narrow  alley-ways that  branched off  on  either side,  people swarmed  in
astonishing numbers -- girls in full bloom, with crudely lipsticked mouths,
and  youths who chased the girls, and swollen waddling women who showed you
what  the  girls would be  like in ten years"  time, and old bent creatures
shuffling  along on splayed feet, and ragged barefooted children who played
in  the puddles  and  then scattered  at angry  yells  from their  mothers.
Perhaps  a quarter of the windows in the street were broken and boarded up.
Most of the people paid no attention to Winston; a few eyed him with a sort
of  guarded  curiosity. Two monstrous  women with brick-red forearms folded
across  thelr aprons  were talking outside a doorway. Winston caught scraps
of conversation as he approached.
     '"Yes,"  I says to  'er, "that's all very well," I says. "But if you'd
of  been  in my place you'd  of done the same  as what I done. It's easy to
criticize," I says, "but you ain't got the same problems as what I got."'
     'Ah,' said the other, 'that's jest it. That's jest where it is.'
     The strident voices stopped abruptly. The women studied him in hostile
silence  as he went  past. But it was not hostility, exactly; merely a kind
of  wariness, a  momentary stiffening, as at the passing of some unfamiliar
animal.  The  blue overalls of the  Party could not  be a common sight in a
street  like this. Indeed,  it was unwise to be seen in such places, unless
you had definite business there. The patrols might stop you if you happened
to run into them. 'May I see your papers, comrade? What are you doing here?
What  time did  you leave work? Is this  your usual way home?' -- and so on
and  so forth.  Not that  there was  any rule  against walking  home by  an
unusual  route: but  it was enough to  draw attention to you if the Thought
Police heard about it.
     Suddenly  the whole  street  was  in commotion.  There  were yells  of
warning  from  all sides.  People  were  shooting  into the  doorways  like
rabbits.  A young  woman leapt out of  a doorway a little ahead of Winston,
grabbed  up a  tiny child playing in  a puddle, whipped her apron round it,
and  leapt back again,  all in one movement. At the same instant a man in a
concertina-like  black suit, who had emerged from a side alley, ran towards
Winston, pointing excitedly to the sky.
     'Steamer!'  he yelled.  'Look out,  guv'nor! Bang  over'ead! Lay  down
quick!'
     'Steamer' was a nickname which, for some reason, the proles applied to
rocket  bombs. Winston  promptly flung himself on his face. The proles were
nearly  always right when they gave you a warning of this kind. They seemed
to possess some kind of instinct which told them several seconds in advance
when  a rocket was coming, although the rockets supposedly travelled faster
than  sound. Winston  clasped his forearms above his head. There was a roar
that  seemed to make the pavement heave; a shower of light objects pattered
on  to his  back.  When he  stood  up he  found that  he  was covered  with
fragments of glass from the nearest window.
     He  walked on. The bomb had demolished a group of houses 200 metres up
the street. A black plume of smoke hung in the sky, and below it a cloud of
plaster  dust in  which a crowd was already forming around the ruins. There
was a little pile of plaster lying on the pavement ahead of him, and in the
middle  of it he could see a bright red streak. When he got up to it he saw
that it was a human hand severed at the wrist. Apart from the bloody stump,
the hand was so completely whitened as to resemble a plaster cast.
     He  kicked  the thing into  the gutter, and  then, to avoid the crowd,
turned down a side-street to the right. Within three or four minutes he was
out  of the area  which the bomb had affected, and the sordid swarming life
of  the streets was  going on as though nothing had happened. It was nearly
twenty  hours, and  the drinking-shops which the proles frequented ('pubs',
they called them) were choked with customers. From their grimy swing doors,
endlessly opening and shutting, there came forth a smell of urine, sawdust,
and  sour  beer. In an  angle formed by  a projecting house-front three men
were standing very close together, the middle one of them holding a folded-
up  newspaper  which the  other two  were studying  over his shoulder. Even
before  he was  near enough  to  make out  the expression  on their  faces,
Winston  could  see absorption  in  every  line  of  their bodies.  It  was
obviously  some serious piece  of news that they were reading. He was a few
paces  away from  them when suddenly the  group broke up and two of the men
were  in violent  altercation. For a moment they seemed almost on the point
of blows.
     'Can't  you bleeding  well listen to what  I say? I tell you no number
ending in seven ain't won for over fourteen months!'
     'Yes, it 'as, then!'
     'No,  it  'as not! Back  'ome I got  the 'ole lot  of 'em for over two
years  wrote  down on  a piece  of paper. I  takes 'em  down reg'lar as the
clock. An" I tell you, no number ending in seven--'
     'Yes,  a seven  'as won!  I could  pretty near  tell you  the bleeding
number.  Four oh seven,  it ended in. It were in February -- second week in
February.'
     'February  your grandmother! I got it all down in black and white. An"
I tell you, no number--'
     'Oh, pack it in!' said the third man.
     They  were talking  about the Lottery. Winston looked back when he had
gone  thirty metres. They were still arguing, with vivid, passionate faces.
The Lottery, with its weekly pay-out of enormous prizes, was the one public
event  to  which the  proles paid  serious attention.  It was probable that
there  were some  millions of proles for whom the Lottery was the principal
if  not  the only reason  for remaining alive.  It was their delight, their
folly,  their anodyne,  their intellectual stimulant. Where the Lottery was
concerned,  even  people who could barely  read and write seemed capable of
intricate  calculations  and staggering feats  of memory. There was a whole
tribe  of  men who made a  living simply by selling systems, forecasts, and
lucky  amulets. Winston  had nothing to do with the running of the Lottery,
which  was managed  by the  Ministry of  Plenty, but  he was  aware (indeed
everyone  in  the party was aware)  that the prizes were largely imaginary.
Only small sums were actually paid out, the winners of the big prizes being
non-existent persons. In the absence of any real intercommunication between
one part of Oceania and another, this was not difficult to arrange.
     But  if there  was hope, it lay in  the proles. You had to cling on to
that.  When  you put  it in  words it  sounded reasonable:  it was when you
looked  at the  human beings passing you  on the pavement that it became an
act  of faith.  The street into which  he had turned ran downhill. He had a
feeling that he had been in this neighbourhood before, and that there was a
main  thoroughfare  not far away. From  somewhere ahead there came a din of
shouting voices. The street took a sharp turn and then ended in a flight of
steps  which  led down into  a sunken alley  where a few stall-keepers were
selling  tired-looking  vegetables. At this moment Winston remembered where
he  was. The alley led out into the main street, and down the next turning,
not five minutes away, was the junk-shop where he had bought the blank book
which  was now  his diary. And in  a small stationer's shop not far away he
had bought his penholder and his bottle of ink.
     He  paused for a  moment at the top of the steps. On the opposite side
of  the  alley there  was a dingy  little pub whose  windows appeared to be
frosted  over but in  reality were merely coated with dust. A very old man,
bent  but active, with white moustaches that bristled forward like those of
a prawn, pushed open the swing door and went in. As Winston stood watching,
it  occurred to him  that the old man, who must be eighty at the least, had
already  been middle-aged when the Revolution happened. He and a few others
like  him were  the last links that  now existed with the vanished world of
capitalism. In the Party itself there were not many people left whose ideas
had been formed before the Revolution. The older generation had mostly been
wiped  out in the  great purges of the fifties and sixties, and the few who
survived  had long ago been terrified into complete intellectual surrender.
If  there was any  one still alive who could give you a truthful account of
conditions  in  the early  part of the  century, it could  only be a prole.
Suddenly  the  passage from  the history  book that he  had copied into his
diary  came  back into Winston's  mind, and a  lunatic impulse took hold of
him.  He would go  into the pub, he would scrape acquaintance with that old
man  and question  him. He would say  to him: 'Tell me about your life when
you  were  a boy. What was  it like in  those days? Were things better than
they are now, or were they worse?'
     Hurriedly, lest he should have time to become frightened, he descended
the  steps and  crossed the  narrow street.  It was  madness of  course. As
usual, there was no definite rule against talking to proles and frequenting
their  pubs, but it was far too unusual an action to pass unnoticed. If the
patrols  appeared  he might  plead an  attack of faintness,  but it was not
likely  that they would believe him. He pushed open the door, and a hideous
cheesy  smell  of sour beer hit  him in the face.  As he entered the din of
voices  dropped  to about  half its  volume. Behind his  back he could feel
everyone  eyeing his  blue overalls. A game  of darts which was going on at
the  other end of the room interrupted itself for perhaps as much as thirty
seconds.  The old man  whom he had followed was standing at the bar, having
some  kind of altercation with the barman, a large, stout, hook-nosed young
man  with enormous  forearms. A knot of others, standing round with glasses
in their hands, were watching the scene.
     'I  arst you  civil enough, didn't I?' said the old man, straightening
his shoulders pugnaciously. 'You telling me you ain't got a pint mug in the
'ole bleeding boozer?'
     'And  what in hell's name is a pint?' said the barman, leaning forward
with the tips of his fingers on the counter.
     'Ark  at  'im! Calls 'isself  a barman and don't  know what a pint is!
Why,  a pint's the  'alf of a quart, and there's four quarts to the gallon.
'Ave to teach you the A, B, C next.'
     'Never  heard of  'em,' said the barman shortly. 'Litre and half litre
-- that's all we serve. There's the glasses on the shelf in front of you.'
     'I likes a pint,' persisted the old man. 'You could 'a drawed me off a
pint  easy enough. We  didn't 'ave these bleeding litres when I was a young
man.'
     'When  you were a  young man we were all living in the treetops,' said
the barman, with a glance at the other customers.
     There  was a shout of laughter, and the uneasiness caused by Winston's
entry  seemed  to disappear.  The old man's  whitestubbled face had flushed
pink.  He turned  away,  muttering  to himself,  and  bumped into  Winston.
Winston caught him gently by the arm.
     'May I offer you a drink?' he said.
     'You're a gent,' said the other, straightening his shoulders again. He
appeared  not to  have noticed  Winston's blue  overalls. 'Pint!'  he added
aggressively to the barman. 'Pint of wallop.'
     The  barman swished  two  half-litres of  dark-brown  beer into  thick
glasses  which  he had rinsed  in a bucket under  the counter. Beer was the
only  drink  you could get  in prole pubs. The  proles were supposed not to
drink  gin, though in practice they could get hold of it easily enough. The
game  of darts was  in full swing again, and the knot of men at the bar had
begun talking about lottery tickets. Winston's presence was forgotten for a
moment.  There was  a deal table under  the window where he and the old man
could  talk without fear of being overheard. It was horribly dangerous, but
at  any rate there  was no telescreen in the room, a point he had made sure
of as soon as he came in.
     ''E could 'a drawed me off a pint,' grumbled the old man as he settled
down  behind a  glass. 'A 'alf litre  ain't enough. It don't satisfy. And a
'ole litre's too much. It starts my bladder running. Let alone the price.'
     'You  must  have seen great changes  since you were a young man,' said
Winston tentatively.
     The  old man's  pale blue eyes moved  from the darts board to the bar,
and  from the  bar to the door of  the Gents, as though it were in the bar-
room that he expected the changes to have occurred.
     'The  beer  was better,' he  said finally. 'And  cheaper! When I was a
young  man, mild beer -- wallop we used to call it -- was fourpence a pint.
That was before the war, of course.'
     'Which war was that?' said Winston.
     'It's  all wars,' said  the old man vaguely. He took up his glass, and
his  shoulders straightened  again. ''Ere's  wishing you  the very  best of
'ealth!'
     In  his lean throat the sharp-pointed Adam's apple made a surprisingly
rapid  up-and-down movement, and the beer vanished. Winston went to the bar
and  came back  with two  more half-litres.  The old  man appeared  to have
forgotten his prejudice against drinking a full litre.
     'You are very much older than I am,' said Winston. 'You must have been
a grown man before I was born. You can remember what it was like in the old
days,  before  the Revolution. People of  my age don't really know anything
about  those times. We  can only read about them in books, and what it says
in  the  books may  not be  true. I should  like your  opinion on that. The
history  books say that life before the Revolution was completely different
from  what  it is now.  There was  the most terrible oppression, injustice,
poverty  worse than anything we can imagine. Here in London, the great mass
of  the  people never had enough  to eat from  birth to death. Half of them
hadn't  even boots on their feet. They worked twelve hours a day, they left
school at nine, they slept ten in a room. And at the same time there were a
very  few people, only a few thousands -- the capitalists, they were called
-- who were rich and powerful. They owned everything that there was to own.
They  lived in  great gorgeous houses with thirty servants, they rode about
in motor-cars and four-horse carriages, they drank champagne, they wore top
hats--'
     The old man brightened suddenly.
     'Top  'ats!'  he said. 'Funny  you should  mention 'em. The same thing
come  into my 'ead only yesterday, I dono why. I was jest thinking, I ain't
seen  a top  'at in years. Gorn right  out, they 'ave. The last time I wore
one  was  at my sister-in-law's  funeral. And that  was -- well, I couldn't
give  you  the date, but it  must'a been fifty  years ago. Of course it was
only 'ired for the occasion, you understand.'
     'It  isn't very important about the top hats,' said Winston patiently.
'The  point is, these capitalists -- they and a few lawyers and priests and
so  forth  who lived  on them  -- were  the lords  of the earth. Everything
existed  for their benefit. You -- the ordinary people, the workers -- were
their  slaves. They could  do what they liked with you. They could ship you
off  to  Canada like cattle.  They could sleep  with your daughters if they
chose.  They could  order you to be flogged with something called a cat-o'-
nine  tails. You  had to  take your  cap off  when you  passed them.  Every
capitalist went about with a gang of lackeys who--'
     The old man brightened again.
     'Lackeys!'  he  said. 'Now there's a  word I ain't 'eard since ever so
long.  Lackeys! That  reg'lar takes  me back,  that does.  I recollect  oh,
donkey's  years  ago --  I used  to sometimes go  to 'Yde  Park of a Sunday
afternoon  to  'ear  the  blokes making  speeches.  Salvation  Army,  Roman
Catholics, Jews, Indians -- all sorts there was. And there was one bloke --
well,  I couldn't give you 'is name, but a real powerful speaker 'e was. 'E
didn't  'alf give  it 'em! "Lackeys!" 'e says, "lackeys of the bourgeoisie!
Flunkies  of the  ruling class!" Parasites -- that was another of them. And
'yenas  --  'e definitely called 'em  'yenas. Of course 'e was referring to
the Labour Party, you understand.'
     Winston had the feeling that they were talking at cross-purposes.
     'What  I really  wanted to know was  this,' he said. 'Do you feel that
you  have more freedom now than you had in those days? Are you treated more
like  a  human being? In the  old days, the  rich people, the people at the
top--'
     'The 'Ouse of Lords,' put in the old man reminiscently.
     'The  House  of Lords,  if you like.  What I am  asking is, were these
people  able to treat you as an inferior, simply because they were rich and
you  were poor? Is it a fact, for instance, that you had to call them "Sir"
and take off your cap when you passed them?'
     The  old man appeared to think deeply. He drank off about a quarter of
his beer before answering.
     'Yes,'  he said.  'They liked you to  touch your cap to 'em. It showed
respect,  like. I didn't agree with it, myself, but I done it often enough.
Had to, as you might say.'
     'And  was it usual -- I'm only quoting what I've read in history books
--  was  it usual for these  people and their  servants to push you off the
pavement into the gutter?'
     'One  of 'em pushed  me once,' said the old man. 'I recollect it as if
it was yesterday. It was Boat Race night -- terribly rowdy they used to get
on Boat Race night -- and I bumps into a young bloke on Shaftesbury Avenue.
Quite  a gent, 'e  was -- dress shirt, top 'at, black overcoat. 'E was kind
of  zig-zagging across  the pavement, and I bumps into 'im accidental-like.
'E says, "Why can't you look where you're going?" 'e says. I say, "Ju think
you've bought the bleeding pavement?" 'E says, "I'll twist your bloody 'ead
off  if  you get fresh  with me."  I says, "You're  drunk. I'll give you in
charge  in  'alf a minute," I  says. An' if  you'll believe me, 'e puts 'is
'and  on  my chest and  gives me a  shove as pretty  near sent me under the
wheels  of a  bus. Well, I was young  in them days, and I was going to 'ave
fetched 'im one, only--'
     A sense of helplessness took hold of Winston. The old man's memory was
nothing  but a  rubbish-heap of  details. One  could question  him all  day
without  getting  any real information.  The party histories might still be
true,  after a fashion:  they might even be completely true. He made a last
attempt.
     'Perhaps  I have  not made myself clear,' he said. 'What I'm trying to
say is this. You have been alive a very long time; you lived half your life
before  the  Revolution. In 1925, for  instance, you were already grown up.
Would you say from what you can remember, that life in 1925 was better than
it  is now, or worse? If you could choose, would you prefer to live then or
now?'
     The old man looked meditatively at the darts board. He finished up his
beer,  more slowly  than  before. When  he  spoke it  was  with a  tolerant
philosophical air, as though the beer had mellowed him.
     'I  know what you expect me to say,' he said. 'You expect me to say as
I'd sooner be young again. Most people'd say they'd sooner be young, if you
arst" 'em. You got your 'ealth and strength when you're young. When you get
to  my time of life you ain't never well. I suffer something wicked from my
feet, and my bladder's jest terrible. Six and seven times a night it 'as me
out of bed. On the other 'and, there's great advantages in being a old man.
You  ain't  got the same  worries. No truck with  women, and that's a great
thing. I ain't 'ad a woman for near on thirty year, if you'd credit it. Nor
wanted to, what's more.'
     Winston  sat back  against the window-sill. It was no use going on. He
was  about to  buy some  more beer  when the  old man  suddenly got  up and
shuffled  rapidly  into the  stinking urinal  at the side  of the room. The
extra  half-litre  was already working on  him. Winston sat for a minute or
two gazing at his empty glass, and hardly noticed when his feet carried him
out  into the  street again. Within twenty years at the most, he reflected,
the  huge and  simple question, 'Was life better before the Revolution than
it  is  now?' would have ceased  once and for  all to be answerable. But in
effect it was unanswerable even now, since the few scattered survivors from
the  ancient  world were incapable of  comparing one age with another. They
remembered  a million useless things, a quarrel with a workmate, a hunt for
a  lost bicycle  pump, the  expression on  a long-dead  sister's face,  the
swirls  of dust on  a windy morning seventy years ago: but all the relevant
facts were outside the range of their vision. They were like the ant, which
can  see small  objects but  not  large ones.  And when  memory failed  and
written  records  were falsified  -- when  that happened,  the claim of the
Party to have improved the conditions of human life had got to be accepted,
because  there  did not  exist, and  never again  could exist, any standard
against which it could be tested.
     At  this  moment his train of  thought stopped abruptly. He halted and
looked  up. He  was in  a  narrow street,  with  a few  dark little  shops,
interspersed  among  dwelling-houses. Immediately above his head there hung
three discoloured metal balls which looked as if they had once been gilded.
He  seemed to know  the place. Of course! He was standing outside the junk-
shop where he had bought the diary.
     A twinge of fear went through him. It had been a sufficiently rash act
to  buy the book  in the beginning, and he had sworn never to come near the
place  again.  And yet the instant  that he allowed his thoughts to wander,
his  feet had  brought him back here  of their own accord. It was precisely
against  suicidal impulses  of this kind that he had hoped to guard himself
by  opening  the diary.  At the same  time he noticed  that although it was
nearly  twenty-one hours  the shop was still open. With the feeling that he
would  be  less conspicuous inside  than hanging  about on the pavement, he
stepped  through the doorway. If questioned, he could plausibly say that he
was trying to buy razor blades.
     The  proprietor had  just lighted a hanging oil lamp which gave off an
unclean but friendly smell. He was a man of perhaps sixty, frail and bowed,
with  a long, benevolent nose, and mild eyes distorted by thick spectacles.
His hair was almost white, but his eyebrows were bushy and still black. His
spectacles,  his gentle,  fussy movements, and the fact that he was wearing
an aged jacket of black velvet, gave him a vague air of intellectuality, as
though  he had  been some kind of  literary man, or perhaps a musician. His
voice  was soft, as  though faded, and his accent less debased than that of
the majority of proles.
     'I  recognized you  on the pavement,' he said immediately. 'You're the
gentleman that bought the young lady's keepsake album. That was a beautiful
bit  of paper, that  was. Cream-laid, it used to be called. There's been no
paper  like  that made  for --  oh, I dare  say fifty  years.' He peered at
Winston over the top of his spectacles. 'Is there anything special I can do
for you? Or did you just want to look round?'
     'I was passing,' said Winston vaguely. 'I just looked in. I don't want
anything in particular.'
     'It's  just as well,' said the other, 'because I don't suppose I could
have  satisfied you.'  He made  an apologetic  gesture with  his softpalmed
hand. 'You see how it is; an empty shop, you might say. Between you and me,
the antique trade's just about finished. No demand any longer, and no stock
either.  Furniture, china, glass it's all been broken up by degrees. And of
course  the  metal stuff's mostly been  melted down. I haven't seen a brass
candlestick in years.'
     The  tiny  interior of  the shop  was in  fact uncomfortably full, but
there  was almost  nothing in it of the slightest value. The floorspace was
very restricted, because all round the walls were stacked innumerable dusty
picture-frames.  In the window there were trays of nuts and bolts, worn-out
chisels,  penknives with broken blades, tarnished watches that did not even
pretend  to  be in going order,  and other miscellaneous rubbish. Only on a
small  table in the corner was there a litter of odds and ends -- lacquered
snuffboxes,  agate  brooches, and the  like --  which looked as though they
might  include something interesting. As Winston wandered towards the table
his  eye  was caught  by a round,  smooth thing that  gleamed softly in the
lamplight, and he picked it up.
     It  was a heavy  lump of glass, curved on one side, flat on the other,
making almost a hemisphere. There was a peculiar softness, as of rainwater,
in  both the  colour and  the texture  of the  glass. At  the heart  of it,
magnified  by the  curved surface,  there was  a strange,  pink, convoluted
object that recalled a rose or a sea anemone.
     'What is it?' said Winston, fascinated.
     'That's coral, that is,' said the old man. 'It must have come from the
Indian  Ocean. They used to kind of embed it in the glass. That wasn't made
less than a hundred years ago. More, by the look of it.'
     'It's a beautiful thing,' said Winston.
     'It is a beautiful thing,' said the other appreciatively. 'But there's
not  many that'd say so nowadays.' He coughed. 'Now, if it so happened that
you  wanted to buy  it, that'd cost you four dollars. I can remember when a
thing  like  that would have fetched  eight pounds, and eight pounds was --
well,  I can't work  it out, but it was a lot of money. But who cares about
genuine antiques nowadays even the few that's left?'
     Winston  immediately  paid over the  four dollars and slid the coveted
thing  into his  pocket. What appealed to  him about it was not so much its
beauty  as the  air it  seemed  to possess  of  belonging to  an age  quite
different from the present one. The soft, rainwatery glass was not like any
glass that he had ever seen. The thing was doubly attractive because of its
apparent  uselessness,  though he could  guess that  it must once have been
intended as a paperweight. It was very heavy in his pocket, but fortunately
it  did not make much of a bulge. It was a queer thing, even a compromising
thing,  for a Party member to have in his possession. Anything old, and for
that matter anything beautiful, was always vaguely suspect. The old man had
grown  noticeably  more cheerful after  receiving the four dollars. Winston
realized that he would have accepted three or even two.
     'There's another room upstairs that you might care to take a look at,'
he  said. 'There's not much in it. Just a few pieces. We'll do with a light
if we're going upstairs.'
     He  lit another lamp,  and, with bowed back, led the way slowly up the
steep  and worn stairs  and along a tiny passage, into a room which did not
give  on the  street but  looked out  on  a cobbled  yard and  a forest  of
chimney-pots.  Winston noticed  that the  furniture was  still arranged  as
though  the room were  meant to be lived in. There was a strip of carpet on
the  floor, a picture or two on the walls, and a deep, slatternly arm-chair
drawn  up to the fireplace. An old-fashioned glass clock with a twelve-hour
face  was ticking  away on the mantelpiece. Under the window, and occupying
nearly  a quarter of  the room, was an enormous bed with the mattress still
on it.
     'We   lived   here  till  my  wife   died,'  said  the  old  man  half
apologetically.  'I'm  selling the furniture  off by little and little. Now
that's  a beautiful mahogany  bed, or at least it would be if you could get
the bugs out of it. But I dare say you'd find it a little bit cumbersome.'
     He  was holdlng the  lamp high up, so as to illuminate the whole room,
and  in the warm dim light the place looked curiously inviting. The thought
flitted through Winston's mind that it would probably be quite easy to rent
the  room for a few  dollars a week, if he dared to take the risk. It was a
wild,  impossible  notion, to be  abandoned as soon  as thought of; but the
room  had awakened in  him a sort of nostalgia, a sort of ancestral memory.
It  seemed to  him that he knew exactly  what it felt like to sit in a room
like this, in an arm-chair beside an open fire with your feet in the fender
and  a kettle  on  the  hob; utterly  alone,  utterly  secure, with  nobody
watching  you,  no voice pursuing  you, no sound  except the singing of the
kettle and the friendly ticking of the clock.
     'There's no telescreen!' he could not help murmuring.
     'Ah,'  said  the old  man,  'I  never had  one  of  those things.  Too
expensive. And I never seemed to feel the need of it, somehow. Now that's a
nice  gateleg table in the corner there. Though of course you'd have to put
new hinges on it if you wanted to use the flaps.'
     There  was a  small  bookcase in  the other  corner,  and Winston  had
already  gravitated  towards it.  It  contained  nothing but  rubbish.  The
hunting-down  and  destruction  of  books  had  been  done  with  the  same
thoroughness in the prole quarters as everywhere else. It was very unlikely
that  there  existed anywhere in  Oceania a copy  of a book printed earlier
than 1960. The old man, still carrying the lamp, was standing in front of a
picture  in a rosewood frame which hung on the other side of the fireplace,
opposite the bed.
     'Now,  if you happen to be interested in old prints at all--' he began
delicately.
     Winston  came across  to examine the picture. It was a steel engraving
of  an oval  building with rectangular windows, and a small tower in front.
There  was a railing  running round the building, and at the rear end there
was  what appeared to be a statue. Winston gazed at it for some moments. It
seemed vaguely familiar, though he did not remember the statue.
     'The  frame's fixed  to the  wall,'  said the  old man,  'but I  could
unscrew it for you, I dare say.'
     'I  know that  building,' said Winston finally. 'It's a ruin now. It's
in the middle of the street outside the Palace of Justice.'
     'That's  right.  Outside the Law Courts.  It was bombed in -- oh, many
years ago. It was a church at one time, St. Clement's Danes, its name was.'
He  smiled apologetically, as though conscious of saying something slightly
ridiculous,  and  added:  '"Oranges  and  lemons," say  the  bells  of  St.
Clement's!'
     'What's that?' said Winston.
     'Oh  --  "'Oranges and lemons,' say  the bells of St. Clement's." That
was  a rhyme  we had  when I  was  a little  boy. How  it goes  on I  don't
remember,  but I do  know it ended up, "Here comes a candle to light you to
bed, Here comes a chopper to chop off your head." It was a kind of a dance.
They held out their arms for you to pass under, and when they came to "Here
comes  a  chopper to chop  off your head" they  brought their arms down and
caught  you. It was just names of churches. All the London churches were in
it -- all the principal ones, that is.'
     Winston  wondered vaguely  to what century the church belonged. It was
always  difficult to determine the age of a London building. Anything large
and  impressive, if  it was reasonably new in appearance, was automatically
claimed  as having been built since the Revolution, while anything that was
obviously of earlier date was ascribed to some dim period called the Middle
Ages. The centuries of capitalism were held to have produced nothing of any
value.  One  could not  learn history  from architecture  any more than one
could  learn it  from books.  Statues, inscriptions,  memorial stones,  the
names  of streets -- anything that might throw light upon the past had been
systematically altered.
     'I never knew it had been a church,' he said.
     'There's  a lot  of  them left,  really,' said  the  old man,  'though
they've  been put  to other uses. Now,  how did that rhyme go? Ah! I've got
it!

        'Oranges and lemons,' say the bells of St. Clement's,
        'You owe me three farthings,' say the bells of St. Martin's--

there, now, that's as far as I can get. A farthing, that was a small copper
coin, looked something like a cent.'
     'Where was St. Martin's?' said Winston.
     'St.   Martin's?  That's  still  standing.  It's  in  Victory  Square,
alongside the picture gallery. A building with a kind of a triangular porch
and pillars in front, and a big flight of steps.'
     Winston  knew the  place well.  It was  a museum  used for  propaganda
displays  of  various kinds  -- scale  models of  rocket bombs and Floating
Fortresses, waxwork tableaux illustrating enemy atrocities, and the like.
     'St.  Martin's-in-the-Fields  it used  to be called,' supplemented the
old man, 'though I don't recollect any fields anywhere in those parts.'
     Winston  did not  buy the  picture. It  would have  been an  even more
incongruous  possession than the glass paperweight, and impossible to carry
home,  unless  it were  taken out  of its  frame. But  he lingered for some
minutes  more,  talking to the old  man, whose name, he discovered, was not
Weeks  --  as one might  have gathered from  the inscription over the shop-
front  --  but Charrington. Mr. Charrington,  it seemed, was a widower aged
sixty-three  and had  inhabited this shop for thirty years. Throughout that
time he had been intending to alter the name over the window, but had never
quite  got to  the point of doing  it. All the while that they were talking
the  half-remembered rhyme kept running through Winston's head. Oranges and
lemons  say the bells of St. Clement's, You owe me three farthings, say the
bells of St. Martin's! It was curious, but when you said it to yourself you
had the illusion of actually hearing bells, the bells of a lost London that
still existed somewhere or other, disguised and forgotten. From one ghostly
steeple  after another he  seemed to hear them pealing forth. Yet so far as
he could remember he had never in real life heard church bells ringing.
     He got away from Mr. Charrington and went down the stairs alone, so as
not to let the old man see him reconnoitring the street before stepping out
of the door. He had already made up his mind that after a suitable interval
--  a month,  say -- he would take  the risk of visiting the shop again. It
was  perhaps not more dangerous than shirking an evening at the Centre. The
serious piece of folly had been to come back here in the first place, after
buying  the  diary and without  knowing whether  the proprietor of the shop
could be trusted. However--!
     Yes, he thought again, he would come back. He would buy further scraps
of  beautiful  rubbish. He would buy  the engraving of St. Clement's Danes,
take  it out of  its frame, and carry it home concealed under the jacket of
his  overalls. He would drag the rest of that poem out of Mr. Charrington's
memory.  Even the  lunatic project  of  renting the  room upstairs  flashed
momentarily  through  his mind  again. For  perhaps five seconds exaltation
made him careless, and he stepped out on to the pavement without so much as
a  preliminary glance through the window. He had even started humming to an
improvised tune--

        'Oranges and lemons,' say the bells of St. Clement's,
        'You owe me three farthings,' say the--

     Suddenly  his heart  seemed to turn to  ice and his bowels to water. A
figure  in blue overalls was coming down the pavement, not ten metres away.
It  was the girl  from the Fiction Department, the girl with dark hair. The
light  was  failing, but  there was  no difficulty  in recognizing her. She
looked  him straight in  the face, then walked quickly on as though she had
not seen him.
     For a few seconds Winston was too paralysed to move. Then he turned to
the  right and walked heavily away, not noticing for the moment that he was
going  in the wrong direction. At any rate, one question was settled. There
was  no doubting any  longer that the girl was spying on him. She must have
followed  him  here, because  it was  not credible that  by pure chance she
should  have happened to be walking on the same evening up the same obscure
backstreet,  kilometres distant from any quarter where Party members lived.
It  was  too great  a coincidence. Whether  she was really  an agent of the
Thought  Police, or simply an amateur spy actuated by officiousness, hardly
mattered.  It  was enough that she  was watching him. Probably she had seen
him go into the pub as well.
     It  was  an effort  to walk.  The lump  of glass  in his pocket banged
against  his thigh at  each step, and he was half minded to take it out and
throw  it away. The  worst thing was the pain in his belly. For a couple of
minutes he had the feeling that he would die if he did not reach a lavatory
soon.  But there would be no public lavatories in a quarter like this. Then
the spasm passed, leaving a dull ache behind.
     The  street was  a  blind  alley. Winston  halted,  stood for  several
seconds  wondering vaguely  what  to do,  then turned  round  and began  to
retrace  his steps. As  he turned it occurred to him that the girl had only
passed him three minutes ago and that by running he could probably catch up
with  her. He  could keep on her  track till they were in some quiet place,
and  then smash her  skull in with a cobblestone. The piece of glass in his
pocket  would be  heavy  enough for  the  job. But  he  abandoned the  idea
immediately,  because  even the  thought of making  any physical effort was
unbearable.  He could not run, he could not strike a blow. Besides, she was
young  and  lusty and would defend  herself. He thought also of hurrying to
the  Community  Centre and  staying there  till the place  closed, so as to
establish  a partial  alibi for the evening. But that too was impossible. A
deadly  lassitude  had taken  hold of  him. All  he wanted  was to get home
quickly and then sit down and be quiet.
     It was after twenty-two hours when he got back to the flat. The lights
would  be switched off at the main at twenty-three thirty. He went into the
kitchen  and  swallowed nearly a teacupful  of Victory Gin. Then he went to
the  table in  the alcove, sat down,  and took the diary out of the drawer.
But  he did not  open it at once. From the telescreen a brassy female voice
was  squalling a patriotic song. He sat staring at the marbled cover of the
book, trying without success to shut the voice out of his consciousness.
     It  was at  night that they came  for you, always at night. The proper
thing was to kill yourself before they got you. Undoubtedly some people did
so.  Many of  the  disappearances  were actually  suicides.  But it  needed
desperate  courage to kill yourself in a world where firearms, or any quick
and certain poison, were completely unprocurable. He thought with a kind of
astonishment  of the biological uselessness of pain and fear, the treachery
of  the human  body which always freezes into inertia at exactly the moment
when  a  special effort is  needed. He  might have silenced the dark-haired
girl  if  only he  had acted  quickly enough: but  precisely because of the
extremity of his danger he had lost the power to act. It struck him that in
moments  of  crisis one  is never  fighting against  an external enemy, but
always against one's own body. Even now, in spite of the gin, the dull ache
in  his  belly made consecutive thought  impossible. And it is the same, he
perceived,   in   all  seemingly  heroic   or  tragic  situations.  On  the
battlefield, in the torture chamber, on a sinking ship, the issues that you
are  fighting for are always forgotten, because the body swells up until it
fills  the universe,  and even  when  you are  not paralysed  by fright  or
screaming  with pain, life is a moment-to-moment struggle against hunger or
cold or sleeplessness, against a sour stomach or an aching tooth.
     He  opened  the diary. It  was important  to write something down. The
woman  on the telescreen  had started a new song. Her voice seemed to stick
into  his brain  like  jagged splinters  of  glass. He  tried  to think  of
O'Brien,  for whom, or to whom, the diary was written, but instead he began
thinking  of  the things that would  happen to him after the Thought Police
took him away. It would not matter if they killed you at once. To be killed
was  what you  expected. But before death (nobody spoke of such things, yet
everybody  knew of them) there was the routine of confession that had to be
gone  through:  the grovelling  on the  floor and  screaming for mercy, the
crack of broken bones, the smashed teeth, and bloody clots of hair.
     Why  did you have to endure it, since the end was always the same? Why
was  it  not possible to cut  a few days or  weeks out of your life? Nobody
ever  escaped  detection, and nobody ever  failed to confess. When once you
had succumbed to thoughtcrime it was certain that by a given date you would
be  dead. Why  then did  that horror,  which altered  nothing, have  to lie
embedded in future time?
     He tried with a little more success than before to summon up the image
of  O'Brien. 'We  shall meet  in  the place  where there  is no  darkness,'
O'Brien  had  said to him. He  knew what it  meant, or thought he knew. The
place  where there  is no darkness was the imagined future, which one would
never  see, but which, by foreknowledge, one could mystically share in. But
with  the voice from the telescreen nagging at his ears he could not follow
the  train  of thought further.  He put a cigarette  in his mouth. Half the
tobacco  promptly fell  out  on to  his  tongue, a  bitter  dust which  was
difficult  to spit  out again. The face  of Big Brother swam into his mind,
displacing that of O'Brien. Just as he had done a few days earlier, he slid
a coin out of his pocket and looked at it. The face gazed up at him, heavy,
calm,  protecting: but  what  kind of  smile was  hidden  beneath the  dark
moustache? Like a leaden knell the words came back at him:

        WAR IS PEACE
        FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
        IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

        * * * 



        PART II

        I

     It  was the middle of the morning, and Winston had left the cubicle to
go to the lavatory.
     A  solitary  figure was coming  towards him from  the other end of the
long,  brightly-lit corridor. It was the girl with dark hair. Four days had
gone past since the evening when he had run into her outside the junk-shop.
As she came nearer he saw that her right arm was in a sling, not noticeable
at  a distance because  it was of the same colour as her overalls. Probably
she  had crushed her hand while swinging round one of the big kaleidoscopes
on which the plots of novels were 'roughed in'. It was a common accident in
the Fiction Department.
     They  were  perhaps four metres apart  when the girl stumbled and fell
almost flat on her face. A sharp cry of pain was wrung out of her. She must
have  fallen right  on the injured arm. Winston stopped short. The girl had
risen to her knees. Her face had turned a milky yellow colour against which
her  mouth stood out  redder than ever. Her eyes were fixed on his, with an
appealing expression that looked more like fear than pain.
     A  curious emotion  stirred in Winston's heart. In front of him was an
enemy  who was  trying to  kill him:  in front  of him,  also, was  a human
creature,  in  pain  and  perhaps  with  a  broken  bone.  Already  he  had
instinctively  started forward  to help her. In the moment when he had seen
her fall on the bandaged arm, it had been as though he felt the pain in his
own body.
     'You're hurt?' he said.
     'It's nothing. My arm. It'll be all right in a second.'
     She  spoke as  though her  heart  were fluttering.  She had  certainly
turned very pale.
     'You haven't broken anything?'
     'No, I'm all right. It hurt for a moment, that's all.'
     She  held  out her  free hand  to him, and  he helped  her up. She had
regained some of her colour, and appeared very much better.
     'It's nothing,' she repeated shortly. 'I only gave my wrist a bit of a
bang. Thanks, comrade!'
     And  with  that she walked  on in the direction  in which she had been
going,  as briskly as though it had really been nothing. The whole incident
could  not have  taken as much as  half a minute. Not to let one's feelings
appear  in one's  face was  a  habit that  had  acquired the  status of  an
instinct,  and  in any case  they had been standing  straight in front of a
telescreen when the thing happened. Nevertheless it had been very difficult
not  to betray a  momentary surprise, for in the two or three seconds while
he  was helping her  up the girl had slipped something into his hand. There
was  no question that she had done it intentionally. It was something small
and  flat. As he  passed through the lavatory door he transferred it to his
pocket  and felt  it with the tips of  his fingers. It was a scrap of paper
folded into a square.
     While he stood at the urinal he managed, with a little more fingering,
to  get it unfolded. Obviously there must be a message of some kind written
on it. For a moment he was tempted to take it into one of the water-closets
and  read  it at once. But  that would be  shocking folly, as he well knew.
There  was  no place where  you could be  more certain that the telescreens
were watched continuously.
     He  went  back to his  cubicle, sat down,  threw the fragment of paper
casually  among  the other  papers on  the desk, put  on his spectacles and
hitched  the speakwrite towards him. 'five minutes,' he told himself, 'five
minutes at the very least!' His heart bumped in his breast with frightening
loudness. Fortunately the piece of work he was engaged on was mere routine,
the rectification of a long list of figures, not needing close attention.
     Whatever was written on the paper, it must have some kind of political
meaning. So far as he could see there were two possibilities. One, much the
more  likely, was that the girl was an agent of the Thought Police, just as
he  had  feared. He  did not know  why the Thought  Police should choose to
deliver  their messages  in  such a  fashion, but  perhaps  they had  their
reasons.  The  thing that  was written  on the  paper might  be a threat, a
summons,  an order to commit suicide, a trap of some description. But there
was another, wilder possibility that kept raising its head, though he tried
vainly  to  suppress it. This  was, that the message  did not come from the
Thought  Police at  all, but  from some  kind of  underground organization.
Perhaps the Brotherhood existed after all! Perhaps the girl was part of it!
No  doubt the idea  was absurd, but it had sprung into his mind in the very
instant of feeling the scrap of paper in his hand. It was not till a couple
of  minutes later that the other, more probable explanation had occurred to
him.  And even now, though his intellect told him that the message probably
meant  death --  still, that was not what he believed, and the unreasonable
hope  persisted,  and his heart banged,  and it was with difficulty that he
kept  his  voice  from  trembling  as he  murmured  his  figures  into  the
speakwrite.
     He  rolled up  the  completed bundle  of  work and  slid  it into  the
pneumatic tube. Eight minutes had gone by. He re-adjusted his spectacles on
his  nose,  sighed, and drew  the next batch of  work towards him, with the
scrap  of paper on  top of it. He flattened it out. On it was written, in a
large unformed handwriting:

        I love you.

     For several seconds he was too stunned even to throw the incriminating
thing  into the memory hole. When he did so, although he knew very well the
danger  of  showing too much interest,  he could not resist reading it once
again, just to make sure that the words were really there.
     For  the rest  of the morning it  was very difficult to work. What was
even  worse than having  to focus his mind on a series of niggling jobs was
the  need to conceal his agitation from the telescreen. He felt as though a
fire  were  burning in his  belly. Lunch  in the hot, crowded, noise-filled
canteen was torment. He had hoped to be alone for a little while during the
lunch hour, but as bad luck would have it the imbecile Parsons flopped down
beside him, the tang of his sweat almost defeating the tinny smell of stew,
and  kept up a  stream of talk about the preparations for Hate Week. He was
particularly enthusiastic about a papier-mache model of Big Brother's head,
two  metres  wide, which was being  made for the occasion by his daughter's
troop  of Spies.  The irritating  thing was  that in  the racket  of voices
Winston  could hardly  hear what  Parsons  was saying,  and was  constantly
having to ask for some fatuous remark to be repeated. Just once he caught a
glimpse  of the girl, at a table with two other girls at the far end of the
room.  She appeared  not to  have seen  him, and  he did  not look  in that
direction again.
     The afternoon was more bearable. Immediately after lunch there arrived
a  delicate,  difficult piece  of work  which would  take several hours and
necessitated  putting  everything else aside.  It consisted in falsifying a
series  of  production reports of two  years ago, in  such a way as to cast
discredit  on  a prominent member  of the Inner Party,  who was now under a
cloud.  This was  the kind of thing  that Winston was good at, and for more
than  two  hours  he  succeeded  in  shutting the  girl  out  of  his  mind
altogether.  Then the  memory of her face  came back, and with it a raging,
intolerable  desire to  be alone. Until he could be alone it was impossible
to  think  this new development  out. Tonight was one  of his nights at the
Community  Centre. He wolfed another tasteless meal in the canteen, hurried
off to the Centre, took part in the solemn foolery of a 'discussion group',
played two games of table tennis, swallowed several glasses of gin, and sat
for  half an hour through a lecture entitled 'Ingsoc in relation to chess'.
His  soul writhed with boredom, but for once he had had no impulse to shirk
his  evening at the Centre. At the sight of the words I love you the desire
to  stay alive had welled up in him, and the taking of minor risks suddenly
seemed  stupid. It was not till twenty-three hours, when he was home and in
bed  --  in the darkness,  where you were safe  even from the telescreen so
long as you kept silent -- that he was able to think continuously.
     It  was a physical  problem that had to be solved: how to get in touch
with  the  girl and arrange  a meeting. He did  not consider any longer the
possibility  that  she might be  laying some kind of  trap for him. He knew
that  it was  not so, because of her unmistakable agitation when she handed
him  the note.  Obviously she had been  frightened out of her wits, as well
she  might  be. Nor  did the idea  of refusing her  advances even cross his
mind. Only five nights ago he had contemplated smashing her skull in with a
cobblestone,  but that  was  of no  importance. He  thought  of her  naked,
youthful  body, as he  had seen it in his dream. He had imagined her a fool
like all the rest of them, her head stuffed with lies and hatred, her belly
full  of ice. A  kind of fever seized him at the thought that he might lose
her,  the white youthful body might slip away from him! What he feared more
than  anything else was that she would simply change her mind if he did not
get  in touch  with her quickly. But the physical difficulty of meeting was
enormous.  It was like trying to make a move at chess when you were already
mated.  Whichever  way you turned,  the telescreen faced you. Actually, all
the possible ways of communicating with her had occurred to him within five
minutes of reading the note; but now, with time to think, he went over them
one by one, as though laying out a row of instruments on a table.
     Obviously  the kind  of encounter that had happened this morning could
not  be repeated. If she had worked in the Records Department it might have
been  comparatively simple,  but he had only a very dim idea whereabouts in
the  building the  Fiction Departrnent lay, and he had no pretext for going
there.  If he had known where she lived, and at what time she left work, he
could  have contrived to  meet her somewhere on her way home; but to try to
follow her home was not safe, because it would mean loitering about outside
the  Ministry, which  was bound  to  be noticed.  As for  sending a  letter
through  the mails,  it was out of  the question. By a routine that was not
even  secret, all letters were opened in transit. Actually, few people ever
wrote letters. For the messages that it was occasionally necessary to send,
there were printed postcards with long lists of phrases, and you struck out
the  ones  that were inapplicable.  In any case he  did not know the girl's
name,  let alone  her address. Finally he decided that the safest place was
the  canteen. If  he could get her  at a table by herself, somewhere in the
middle  of  the room, not  too near the  telescreens, and with a sufficient
buzz  of  conversation all round  -- if  these conditions endured for, say,
thirty seconds, it might be possible to exchange a few words.
     For a week after this, life was like a restless dream. On the next day
she  did  not appear  in the canteen  until he was  leaving it, the whistle
having  already blown. Presumably she had been changed on to a later shift.
They  passed each other  without a glance. On the day after that she was in
the  canteen at  the usual time, but with three other girls and immediately
under a telescreen. Then for three dreadful days she did not appear at all.
His  whole  mind  and  body  seemed to  be  afflicted  with  an  unbearable
sensitivity,  a sort  of  transparency, which  made  every movement,  every
sound,  every  contact, every  word that he  had to speak  or listen to, an
agony.  Even in sleep he could not altogether escape from her image. He did
not  touch the diary  during those days. If there was any relief, it was in
his  work, in which  he could sometimes forget himself for ten minutes at a
stretch.  He had  absolutely no clue as  to what had happened to her. There
was no enquiry he could make. She might have been vaporized, she might have
committed  suicide,  she might  have been  transferred to  the other end of
Oceania: worst and likeliest of all, she might simply have changed her mind
and decided to avoid him.
     The  next day she reappeared. Her arm was out of the sling and she had
a band of sticking-plaster round her wrist. The relief of seeing her was so
great that he could not resist staring directly at her for several seconds.
On  the following day  he very nearly succeeded in speaking to her. When he
came  into the  canteen she was sitting  at a table well out from the wall,
and  was  quite alone. It was  early, and the  place was not very full. The
queue  edged forward  till Winston was almost at the counter, then was held
up for two minutes because someone in front was complaining that he had not
received  his tablet  of  saccharine. But  the girl  was  still alone  when
Winston  secured his  tray  and began  to  make for  her  table. He  walked
casually  towards her,  his eyes searching for a place at some table beyond
her.  She was perhaps three metres away from him. Another two seconds would
do  it. Then a  voice behind him called, 'Smith!' He pretended not to hear.
'Smith!' repeated the voice, more loudly. It was no use. He turned round. A
blond-headed, silly-faced young man named Wilsher, whom he barely knew, was
inviting  him with a  smile to a vacant place at his table. It was not safe
to refuse. After having been recognized, he could not go and sit at a table
with an unattended girl. It was too noticeable. He sat down with a friendly
smile. The silly blond face beamed into his. Winston had a hallucination of
himself  smashing a  pick-axe right into the middle of it. The girl's table
filled up a few minutes later.
     But  she must  have seen him coming towards her, and perhaps she would
take  the hint.  Next day he took  care to arrive early. Surely enough, she
was  at a  table in  about  the same  place,  and again  alone. The  person
immediately  ahead of him in the queue was a small, swiftly-moving, beetle-
like man with a flat face and tiny, suspicious eyes. As Winston turned away
from  the  counter with  his tray,  he saw  that the  little man was making
straight  for  the girl's table.  His hopes sank  again. There was a vacant
place at a table further away, but something in the little man's appearance
suggested  that  he would be  sufficiently attentive  to his own comfort to
choose  the emptiest  table. With ice at his heart Winston followed. It was
no  use  unless he  could get  the girl alone.  At this  moment there was a
tremendous  crash. The  little man was sprawling on all fours, his tray had
gone  flying, two streams of soup and coffee were flowing across the floor.
He  started  to his  feet  with  a malignant  glance  at  Winston, whom  he
evidently  suspected  of having tripped him  up. But it was all right. Five
seconds  later, with  a thundering heart, Winston was sitting at the girl's
table.
     He  did not  look at  her.  He unpacked  his tray  and promptly  began
eating. It was all-important to speak at once, before anyone else came, but
now  a terrible fear  had taken possession of him. A week had gone by since
she  had  first approached him.  She would have  changed her mind, she must
have  changed her  mind!  It was  impossible that  this  affair should  end
successfully;  such things  did  not happen  in real  life.  He might  have
flinched  altogether from  speaking  if  at this  moment  he  had not  seen
Ampleforth,  the  hairy-eared poet, wandering  limply round the room with a
tray,  looking  for a  place to sit  down. In his  vague way Ampleforth was
attached to Winston, and would certainly sit down at his table if he caught
sight  of him. There was perhaps a minute in which to act. Both Winston and
the  girl were eating steadily. The stuff they were eating was a thin stew,
actually  a soup, of haricot beans. In a low murmur Winston began speaking.
Neither  of  them looked  up; steadily  they spooned  the watery stuff into
their  mouths,  and between spoonfuls  exchanged the few necessary words in
low expressionless voices.
     'What time do you leave work?'
     'Eighteen-thirty.'
     'Where can we meet?'
     'Victory Square, near the monument.'
     'It's full of telescreens.'
     'It doesn't matter if there's a crowd.'
     'Any signal?'
     'No.  Don't come up  to me until you see me among a lot of people. And
don't look at me. Just keep somewhere near me.'
     'What time?'
     'Nineteen hours.'
     'All right.'
     Ampleforth  failed to  see Winston and sat down at another table. They
did  not speak again, and, so far as it was possible for two people sitting
on  opposite sides of the same table, they did not look at one another. The
girl finished her lunch quickly and made off, while Winston stayed to smoke
a cigarette.
     Winston  was in  Victory Square before the appointed time. He wandered
round  the  base of  the enormous  fluted column,  at the  top of which Big
Brother's  statue gazed southward towards the skies where he had vanquished
the Eurasian aeroplanes (the Eastasian aeroplanes, it had been, a few years
ago)  in the Battle of Airstrip One. In the street in front of it there was
a  statue of  a man  on horseback  which was  supposed to  represent Oliver
Cromwell.  At  five minutes past the  hour the girl had still not appeared.
Again  the  terrible fear seized upon  Winston. She was not coming, she had
changed  her mind! He  walked slowly up to the north side of the square and
got  a sort of pale-coloured pleasure from identifying St. Martin's Church,
whose  bells,  when it had bells,  had chimed 'You owe me three farthings.'
Then  he  saw the  girl standing  at the  base of  the monument, reading or
pretending  to read  a poster which ran  spirally up the column. It was not
safe  to  go near  her until  some more people  had accumulated. There were
telescreens  all round the  pediment. But at this moment there was a din of
shouting  and a zoom of heavy vehicles from somewhere to the left. Suddenly
everyone  seemed  to be running  across the  square. The girl nipped nimbly
round the lions at the base of the monument and joined in the rush. Winston
followed. As he ran, he gathered from some shouted remarks that a convoy of
Eurasian prisoners was passing.
     Already  a  dense mass  of people  was blocking the  south side of the
square.  Winston, at  normal times the kind of person who gravitates to the
outer  edge of  any kind  of scrimmage,  shoved, butted,  squirmed his  way
forward into the heart of the crowd. Soon he was within arm's length of the
girl,  but the  way was blocked by  an enormous prole and an almost equally
enormous  woman,  presumably his  wife, who seemed  to form an impenetrable
wall  of flesh. Winston wriggled himself sideways, and with a violent lunge
managed  to drive his shoulder between them. For a moment it felt as though
his  entrails were being ground to pulp between the two muscular hips, then
he  had  broken through, sweating  a little. He was  next to the girl. They
were shoulder to shoulder, both staring fixedly in front of them.
     A long line of trucks, with wooden-faced guards armed with sub-machine
guns  standing upright  in each corner, was passing slowly down the street.
In the trucks little yellow men in shabby greenish uniforms were squatting,
jammed  close together. Their sad, Mongolian faces gazed out over the sides
of the trucks utterly incurious. Occasionally when a truck jolted there was
a  clank-clank  of metal: all  the prisoners were wearing leg-irons. Truck-
load after truck-load of the sad faces passed. Winston knew they were there
but he saw them only intermittently. The girl's shoulder, and her arm right
down  to  the elbow,  were pressed  against his. Her  cheek was almost near
enough  for him to feel its warmth. She had immediately taken charge of the
situation,  just as she  had done in the canteen. She began speaking in the
same expressionless voice as before, with lips barely moving, a mere murmur
easily drowned by the din of voices and the rumbling of the trucks.
     'Can you hear me?'
     'Yes.'
     'Can you get Sunday afternoon off?'
     'Yes.'
     'Then listen carefully. You'll have to remember this. Go to Paddington
Station--'
     With  a  sort of military  precision that astonished him, she outlined
the  route  that he was  to follow. A  half-hour railway journey; turn left
outside the station; two kilometres along the road: a gate with the top bar
missing; a path across a field; a grass-grown lane; a track between bushes;
a  dead  tree with moss  on it. It  was as though she  had a map inside her
head. 'Can you remember all that?' she murmured finally.
     'Yes.'
     'You turn left, then right, then left again. And the gate's got no top
bar.'
     'Yes. What time?'
     'About  fifteen. You  may have to wait. I'll get there by another way.
Are you sure you remember everything?'
     'Yes.'
     'Then get away from me as quick as you can.'
     She  need  not have told  him that. But for  the moment they could not
extricate themselves from the crowd. The trucks were still filing post, the
people  still insatiably gaping. At the start there had been a few boos and
hisses,  but it  came only from the  Party members among the crowd, and had
soon  stopped. The  prevailing  emotion was  simply curiosity.  Foreigners,
whether  from Eurasia  or from Eastasia, were a kind of strange animal. One
literally  never  saw them  except in  the guise of  prisoners, and even as
prisoners  one never got more than a momentary glimpse of them. Nor did one
know  what became  of them,  apart from  the few  who were  hanged as  war-
criminals: the others simply vanished, presumably into forced-labour camps.
The  round  Mogol faces  had given  way to  faces of  a more European type,
dirty, bearded and exhausted. From over scrubby cheekbones eyes looked into
Winston's,  sometimes  with strange intensity,  and flashed away again. The
convoy  was drawing to  an end. In the last truck he could see an aged man,
his  face a  mass of grizzled hair, standing upright with wrists crossed in
front  of him, as though he were used to having them bound together. It was
almost time for Winston and the girl to part. But at the last moment, while
the  crowd still  hemmed them  in, her  hand  felt for  his and  gave it  a
fleeting squeeze.
     It could not have been ten seconds, and yet it seemed a long time that
their hands were clasped together. He had time to learn every detail of her
hand.  He  explored the long  fingers, the shapely nails, the work-hardened
palm  with  its row of callouses,  the smooth flesh under the wrist. Merely
from  feeling  it he would have  known it by  sight. In the same instant it
occurred to him that he did not know what colour the girl's eyes were. They
were  probably brown, but people with dark hair sometimes had blue eyes. To
turn  his  head and look  at her would  have been inconceivable folly. With
hands  locked  together, invisible  among the press  of bodies, they stared
steadily in front of them, and instead of the eyes of the girl, the eyes of
the aged prisoner gazed mournfully at Winston out of nests of hair.



        II

     Winston  picked  his way up the  lane through dappled light and shade,
stepping out into pools of gold wherever the boughs parted. Under the trees
to  the left of  him the ground was misty with bluebells. The air seemed to
kiss  one's  skin. It was  the second of May.  From somewhere deeper in the
heart of the wood came the droning of ring doves.
     He  was a bit early. There had been no difficulties about the journey,
and  the girl was so evidently experienced that he was less frightened than
he would normally have been. Presumably she could be trusted to find a safe
place.  In  general you  could not assume  that you were  much safer in the
country than in London. There were no telescreens, of course, but there was
always  the  danger of concealed  microphones by  which your voice might be
picked  up  and recognized; besides,  it was not easy  to make a journey by
yourself  without attracting  attention.  For distances  of  less than  100
kilometres  it  was  not  necessary  to get  your  passport  endorsed,  but
sometimes  there  were patrols  hanging  about  the railway  stations,  who
examined  the papers of any Party member they found there and asked awkward
questions.  However, no  patrols had  appeared, and  on the  walk from  the
station he had made sure by cautious backward glances that he was not being
followed.  The  train was  full of  proles, in holiday  mood because of the
summery  weather. The  wooden-seated  carriage in  which  he travelled  was
filled to overflowing by a single enormous family, ranging from a toothless
great-grandmother to a month-old baby, going out to spend an afternoon with
'in-laws'  in the country, and, as they freely explained to Winston, to get
hold of a little blackmarket butter.
     The lane widened, and in a minute he came to the footpath she had told
him  of,  a mere cattle-track  which plunged between  the bushes. He had no
watch,  but it  could  not be  fifteen  yet. The  bluebells  were so  thick
underfoot  that it  was impossible not to  tread on them. He knelt down and
began picking some partly to pass the time away, but also from a vague idea
that  he  would like to have  a bunch of flowers  to offer to the girl when
they  met.  He had  got together a  big bunch and  was smelling their faint
sickly  scent when  a sound at his back froze him, the unmistakable crackle
of  a foot on twigs. He went on picking bluebells. It was the best thing to
do. It might be the girl, or he might have been followed after all. To look
round was to show guilt. He picked another and another. A hand fell lightly
on his shoulder.
     He  looked  up. It  was the girl.  She shook her  head, evidently as a
warning  that  he must keep silent,  then parted the bushes and quickly led
the  way along the  narrow track into the wood. Obviously she had been that
way  before, for  she dodged  the boggy  bits as  though by  habit. Winston
followed,  still clasping  his  bunch  of flowers.  His  first feeling  was
relief,  but as he  watched the strong slender body moving in front of him,
with  the scarlet sash that was just tight enough to bring out the curve of
her  hips, the sense of his own inferiority was heavy upon him. Even now it
seemed  quite likely that when she turned round and looked at him she would
draw  back  after all.  The sweetness of  the air and  the greenness of the
leaves  daunted him.  Already on the walk from the station the May sunshine
had  made  him feel  dirty and  etiolated, a creature  of indoors, with the
sooty dust of London in the pores of his skin. It occurred to him that till
now  she  had probably never  seen him in broad  daylight in the open. They
came  to the  fallen tree that she  had spoken of. The girl hopped over and
forced apart the bushes, in which there did not seem to be an opening. When
Winston followed her, he found that they were in a natural clearing, a tiny
grassy  knoll  surrounded by tall saplings  that shut it in completely. The
girl stopped and turned.
     'Here we are,' she said.
     He  was facing her  at several paces" distance. As yet he did not dare
move nearer to her.
     'I  didn't  want to say  anything in the lane,'  she went on, 'in case
there's  a mike hidden there. I don't suppose there is, but there could be.
There's  always  the chance of  one of  those swine recognizing your voice.
We're all right here.'
     He  still had not the courage to approach her. 'We're all right here?'
he repeated stupidly.
     'Yes.  Look  at the trees.' They  were small ashes, which at some time
had been cut down and had sprouted up again into a forest of poles, none of
them  thicker than  one's wrist. 'There's nothing big enough to hide a mike
in. Besides, I've been here before.'
     They  were only  making conversation. He had managed to move closer to
her  now. She stood  before him very upright, with a smile on her face that
looked faintly ironical, as though she were wondering why he was so slow to
act.  The bluebells  had cascaded  on to  the ground.  They seemed  to have
fallen of their own accord. He took her hand.
     'Would  you  believe,' he said,  'that till  this moment I didn't know
what  colour  your eyes  were?' They  were brown, he  noted, a rather light
shade  of  brown, with dark  lashes. 'Now that  you've seen what I'm really
like, can you still bear to look at me?'
     'Yes, easily.'
     'I'm  thirty-nine years old.  I've got a wife that I can't get rid of.
I've got varicose veins. I've got five false teeth.'
     'I couldn't care less,' said the girl.
     The  next moment, it  was hard to say by whose act, she was in his his
arms.  At  the beginning  he had  no feeling  except sheer incredulity. The
youthful  body was  strained against  his own,  the mass  of dark  hair was
against  his face, and  yes! actually she had turned her face up and he was
kissing  the wide  red mouth. She had  clasped her arms about his neck, she
was calling him darling, precious one, loved one. He had pulled her down on
to  the ground, she was utterly unresisting, he could do what he liked with
her.  But the  truth was that he  had no physical sensation, except that of
mere  contact. All he felt was incredulity and pride. He was glad that this
was  happening, but  he had no physical  desire. It was too soon, her youth
and  prettiness had  frightened him, he was too much used to living without
women  -- he did not know the reason. The girl picked herself up and pulled
a  bluebell out of her hair. She sat against him, putting her arm round his
waist.
     'Never  mind,  dear. There's no  hurry. We've got the whole afternoon.
Isn't  this a  splendid hide-out?  I found  it when  I got  lost once  on a
community  hike. If  anyone was coming you could hear them a hundred metres
away.'
     'What is your name?' said Winston.
     'Julia. I know yours. It's Winston -- Winston Smith.'
     'How did you find that out?'
     'I  expect  I'm better at finding  things out than you are, dear. Tell
me, what did you think of me before that day I gave you the note?'
     He did not feel any temptation to tell lies to her. It was even a sort
of love-offering to start off by telling the worst.
     'I  hated the  sight of you,' he  said. 'I wanted to rape you and then
murder  you afterwards.  Two weeks ago I thought seriously of smashing your
head in with a cobblestone. If you really want to know, I imagined that you
had something to do with the Thought Police.'
     The  girl  laughed delightedly, evidently  taking this as a tribute to
the excellence of her disguise.
     'Not the Thought Police! You didn't honestly think that?'
     'Well,  perhaps not  exactly that. But from your general appearance --
merely  because  you're young  and fresh  and healthy,  you understand -- I
thought that probably--'
     'You  thought I  was  a good  Party  member. Pure  in  word and  deed.
Banners,  processions, slogans,  games, community hikes all that stuff. And
you  thought  that if  I had a  quarter of  a chance I'd  denounce you as a
thought-criminal and get you killed off?'
     'Yes,  something of that kind. A great many young girls are like that,
you know.'
     'It's  this bloody  thing that  does it,'  she said,  ripping off  the
scarlet  sash of the  Junior Anti-Sex League and flinging it on to a bough.
Then,  as though touching her waist had reminded her of something, she felt
in  the pocket of  her overalls and produced a small slab of chocolate. She
broke  it in half and gave one of the pieces to Winston. Even before he had
taken  it he  knew by the smell  that it was very unusual chocolate. It was
dark  and  shiny, and was  wrapped in  silver paper. Chocolate normally was
dull-brown  crumbly stuff  that tasted, as nearly as one could describe it,
like the smoke of a rubbish fire. But at some time or another he had tasted
chocolate  like the  piece she had given  him. The first whiff of its scent
had  stirred  up some  memory which  he could  not pin  down, but which was
powerful and troubling.
     'Where did you get this stuff?' he said.
     'Black  market,'  she said indifferently.  'Actually I am that sort of
girl,  to look at.  I'm good at games. I was a troop-leader in the Spies. I
do  voluntary  work three evenings  a week  for the Junior Anti-Sex League.
Hours  and  hours I've  spent pasting  their bloody rot  all over London. I
always carry one end of a banner in the processions. I always Iook cheerful
and  I never shirk anything. Always yell with the crowd, that's what I say.
It's the only way to be safe.'
     The  first  fragment of chocolate  had melted on Winston's tongue. The
taste  was  delightful. But  there was  still that  memory moving round the
edges  of  his consciousness, something  strongly felt but not reducible to
definite  shape,  like an  object seen out  of the corner  of one's eye. He
pushed  it away from  him, aware only that it was the memory of some action
which he would have liked to undo but could not.
     'You  are very  young,' he said. 'You are ten or fifteen years younger
than I am. What could you see to attract you in a man like me?'
     'It  was something in your face. I thought I'd take a chance. I'm good
at  spotting people who  don't belong. As soon as I saw you I knew you were
against them.'
     Them,  it  appeared, meant the  Party, and  above all the Inner Party,
about  whom she  talked with an open jeering hatred which made Winston feel
uneasy,  although  he knew that  they were safe here  if they could be safe
anywhere.  A thing  that astonished him about her was the coarseness of her
language.  Party  members were  supposed not to  swear, and Winston himself
very seldom did swear, aloud, at any rate. Julia, however, seemed unable to
mention  the Party,  and especially the Inner Party, without using the kind
of words that you saw chalked up in dripping alley-ways. He did not dislike
it.  It was merely  one symptom of her revolt against the Party and all its
ways, and somehow it seemed natural and healthy, like the sneeze of a horse
that  smells  bad hay. They had  left the clearing and were wandering again
through  the chequered  shade, with  their arms  round each  other's waists
whenever it was wide enough to walk two abreast. He noticed how much softer
her  waist  seemed to feel now  that the sash  was gone. They did not speak
above  a  whisper. Outside  the clearing,  Julia said, it  was better to go
quietly.  Presently they  had  reached the  edge of  the  little wood.  She
stopped him.
     'Don't  go  out into the open.  There might be someone watching. We're
all right if we keep behind the boughs.'
     They  were  standing in  the  shade  of  hazel bushes.  The  sunlight,
filtering through innumerable leaves, was still hot on their faces. Winston
looked  out  into the field beyond,  and underwent a curious, slow shock of
recognition.  He knew  it by  sight. An  old, closebitten  pasture, with  a
footpath  wandering across  it and a molehill here and there. In the ragged
hedge  on  the opposite  side  the  boughs of  the  elm  trees swayed  just
perceptibly in the breeze, and their leaves stirred faintly in dense masses
like women's hair. Surely somewhere nearby, but out of sight, there must be
a stream with green pools where dace were swimming?
     'Isn't there a stream somewhere near here?' he whispered.
     'That's  right, there is a stream. It's at the edge of the next field,
actually. There are fish in it, great big ones. You can watch them lying in
the pools under the willow trees, waving their tails.'
     'It's the Golden Country -- almost,' he murmured.
     'The Golden Country?'
     'It's nothing, really. A landscape I've seen sometimes in a dream.'
     'Look!' whispered Julia.
     A  thrush had alighted  on a bough not five metres away, almost at the
level of their faces. Perhaps it had not seen them. It was in the sun, they
in  the  shade. It spread  out its wings,  fitted them carefully into place
again,  ducked its head  for a moment, as though making a sort of obeisance
to  the sun,  and  then began  to  pour forth  a torrent  of  song. In  the
afternoon  hush the  volume of sound was startling. Winston and Julia clung
together,  fascinated. The  music went on and on, minute after minute, with
astonishing  variations, never  once repeating itself, almost as though the
bird were deliberately showing off its virtuosity. Sometimes it stopped for
a  few seconds,  spread  out  and resettled  its  wings,  then swelled  its
speckled  breast and  again burst into song. Winston watched it with a sort
of  vague reverence. For whom, for what, was that bird singing? No mate, no
rival  was watching it. What made it sit at the edge of the lonely wood and
pour  its music into nothingness? He wondered whether after all there was a
microphone  hidden somewhere  near. He  and Julia  had spoken  only in  low
whispers, and it would not pick up what they had said, but it would pick up
the  thrush. Perhaps at the other end of the instrument some small, beetle-
like  man  was listening intently --  listening to that. But by degrees the
flood  of music drove all speculations out of his mind. It was as though it
were  a kind of liquid stuff that poured all over him and got mixed up with
the  sunlight that  filtered through  the leaves.  He stopped  thinking and
merely  felt. The girl's waist in the bend of his arm was soft and warm. He
pulled  her  round so that  they were breast to  breast; her body seemed to
melt  into his.  Wherever his hands moved  it was all as yielding as water.
Their  mouths  clung together; it was  quite different from the hard kisses
they had exchanged earlier. When they moved their faces apart again both of
them sighed deeply. The bird took fright and fled with a clatter of wings.
     Winston put his lips against her ear. 'Now,' he whispered.
     'Not  here,' she  whispered  back.  'Come back  to  the hideout.  It's
safer.'
     Quickly,  with an occasional crackle of twigs, they threaded their way
back  to the clearing.  When they were once inside the ring of saplings she
turned  and  faced him.  They were  both breathing fast.  but the smile had
reappeared  round the corners of her mouth. She stood looking at him for an
instant,  then felt at  the zipper of her overalls. And, yes! it was almost
as  in his dream. Almost as swiftly as he had imagined it, she had torn her
clothes  off,  and  when  she  flung  them aside  it  was  with  that  same
magnificent gesture by which a whole civilization seemed to be annihilated.
Her  body gleamed white in the sun. But for a moment he did not look at her
body;  his  eyes were  anchored by  the freckled face  with its faint, bold
smile. He knelt down before her and took her hands in his.
     'Have you done this before?'
     'Of course. Hundreds of times -- well, scores of times anyway.'
     'With Party members?'
     'Yes, always with Party members.'
     'With members of the Inner Party?'
     'Not  with those  swine, no. But there's plenty that would if they got
half a chance. They're not so holy as they make out.'
     His  heart  leapt. Scores of  times she had done  it: he wished it had
been  hundreds --  thousands.  Anything that  hinted  at corruption  always
filled  him with a  wild hope. Who knew, perhaps the Party was rotten under
the  surface, its  cult  of  strenuousness and  self-denial  simply a  sham
concealing  iniquity. If  he could have infected the whole lot of them with
leprosy  or syphilis, how gladly he would have done so! Anything to rot, to
weaken, to undermine! He pulled her down so that they were kneeling face to
face.
     'Listen.  The  more men  you've  had,  the more  I  love  you. Do  you
understand that?'
     'Yes, perfectly.'
     'I  hate  purity, I  hate goodness!  I don't want  any virtue to exist
anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones.'
     'Well then, I ought to suit you, dear. I'm corrupt to the bones.'
     'You  like  doing this?  I don't mean  simply me: I  mean the thing in
itself?'
     'I adore it.'
     That  was above all what he wanted to hear. Not merely the love of one
person  but  the animal instinct,  the simple undifferentiated desire: that
was the force that would tear the Party to pieces. He pressed her down upon
the  grass, among  the fallen bluebells. This time there was no difficulty.
Presently  the rising  and falling of their breasts slowed to normal speed,
and  in a sort  of pleasant helplessness they fell apart. The sun seemed to
have  grown hotter. They were both sleepy. He reached out for the discarded
overalls  and pulled  them partly  over her.  Almost immediately  they fell
asleep and slept for about half an hour.
     Winston  woke  first. He sat  up and  watched the freckled face, still
peacefully  asleep, pillowed on the palm of her hand. Except for her mouth,
you  could not call  her beautiful. There was a line or two round the eyes,
if  you  looked closely. The short  dark hair was extraordinarily thick and
soft.  It occurred  to him that he  still did not know her surname or where
she lived.
     The young, strong body, now helpless in sleep, awoke in him a pitying,
protecting  feeling. But the mindless tenderness that he had felt under the
hazel  tree, while  the thrush  was singing,  had not  quite come  back. He
pulled  the  overalls aside and studied  her smooth white flank. In the old
days,  he thought,  a man  looked at  a  girl's body  and saw  that it  was
desirable,  and that was  the end of the story. But you could not have pure
love  or  pure lust nowadays.  No emotion  was pure, because everything was
mixed  up with fear and hatred. Their embrace had been a battle, the climax
a victory. It was a blow struck against the Party. It was a political act.



        III

     'We can come here once again,' said Julia. 'It's generally safe to use
any hide-out twice. But not for another month or two, of course.'
     As soon as she woke up her demeanour had changed. She became alert and
business-like,  put her  clothes on,  knotted  the scarlet  sash about  her
waist,  and began  arranging the  details of  the journey  home. It  seemed
natural  to leave  this to her. She obviously had a practical cunning which
Winston  lacked, and she seemed also to have an exhaustive knowledge of the
countryside round London, stored away from innumerable community hikes. The
route  she gave him  was quite different from the one by which he had come,
and brought him out at a different railway station. 'Never go home the same
way  as you went out,' she said, as though enunciating an important general
principle.  She  would leave  first, and  Winston was to  wait half an hour
before following her.
     She  had named a place where they could meet after work, four evenings
hence.  It was  a street in one  of the poorer quarters, where there was an
open  market  which was generally  crowded and  noisy. She would be hanging
about  among the stalls, pretending to be in search of shoelaces or sewing-
thread. If she judged that the coast was clear she would blow her nose when
he  approached; otherwise  he was to walk past her without recognition. But
with  luck,  in the  middle of the  crowd, it  would be safe  to talk for a
quarter of an hour and arrange another meeting.
     'And  now  I must  go,'  she  said as  soon  as  he had  mastered  his
instructions.  'I'm  due back  at nineteen-thirty.  I've got  to put in two
hours  for the  Junior Anti-Sex League, handing out leaflets, or something.
Isn't  it bloody? Give  me a brush-down, would you? Have I got any twigs in
my hair? Are you sure? Then good-bye, my love, good-bye!'
     She  flung  herself into his arms,  kissed him almost violently, and a
moment  later pushed  her way through the saplings and disappeared into the
wood  with very little  noise. Even now he had not found out her surname or
her  address. However, it made no difference, for it was inconceivable that
they could ever meet indoors or exchange any kind of written communication.
     As  it  happened, they  never went  back to the  clearing in the wood.
During  the month of  May there was only one further occasion on which they
actually  succeeded in  making love. That was in another hidlng-place known
to  Julia, the  belfry of a ruinous church in an almost-deserted stretch of
country where an atomic bomb had fallen thirty years earlier. It was a good
hiding-place  when once  you  got there,  but the  getting  there was  very
dangerous. For the rest they could meet only in the streets, in a different
place  every evening and never for more than half an hour at a time. In the
street  it  was usually possible to  talk, after a fashion. As they drifted
down  the  crowded pavements,  not quite  abreast and  never looking at one
another, they carried on a curious, intermittent conversation which flicked
on  and off like the beams of a lighthouse, suddenly nipped into silence by
the  approach  of a  Party uniform  or the proximity  of a telescreen, then
taken up again minutes later in the middle of a sentence, then abruptly cut
short  as  they parted  at the  agreed spot,  then continued almost without
introduction  on the following day. Julia appeared to be quite used to this
kind  of  conversation, which she  called 'talking by instalments'. She was
also  surprisingly adept  at speaking without moving her lips. Just once in
almost  a  month of nightly meetings  they managed to exchange a kiss. They
were  passing  in silence down a  side-street (Julia would never speak when
they  were away from the main streets) when there was a deafening roar, the
earth  heaved, and the air darkened, and Winston found himself lying on his
side,  bruised and terrified. A rocket bomb must have dropped quite near at
hand.  Suddenly he  became aware of Julia's face a few centimetres from his
own,  deathly white,  as white as chalk.  Even her lips were white. She was
dead!  He clasped her against him and found that he was kissing a live warm
face.  But  there was some powdery  stuff that got  in the way of his lips.
Both of their faces were thickly coated with plaster.
     There were evenings when they reached their rendezvous and then had to
walk  past one another without a sign, because a patrol had just come round
the  corner or a helicopter was hovering overhead. Even if it had been less
dangerous,  it would  still  have  been difficult  to  find  time to  meet.
Winston's  working week was sixty hours, Julia's was even longer, and their
free  days varied  according to  the  pressure of  work and  did not  often
coincide.  Julia,  in any case, seldom  had an evening completely free. She
spent   an  astonishing   amount  of   time  in   attending  lectures   and
demonstrations,  distributing literature  for the  junior Anti-Sex  League,
preparing  banners  for  Hate  Week, making  collections  for  the  savings
campaign,  and such-like  activities. It paid, she said, it was camouflage.
If you kept the small rules, you could break the big ones. She even induced
Winston  to  mortgage yet another of  his evenings by enrolling himself for
the  part-time  munition work  which was done  voluntarily by zealous Party
members. So, one evening every week, Winston spent four hours of paralysing
boredom, screwing together small bits of metal which were probably parts of
bomb  fuses, in  a draughty, ill-lit workshop where the knocking of hammers
mingled drearily with the music of the telescreens.
     When  they met  in  the church  tower the  gaps  in their  fragmentary
conversation  were  filled up. It  was a blazing  afternoon. The air in the
little  square chamber  above the  bells was  hot and  stagnant, and  smelt
overpoweringly  of  pigeon dung. They  sat talking  for hours on the dusty,
twig-littered  floor, one or  other of them getting up from time to time to
cast a glance through the arrowslits and make sure that no one was coming.
     Julia  was  twenty-six years  old. She  lived in  a hostel with thirty
other  girls  ('Always in the  stink of women! How  I hate women!' she said
parenthetically),  and she  worked, as he had guessed, on the novel-writing
machines  in the  Fiction Department. She enjoyed her work, which consisted
chiefly  in running and servicing a powerful but tricky electric motor. She
was  'not  clever', but was fond  of using her  hands and felt at home with
machinery.  She could describe the whole process of composing a novel, from
the  general  directive issued by the  Planning Committee down to the final
touching-up  by the  Rewrite  Squad.  But she  was  not  interested in  the
finished  product. She 'didn't much care for reading,' she said. Books were
just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.
     She had no memories of anything before the early 'sixties and the only
person  she  had ever  known who  talked frequently of  the days before the
Revolution  was  a grandfather who  had disappeared  when she was eight. At
school  she had been  captain of the hockey team and had won the gymnastics
trophy  two years  running. She had been  a troop-leader in the Spies and a
branch  secretary  in the  Youth League before  joining the Junior Anti-Sex
League.  She had  always borne  an excellent  character. She  had even  (an
infallible  mark  of good reputation) been  picked out to work in Pornosec,
the   sub-section  of   the  Fiction  Department  which  turned  out  cheap
pornography  for distribution among the proles. It was nicknamed Muck House
by  the people who worked in it, she remarked. There she had remained for a
year,  helping to  produce  booklets  in sealed  packets  with titles  like
Spanking Stories or One Night in a Girls" School, to be bought furtively by
proletarian  youths who  were under  the impression  that they  were buying
something illegal.
     'What are these books like?' said Winston curiously.
     'Oh,  ghastly rubbish.  They're  boring, really.  They  only have  six
plots,  but they  swap  them round  a  bit. Of  course I  was  only on  the
kaleidoscopes.  I was never in the Rewrite Squad. I'm not literary, dear --
not even enough for that.'
     He  learned with astonishment that all the workers in Pornosec, except
the  heads  of the departments, were  girls. The theory was that men, whose
sex  instincts were  less controllable than those of women, were in greater
danger of being corrupted by the filth they handled.
     'They  don't  even like having  married women there,' she added. Girls
are always supposed to be so pure. Here's one who isn't, anyway.
     She  had had  her first love-affair when she was sixteen, with a Party
member  of  sixty who later committed  suicide to avoid arrest. 'And a good
job too,' said Julia, 'otherwise they'd have had my name out of him when he
confessed.'  Since  then there had been  various others. Life as she saw it
was quite simple. You wanted a good time; 'they', meaning the Party, wanted
to stop you having it; you broke the rules as best you could. She seemed to
think  it just  as natural  that  'they' should  want  to rob  you of  your
pleasures  as  that you  should want  to avoid being  caught. She hated the
Party,  and said so in the crudest words, but she made no general criticism
of  it.  Except where it touched  upon her own  life she had no interest in
Party  doctrine.  He noticed that she  never used Newspeak words except the
ones  that  had passed  into  everyday  use. She  had  never  heard of  the
Brotherhood, and refused to believe in its existence. Any kind of organized
revolt  against the  Party, which was bound  to be a failure, struck her as
stupid.  The  clever thing  was to break  the rules and  stay alive all the
same.  He wondered  vaguely how many others  like her there might be in the
younger  generation people who had grown up in the world of the Revolution,
knowing  nothing  else, accepting the  Party as something unalterable, like
the  sky,  not rebelling against its  authority but simply evading it, as a
rabbit dodges a dog.
     They  did  not discuss the possibility  of getting married. It was too
remote  to be  worth thinking  about.  No imaginable  committee would  ever
sanction  such a  marriage even if Katharine, Winston's wife, could somehow
have been got rid of. It was hopeless even as a daydream.
     'What was she like, your wife?' said Julia.
     'She  was --  do  you  know the  Newspeak  word goodthinkful?  Meaning
naturally orthodox, incapable of thinking a bad thought?'
     'No,  I  didn't know  the word, but  I know the  kind of person, right
enough.'
     He  began  telling her  the story  of his  married life, but curiously
enough  she  appeared to  know  the  essential  parts  of it  already.  She
described  to him, almost as though she had seen or felt it, the stiffening
of  Katharine's body as  soon as he touched her, the way in which she still
seemed to be pushing him from her with all her strength, even when her arms
were clasped tightly round him. With Julia he felt no difficulty in talking
about  such things: Katharine, in any case, had long ceased to be a painful
memory and became merely a distasteful one.
     'I  could have stood  it if it hadn't been for one thing,' he said. He
told  her about the frigid little ceremony that Katharine had forced him to
go  through on the  same night every week. 'She hated it, but nothing would
make her stop doing it. She used to call it -- but you'll never guess.'
     'Our duty to the Party,' said Julia promptly.
     'How did you know that?'
     'I've  been at school  too, dear. Sex talks once a month for the over-
sixteens. And in the Youth Movement. They rub it into you for years. I dare
say  it works  in a lot of cases.  But of course you can never tell; people
are such hypocrites.'
     She  began  to enlarge  upon the subject.  With Julia, everything came
back  to her own sexuality. As soon as this was touched upon in any way she
was  capable of  great acuteness. Unlike Winston, she had grasped the inner
meaning  of  the Party's sexual puritanism.  It was not merely that the sex
instinct  created a  world of its own which was outside the Party's control
and  which  therefore had  to  be  destroyed  if  possible. What  was  more
important  was that  sexual privation induced hysteria, which was desirable
because  it could be transformed into war-fever and leader-worship. The way
she put it was:
     'When  you  make love you're using  up energy; and afterwards you feel
happy  and don't give a damn for anything. They can't bear you to feel like
that.  They  want you  to be  bursting with  energy all  the time. All this
marching up and down and cheering and waving flags is simply sex gone sour.
If  you're happy  inside yourself,  why should  you get  excited about  Big
Brother  and the Three-Year Plans and the Two Minutes Hate and all the rest
of their bloody rot?'
     That  was very true, he thought. There was a direct intimate connexion
between  chastity and  political orthodoxy.  For  how could  the fear,  the
hatred,  and the lunatic credulity which the Party needed in its members be
kept at the right pitch, except by bottling down some powerful instinct and
using  it as  a driving force? The  sex impulse was dangerous to the Party,
and  the  Party had turned  it to account. They  had played a similar trick
with  the  instinct  of  parenthood.  The  family  could  not  actually  be
abolished,  and,  indeed,  people  were  encouraged to  be  fond  of  their
children, in almost the old-fashioned way. The children, on the other hand,
were  systematically turned against their parents and taught to spy on them
and  report their  deviations. The family had become in effect an extension
of  the Thought Police. It was a device by means of which everyone could be
surrounded night and day by informers who knew him intimately.
     Abruptly   his  mind   went   back  to   Katharine.  Katharine   would
unquestionably  have  denounced him  to the  Thought Police  if she had not
happened  to  be too stupid to  detect the unorthodoxy of his opinions. But
what really recalled her to him at this moment was the stifling heat of the
afternoon,  which had  brought  the sweat  out on  his  forehead. He  began
telling  Julia of  something that  had happened,  or rather  had failed  to
happen, on another sweltering summer afternoon, eleven years ago.
     It  was  three or four  months after they  were married. They had lost
their  way on  a community  hike somewhere  in Kent.  They had  only lagged
behind  the others for  a couple of minutes, but they took a wrong turning,
and  presently found themselves pulled up short by the edge of an old chalk
quarry.  It was a  sheer drop of ten or twenty metres, with boulders at the
bottom.  There  was nobody of whom  they could ask  the way. As soon as she
realized  that they were lost Katharine became very uneasy. To be away from
the  noisy  mob of hikers  even for  a moment gave  her a feeling of wrong-
doing.  She wanted  to  hurry back  by  the  way they  had  come and  start
searching  in the  other direction. But at this moment Winston noticed some
tufts  of loosestrife  growing in the cracks of the cliff beneath them. One
tuft  was of  two colours, magenta and brick-red, apparently growing on the
same  root. He had never seen anything of the kind before, and he called to
Katharine to come and look at it.
     'Look,  Katharine! Look  at those  flowers. That  clump down  near the
bottom. Do you see they're two different colours?'
     She  had already  turned to go, but she did rather fretfully come back
for  a moment. She  even leaned out over the cliff face to see where he was
pointing.  He was standing  a little behind her, and he put his hand on her
waist  to steady  her.  At this  moment  it suddenly  occurred  to him  how
completely  alone they were. There was not a human creature anywhere, not a
leaf  stirring, not even a bird awake. In a place like this the danger that
there  would be a hidden microphone was very small, and even if there was a
microphone  it would only pick up sounds. It was the hottest sleepiest hour
of  the  afternoon. The  sun blazed  down upon them,  the sweat tickled his
face. And the thought struck him...
     'Why didn't you give her a good shove?' said Julia. 'I would have.'
     'Yes,  dear, you would have. I would, if I'd been the same person then
as I am now. Or perhaps I would -- I'm not certain.'
     'Are you sorry you didn't?'
     'Yes. On the whole I'm sorry I didn't.'
     They  were sitting  side by  side on  the dusty  floor. He  pulled her
closer  against him. Her head rested on his shoulder, the pleasant smell of
her  hair  conquering the pigeon dung.  She was very young, he thought, she
still  expected something from life, she did not understand that to push an
inconvenient person over a cliff solves nothing.
     'Actually it would have made no difference,' he said.
     'Then why are you sorry you didn't do it?'
     'Only  because  I prefer a  positive to a  negative. In this game that
we're  playing,  we can't win. Some  kinds of failure are better than other
kinds, that's all.'
     He   felt  her  shoulders  give  a  wriggle  of  dissent.  She  always
contradicted  him when  he said anything of this kind. She would not accept
it  as a law of nature that the individual is always defeated. In a way she
realized  that  she herself  was doomed,  that sooner  or later the Thought
Police  would catch her and kill her, but with another part of her mind she
believed  that it was somehow possible to construct a secret world in which
you  could live  as you  chose. All  you needed  was luck  and cunning  and
boldness. She did not understand that there was no such thing as happiness,
that the only victory lay in the far future, long after you were dead, that
from  the  moment of declaring war  on the Party  it was better to think of
yourself as a corpse.
     'We are the dead,' he said.
     'We're not dead yet,' said Julia prosaically.
     'Not  physically. Six  months, a year -- five years, conceivably. I am
afraid of death. You are young, so presumably you're more afraid of it than
I  am. Obviously  we shall put it off  as long as we can. But it makes very
little  difference. So  long as human beings stay human, death and life are
the same thing.'
     'Oh,  rubbish!  Which would you  sooner sleep  with, me or a skeleton?
Don't you enjoy being alive? Don't you like feeling: This is me, this is my
hand, this is my leg, I'm real, I'm solid, I'm alive! Don't you like this?'
     She  twisted herself round and pressed her bosom against him. He could
feel  her breasts,  ripe yet firm, through her overalls. Her body seemed to
be pouring some of its youth and vigour into his.
     'Yes, I like that,' he said.
     'Then stop talking about dying. And now listen, dear, we've got to fix
up  about the next time we meet. We may as well go back to the place in the
wood.  We've given  it  a good  long  rest. But  you must  get  there by  a
different way this time. I've got it all planned out. You take the train --
but look, I'll draw it out for you.'
     And  in her practical way she scraped together a small square of dust,
and with a twig from a pigeon's nest began drawing a map on the floor.



        IV

     Winston  looked  round the shabby  little room above Mr. Charrington's
shop.  Beside the window the enormous bed was made up, with ragged blankets
and  a coverless bolster. The old-fashioned clock with the twelve-hour face
was  ticking away  on the mantelpiece. In the corner, on the gateleg table,
the  glass paperweight which he had bought on his last visit gleamed softly
out of the half-darkness.
     In  the fender  was a battered tin oilstove, a saucepan, and two cups,
provided  by Mr. Charrington. Winston lit the burner and set a pan of water
to  boil. He  had  brought an  envelope  full of  Victory  Coffee and  some
saccharine  tablets.  The  clock's  hands  said  seventeen-twenty:  it  was
nineteen-twenty really. She was coming at nineteen-thirty.
     Folly,  folly,  his heart kept saying: conscious, gratuitous, suicidal
folly. Of all the crimes that a Party member could commit, this one was the
least  possible  to conceal. Actually  the idea  had first floated into his
head  in  the form  of a vision,  of the glass  paperweight mirrored by the
surface  of the gateleg table. As he had foreseen, Mr. Charrington had made
no  difficulty  about letting  the room.  He was obviously  glad of the few
dollars  that  it would  bring  him.  Nor did  he  seem  shocked or  become
offensively knowing when it was made clear that Winston wanted the room for
the  purpose  of a love-affair. Instead  he looked into the middle distance
and  spoke  in  generalities, with  so  delicate  an  air  as to  give  the
impression  that  he had become  partly invisible.  Privacy, he said, was a
very  valuable  thing. Everyone  wanted a  place where  they could be alone
occasionally.  And when  they had such a place, it was only common courtesy
in  anyone else  who knew of it  to keep his knowledge to himself. He even,
seeming almost to fade out of existence as he did so, added that there were
two  entries to the house, one of them through the back yard, which gave on
an alley.
     Under  the window  somebody was singing. Winston peeped out, secure in
the  protection of  the muslin curtain. The  June sun was still high in the
sky,  and in  the sun-filled  court below,  a monstrous  woman, solid  as a
Norman  pillar, with brawny red forearms and a sacking apron strapped about
her  middle, was stumping  to and fro between a washtub and a clothes line,
pegging  out  a series of  square white  things which Winston recognized as
babies"  diapers.  Whenever her mouth was  not corked with clothes pegs she
was singing in a powerful contralto:

        It was only an 'opeless fancy.
        It passed like an Ipril dye,
        But a look an' a word an' the dreams they stirred
        They 'ave stolen my 'eart awye! 

     The  tune had  been haunting  London  for weeks  past. It  was one  of
countless  similar songs  published for the benefit of the proles by a sub-
section  of  the Music Department.  The words  of these songs were composed
without  any  human intervention  whatever  on  an  instrument known  as  a
versificator.  But the  woman sang  so tunefully  as to  turn the  dreadful
rubbish  into an almost pleasant sound. He could hear the woman singing and
the scrape of her shoes on the flagstones, and the cries of the children in
the  street, and somewhere in the far distance a faint roar of traffic, and
yet  the  room  seemed  curiously  silent,  thanks  to  the  absence  of  a
telescreen.
     Folly,  folly, folly! he thought again. It was inconceivable that they
could  frequent this  place for more than a few weeks without being caught.
But  the temptation  of having  a hiding-place  that was  truly their  own,
indoors and near at hand, had been too much for both of them. For some time
after  their  visit to the church  belfry it had been impossible to arrange
meetings.  Working hours  had been drastically increased in anticipation of
Hate  Week.  It was  more than  a month distant,  but the enormous, complex
preparations  that  it entailed  were throwing extra  work on to everybody.
Finally  both of  them managed to secure  a free afternoon on the same day.
They  had  agreed to go  back to  the clearing in  the wood. On the evening
beforehand  they met briefly in the street. As usual, Winston hardly looked
at  Julia  as they drifted  towards one another in  the crowd, but from the
short glance he gave her it seemed to him that she was paler than usual.
     'It's  all off,' she  murmured as soon as she judged it safe to speak.
'Tomorrow, I mean.'
     'What?'
     'Tomorrow afternoon. I can't come.'
     'Why not?'
     'Oh, the usual reason. It's started early this time.'
     For  a  moment he  was violently  angry. During the  month that he had
known  her the  nature of his desire  for her had changed. At the beginning
there  had  been little true sensuality  in it. Their first love-making had
been simply an act of the will. But after the second time it was different.
The  smell  of her hair,  the taste  of her mouth,  the feeling of her skin
seemed  to  have got  inside him,  or into the  air all  round him. She had
become  a  physical necessity, something  that he  not only wanted but felt
that  he had a  right to. When she said that she could not come, he had the
feeling  that she  was cheating  him.  But just  at this  moment the  crowd
pressed  them together  and their hands accidentally met. She gave the tips
of  his fingers  a  quick squeeze  that  seemed to  invite  not desire  but
affection.  It struck  him that when one lived with a woman this particular
disappointment  must  be a normal,  recurring event; and a deep tenderness,
such  as  he had  not felt  for her before,  suddenly took  hold of him. He
wished  that  they were a married  couple of ten years" standing. He wished
that  he were walking  through the streets with her just as they were doing
now  but  openly and without fear,  talking of trivialities and buying odds
and  ends for  the household. He wished  above all that they had some place
where  they could  be alone together without feeling the obligation to make
love  every time they  met. It was not actually at that moment, but at some
time  on the following day, that the idea of renting Mr. Charrington's room
had  occurred  to him.  When he suggested  it to Julia  she had agreed with
unexpected  readiness. Both  of them  knew that  it was  lunacy. It  was as
though  they were  intentionally stepping nearer to their graves. As he sat
waiting  on  the edge  of the  bed he thought  again of  the cellars of the
Ministry  of Love.  It was curious how that predestined horror moved in and
out  of one's consciousness. There it lay, fixed in future times, preceding
death  as surely as  99 precedes 100. One could not avoid it, but one could
perhaps  postpone it: and yet instead, every now and again, by a conscious,
wilful act, one chose to shorten the interval before it happened.
     At  this moment there was a quick step on the stairs. Julia burst into
the  room. She  was carrying a tool-bag  of coarse brown canvas, such as he
had  sometimes  seen her  carrying to  and fro at  the Ministry. He started
forward  to  take her  in  his  arms,  but  she disengaged  herself  rather
hurriedly, partly because she was still holding the tool-bag.
     'Half  a  second,' she said. 'Just  let me show you what I've brought.
Did  you bring some of that filthy Victory Coffee? I thought you would. You
can chuck it away again, because we shan't be needing it. Look here.'
     She  fell on  her knees,  threw  open the  bag, and  tumbled out  some
spanners  and a screwdriver that filled the top part of it. Underneath were
a number of neat paper packets. The first packet that she passed to Winston
had  a  strange and yet  vaguely familiar feeling.  It was filled with some
kind of heavy, sand-like stuff which yielded wherever you touched it.
     'It isn't sugar?' he said.
     'Real  sugar.  Not saccharine,  sugar. And  here's a  loaf of bread --
proper  white bread,  not our bloody stuff  -- and a little pot of jam. And
here's  a tin  of milk -- but look!  This is the one I'm really proud of. I
had to wrap a bit of sacking round it, because--'
     But  she did not need to tell him why she had wrapped it up. The smell
was  already filling  the  room, a  rich  hot smell  which  seemed like  an
emanation  from  his early  childhood, but which  one did occasionally meet
with  even now,  blowing  down  a passage-way  before  a  door slammed,  or
diffusing  itself mysteriously  in a crowded street, sniffed for an instant
and then lost again.
     'It's coffee,' he murmured, 'real coffee.'
     'It's Inner Party coffee. There's a whole kilo here,' she said.
     'How did you manage to get hold of all these things?'
     'It's  all Inner  Party stuff. There's nothing those swine don't have,
nothing. But of course waiters and servants and people pinch things, and --
look, I got a little packet of tea as well.'
     Winston  had  squatted down beside  her. He tore  open a corner of the
packet.
     'It's real tea. Not blackberry leaves.'
     'There's  been  a lot of tea  about lately. They've captured India, or
something,'  she  said vaguely. 'But listen,  dear. I want you to turn your
back  on  me for three  minutes. Go and  sit on the  other side of the bed.
Don't go too near the window. And don't turn round till I tell you.'
     Winston  gazed  abstractedly through  the muslin  curtain. Down in the
yard  the red-armed woman was still marching to and fro between the washtub
and  the line.  She took two more pegs  out of her mouth and sang with deep
feeling:

        They sye that time 'eals all things,
        They sye you can always forget;
        But the smiles an' the tears acrorss the years
        They twist my 'eart-strings yet! 

     She  knew  the whole  drivelling song  by heart,  it seemed. Her voice
floated upward with the sweet summer air, very tuneful, charged with a sort
of happy melancholy. One had the feeling that she would have been perfectly
content,  if  the June evening  had been endless  and the supply of clothes
inexhaustible,  to  remain there for  a thousand years, pegging out diapers
and  singing  rubbish. It  struck him as  a curious fact  that he had never
heard  a member of the Party singing alone and spontaneously. It would even
have  seemed slightly unorthodox, a dangerous eccentricity, like talking to
oneself. Perhaps it was only when people were somewhere near the starvation
level that they had anything to sing about.
     'You can turn round now,' said Julia.
     He turned round, and for a second almost failed to recognize her. What
he  had actually expected  was to see her naked. But she was not naked. The
transformation  that  had happened was  much more surprising than that. She
had painted her face.
     She  must have  slipped into some shop in the proletarian quarters and
bought  herself  a complete set of  make-up materials. Her lips were deeply
reddened,  her cheeks  rouged, her nose powdered; there was even a touch of
something  under the  eyes to make them brighter. It was not very skilfully
done,  but Winston's  standards in such matters were not high. He had never
before  seen or  imagined a woman of  the Party with cosmetics on her face.
The  improvement  in her appearance was  startling. With just a few dabs of
colour in the right places she had become not only very much prettier, but,
above  all,  far more feminine.  Her short  hair and boyish overalls merely
added to the effect. As he took her in his arms a wave of synthetic violets
flooded  his  nostrils.  He  remembered the  half-darkness  of  a  basement
kitchen, and a woman's cavernous mouth. It was the very same scent that she
had used; but at the moment it did not seem to matter.
     'Scent too!' he said.
     'Yes,  dear, scent too. And do you know what I'm going to do next? I'm
going  to get  hold of  a real  woman's frock  from somewhere  and wear  it
instead  of these bloody trousers. I'll wear silk stockings and high-heeled
shoes! In this room I'm going to be a woman, not a Party comrade.'
     They  flung their  clothes off and climbed into the huge mahogany bed.
It  was the first  time that he had stripped himself naked in her presence.
Until  now he  had been too much  ashamed of his pale and meagre body, with
the  varicose  veins standing out  on his  calves and the discoloured patch
over  his  ankle. There  were no  sheets, but  the blanket  they lay on was
threadbare  and smooth,  and the size and springiness of the bed astonished
both  of them.  'It's sure to be  full of bugs, but who cares?' said Julia.
One  never  saw a double  bed nowadays, except in  the homes of the proles.
Winston  had occasionally slept in one in his boyhood: Julia had never been
in one before, so far as she could remember.
     Presently  they  fell asleep for a  little while. When Winston woke up
the  hands  of the clock had  crept round to  nearly nine. He did not stir,
because  Julia was sleeping  with her head in the crook of his arm. Most of
her  make-up had  transferred itself to his  own face or the bolster, but a
light  stain of  rouge still  brought out  the beauty  of her  cheekbone. A
yellow ray from the sinking sun fell across the foot of the bed and lighted
up  the fireplace, where the water in the pan was boiling fast. Down in the
yard  the woman  had  stopped singing,  but the  faint  shouts of  children
floated  in  from the street. He  wondered vaguely whether in the abolished
past  it had been  a normal experience to lie in bed like this, in the cool
of a summer evening, a man and a woman with no clothes on, making love when
they  chose, talking  of what they chose, not feeling any compulsion to get
up,  simply  lying there  and listening to  peaceful sounds outside. Surely
there  could  never have been a  time when that seemed ordinary? Julia woke
up,  rubbed her  eyes, and  raised  herself on  her  elbow to  look at  the
oilstove.
     'Half  that water's boiled away,' she said. 'I'll get up and make some
coffee  in  another moment.  We've got an  hour. What time  do they cut the
lights off at your flats?'
     'Twenty-three thirty.'
     'It's  twenty-three at the hostel. But you have to get in earlier than
that, because -- Hi! Get out, you filthy brute!'
     She  suddenly twisted  herself over in the bed, seized a shoe from the
floor,  and sent it hurtling into the corner with a boyish jerk of her arm,
exactly  as he had seen her fling the dictionary at Goldstein, that morning
during the Two Minutes Hate.
     'What was it?' he said in surprise.
     'A  rat. I  saw him  stick his  beastly nose  out of  the wainscoting.
There's a hole down there. I gave him a good fright, anyway.'
     'Rats!' murmured Winston. 'In this room!'
     'They're all over the place,' said Julia indifferently as she lay down
again.  'We've  even got them  in the kitchen at  the hostel. Some parts of
London are swarming with them. Did you know they attack children? Yes, they
do.  In  some of these streets  a woman daren't  leave a baby alone for two
minutes.  It's the great huge brown ones that do it. And the nasty thing is
that the brutes always--'
     'Don't go on!' said Winston, with his eyes tightly shut.
     'Dearest!  You've gone quite pale. What's the matter? Do they make you
feel sick?'
     'Of all horrors in the world -- a rat!'
     She  pressed  herself against  him and  wound her  limbs round him, as
though  to reassure him  with the warmth of her body. He did not reopen his
eyes  immediately. For several moments he had had the feeling of being back
in a nightmare which had recurred from time to time throughout his life. It
was  always very  much the  same. He  was standing  in front  of a  wall of
darkness,  and  on the  other side  of it  there was something unendurable,
something  too  dreadful to be faced.  In the dream his deepest feeling was
always  one of  self-deception, because he did in fact know what was behind
the  wall of darkness.  With a deadly effort, like wrenching a piece out of
his  own  brain, he  could even  have dragged  the thing  into the open. He
always  woke  up without  discovering  what  it  was:  but somehow  it  was
connected with what Julia had been saying when he cut her short.
     'I'm sorry,' he said, 'it's nothing. I don't like rats, that's all.'
     'Don't worry, dear, we're not going to have the filthy brutes in here.
I'll  stuff the  hole with a bit of  sacking before we go. And next time we
come here I'll bring some plaster and bung it up properly.'
     Already  the  black  instant  of  panic  was  half-forgotten.  Feeling
slightly  ashamed of  himself, he sat up against the bedhead. Julia got out
of  bed, pulled  on her overalls, and  made the coffee. The smell that rose
from  the  saucepan was so powerful  and exciting that they shut the window
lest anybody outside should notice it and become inquisitive. What was even
better  than the  taste of the coffee  was the silky texture given to it by
the  sugar, a thing Winston had almost forgotten after years of saccharine.
With  one  hand in her  pocket and a  piece of bread  and jam in the other,
Julia  wandered about  the room,  glancing indifferently  at the  bookcase,
pointing  out the best way of repairing the gateleg table, plumping herself
down  in  the ragged arm-chair to  see if it was comfortable, and examining
the absurd twelve-hour clock with a sort of tolerant amusement. She brought
the  glass  paperweight over to  the bed to  have a look  at it in a better
light.  He  took it  out of her  hand, fascinated, as  always, by the soft,
rainwatery appearance of the glass.
     'What is it, do you think?' said Julia.
     'I  don't think it's anything -- I mean, I don't think it was ever put
to  any  use. That's what I  like about it.  It's a little chunk of history
that  they've forgotten  to alter. It's a message from a hundred years ago,
if one knew how to read it.'
     'And  that  picture over there' --  she nodded at the engraving on the
opposite wall -- 'would that be a hundred years old?'
     'More.  Two  hundred, I dare  say. One  can't tell. It's impossible to
discover the age of anything nowadays.'
     She  went over to  look at it. 'Here's where that brute stuck his nose
out,'  she said,  kicking the  wainscoting immediately  below the  picture.
'What is this place? I've seen it before somewhere.'
     'It's  a  church, or at  least it used to  be. St. Clement's Danes its
name  was.' The  fragment of rhyme that Mr. Charrington had taught him came
back  into his head, and he added half-nostalgically: "Oranges and lemons,"
say the bells of St. Clement's!'
     To his astonishment she capped the line:

        'You owe me three farthings,' say the bells of St. Martin's,
        'When will you pay me?' say the bells of Old Bailey-- 

     'I  can't remember how it goes on after that. But anyway I remember it
ends  up, "Here comes a candle to light you to bed, here comes a chopper to
chop off your head!"'
     It was like the two halves of a countersign. But there must be another
line  after 'the  bells of Old Bailey'.  Perhaps it could be dug out of Mr.
Charrington's memory, if he were suitably prompted.
     'Who taught you that?' he said.
     'My  grandfather. He used to say it to me when I was a little girl. He
was  vaporized  when I was  eight -- at any  rate, he disappeared. I wonder
what  a lemon was,' she added inconsequently. 'I've seen oranges. They're a
kind of round yellow fruit with a thick skin.'
     'I  can remember lemons,' said Winston. 'They were quite common in the
fifties.  They  were so sour that  it set your  teeth on edge even to smell
them.'
     'I  bet that  picture's got bugs behind it,' said Julia. 'I'll take it
down  and give it a good clean some day. I suppose it's almost time we were
leaving.  I  must start washing  this paint off. What  a bore! I'll get the
lipstick off your face afterwards.'
     Winston did not get up for a few minutes more. The room was darkening.
He turned over towards the light and lay gazing into the glass paperweight.
The  inexhaustibly interesting  thing was not the fragment of coral but the
interior  of the glass itself. There was such a depth of it, and yet it was
almost as transparent as air. It was as though the surface of the glass had
been  the arch  of the  sky,  enclosing a  tiny world  with its  atmosphere
complete.  He had the feeling that he could get inside it, and that in fact
he  was inside  it, along with the  mahogany bed and the gateleg table, and
the  clock  and  the  steel  engraving  and  the  paperweight  itself.  The
paperweight  was the room he was in, and the coral was Julia's life and his
own, fixed in a sort of eternity at the heart of the crystal.



        V

     Syme had vanished. A morning came, and he was missing from work: a few
thoughtless  people  commented on  his  absence.  On  the next  day  nobody
mentioned  him.  On the  third day  Winston went into  the vestibule of the
Records  Department to look at the notice-board. One of the notices carried
a printed list of the members of the Chess Committee, of whom Syme had been
one.  It looked almost  exactly as it had looked before -- nothing had been
crossed  out -- but it was one name shorter. It was enough. Syme had ceased
to exist: he had never existed.
     The   weather  was  baking  hot.  In  the  labyrinthine  Ministry  the
windowless,  air-conditioned  rooms  kept  their  normal  temperature,  but
outside  the  pavements scorched one's feet  and the stench of the Tubes at
the  rush hours  was a horror. The  preparations for Hate Week were in full
swing,  and  the  staffs  of  all the  Ministries  were  working  overtime.
Processions, meetings, military parades, lectures, waxworks, displays, film
shows,  telescreen  programmes all  had to  be organized;  stands had to be
erected, effigies built, slogans coined, songs written, rumours circulated,
photographs  faked.  Julia's unit in  the Fiction Department had been taken
off  the production  of novels  and was  rushing out  a series  of atrocity
pamphlets.  Winston,  in addition  to his regular  work, spent long periods
every  day in  going  through back  files  of the  Times  and altering  and
embellishing news items which were to be quoted in speeches. Late at night,
when  crowds  of rowdy proles roamed  the streets, the town had a curiously
febrile  air. The  rocket bombs crashed oftener than ever, and sometimes in
the  far distance there were enormous explosions which no one could explain
and about which there were wild rumours.
     The  new  tune which was  to be the theme-song  of Hate Week (the Hate
Song,  it  was called)  had already  been composed  and was being endlessly
plugged on the telescreens. It had a savage, barking rhythm which could not
exactly be called music, but resembled the beating of a drum. Roared out by
hundreds  of  voices to the tramp  of marching feet, it was terrifying. The
proles  had  taken a fancy  to it, and in  the midnight streets it competed
with the still-popular 'It was only a hopeless fancy'. The Parsons children
played  it at  all hours of the night  and day, unbearably, on a comb and a
piece  of toilet paper. Winston's evenings were fuller than ever. Squads of
volunteers,  organized by Parsons, were preparing the street for Hate Week,
stitching  banners, painting posters, erecting flagstaffs on the roofs, and
perilously slinging wires across the street for the reception of streamers.
Parsons  boasted that  Victory Mansions  alone would  display four  hundred
metres of bunting. He was in his native element and as happy as a lark. The
heat  and  the manual  work had even  given him a  pretext for reverting to
shorts  and an  open shirt  in  the evenings.  He was  everywhere at  once,
pushing,  pulling,  sawing, hammering, improvising, jollying everyone along
with comradely exhortations and giving out from every fold of his body what
seemed an inexhaustible supply of acrid-smelling sweat.
     A new poster had suddenly appeared all over London. It had no caption,
and represented simply the monstrous figure of a Eurasian soldier, three or
four  metres high,  striding forward with expressionless Mongolian face and
enormous  boots, a submachine gun pointed from his hip. From whatever angle
you  looked  at  the poster,  the  muzzle  of  the  gun, magnified  by  the
foreshortening,  seemed  to be pointed straight  at you. The thing had been
plastered  on  every blank  space  on  every  wall, even  outnumbering  the
portraits  of  Big Brother.  The proles, normally  apathetic about the war,
were  being lashed  into one of their periodical frenzies of patriotism. As
though  to harmonize  with  the general  mood, the  rocket  bombs had  been
killing  larger  numbers of people  than usual. One  fell on a crowded film
theatre  in  Stepney, burying several  hundred victims among the ruins. The
whole  population of  the neighbourhood  turned  out for  a long,  trailing
funeral  which went  on for hours and was in effect an indignation meeting.
Another bomb fell on a piece of waste ground which was used as a playground
and  several dozen  children were blown to pieces. There were further angry
demonstrations,  Goldstein was  burned in effigy, hundreds of copies of the
poster  of the Eurasian soldier were torn down and added to the flames, and
a number of shops were looted in the turmoil; then a rumour flew round that
spies  were  directing the rocket bombs  by means of wireless waves, and an
old  couple  who were  suspected of  being of  foreign extraction had their
house set on fire and perished of suffocation.
     In  the  room over Mr. Charrington's  shop, when they could get there,
Julia and Winston lay side by side on a stripped bed under the open window,
naked  for the sake  of coolness. The rat had never come back, but the bugs
had  multiplied hideously in  the heat. It did not seem to matter. Dirty or
clean,  the room  was paradise. As soon as they arrived they would sprinkle
everything  with pepper bought on the black market, tear off their clothes,
and  make love with sweating bodies, then fall asleep and wake to find that
the bugs had rallied and were massing for the counter-attack.
     Four,  five,  six --  seven times  they met during  the month of June.
Winston  had dropped  his habit of drinking  gin at all hours. He seemed to
have  lost  the need  for it. He  had grown fatter,  his varicose ulcer had
subsided,  leaving only a brown stain on the skin above his ankle, his fits
of  coughing in  the early  morning had  stopped. The  process of  life had
ceased to be intolerable, he had no longer any impulse to make faces at the
telescreen  or  shout curses at the  top of his  voice. Now that they had a
secure  hiding-place,  almost a home, it  did not even seem a hardship that
they could only meet infrequently and for a couple of hours at a time. What
mattered was that the room over the junk-shop should exist. To know that it
was  there, inviolate,  was almost the same  as being in it. The room was a
world,  a  pocket  of  the  past where  extinct  animals  could  walk.  Mr.
Charrington,  thought  Winston,  was  another extinct  animal.  He  usually
stopped to talk with Mr. Charrington for a few minutes on his way upstairs.
The  old  man seemed seldom or  never to go out  of doors, and on the other
hand  to have almost no customers. He led a ghostlike existence between the
tiny,  dark  shop, and  an even  tinier back kitchen  where he prepared his
meals  and which  contained, among  other things,  an unbelievably  ancient
gramophone  with  an enormous  horn. He  seemed glad  of the opportunity to
talk.  Wandering  about among his  worthless stock,  with his long nose and
thick  spectacles and  his bowed  shoulders in  the velvet  jacket, he  had
always vaguely the air of being a collector rather than a tradesman. With a
sort of faded enthusiasm he would finger this scrap of rubbish or that -- a
china  bottle-stopper,  the painted  lid of a  broken snuffbox, a pinchbeck
locket  containing  a strand of some  long-dead baby's hair -- never asking
that Winston should buy it, merely that he should admire it. To talk to him
was  like listening  to  the tinkling  of a  worn-out  musical-box. He  had
dragged out from the corners of his memory some more fragments of forgotten
rhymes. There was one about four and twenty blackbirds, and another about a
cow  with a crumpled  horn, and another about the death of poor Cock Robin.
'It  just  occurred to  me you  might be  interested,' he  would say with a
deprecating  little laugh whenever he produced a new fragment. But he could
never recall more than a few lines of any one rhyme.
     Both  of them  knew -- in a way,  it was never out of their minds that
what  was now happening could not last long. There were times when the fact
of  impending  death seemed  as palpable as  the bed they  lay on, and they
would  cling  together with a sort  of despairing sensuality, like a damned
soul  grasping at his last morsel of pleasure when the clock is within five
minutes  of striking.  But there were also times when they had the illusion
not only of safety but of permanence. So long as they were actually in this
room,  they both  felt,  no harm  could  come to  them.  Getting there  was
difficult  and dangerous, but the room itself was sanctuary. It was as when
Winston  had gazed into the heart of the paperweight, with the feeling that
it  would be possible to get inside that glassy world, and that once inside
it  time  could be arrested. Often  they gave themselves up to daydreams of
escape.  Their luck  would hold indefinitely, and they would carry on their
intrigue,  just  like this,  for the  remainder of  their natural lives. Or
Katharine  would  die, and  by subtle manoeuvrings  Winston and Julia would
succeed  in getting married. Or they would commit suicide together. Or they
would  disappear, alter  themselves out of recognition, learn to speak with
proletarian  accents, get  jobs  in  a factory  and  live  out their  lives
undetected  in  a back-street. It  was all nonsense,  as they both knew. In
reality  there was  no  escape. Even  the one  plan  that was  practicable,
suicide,  they had no intention of carrying out. To hang on from day to day
and from week to week, spinning out a present that had no future, seemed an
unconquerable  instinct, just  as one's  lungs  will always  draw the  next
breath so long as there is air available.
     Sometimes,  too,  they talked of  engaging in active rebellion against
the  Party, but  with no notion of how  to take the first step. Even if the
fabulous  Brotherhood was a reality, there still remained the difficulty of
finding  one's way  into  it. He  told  her of  the  strange intimacy  that
existed,  or seemed  to  exist, between  himself and  O'Brien,  and of  the
impulse he sometimes felt, simply to walk into O'Brien's presence, announce
that  he was the enemy of the Party, and demand his help. Curiously enough,
this  did not strike her as an impossibly rash thing to do. She was used to
judging  people  by their faces, and  it seemed natural to her that Winston
should  believe O'Brien to be trustworthy on the strength of a single flash
of  the  eyes. Moreover  she took  it for granted  that everyone, or nearly
everyone,  secretly hated the Party and would break the rules if he thought
it  safe  to do so.  But she refused  to believe that widespread, organized
opposition  existed or  could  exist.  The tales  about  Goldstein and  his
underground  army,  she said, were simply  a lot of rubbish which the Party
had  invented for its  own purposes and which you had to pretend to believe
in.  Times beyond  number, at Party rallies and spontaneous demonstrations,
she  had shouted at  the top of her voice for the execution of people whose
names  she  had never  heard and in  whose supposed crimes  she had not the
faintest  belief. When public trials were happening she had taken her place
in  the  detachments from the  Youth League  who surrounded the courts from
morning to night, chanting at intervals 'Death to the traitors!' During the
Two  Minutes  Hate she  always excelled  all others  in shouting insults at
Goldstein.  Yet she had only the dimmest idea of who Goldstein was and what
doctrines  he  was supposed  to  represent.  She  had  grown up  since  the
Revolution  and  was too young  to remember  the ideological battles of the
fifties  and sixties. Such a thing as an independent political movement was
outside her imagination: and in any case the Party was invincible. It would
always exist, and it would always be the same. You could only rebel against
it by secret disobedience or, at most, by isolated acts of violence such as
killing somebody or blowing something up.
     In  some ways  she  was far  more  acute than  Winston,  and far  less
susceptible to Party propaganda. Once when he happened in some connexion to
mention  the war  against Eurasia, she startled him by saying casually that
in her opinion the war was not happening. The rocket bombs which fell daily
on London were probably fired by the Government of Oceania itself, 'just to
keep people frightened'. This was an idea that had literally never occurred
to  him. She also  stirred a sort of envy in him by telling him that during
the  Two Minutes  Hate  her  great difficulty  was  to  avoid bursting  out
laughing.  But she  only questioned the teachings of the Party when they in
some  way  touched upon  her own  life. Often  she was  ready to accept the
official  mythology,  simply  because  the  difference  between  truth  and
falsehood did not seem important to her. She believed, for instance, having
learnt  it  at school, that the  Party had invented aeroplanes. (In his own
schooldays,  Winston remembered,  in  the  late fifties,  it  was only  the
helicopter  that  the Party claimed to  have invented; a dozen years later,
when  Julia was  at  school, it  was already  claiming  the aeroplane;  one
generation  more,  and it would be  claiming the steam engine.) And when he
told  her that aeroplanes had been in existence before he was born and long
before  the Revolution, the fact struck her as totally uninteresting. After
all,  what did it matter who had invented aeroplanes? It was rather more of
a  shock to him when he discovered from some chance remark that she did not
remember that Oceania, four years ago, had been at war with Eastasia and at
peace  with Eurasia. It was true that she regarded the whole war as a sham:
but  apparently  she had  not even noticed  that the name  of the enemy had
changed.  'I thought  we'd  always  been at  war  with  Eurasia,' she  said
vaguely. It frightened him a little. The invention of aeroplanes dated from
long before her birth, but the switchover in the war had happened only four
years  ago,  well after she was  grown up. He  argued with her about it for
perhaps a quarter of an hour. In the end he succeeded in forcing her memory
back  until she did  dimly recall that at one time Eastasia and not Eurasia
had  been  the enemy. But  the issue still  struck her as unimportant. 'Who
cares?'  she  said impatiently. 'It's  always one bloody war after another,
and one knows the news is all lies anyway.'
     Sometimes  he talked to her of the Records Department and the impudent
forgeries  that  he committed there. Such  things did not appear to horrify
her.  She did not feel the abyss opening beneath her feet at the thought of
lies  becoming truths.  He  told  her the  story  of  Jones, Aaronson,  and
Rutherford  and the  momentous slip of paper which he had once held between
his  fingers. It did not make much impression on her. At first, indeed, she
failed to grasp the point of the story.
     'Were they friends of yours?' she said.
     'No,  I never  knew them. They were Inner Party members. Besides, they
were  far older  men than I was.  They belonged to the old days, before the
Revolution. I barely knew them by sight.'
     'Then  what was  there to worry about? People are being killed off all
the time, aren't they?'
     He  tried  to make her  understand. 'This  was an exceptional case. It
wasn't  just  a question of somebody  being killed. Do you realize that the
past,  starting from yesterday, has been actually abolished? If it survives
anywhere,  it's in a few solid objects with no words attached to them, like
that  lump  of glass there. Already  we know almost literally nothing about
the  Revolution and  the years before the Revolution. Every record has been
destroyed  or  falsified, every book  has been rewritten, every picture has
been  repainted, every  statue and  street and  building has  been renamed,
every  date has been altered. And that process is continuing day by day and
minute  by  minute. History  has stopped. Nothing  exists except an endless
present  in  which the Party  is always right. I  know, of course, that the
past  is falsified, but it would never be possible for me to prove it, even
when  I did  the falsification myself. After the thing is done, no evidence
ever  remains.  The only evidence  is inside my own  mind, and I don't know
with  any certainty  that any other human being shares my memories. Just in
that one instance, in my whole life, I did possess actual concrete evidence
after the event -- years after it.'
     'And what good was that?'
     'It  was no good,  because I threw it away a few minutes later. But if
the same thing happened today, I should keep it.'
     'Well,  I  wouldn't!' said Julia. 'I'm  quite ready to take risks, but
only  for something  worth while, not for bits of old newspaper. What could
you have done with it even if you had kept it?'
     'Not  much, perhaps.  But it was evidence. It might have planted a few
doubts  here and  there, supposing that I'd  dared to show it to anybody. I
don't  imagine that we  can alter anything in our own lifetime. But one can
imagine  little  knots of resistance  springing up  here and there -- small
groups  of  people banding themselves  together, and gradually growing, and
even  leaving a  few records behind, so that the next generations can carry
on where we leave off.'
     'I'm  not  interested in the  next generation, dear. I'm interested in
us.'
     'You're only a rebel from the waist downwards,' he told her.
     She  thought  this brilliantly witty  and flung  her arms round him in
delight.
     In  the ramifications  of  party  doctrine she  had  not the  faintest
interest.   Whenever  he  began  to  talk  of  the  principles  of  Ingsoc,
doublethink,  the mutability  of  the  past, and  the  denial of  objective
reality,  and to use Newspeak words, she became bored and confused and said
that  she never paid  any attention to that kind of thing. One knew that it
was  all  rubbish, so why  let oneself  be worried by  it? She knew when to
cheer  and  when to boo,  and that  was all one  needed. If he persisted in
talking  of such subjects, she had a disconcerting habit of falling asleep.
She  was  one of those  people who can  go to sleep at  any hour and in any
position.  Talking to  her,  he realized  how  easy it  was  to present  an
appearance  of  orthodoxy while having  no grasp whatever of what orthodoxy
meant.  In  a  way,  the  world-view  of  the  Party  imposed  itself  most
successfully on people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to
accept  the  most flagrant violations  of reality, because they never fully
grasped   the  enormity  of  what  was  demanded  of  them,  and  were  not
sufficiently  interested in  public events to notice what was happening. By
lack of understanding they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything,
and  what they  swallowed did  them  no harm,  because it  left no  residue
behind,  just as a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a
bird.



        VI

     It  had happened at last. The expected message had come. All his life,
it seemed to him, he had been waiting for this to happen.
     He  was walking  down the  long corridor  at the  Ministry and  he was
almost  at the spot  where Julia had slipped the note into his hand when he
became  aware that someone larger than himself was walking just behind him.
The  person, whoever it  was, gave a small cough, evidently as a prelude to
speaking. Winston stopped abruptly and turned. It was O'Brien.
     At  last they  were face to face,  and it seemed that his only impulse
was  to run away. His heart bounded violently. He would have been incapable
of  speaking. O'Brien, however, had continued forward in the same movement,
laying  a friendly  hand for a moment  on Winston's arm, so that the two of
them  were walking  side by side. He began speaking with the peculiar grave
courtesy that differentiated him from the majority of Inner Party members.
     'I  had been hoping for an opportunity of talking to you,' he said. 'I
was  reading one of  your Newspeak articles in the Times the other day. You
take a scholarly interest in Newspeak, I believe?'
     Winston had recovered part of his self-possession. 'Hardly scholarly,'
he  said. 'I'm  only an  amateur. It's  not my  subject. I  have never  had
anything to do with the actual construction of the language.'
     'But  you write it very elegantly,' said O'Brien. 'That is not only my
own  opinion. I was  talking recently to a friend of yours who is certainly
an expert. His name has slipped my memory for the moment.'
     Again  Winston's heart  stirred painfully.  It was  inconceivable that
this  was  anything other than  a reference to Syme.  But Syme was not only
dead,  he was  abolished, an  unperson. Any  identifiable reference  to him
would  have  been mortally dangerous.  O'Brien's remark must obviously have
been  intended  as  a  signal,  a  codeword. By  sharing  a  small  act  of
thoughtcrime  he had  turned the  two of  them into  accomplices. They  had
continued  to stroll slowly down the corridor, but now O'Brien halted. With
the curious, disarming friendliness that he always managed to put in to the
gesture he resettled his spectacles on his nose. Then he went on:
     'What  I had really intended to say was that in your article I noticed
you  had used  two words  which have  become obsolete.  But they  have only
become  so  very recently. Have you  seen the tenth edition of the Newspeak
Dictionary?'
     'No,'  said  Winston. 'I didn't  think it had  been issued yet. We are
still using the ninth in the Records Department.'
     'The  tenth  edition is not due  to appear for some months, I believe.
But  a few advance copies have been circulated. I have one myself. It might
interest you to look at it, perhaps?'
     'Very much so,' said Winston, immediately seeing where this tended.
     'Some of the new developments are most ingenious. The reduction in the
number  of verbs -- that is the point that will appeal to you, I think. Let
me  see,  shall I  send a  messenger to you  with the  dictionary? But I am
afraid I invariably forget anything of that kind. Perhaps you could pick it
up  at  my flat  at some  time that  suited you?  Wait. Let  me give you my
address.'
     They  were standing  in front of a telescreen. Somewhat absentmindedly
O'Brien  felt two  of his pockets and then produced a small leather-covered
notebook and a gold ink-pencil. Immediately beneath the telescreen, in such
a  position that anyone who was watching at the other end of the instrument
could  read what he was writing, he scribbled an address, tore out the page
and handed it to Winston.
     'I  am usually at  home in the evenings,' he said. 'If not, my servant
will give you the dictionary.'
     He  was  gone, leaving Winston holding  the scrap of paper, which this
time there was no need to conceal. Nevertheless he carefully memorized what
was  written  on it, and  some hours later dropped  it into the memory hole
along with a mass of other papers.
     They  had been  talking to one another  for a couple of minutes at the
most.  There was  only one meaning that the episode could possibly have. It
had been contrived as a way of letting Winston know O'Brien's address. This
was  necessary,  because except by direct  enquiry it was never possible to
discover where anyone lived. There were no directories of any kind. 'If you
ever  want to  see me, this is where  I can be found,' was what O'Brien had
been  saying to  him.  Perhaps  there would  even  be  a message  concealed
somewhere  in  the dictionary. But at  any rate, one thing was certain. The
conspiracy  that he had  dreamed of did exist, and he had reached the outer
edges of it.
     He  knew that sooner or later he would obey O'Brien's summons. Perhaps
tomorrow,  perhaps after  a long  delay  -- he  was not  certain. What  was
happening was only the working-out of a process that had started years ago.
The  first step had been a secret, involuntary thought, the second had been
the opening of the diary. He had moved from thoughts to words, and now from
words  to  actions. The  last step  was something that  would happen in the
Ministry  of  Love. He  had  accepted  it. The  end  was  contained in  the
beginning.  But  it was  frightening:  or,  more  exactly,  it was  like  a
foretaste  of death,  like being  a little  less alive.  Even while  he was
speaking  to O'Brien,  when the meaning of  the words had sunk in, a chilly
shuddering  feeling had  taken possession of his body. He had the sensation
of  stepping into  the dampness  of a  grave, and  it was  not much  better
because he had always known that the grave was there and waiting for him.



        VII

     Winston  had woken  up  with  his eyes  full  of  tears. Julia  rolled
sleepily  against him, murmuring something that might have been 'What's the
matter?'
     'I dreamt--' he began, and stopped short. It was too complex to be put
into  words.  There was the dream  itself, and there was a memory connected
with it that had swum into his mind in the few seconds after waking.
     He  lay back with his eyes shut, still sodden in the atmosphere of the
dream.  It  was a  vast, luminous dream  in which his  whole life seemed to
stretch  out before him like a landscape on a summer evening after rain. It
had all occurred inside the glass paperweight, but the surface of the glass
was  the dome  of the sky, and  inside the dome everything was flooded with
clear  soft  light in which one  could see into interminable distances. The
dream  had also  been  comprehended by  --  indeed, in  some  sense it  had
consisted  in  -- a gesture of  the arm made  by his mother, and made again
thirty years later by the Jewish woman he had seen on the news film, trying
to  shelter the small boy from the bullets, before the helicopter blew them
both to pieces.
     'Do  you know,'  he said,  'that until  this moment  I believed  I had
murdered my mother?'
     'Why did you murder her?' said Julia, almost asleep.
     'I didn't murder her. Not physically.'
     In  the  dream he had  remembered his last  glimpse of his mother, and
within  a few  moments of waking the cluster of small events surrounding it
had  all come  back. It was a  memory that he must have deliberately pushed
out  of his consciousness  over many years. He was not certain of the date,
but  he could not  have been less than ten years old, possibly twelve, when
it had happened.
     His  father had  disappeared some  time earlier,  how much  earlier he
could  not remember. He remembered better the rackety, uneasy circumstances
of  the  time: the periodical panics  about air-raids and the sheltering in
Tube   stations,   the  piles  of  rubble  everywhere,  the  unintelligible
proclamations  posted at  street corners, the gangs of youths in shirts all
the same colour, the enormous queues outside the bakeries, the intermittent
machine-gun  fire  in the  distance --  above all, the  fact that there was
never enough to eat. He remembered long afternoons spent with other boys in
scrounging  round dustbins  and  rubbish  heaps, picking  out  the ribs  of
cabbage  leaves, potato peelings, sometimes even scraps of stale breadcrust
from which they carefully scraped away the cinders; and also in waiting for
the  passing of  trucks which travelled over a certain route and were known
to  carry cattle feed,  and which, when they jolted over the bad patches in
the road, sometimes spilt a few fragments of oil-cake.
     When  his father  disappeared, his mother did not show any surprise or
any  violent grief,  but a sudden change  came over her. She seemed to have
become  completely spiritless.  It was evident even to Winston that she was
waiting  for  something that she knew  must happen. She did everything that
was needed -- cooked, washed, mended, made the bed, swept the floor, dusted
the  mantelpiece  --  always  very  slowly  and  with  a  curious  lack  of
superfluous  motion, like  an artist's lay-figure moving of its own accord.
Her  large shapely  body seemed  to relapse  naturally into  stillness. For
hours at a time she would sit almost immobile on the bed, nursing his young
sister, a tiny, ailing, very silent child of two or three, with a face made
simian  by  thinness. Very occasionally she  would take Winston in her arms
and  press him against  her for a long time without saying anything. He was
aware,  in spite of his youthfulness and selfishness, that this was somehow
connected with the never-mentioned thing that was about to happen.
     He  remembered the  room where they lived, a dark, close-smelling room
that  seemed half filled by a bed with a white counterpane. There was a gas
ring  in  the fender, and a  shelf where food  was kept, and on the landing
outside  there  was a brown  earthenware sink,  common to several rooms. He
remembered  his mother's  statuesque body bending over the gas ring to stir
at  something in a saucepan. Above all he remembered his continuous hunger,
and  the fierce  sordid  battles  at mealtimes.  He  would  ask his  mother
naggingly, over and over again, why there was not more food, he would shout
and  storm  at her  (he even remembered  the tones of  his voice, which was
beginning  to break prematurely and sometimes boomed in a peculiar way), or
he  would  attempt a snivelling  note of pathos in  his efforts to get more
than his share. His mother was quite ready to give him more than his share.
She  took it  for  granted that  he,  'the boy',  should  have the  biggest
portion;  but  however much  she gave  him he  invariably demanded more. At
every meal she would beseech him not to be selfish and to remember that his
little  sister was  sick and also needed  food, but it was no use. He would
cry  out  with rage  when she stopped  ladling, he would  try to wrench the
saucepan  and spoon out  of her hands, he would grab bits from his sister's
plate.  He knew  that he was starving  the other two, but he could not help
it;  he even felt that he had a right to do it. The clamorous hunger in his
belly  seemed  to justify him.  Between meals, if  his mother did not stand
guard,  he  was constantly pilfering  at the wretched  store of food on the
shelf.
     One  day  a chocolate-ration was issued.  There had been no such issue
for  weeks or months past. He remembered quite clearly that precious little
morsel  of chocolate.  It was  a two-ounce  slab (they  still talked  about
ounces  in  those days) between  the three of them.  It was obvious that it
ought  to  be divided into  three equal parts.  Suddenly, as though he were
listening  to somebody  else, Winston  heard  himself demanding  in a  loud
booming  voice that he should be given the whole piece. His mother told him
not  to be  greedy. There was a  long, nagging argument that went round and
round,  with shouts,  whines, tears,  remonstrances, bargainings.  His tiny
sister, clinging to her mother with both hands, exactly like a baby monkey,
sat  looking over her shoulder at him with large, mournful eyes. In the end
his  mother broke  off  three-quarters  of the  chocolate  and  gave it  to
Winston,  giving the other quarter to his sister. The little girl took hold
of  it  and looked  at it dully,  perhaps not knowing  what it was. Winston
stood  watching  her for a  moment. Then with a  sudden swift spring he had
snatched  the  piece of chocolate out  of his sister's hand and was fleeing
for the door.
     'Winston, Winston!' his mother called after him. 'Come back! Give your
sister back her chocolate!'
     He  stopped,  but did  not come  back. His  mother's anxious eyes were
fixed  on  his face. Even now  he was thinking  about the thing, he did not
know  what it was that was on the point of happening. His sister, conscious
of  having been  robbed of something, had  set up a feeble wail. His mother
drew  her arm  round the  child and  pressed its  face against  her breast.
Something  in the gesture told him that his sister was dying. He turned and
fled down the stairs. with the chocolate growing sticky in his hand.
     He  never saw his mother again. After he had devoured the chocolate he
felt  somewhat ashamed of himself and hung about in the streets for several
hours,  until hunger  drove him  home.  When he  came back  his mother  had
disappeared.  This  was already  becoming normal at  that time. Nothing was
gone from the room except his mother and his sister. They had not taken any
clothes,  not even his  mother's overcoat. To this day he did not know with
any  certainty that his mother was dead. It was perfectly possible that she
had  merely been sent to a forced-labour camp. As for his sister, she might
have  been removed,  like  Winston  himself, to  one  of  the colonies  for
homeless  children (Reclamation  Centres, they were called) which had grown
up  as a result of the civil war, or she might have been sent to the labour
camp along with his mother, or simply left somewhere or other to die.
     The  dream was  still vivid  in  his mind,  especially the  enveloping
protecting  gesture of  the arm  in which  its whole  meaning seemed  to be
contained.  His mind  went back to another dream of two months ago. Exactly
as  his mother  had  sat on  the  dingy whitequilted  bed,  with the  child
clinging to her, so she had sat in the sunken ship, far underneath him, and
drowning  deeper every  minute, but  still looking  up at  him through  the
darkening water.
     He told Julia the story of his mother's disappearance. Without opening
her  eyes she  rolled  over and  settled herself  into  a more  comfortable
position.
     'I  expect  you were a  beastly little swine  in those days,' she said
indistinctly. 'All children are swine.'
     'Yes. But the real point of the story--'
     From  her  breathing it  was evident  that she was  going off to sleep
again. He would have liked to continue talking about his mother. He did not
suppose,  from what he  could remember of her, that she had been an unusual
woman,  still less an  intelligent one; and yet she had possessed a kind of
nobility,  a  kind of purity, simply  because the standards that she obeyed
were private ones. Her feelings were her own, and could not be altered from
outside.  It  would not  have  occurred  to her  that  an  action which  is
ineffectual  thereby  becomes meaningless. If  you loved someone, you loved
him,  and when you  had nothing else to give, you still gave him love. When
the last of the chocolate was gone, his mother had clasped the child in her
arms. It was no use, it changed nothing, it did not produce more chocolate,
it did not avert the child's death or her own; but it seemed natural to her
to  do  it. The refugee woman  in the boat  had also covered the little boy
with  her  arm, which was no  more use against  the bullets than a sheet of
paper.  The terrible thing that the Party had done was to persuade you that
mere  impulses,  mere feelings, were of  no account, while at the same time
robbing you of all power over the material world. When once you were in the
grip of the Party, what you felt or did not feel, what you did or refrained
from  doing, made  literally no difference. Whatever happened you vanished,
and  neither you nor your actions were ever heard of again. You were lifted
clean  out  of the  stream of  history. And yet  to the  people of only two
generations ago this would not have seemed all-important, because they were
not  attempting  to alter history.  They were governed by private loyalties
which  they did  not question. What mattered were individual relationships,
and  a completely helpless  gesture, an embrace, a tear, a word spoken to a
dying  man, could have value in itself. The proles, it suddenly occurred to
him,  had  remained in this  condition. They were notloyal  to a party or a
country  or an idea,  they were loyal to one another. For the first time in
his  life he did not despise the proles or think of them merely as an inert
force  which  would one  day spring  to life and  regenerate the world. The
proles had stayed human. They had not become hardened inside. They had held
on  to the primitive emotions which he himself had to re-learn by conscious
effort. And in thinking this he remembered, without apparent relevance, how
a  few weeks  ago he had seen a  severed hand lying on the pavement and had
kicked it into the gutter as though it had been a cabbage-stalk.
     'The proles are human beings,' he said aloud. 'We are not human.'
     'Why not?' said Julia, who had woken up again.
     He thought for a little while. 'Has it ever occurred to you,' he said,
'that  the  best thing  for us to  do would  be simply to  walk out of here
before it's too late, and never see each other again?'
     'Yes, dear, it has occurred to me, several times. But I'm not going to
do it, all the same.'
     'We've  been  lucky,' he said  'but it  can't last much longer. You're
young.  You look normal  and innocent. If you keep clear of people like me,
you might stay alive for another fifty years.'
     'No.  I've thought it all out. What you do, I'm going to do. And don't
be too downhearted. I'm rather good at staying alive.'
     'We  may  be together for  another six months --  a year -- there's no
knowing.  At the end  we're certain to be apart. Do you realize how utterly
alone  we  shall be? When once  they get hold  of us there will be nothing,
literally  nothing, that  either of us can  do for the other. If I confess,
they'll  shoot you, and  if I refuse to confess, they'll shoot you just the
same.  Nothing that  I can do or  say, or stop myself from saying, will put
off  your death  for as much as  five minutes. Neither of us will even know
whether  the other  is alive or dead.  We shall be utterly without power of
any  kind. The  one thing  that  matters is  that we  shouldn't betray  one
another, although even that can't make the slightest difference.'
     'If  you mean  confessing,' she said, 'we shall do that, right enough.
Everybody always confesses. You can't help it. They torture you.'
     'I  don't mean confessing. Confession is not betrayal. What you say or
do  doesn't matter: only feelings matter. If they could make me stop loving
you -- that would be the real betrayal.'
     She thought it over. 'They can't do that,' she said finally. 'It's the
one  thing they can't do. They can make you say anything -- anything -- but
they can't make you believe it. They can't get inside you.'
     'No,'  he  said a little more  hopefully, 'no; that's quite true. They
can't  get inside  you. If you can  feel that staying human is worth while,
even when it can't have any result whatever, you've beaten them.'
     He  thought of  the telescreen with its never-sleeping ear. They could
spy  upon  you night  and day,  but if you  kept your  head you could still
outwit  them. With  all their cleverness they had never mastered the secret
of finding out what another human being was thinking. Perhaps that was less
true  when you were actually in their hands. One did not know what happened
inside the Ministry of Love, but it was possible to guess: tortures, drugs,
delicate  instruments  that  registered  your  nervous  reactions,  gradual
wearing-down  by sleeplessness  and  solitude  and persistent  questioning.
Facts, at any rate, could not be kept hidden. They could be tracked down by
enquiry,  they could  be squeezed out of  you by torture. But if the object
was  not to stay alive but to stay human, what difference did it ultimately
make?  They  could not alter  your feelings: for  that matter you could not
alter  them  yourself, even  if you wanted  to. They could  lay bare in the
utmost  detail  everything that  you had  done or said  or thought; but the
inner  heart, whose  workings were  mysterious even  to yourself,  remained
impregnable.



        VIII

     They had done it, they had done it at last!
     The  room  they were standing  in was  long-shaped and softly lit. The
telescreen was dimmed to a low murmur; the richness of the dark-blue carpet
gave  one the impression  of treading on velvet. At the far end of the room
O'Brien  was sitting  at a table under  a green-shaded lamp, with a mass of
papers  on  either side  of him.  He had not  bothered to  look up when the
servant showed Julia and Winston in.
     Winston's  heart was thumping so hard that he doubted whether he would
be  able to  speak. They had done it,  they had done it at last, was all he
could think. It had been a rash act to come here at all, and sheer folly to
arrive  together; though it was true that they had come by different routes
and  only met  on O'Brien's doorstep. But  merely to walk into such a place
needed  an effort of the nerve. It was only on very rare occasions that one
saw  inside the dwelling-places of the Inner Party, or even penetrated into
the  quarter of the town where they lived. The whole atmosphere of the huge
block of flats, the richness and spaciousness of everything, the unfamiliar
smells of good food and good tobacco, the silent and incredibly rapid lifts
sliding  up  and down, the  white-jacketed servants  hurrying to and fro --
everything  was intimidating.  Although he  had a  good pretext  for coming
here, he was haunted at every step by the fear that a black-uniformed guard
would  suddenly appear  from round the corner, demand his papers, and order
him  to  get out. O'Brien's servant,  however, had admitted the two of them
without  demur. He  was a small, dark-haired  man in a white jacket, with a
diamond-shaped,  completely  expressionless face which might have been that
of  a Chinese. The passage down which he led them was softly carpeted, with
cream-papered  walls and white wainscoting, all exquisitely clean. That too
was intimidating. Winston could not remember ever to have seen a passageway
whose walls were not grimy from the contact of human bodies.
     O'Brien  had a  slip of  paper between  his fingers  and seemed  to be
studying  it intently. His  heavy face, bent down so that one could see the
line  of the  nose, looked  both  formidable and  intelligent. For  perhaps
twenty  seconds he  sat without  stirring.  Then he  pulled the  speakwrite
towards  him  and  rapped  out  a  message in  the  hybrid  jargon  of  the
Ministries:
     'Items  one  comma five comma  seven approved fullwise stop suggestion
contained  item six  doubleplus ridiculous  verging crimethink  cancel stop
unproceed   constructionwise  antegetting   plusfull  estimates   machinery
overheads stop end message.'
     He  rose deliberately  from his chair and came towards them across the
soundless carpet. A little of the official atmosphere seemed to have fallen
away  from him with the Newspeak words, but his expression was grimmer than
usual,  as  though he were not  pleased at being disturbed. The terror that
Winston  already  felt was  suddenly shot  through by  a streak of ordinary
embarrassment.  It  seemed to him quite  possible that he had simply made a
stupid  mistake.  For what evidence had  he in reality that O'Brien was any
kind of political conspirator? Nothing but a flash of the eyes and a single
equivocal remark: beyond that, only his own secret imaginings, founded on a
dream.  He  could not even  fall back  on the pretence  that he had come to
borrow the dictionary, because in that case Julia's presence was impossible
to  explain.  As O'Brien passed  the telescreen  a thought seemed to strike
him. He stopped, turned aside and pressed a switch on the wall. There was a
sharp snap. The voice had stopped.
     Julia  uttered a tiny sound, a sort of squeak of surprise. Even in the
midst of his panic, Winston was too much taken aback to be able to hold his
tongue.
     'You can turn it off!' he said.
     'Yes,' said O'Brien, 'we can turn it off. We have that privilege.'
     He  was  opposite them  now. His  solid form towered  over the pair of
them,  and the  expression on  his face  was still  indecipherable. He  was
waiting,  somewhat sternly,  for Winston to speak, but about what? Even now
it  was quite conceivable that he was simply a busy man wondering irritably
why  he had  been  interrupted. Nobody  spoke. After  the  stopping of  the
telescreen  the  room  seemed  deadly silent.  The  seconds  marched  past,
enormous.  With difficulty  Winston continued  to  keep his  eyes fixed  on
O'Brien's. Then suddenly the grim face broke down into what might have been
the  beginnings  of  a  smile.  With  his  characteristic  gesture  O'Brien
resettled his spectacles on his nose.
     'Shall I say it, or will you?' he said.
     'I  will say  it,' said Winston promptly. 'That thing is really turned
off?'
     'Yes, everything is turned off. We are alone.'
     'We have come here because--'
     He  paused, realizing  for the  first time  the vagueness  of his  own
motives.  Since he did  not in fact know what kind of help he expected from
O'Brien, it was not easy to say why he had come here. He went on, conscious
that what he was saying must sound both feeble and pretentious:
     'We believe that there is some kind of conspiracy, some kind of secret
organization working against the Party, and that you are involved in it. We
want to join it and work for it. We are enemies of the Party. We disbelieve
in  the  principles  of  Ingsoc.  We are  thought-criminals.  We  are  also
adulterers. I tell you this because we want to put ourselves at your mercy.
If you want us to incriminate ourselves in any other way, we are ready.'
     He  stopped  and glanced over his  shoulder, with the feeling that the
door  had opened.  Sure enough, the little yellow-faced servant had come in
without  knocking. Winston  saw that he was carrying a tray with a decanter
and glasses.
     'Martin  is  one of  us,' said O'Brien  impassively. 'Bring the drinks
over here, Martin. Put them on the round table. Have we enough chairs? Then
we  may as  well sit down and  talk in comfort. Bring a chair for yourself,
Martin.  This  is business. You  can stop being a  servant for the next ten
minutes.'
     The  little  man sat  down, quite  at his  ease, and  yet still with a
servant-like air, the air of a valet enjoying a privilege. Winston regarded
him  out of the  corner of his eye. It struck him that the man's whole life
was playing a part, and that he felt it to be dangerous to drop his assumed
personality  even  for a moment. O'Brien  took the decanter by the neck and
filled  up  the glasses with  a dark-red liquid.  It aroused in Winston dim
memories  of  something seen  long ago  on a wall  or a  hoarding -- a vast
bottle  composed  of electric lights  which seemed to  move up and down and
pour  its contents into  a glass. Seen from the top the stuff looked almost
black,  but  in the  decanter it gleamed  like a ruby.  It had a sour-sweet
smell. He saw Julia pick up her glass and sniff at it with frank curiosity.
     'It  is called  wine,' said O'Brien with a faint smile. 'You will have
read about it in books, no doubt. Not much of it gets to the Outer Party, I
am  afraid.' His face  grew solemn again, and he raised his glass: 'I think
it  is fitting that we should begin by drinking a health. To our Leader: To
Emmanuel Goldstein.'
     Winston  took up  his glass with a certain eagerness. Wine was a thing
he  had  read  and  dreamed  about.  Like  the  glass  paperweight  or  Mr.
Charrington's half-remembered rhymes, it belonged to the vanished, romantic
past,  the  olden time as he  liked to call  it in his secret thoughts. For
some  reason  he had  always thought  of wine as  having an intensely sweet
taste,  like  that of blackberry  jam and an immediate intoxicating effect.
Actually,   when   he  came  to   swallow  it,  the  stuff  was  distinctly
disappointing.  The truth  was that  after years  of gin-drinking  he could
barely taste it. He set down the empty glass.
     'Then there is such a person as Goldstein?' he said.
     'Yes, there is such a person, and he is alive. Where, I do not know.'
     'And  the conspiracy -- the organization? Is it real? It is not simply
an invention of the Thought Police?'
     'No,  it  is real. The  Brotherhood, we call  it. You will never learn
much  more about the Brotherhood than that it exists and that you belong to
it.  I will come back to that presently.' He looked at his wrist-watch. 'It
is  unwise even  for members of the  Inner Party to turn off the telescreen
for  more than half  an hour. You ought not to have come here together, and
you  will have  to leave separately. You,  comrade' -- he bowed his head to
Julia  -- 'will  leave first. We have about twenty minutes at our disposal.
You  will understand  that I must start by asking you certain questions. In
general terms, what are you prepared to do?'
     'Anything that we are capable of,' said Winston.
     O'Brien had turned himself a little in his chair so that he was facing
Winston.  He almost  ignored Julia,  seeming to  take it  for granted  that
Winston  could speak  for her. For a  moment the lids flitted down over his
eyes.  He  began asking  his questions  in a  low, expressionless voice, as
though this were a routine, a sort of catechism, most of whose answers were
known to him already.
     'You are prepared to give your lives?'
     'Yes.'
     'You are prepared to commit murder?'
     'Yes.'
     'To  commit acts  of sabotage which may cause the death of hundreds of
innocent people?'
     'Yes.'
     'To betray your country to foreign powers?'
     'Yes.'
     'You  are  prepared to cheat,  to forge,  to blackmail, to corrupt the
minds   of  children,  to  distribute  habit-forming  drugs,  to  encourage
prostitution,  to disseminate  venereal diseases -- to do anything which is
likely to cause demoralization and weaken the power of the Party?'
     'Yes.'
     'If,  for example,  it  would  somehow serve  our  interests to  throw
sulphuric acid in a child's face -- are you prepared to do that?'
     'Yes.'
     'You  are prepared to lose your identity and live out the rest of your
life as a waiter or a dock-worker?'
     'Yes.'
     'You  are prepared  to commit suicide, if  and when we order you to do
so?'
     'Yes.'
     'You  are prepared,  the two  of you,  to separate  and never  see one
another again?'
     'No!' broke in Julia.
     It appeared to Winston that a long time passed before he answered. For
a  moment he seemed  even to have been deprived of the power of speech. His
tongue worked soundlessly, forming the opening syllables first of one word,
then  of the  other, over and over again.  Until he had said it, he did not
know which word he was going to say. 'No,' he said finally.
     'You  did well  to tell me,' said  O'Brien. 'It is necessary for us to
know everything.'
     He turned himself toward Julia and added in a voice with somewhat more
expression in it:
     'Do  you understand that even if he survives, it may be as a different
person?  We may  be obliged  to  give him  a  new identity.  His face,  his
movements, the shape of his hands, the colour of his hair -- even his voice
would  be different. And you yourself might have become a different person.
Our   surgeons  can  alter  people  beyond  recognition.  Sometimes  it  is
necessary. Sometimes we even amputate a limb.'
     Winston  could not  help snatching another sidelong glance at Martin's
Mongolian  face. There were  no scars that he could see. Julia had turned a
shade  paler, so  that her  freckles were  showing, but  she faced  O'Brien
boldly. She murmured something that seemed to be assent.
     'Good. Then that is settled.'
     There  was a  silver box  of cigarettes  on the  table. With  a rather
absent-minded air O'Brien pushed them towards the others, took one himself,
then stood up and began to pace slowly to and fro, as though he could think
better  standing. They  were very  good  cigarettes, very  thick and  well-
packed,  with  an unfamiliar silkiness in  the paper. O'Brien looked at his
wrist-watch again.
     'You  had  better go back  to your Pantry,  Martin,' he said. 'I shall
switch  on  in a quarter  of an  hour. Take a  good look at these comrades"
faces before you go. You will be seeing them again. I may not.'
     Exactly as they had done at the front door, the little man's dark eyes
flickered  over  their faces. There was  not a trace of friendliness in his
manner.  He  was memorizing  their appearance,  but he  felt no interest in
them,  or  appeared to feel  none. It occurred  to Winston that a synthetic
face  was perhaps incapable of changing its expression. Without speaking or
giving  any kind  of salutation, Martin went out, closing the door silently
behind  him. O'Brien  was strolling up and  down, one hand in the pocket of
his black overalls, the other holding his cigarette.
     'You understand,' he said, 'that you will be fighting in the dark. You
will always be in the dark. You will receive orders and you will obey them,
without  knowing  why. Later  I shall send  you a book  from which you will
learn  the true nature of the society we live in, and the strategy by which
we  shall destroy it. When you have read the book, you will be full members
of  the Brotherhood.  But between the general aims that we are fighting for
and  the  immedi ate tasks  of the moment, you  will never know anything. I
tell  you  that the  Brotherhood exists,  but I cannot  tell you whether it
numbers a hundred members, or ten million. From your personal knowledge you
will never be able to say that it numbers even as many as a dozen. You will
have  three or four contacts, who will be renewed from time to time as they
disappear.  As this  was your first contact, it will be preserved. When you
receive  orders,  they will  come  from  me. If  we  find  it necessary  to
communicate  with you,  it will  be through  Martin. When  you are  finally
caught,  you will  confess. That  is unavoidable.  But you  will have  very
little  to  confess, other than  your own actions. You  will not be able to
betray  more  than a handful  of unimportant  people. Probably you will not
even  betray  me. By  that time  I may  be dead,  or I  shall have become a
different person, with a different face.'
     He  continued to move to and fro over the soft carpet. In spite of the
bulkiness  of  his body there  was a remarkable  grace in his movements. It
came  out even in  the gesture with which he thrust a hand into his pocket,
or  manipulated  a cigarette.  More  even  than  of  strength, he  gave  an
impression  of confidence  and of an understanding tinged by irony. However
much  in earnest  he might be, he had nothing of the single-mindedness that
belongs  to a  fanatic. When he spoke of murder, suicide, venereal disease,
amputated  limbs, and altered faces, it was with a faint air of persiflage.
'This  is unavoidable,' his  voice seemed to say; 'this is what we have got
to  do, unflinchingly. But  this is not what we shall be doing when life is
worth  living  again.' A wave of  admiration, almost of worship, flowed out
from  Winston towards  O'Brien. For the moment he had forgotten the shadowy
figure  of  Goldstein. When you  looked at O'Brien's powerful shoulders and
his blunt-featured face, so ugly and yet so civilized, it was impossible to
believe  that he could  be defeated. There was no stratagem that he was not
equal  to,  no danger  that he could  not foresee. Even  Julia seemed to be
impressed.  She  had let her  cigarette go  out and was listening intently.
O'Brien went on:
     'You  will have  heard rumours of the existence of the Brotherhood. No
doubt  you have formed your own picture of it. You have imagined, probably,
a  huge underworld of conspirators, meeting secretly in cellars, scribbling
messages  on walls,  recognizing one  another  by codewords  or by  special
movements  of the  hand. Nothing  of the  kind exists.  The members  of the
Brotherhood  have  no way of recognizing  one another, and it is impossible
for  any one member  to be aware of the identity of more than a few others.
Goldstein  himself, if  he fell into the hands of the Thought Police, could
not  give  them a complete  list of members,  or any information that would
lead  them to  a complete list. No such list exists. The Brotherhood cannot
be  wiped out  because it  is not  an organization  in the  ordinary sense.
Nothing  holds it together except an idea which is indestructible. You will
never  have anything  to sustain  you,  except the  idea. You  will get  no
comradeship and no encouragement. When finally you are caught, you will get
no  help.  We never  help  our  members. At  most,  when  it is  absolutely
necessary  that someone  should be  silenced, we  are occasionally  able to
smuggle  a razor blade into a prisoner's cell. You will have to get used to
living  without  results and without  hope. You will  work for a while, you
will be caught, you will confess, and then you will die. Those are the only
results  that  you  will  ever  see.  There  is  no  possibility  that  any
perceptible  change  will happen within our  own lifetime. We are the dead.
Our  only true life  is in the future. We shall take part in it as handfuls
of  dust and splinters  of bone. But how far away that future may be, there
is no knowing. It might be a thousand years. At present nothing is possible
except  to extend  the  area of  sanity  little by  little.  We cannot  act
collectively.  We can only spread our knowledge outwards from individual to
individual,  generation after generation. In the face of the Thought Police
there is no other way.'
     He halted and looked for the third time at his wrist-watch.
     'It  is almost  time for  you to  leave, comrade,'  he said  to Julia.
'Wait. The decanter is still half full.'
     He filled the glasses and raised his own glass by the stem.
     'What  shall it  be this  time?' he  said, still  with the  same faint
suggestion  of irony. 'To the confusion of the Thought Police? To the death
of Big Brother? To humanity? To the future?'
     'To the past,' said Winston.
     'The past is more important,' agreed O'Brien gravely.
     They  emptied their  glasses, and a moment later Julia stood up to go.
O'Brien  took a  small box from the top  of a cabinet and handed her a flat
white tablet which he told her to place on her tongue. It was important, he
said,  not to  go  out smelling  of  wine: the  lift  attendants were  very
observant.  As soon  as the door had  shut behind her he appeared to forget
her existence. He took another pace or two up and down, then stopped.
     'There  are details to be settled,' he said. 'I assume that you have a
hiding-place of some kind?'
     Winston explained about the room over Mr. Charrington's shop.
     'That will do for the moment. Later we will arrange something else for
you.  It is  important to change one's hiding-place frequently. Meanwhile I
shall send you a copy of the book' -- even O'Brien, Winston noticed, seemed
to pronounce the words as though they were in italics -- 'Goldstein's book,
you  understand, as soon  as possible. It may be some days before I can get
hold  of  one. There  are not  many in  existence, as  you can imagine. The
Thought  Police  hunt them down  and destroy them almost  as fast as we can
produce  them. It makes very little difference. The book is indestructible.
If  the last copy were gone, we could reproduce it almost word for word. Do
you carry a brief-case to work with you?' he added.
     'As a rule, yes.'
     'What is it like?'
     'Black, very shabby. With two straps.'
     'Black,  two  straps, very shabby --  good. One day in the fairly near
future  -- I cannot give a date -- one of the messages among your morning's
work will contain a misprinted word, and you will have to ask for a repeat.
On  the following day  you will go to work without your brief-case. At some
time during the day, in the street, a man will touch you on the arm and say
"I  think you  have dropped  your brief-case."  The one  he gives  you will
contain  a  copy of  Goldstein's book.  You will  return it within fourteen
days.'
     They were silent for a moment.
     'There  are a couple of minutes before you need go,' said O'Brien. 'We
shall meet again -- if we do meet again--'
     Winston  looked up  at him. 'In the place where there is no darkness?'
he said hesitantly.
     O'Brien  nodded  without appearance  of surprise.  'In the place where
there  is no  darkness,' he said, as though he had recognized the allusion.
'And  in  the meantime, is  there anything that you  wish to say before you
leave? Any message? Any question?.'
     Winston thought. There did not seem to be any further question that he
wanted  to  ask: still less did  he feel any impulse to utter high-sounding
generalities.  Instead  of anything directly  connected with O'Brien or the
Brotherhood,  there  came into his mind  a sort of composite picture of the
dark  bedroom where his mother had spent her last days, and the little room
over  Mr. Charrington's  shop, and  the  glass paperweight,  and the  steel
engraving in its rosewood frame. Almost at random he said:
     'Did  you  ever happen to hear  an old rhyme that begins "'Oranges and
lemons,' say the bells of St Clement's"?'
     Again  O'Brien nodded.  With a sort of grave courtesy he completed the
stanza:

        'Oranges and lemons,' say the bells of St. Clement's,
        'You owe me three farthings,' say the bells of St. Martin's,
        'When will you pay me?' say the bells of Old Bailey,
        'When I grow rich,' say the bells of Shoreditch. 

     'You knew the last line!' said Winston.
     'Yes,  I knew the  last line. And now, I am afraid, it is time for you
to go. But wait. You had better let me give you one of these tablets.'
     As Winston stood up O'Brien held out a hand. His powerful grip crushed
the  bones of  Winston's palm. At the door Winston looked back, but O'Brien
seemed  already to be in process of putting him out of mind. He was waiting
with  his  hand on  the switch  that controlled  the telescreen. Beyond him
Winston  could see  the writing-table  with its  green-shaded lamp  and the
speakwrite  and  the wire baskets  deep-laden with papers. The incident was
closed. Within thirty seconds, it occurred to him, O'Brien would be back at
his interrupted and important work on behalf of the Party.



        IX

     Winston was gelatinous with fatigue. Gelatinous was the right word. It
had  come into his head spontaneously. His body seemed to have not only the
weakness  of a jelly,  but its translucency. He felt that if he held up his
hand  he would be able to see the light through it. All the blood and lymph
had  been drained out of him by an enormous debauch of work, leaving only a
frail  structure  of nerves, bones,  and skin.  All sensations seemed to be
magnified.  His  overalls fretted  his shoulders,  the pavement tickled his
feet,  even the  opening and closing of  a hand was an effort that made his
joints creak.
     He  had  worked more than  ninety hours in  five days. So had everyone
else  in the Ministry. Now it was all over, and he had literally nothing to
do,  no  Party work  of any  description, until  tomorrow morning. He could
spend  six hours  in the  hiding-place  and another  nine in  his own  bed.
Slowly,  in  mild afternoon  sunshine, he  walked up a  dingy street in the
direction  of Mr. Charrington's shop, keeping one eye open for the patrols,
but  irrationally convinced  that this  afternoon  there was  no danger  of
anyone  interfering with  him. The  heavy brief-case  that he  was carrying
bumped  against his  knee at each step, sending a tingling sensation up and
down  the skin of  his leg. Inside it was the book, which he had now had in
his possession for six days and had not yet opened, nor even looked at.
     On  the  sixth day of Hate  Week, after the processions, the speeches,
the  shouting,  the singing,  the  banners,  the  posters, the  films,  the
waxworks,  the  rolling of  drums and  squealing of  trumpets, the tramp of
marching  feet, the  grinding of  the caterpillars  of tanks,  the roar  of
massed  planes,  the booming  of guns --  after six days  of this, when the
great  orgasm was quivering to its climax and the general hatred of Eurasia
had  boiled  up into such  delirium that if the  crowd could have got their
hands on the 2,000 Eurasian war-criminals who were to be publicly hanged on
the  last day  of the proceedings, they would unquestionably have torn them
to pieces -- at just this moment it had been announced that Oceania was not
after  all  at war with Eurasia.  Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Eurasia
was an ally.
     There  was,  of course, no admission  that any change had taken place.
Merely  it  became known,  with extreme suddenness  and everywhere at once,
that  Eastasia and not  Eurasia was the enemy. Winston was taking part in a
demonstration  in  one of the central  London squares at the moment when it
happened.  It  was night, and the  white faces and the scarlet banners were
luridly  floodlit. The  square  was packed  with  several thousand  people,
including  a block of about a thousand schoolchildren in the uniform of the
Spies.  On a  scarlet-draped platform an orator of the Inner Party, a small
lean  man  with disproportionately  long arms  and a  large bald skull over
which  a few  lank  locks straggled,  was haranguing  the  crowd. A  little
Rumpelstiltskin  figure, contorted  with hatred, he gripped the neck of the
microphone  with  one hand while  the other, enormous at  the end of a bony
arm,  clawed the air menacingly above his head. His voice, made metallic by
the amplifiers, boomed forth an endless catalogue of atrocities, massacres,
deportations,   lootings,   rapings,  torture   of  prisoners,  bombing  of
civilians,  lying  propaganda, unjust  aggressions, broken treaties. It was
almost  impossible to  listen to him without being first convinced and then
maddened.  At every  few moments the fury  of the crowd boiled over and the
voice  of  the speaker was  drowned by a  wild beast-like roaring that rose
uncontrollably from thousands of throats. The most savage yells of all came
from  the schoolchildren. The speech had been proceeding for perhaps twenty
minutes  when a  messenger hurried on to  the platform and a scrap of paper
was  slipped into  the  speaker's hand.  He unrolled  and  read it  without
pausing  in his  speech. Nothing altered in  his voice or manner, or in the
content  of what  he was  saying, but  suddenly the  names were  different.
Without  words said,  a wave  of understanding  rippled through  the crowd.
Oceania  was  at war with Eastasia!  The next moment there was a tremendous
commotion. The banners and posters with which the square was decorated were
all wrong! Quite half of them had the wrong faces on them. It was sabotage!
The  agents  of Goldstein had  been at work!  There was a riotous interlude
while  posters were  ripped  from the  walls, banners  torn  to shreds  and
trampled underfoot. The Spies performed prodigies of activity in clambering
over  the  rooftops and  cutting  the  streamers  that fluttered  from  the
chimneys.  But  within two  or three  minutes it was  all over. The orator,
still  gripping the  neck of the microphone, his shoulders hunched forward,
his free hand clawing at the air, had gone straight on with his speech. One
minute  more, and  the feral  roars of  rage were  again bursting  from the
crowd.  The  Hate continued exactly  as before,  except that the target had
been changed.
     The  thing that impressed Winston in looking back was that the speaker
had  switched from  one line to the other actually in midsentence, not only
without a pause, but without even breaking the syntax. But at the moment he
had  other  things to preoccupy  him. It was  during the moment of disorder
while the posters were being torn down that a man whose face he did not see
had tapped him on the shoulder and said, 'Excuse me, I think you've dropped
your brief-case.' He took the brief-case abstractedly, without speaking. He
knew  that it would be days before he had an opportunity to look inside it.
The  instant that  the  demonstration  was over  he  went  straight to  the
Ministry  of Truth,  though the time was now nearly twenty-three hours. The
entire  staff of the Ministry had done likewise. The orders already issuing
from the telescreen, recalling them to their posts, were hardly necessary.
     Oceania  was at war with Eastasia: Oceania had always been at war with
Eastasia.  A  large part of the  political literature of five years was now
completely  obsolete. Reports  and records of all kinds, newspapers, books,
pamphlets,  films, sound-tracks,  photographs -- all had to be rectified at
lightning  speed. Although  no directive was ever issued, it was known that
the  chiefs of the Department intended that within one week no reference to
the  war with  Eurasia, or  the alliance  with Eastasia,  should remain  in
existence  anywhere. The work was overwhelming, all the more so because the
processes  that it  involved  could  not be  called  by  their true  names.
Everyone  in  the Records  Department worked eighteen  hours in the twenty-
four,  with  two three-hour  snatches of sleep.  Mattresses were brought up
from  the  cellars and pitched  all over  the corridors: meals consisted of
sandwiches  and Victory Coffee wheeled round on trolleys by attendants from
the  canteen.  Each time  that Winston broke  off for one  of his spells of
sleep  he  tried to  leave his  desk clear of  work, and  each time that he
crawled  back sticky-eyed and aching, it was to find that another shower of
paper  cylinders had  covered the  desk like  a snowdrift,  halfburying the
speakwrite  and overflowing  on to  the floor,  so that  the first  job was
always to stack them into a neat enough pile to give him room to work. What
was worst of all was that the work was by no means purely mechanical. Often
it  was enough  merely to substitute one name for another, but any detailed
report  of events  demanded  care and  imagination.  Even the  geographical
knowledge  that  one needed  in transferring  the war from  one part of the
world to another was considerable.
     By  the third  day his eyes ached unbearably and his spectacles needed
wiping  every  few minutes.  It  was  like  struggling with  some  crushing
physical  task,  something which one had  the right to refuse and which one
was  nevertheless  neurotically anxious to accomplish.  In so far as he had
time  to  remember it, he was  not troubled by  the fact that every word he
murmured  into  the speakwrite,  every  stroke  of  his ink-pencil,  was  a
deliberate lie. He was as anxious as anyone else in the Department that the
forgery  should be perfect.  On the morning of the sixth day the dribble of
cylinders  slowed down. For as much as half an hour nothing came out of the
tube;  then  one more cylinder, then  nothing. Everywhere at about the same
time  the work  was easing  off. A  deep and  as it  were secret  sigh went
through  the Department. A mighty deed, which could never be mentioned, had
been  achieved. It  was now  impossible  for any  human being  to prove  by
documentary evidence that the war with Eurasia had ever happened. At twelve
hundred it was unexpectedly announced that all workers in the Ministry were
free   till  tomorrow  morning.  Winston,  still  carrying  the  brief-case
containing  the  book, which had remained  between his feet while he worked
and  under  his body while he  slept, went home, shaved himself, and almost
fell asleep in his bath, although the water was barely more than tepid.
     With  a sort of voluptuous creaking in his joints he climbed the stair
above  Mr. Charrington's  shop. He was tired, but not sleepy any longer. He
opened  the window, lit the dirty little oilstove and put on a pan of water
for  coffee. Julia would arrive presently: meanwhile there was the book. He
sat down in the sluttish armchair and undid the straps of the brief-case.
     A heavy black volume, amateurishly bound, with no name or title on the
cover. The print also looked slightly irregular. The pages were worn at the
edges,  and fell  apart, easily, as though the book had passed through many
hands. The inscription on the title-page ran:

        THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF
        OLIGARCHICAL COLLECTIVISM
        by
        Emmanuel Goldstein

     Winston began reading:

        Chapter I.

        Ignorance is Strength.

     Throughout  recorded time, and probably since the end of the Neolithic
Age,  there  have been  three kinds of  people in the  world, the High, the
Middle,  and  the Low.  They have  been subdivided in  many ways, they have
borne  countless  different names,  and their relative  numbers, as well as
their  attitude  towards one another, have  varied from age to age: but the
essential  structure of  society  has never  altered.  Even after  enormous
upheavals  and  seemingly irrevocable changes,  the same pattern has always
reasserted  itself, just  as a gyroscope will always return to equilibrium,
however far it is pushed one way or the other.
     The aims of these groups are entirely irreconcilable...

     Winston  stopped reading, chiefly in order to appreciate the fact that
he  was reading, in comfort and safety. He was alone: no telescreen, no ear
at the keyhole, no nervous impulse to glance over his shoulder or cover the
page  with  his hand. The  sweet summer air  played against his cheek. From
somewhere  far away there floated the faint shouts of children: in the room
itself  there was no sound except the insect voice of the clock. He settled
deeper  into the arm-chair and put his feet up on the fender. It was bliss,
it  was etemity.  Suddenly, as one sometimes  does with a book of which one
knows that one will ultimately read and re-read every word, he opened it at
a different place and found himself at Chapter III. He went on reading:

        Chapter III.

        War is Peace.

     The  splitting  up of the  world into  three great super-states was an
event  which could  be and  indeed was  foreseen before  the middle  of the
twentieth  century. With  the absorption  of Europe  by Russia  and of  the
British  Empire  by the  United States,  two of  the three existing powers,
Eurasia  and  Oceania,  were  already  effectively  in  being.  The  third,
Eastasia,  only emerged as a distinct unit after another decade of confused
fighting.  The frontiers  between the three super-states are in some places
arbitrary,  and in  others they fluctuate according to the fortunes of war,
but  in general they follow geographical lines. Eurasia comprises the whole
of  the northern  part of the European and Asiatic land-mass, from Portugal
to  the Bering Strait. Oceania comprises the Americas, the Atlantic islands
including  the British  Isles,  Australasia, and  the  southern portion  of
Africa.  Eastasia, smaller than the others and with a less definite western
frontier,  comprises China  and  the  countries to  the  south  of it,  the
Japanese  islands  and  a  large  but  fluctuating  portion  of  Manchuria,
Mongolia, and Tibet.
     In   one   combination  or   another,  these  three  super-states  are
permanently  at war,  and have been so for the past twenty-five years. War,
however,  is no  longer the desperate, annihilating struggle that it was in
the early decades of the twentieth century. It is a warfare of limited aims
between  combatants who are unable to destroy one another, have no material
cause  for  fighting  and  are  not  divided  by  any  genuine  ideological
difference  This is  not to  say that  either the  conduct of  war, or  the
prevailing  attitude  towards it,  has  become  less bloodthirsty  or  more
chivalrous.  On  the contrary, war  hysteria is continuous and universal in
all countries, and such acts as raping, looting, the slaughter of children,
the  reduction  of whole  populations  to  slavery, and  reprisals  against
prisoners  which extend  even to boiling and burying alive, are looked upon
as  normal, and,  when they are committed  by one's own side and not by the
enemy, meritorious. But in a physical sense war involves very small numbers
of  people, mostly highly-trained specialists, and causes comparatively few
casualties.  The fighting,  when there  is any,  takes place  on the  vague
frontiers whose whereabouts the average man can only guess at, or round the
Floating  Fortresses  which guard strategic spots  on the sea lanes. In the
centres  of  civilization war means  no more  than a continuous shortage of
consumption  goods,  and the  occasional crash  of a  rocket bomb which may
cause  a few scores  of deaths. War has in fact changed its character. More
exactly,  the reasons for which war is waged have changed in their order of
importance.  Motives which were already present to some small extent in the
great wars of the early twentieth centuury have now become dominant and are
consciously recognized and acted upon.
     To  understand  the nature of  the present war --  for in spite of the
regrouping  which occurs every  few years, it is always the same war -- one
must  realize in  the  first place  that  it  is impossible  for  it to  be
decisive.  None  of the three  super-states could be definitively conquered
even  by  the other  two in  combination. They are  too evenly matched, and
their natural defences are too formidable. Eurasia is protected by its vast
land spaces, Oceania by the width of the Atlantic and the Pacific, Eastasia
by  the fecundity  and indus triousness of its inhabitants. Secondly, there
is  no longer,  in a  material  sense, anything  to fight  about. With  the
establishment   of   self-contained  economies,  in  which  production  and
consumption are geared to one another, the scramble for markets which was a
main  cause of previous  wars has come to an end, while the competition for
raw  materials is no longer a matter of life and death. In any case each of
the  three super-states  is  so vast  that  it can  obtain  almost all  the
materials that it needs within its own boundaries. In so far as the war has
a  direct economic  purpose, it  is  a war  for labour  power. Between  the
frontiers of the super-states, and not permanently in the possession of any
of  them,  there lies  a rough  quadrilateral with  its corners at Tangier,
Brazzaville,  Darwin, and  Hong Kong, containing within it about a fifth of
the  population  of the earth.  It is for  the possession of these thickly-
populated  regions, and  of the northern ice-cap, that the three powers are
constantly  struggling. In practice no one power ever controls the whole of
the  disputed area. Portions of it are constantly changing hands, and it is
the chance of seizing this or that fragment by a sudden stroke of treachery
that dictates the endless changes of alignment.
     All of the disputed territories contain valuable minerals, and some of
them  yield important  vegetable products  such as  rubber which  in colder
climates  it is necessary to synthesize by comparatively expensive methods.
But  above all they contain a bottomless reserve of cheap labour. Whichever
power  controls equatorial  Africa, or the countries of the Middle East, or
Southern  India, or the Indonesian Archipelago, disposes also of the bodies
of scores or hundreds of millions of ill-paid and hard-working coolies. The
inhabitants  of  these areas, reduced more  or less openly to the status of
slaves, pass continually from conqueror to conqueror, and are expended like
so much coal or oil in the race to turn out more armaments, to capture more
territory,  to  control more labour  power, to  turn out more armaments, to
capture more territory, and so on indefinitely. It should be noted that the
fighting  never  really moves beyond  the edges  of the disputed areas. The
frontiers of Eurasia flow back and forth between the basin of the Congo and
the  northern  shore of the Mediterranean;  the islands of the Indian Ocean
and  the Pacific are constantly being captured and recaptured by Oceania or
by  Eastasia; in Mongolia the dividing line between Eurasia and Eastasia is
never  stable; round  the  Pole  all three  powers  lay  claim to  enormous
territories  which  in fact are  largely unihabited and unexplored: but the
balance of power always remains roughly even, and the territory which forms
the  heartland of  each super-state always remains inviolate. Moreover, the
labour  of the  exploited peoples round the Equator is not really necessary
to  the world's economy. They add nothing to the wealth of the world, since
whatever they produce is used for purposes of war, and the object of waging
a war is always to be in a better position in which to wage another war. By
their labour the slave populations allow the tempo of continuous warfare to
be  speeded up. But  if they did not exist, the structure of world society,
and  the  process by  which it  maintains itself,  would not be essentially
different.
     The  primary aim  of modern warfare (in accordance with the principles
of doublethink, this aim is simultaneously recognized and not recognized by
the  directing brains of  the Inner Party) is to use up the products of the
machine  without raising the general standard of living. Ever since the end
of  the nineteenth  century, the problem of  what to do with the surplus of
consumption  goods has  been latent in industrial society. At present, when
few  human  beings even have  enough to eat,  this problem is obviously not
urgent, and it might not have become so, even if no artificial processes of
destruction  had been  at  work. The  world  of today  is  a bare,  hungry,
dilapidated  place  compared with  the world that  existed before 1914, and
still  more so if compared with the imaginary future to which the people of
that period looked forward. In the early twentieth century, the vision of a
future  society  unbelievably rich,  leisured, orderly,  and efficient -- a
glittering  antiseptic world  of glass and steel and snow-white concrete --
was  part of the consciousness of nearly every literate person. Science and
technology  were developing at a prodigious speed, and it seemed natural to
assume  that  they would  go on  developing. This  failed to happen, partly
because  of  the  impoverishment  caused  by a  long  series  of  wars  and
revolutions,  partly  because scientific and technical progress depended on
the  empirical habit  of thought,  which could  not survive  in a  strictly
regimented  society.  As a whole the  world is more primitive today than it
was  fifty years  ago. Certain  backward areas  have advanced,  and various
devices,  always  in some way  connected with warfare and police espionage,
have been developed, but experiment and invention have largely stopped, and
the ravages of the atomic war of the nineteen-fifties have never been fully
repaired. Nevertheless the dangers inherent in the machine are still there.
From  the moment when the machine first made its appearance it was clear to
all  thinking  people that the need  for human drudgery, and therefore to a
great  extent  for human  inequality, had disappeared.  If the machine were
used  deliberately  for that  end, hunger,  overwork, dirt, illiteracy, and
disease  could be eliminated within a few generations. And in fact, without
being  used for any  such purpose, but by a sort of automatic process -- by
producing wealth which it was sometimes impossible not to distribute -- the
machine  did  raise the living  standards of  the average humand being very
greatly over a period of about fifty years at the end of the nineteenth and
the beginning of the twentieth centuries.
     But  it was also clear that an all-round increase in wealth threatened
the  destruction --  indeed, in  some  sense was  the destruction  -- of  a
hierarchical  society. In a world in which everyone worked short hours, had
enough  to  eat, lived in  a house with a  bathroom and a refrigerator, and
possessed  a  motor-car or even an  aeroplane, the most obvious and perhaps
the most important form of inequality would already have disappeared. If it
once  became general,  wealth would confer no distinction. It was possible,
no  doubt, to  imagine a society in  which wealth, in the sense of personal
possessions  and  luxuries,  should  be  evenly  distributed,  while  power
remained  in the hands  of a small privileged caste. But in practice such a
society  could  not long  remain stable.  For if  leisure and security were
enjoyed  by all  alike, the  great mass  of human  beings who  are normally
stupefied  by  poverty would become  literate and  would learn to think for
themselves;  and  when once they had  done this, they would sooner or later
realize  that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep
it  away.  In the long  run, a hierarchical society  was only possible on a
basis of poverty and ignorance. To return to the agricultural past, as some
thinkers about the beginning of the twentieth century dreamed of doing, was
not  a  practicable  solution.  It conflicted  with  the  tendency  towards
mechanization  which had  become  quasi-instinctive  throughout almost  the
whole world, and moreover, any country which remained industrially backward
was helpless in a military sense and was bound to be dominated, directly or
indirectly, by its more advanced rivals.
     Nor  was  it a satisfactory solution  to keep the masses in poverty by
restricting the output of goods. This happened to a great extent during the
final  phase  of capitalism, roughly between  1920 and 1940. The economy of
many  countries was  allowed to  stagnate,  land went  out of  cultivation,
capital  equipment  was not added  to, great  blocks of the population were
prevented from working and kept half alive by State charity. But this, too,
entailed  military weakness,  and since  the privations  it inflicted  were
obviously  unnecessary, it  made opposition inevitable. The problem was how
to  keep the  wheels of industry turning without increasing the real wealth
of the world. Goods must be produced, but they must not be distributed. And
in practice the only way of achieving this was by continuous warfare.
     The  essential act  of war  is destruction,  not necessarily  of human
lives,  but of the  products of human labour. War is a way of shattering to
pieces,  or pouring  into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the
sea,  materials which  might  otherwise  be used  to  make  the masses  too
comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent. Even when weapons
of  war are not actually destroyed, their manufacture is still a convenient
way  of expending  labour  power  without producing  anything  that can  be
consumed.  A Floating Fortress, for example, has locked up in it the labour
that  would build several hundred cargo-ships. Ultimately it is scrapped as
obsolete,  never  having brought any  material benefit to anybody, and with
further  enormous labours  another Floating Fortress is built. In principle
the  war  effort is always so  planned as to  eat up any surplus that might
exist after meeting the bare needs of the population. In practice the needs
of  the population are always underestimated, with the result that there is
a  chronic shortage of  half the necessities of life; but this is looked on
as  an advantage.  It is deliberate policy to keep even the favoured groups
somewhere  near the  brink of hardship, because a general state of scarcity
increases  the  importance  of  small privileges  and  thus  magnifies  the
distinction  between  one group and another.  By the standards of the early
twentieth  century, even  a member  of the  Inner Party  lives an  austere,
laborious  kind of  life. Nevertheless, the few luxuries that he does enjoy
his  large, well-appointed  flat, the  better texture  of his  clothes, the
better  quality  of his  food  and  drink and  tobacco,  his  two or  three
servants,  his  private motor-car or  helicopter --  set him in a different
world  from a member of the Outer Party, and the members of the Outer Party
have  a  similar advantage in comparison  with the submerged masses whom we
call  'the proles'. The social atmosphere is that of a besieged city, where
the  possession of a lump of horseflesh makes the difference between wealth
and  poverty. And  at the same time  the consciousness of being at war, and
therefore  in danger,  makes the handing-over of all power to a small caste
seem the natural, unavoidable condition of survival.
     War,  it will  be seen,  accomplishes the  necessary destruction,  but
accomplishes  it in a psychologically acceptable way. In principle it would
be  quite simple  to waste  the  surplus labour  of the  world by  building
temples  and pyramids,  by digging holes and filling them up again, or even
by  producing  vast quantities of goods  and then setting fire to them. But
this  would  provide only  the economic  and not the  emotional basis for a
hierarchical  society. What  is concerned here is not the morale of masses,
whose  attitude  is unimportant so long  as they are kept steadily at work,
but  the morale  of the  Party itself.  Even the  humblest Party  member is
expected  to be  competent, industrious, and even intelligent within narrow
limits, but it is also necessary that he should be a credulous and ignorant
fanatic  whose prevailing  moods are fear, hatred, adulation, and orgiastic
triumph.  In other  words it is necessary that he should have the mentality
appropriate  to a  state of  war. It  does not  matter whether  the war  is
actually happening, and, since no decisive victory is possible, it does not
matter whether the war is going well or badly. All that is needed is that a
state  of  war should  exist. The  splitting of  the intelligence which the
Party  requires  of its  members, and  which is more  easily achieved in an
atmosphere of war, is now almost universal, but the higher up the ranks one
goes,  the more marked  it becomes. It is precisely in the Inner Party that
war  hysteria and hatred  of the enemy are strongest. In his capacity as an
administrator,  it  is often necessary  for a member  of the Inner Party to
know  that this or that item of war news is untruthful, and he may often be
aware  that  the entire war  is spurious and is  either not happening or is
being  waged for  purposes quite  other than  the declared  ones: but  such
knowledge  is easily neutralized by the technique of doublethink. Meanwhile
no Inner Party member wavers for an instant in his mystical belief that the
war  is  real, and that  it is bound to  end victoriously, with Oceania the
undisputed master of the entire world.
     All  members of  the Inner Party believe in this coming conquest as an
article  of faith.  It is to be achieved either by gradually acquiring more
and  more territory  and so  building up  an overwhelming  preponderance of
power,  or by the discovery of some new and unanswerable weapon. The search
for new weapons continues unceasingly, and is one of the very few remaining
activities  in which the inventive or speculative type of mind can find any
outlet.  In Oceania  at the  present day,  Science, in  the old  sense, has
almost  ceased  to exist. In  Newspeak there is  no word for 'Science'. The
empirical  method  of thought, on  which all the scientific achievements of
the  past  were founded, is  opposed to  the most fundamental principles of
Ingsoc.  And even technological progress only happens when its products can
in  some way be used for the diminution of human liberty. In all the useful
arts  the world is either standing still or going backwards. The fields are
cultivated  with horse-ploughs while books are written by machinery. But in
matters of vital importance -- meaning, in effect, war and police espionage
--  the empirical  approach is still encouraged, or at least tolerated. The
two  aims of the Party are to conquer the whole surface of the earth and to
extinguish  once and  for all the possibility of independent thought. There
are therefore two great problems which the Party is concerned to solve. One
is how to discover, against his will, what another human being is thinking,
and  the other  is how  to kill  several hundred  million people  in a  few
seconds without giving warning beforehand. In so far as scientific research
still  continues,  this is  its subject  matter. The  scientist of today is
either  a  mixture  of  psychologist and  inquisitor,  studying  with  real
ordinary  minuteness the meaning of facial expressions, gestures, and tones
of  voice, and testing the truth-producing effects of drugs, shock therapy,
hypnosis,  and physical  torture; or he is chemist, physicist, or biologist
concerned only with such branches of his special subject as are relevant to
the  taking of life. In the vast laboratories of the Ministry of Peace, and
in  the  experimental stations hidden  in the  Brazilian forests, or in the
Australian  desert, or  on  lost islands  of the  Antarctic,  the teams  of
experts  are indefatigably at work. Some are concerned simply with planning
the logistics of future wars; others devise larger and larger rocket bombs,
more  and more  powerful explosives, and more and more impenetrable armour-
plating;  others search  for new and deadlier gases, or for soluble poisons
capable  of being  produced in such quantities as to destroy the vegetation
of  whole continents,  or for breeds of disease germs immunized against all
possible antibodies; others strive to produce a vehicle that shall bore its
way  under  the soil like  a submarine under the  water, or an aeroplane as
independent  of its  base as  a sailing-ship;  others explore  even remoter
possibilities  such as  focusing the  sun's rays  through lenses  suspended
thousands  of kilometres away in space, or producing artificial earthquakes
and tidal waves by tapping the heat at the earth's centre.
     But  none of  these projects ever comes anywhere near realization, and
none of the three super-states ever gains a significant lead on the others.
What  is  more remarkable is that  all three powers already possess, in the
atomic  bomb, a  weapon  far  more powerful  than  any  that their  present
researches  are  likely to  discover. Although the  Party, according to its
habit,  claims the  invention for  itself, atomic  bombs first  appeared as
early  as the  nineteen-forties, and were first used on a large scale about
ten  years later.  At that  time  some hundreds  of bombs  were dropped  on
industrial  centres, chiefly  in European Russia, Western Europe, and North
America. The effect was to convince the ruling groups of all countries that
a  few more atomic bombs would mean the end of organized society, and hence
of  their own power. Thereafter, although no formal agreement was ever made
or  hinted at, no more bombs were dropped. All three powers merely continue
to  produce atomic bombs and store them up against the decisive opportunity
which  they all believe will come sooner or later. And meanwhile the art of
war  has remained  almost stationary for thirty or forty years. Helicopters
are  more  used than they  were formerly,  bombing planes have been largely
superseded   by   self-propelled  projectiles,   and  the  fragile  movable
battleship  has  given way to  the almost unsinkable Floating Fortress; but
otherwise  there has  been little development. The tank, the submarine, the
torpedo,  the machine gun, even the rifle and the hand grenade are still in
use.  And in  spite of the endless  slaughters reported in the Press and on
the  telescreens, the  desperate battles of earlier wars, in which hundreds
of thousands or even millions of men were often killed in a few weeks, have
never been repeated.
     None  of the  three  super-states ever  attempts  any manoeuvre  which
involves   the  risk  of  serious  defeat.  When  any  large  operation  is
undertaken,  it is  usually a surprise attack against an ally. The strategy
that all three powers are following, or pretend to themselves that they are
following,  is  the same.  The  plan  is,  by  a combination  of  fighting,
bargaining, and well-timed strokes of treachery, to acquire a ring of bases
completely  encircling one or other of the rival states, and then to sign a
pact of friendship with that rival and remain on peaceful terms for so many
years  as to  lull suspicion to sleep. During this time rockets loaded with
atomic bombs can be assembled at all the strategic spots; finally they will
all  be  fired simultaneously,  with  effects  so  devastating as  to  make
retaliation  impossible. It  will then be time to sign a pact of friendship
with  the  remaining world-power,  in preparation  for another attack. This
scheme,  it  is hardly necessary to  say, is a mere daydream, impossible of
realization. Moreover, no fighting ever occurs except in the disputed areas
round  the  Equator and  the Pole:  no invasion of  enemy territory is ever
undertaken.  This explains  the  fact  that in  some  places the  frontiers
between  the superstates  are arbitrary. Eurasia, for example, could easily
conquer  the British  Isles, which are geographically part of Europe, or on
the  other hand  it would be possible  for Oceania to push its frontiers to
the  Rhine  or even to  the Vistula. But  this would violate the principle,
followed  on  all sides though  never formulated, of cultural integrity. If
Oceania  were to conquer the areas that used once to be known as France and
Germany,  it  would be  necessary either to  exterminate the inhabitants, a
task of great physical difficulty, or to assimilate a population of about a
hundred  million people,  who, so  far as  technical development  goes, are
roughly  on the Oceanic level. The problem is the same for all three super-
states.  It is absolutely necessary to their structure that there should be
no contact with foreigners, except, to a limited extent, with war prisoners
and  coloured slaves.  Even  the  official ally  of  the  moment is  always
regarded  with the  darkest  suspicion. War  prisoners  apart, the  average
citizen  of Oceania  never sets  eyes  on a  citizen of  either Eurasia  or
Eastasia,  and  he is forbidden  the knowledge  of foreign languages. If he
were  allowed contact  with  foreigners  he would  discover  that they  are
creatures  similar to himself  and that most of what he has been told about
them  is lies. The  sealed world in which he lives would be broken, and the
fear,  hatred, and  self-righteousness on  which his  morale depends  might
evaporate. It is therefore realized on all sides that however often Persia,
or  Egypt,  or Java,  or Ceylon  may change hands,  the main frontiers must
never be crossed by anything except bombs.
     Under  this lies  a fact never mentioned aloud, but tacitly understood
and  acted  upon: namely, that  the conditions of  life in all three super-
states  are  very much  the same.  In Oceania  the prevailing philosophy is
called  Ingsoc, in  Eurasia it is called Neo-Bolshevism, and in Eastasia it
is  called by  a  Chinese  name usually  translated  as Death-Worship,  but
perhaps better rendered as Obliteration of the Self. The citizen of Oceania
is   not  allowed  to  know  anything  of  the  tenets  of  the  other  two
philosophies,  but he is taught to execrate them as barbarous outrages upon
morality  and common  sense.  Actually the  three  philosophies are  barely
distinguishable,  and  the  social  systems  which  they  support  are  not
distinguishable  at all.  Everywhere there is the same pyramidal structure,
the  same  worship of semi-divine leader,  the same economy existing by and
for  continuous  warfare. It  follows that the  three super-states not only
cannot conquer one another, but would gain no advantage by doing so. On the
contrary, so long as they remain in conflict they prop one another up, like
three sheaves of corn. And, as usual, the ruling groups of all three powers
are  simultaneously  aware and unaware of  what they are doing. Their lives
are  dedicated  to world conquest, but  they also know that it is necessary
that  the war  should continue everlastingly and without victory. Meanwhile
the  fact that there  IS no danger of conquest makes possible the denial of
reality  which  is the special  feature of Ingsoc  and its rival systems of
thought. Here it is necessary to repeat what has been said earlier, that by
becoming continuous war has fundamentally changed its character.
     In  past ages,  a war, almost by definition, was something that sooner
or  later came to an end, usually in unmistakable victory or defeat. In the
past,  also,  war was one of  the main instruments by which human societies
were kept in touch with physical reality. All rulers in all ages have tried
to  impose a  false view of the  world upon their followers, but they could
not  afford  to encourage  any  illusion  that  tended to  impair  military
efficiency. So long as defeat meant the loss of independence, or some other
result generally held to be undesirable, the precautions against defeat had
to  be serious.  Physical facts  could not  be ignored.  In philosophy,  or
religion, or ethics, or politics, two and two might make five, but when one
was  designing  a gun  or an  aeroplane they had  to make four. Inefficient
nations  were  always conquered  sooner  or  later,  and the  struggle  for
efficiency  was inimical  to illusions.  Moreover, to  be efficient  it was
necessary  to be  able to learn from  the past, which meant having a fairly
accurate  idea  of what  had happened  in the  past. Newspapers and history
books were, of course, always coloured and biased, but falsification of the
kind  that  is practised today  would have been  impossible. War was a sure
safeguard of sanity, and so far as the ruling classes were concerned it was
probably  the most  important of all safeguards. While wars could be won or
lost, no ruling class could be completely irresponsible.
     But  when war  becomes  literally  continuous, it  also  ceases to  be
dangerous.  When war  is  continuous there  is no  such  thing as  military
necessity.  Technical progress can cease and the most palpable facts can be
denied  or  disregarded. As we  have seen,  researches that could be called
scientific  are  still carried  out for  the purposes of  war, but they are
essentially a kind of daydreaming, and their failure to show results is not
important.  Efficiency,  even military  efficiency,  is  no longer  needed.
Nothing  is  efficient in Oceania except  the Thought Police. Since each of
the  three super-states  is unconquerable,  each  is in  effect a  separate
universe  within which  almost  any  perversion of  thought  can be  safely
practised.  Reality only  exerts its pressure through the needs of everyday
life  -- the  need to eat and  drink, to get shelter and clothing, to avoid
swallowing  poison or  stepping out  of top-storey  windows, and  the like.
Between  life  and death, and  between physical pleasure and physical pain,
there  is still  a distinction, but that  is all. Cut off from contact with
the outer world, and with the past, the citizen of Oceania is like a man in
interstellar  space,  who has no  way of knowing  which direction is up and
which  is down. The rulers of such a state are absolute, as the Pharaohs or
the  Caesars could not be. They are obliged to prevent their followers from
starving  to death in numbers large enough to be inconvenient, and they are
obliged  to  remain at  the same  low level of  military technique as their
rivals;  but  once that  minimum is  achieved, they  can twist reality into
whatever shape they choose.
     The  war, therefore, if we judge it by the standards of previous wars,
is  merely  an imposture. It  is like  the battles between certain ruminant
animals  whose  horns are set  at such an angle  that they are incapable of
hurting one another. But though it is unreal it is not meaningless. It eats
up  the  surplus of consumable goods,  and it helps to preserve the special
mental  atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs. War, it will be seen,
is  now  a purely  internal affair. In  the past, the  ruling groups of all
countries,   although  they  might  recognize  their  common  interest  and
therefore  limit the destructiveness of war, did fight against one another,
and the victor always plundered the vanquished. In our own day they are not
fighting  against one another at all. The war is waged by each ruling group
against  its  own subjects,  and the  object of the  war is  not to make or
prevent  conquests of  territory,  but  to keep  the  structure of  society
intact.  The  very word  'war', therefore, has  become misleading. It would
probably  be accurate  to say that by becoming continuous war has ceased to
exist.  The  peculiar pressure that it  exerted on human beings between the
Neolithic  Age and  the early  twentieth century  has disappeared  and been
replaced by something quite different. The effect would be much the same if
the  three  super-states, instead of  fighting one another, should agree to
live  in perpetual  peace, each inviolate within its own boundaries. For in
that  case  each would still  be a  self-contained universe, freed for ever
from  the  sobering influence  of external  danger. A  peace that was truly
permanent  would be the  same as a permanent war. This -- although the vast
majority of Party members understand it only in a shallower sense -- is the
inner meaning of the Party slogan: War is peace.

     Winston  stopped reading  for a moment. Somewhere in remote distance a
rocket  bomb  thundered. The  blissful  feeling  of  being alone  with  the
forbidden  book,  in a room with  no telescreen, had not worn off. Solitude
and safety were physical sensations, mixed up somehow with the tiredness of
his body, the softness of the chair, the touch of the faint breeze from the
window that played upon his cheek. The book fascinated him, or more exactly
it reassured him. In a sense it told him nothing that was new, but that was
part  of  the attraction. It said  what he would  have said, if it had been
possible for him to set his scattered thoughts in order. It was the product
of  a  mind  similar  to  his  own,  but  enormously  more  powerful,  more
systematic,  less fear-ridden. The best books, he perceived, are those that
tell  you what you  know already. He had just turned back to Chapter I when
he heard Julia's footstep on the stair and started out of his chair to meet
her.  She dumped her brown tool-bag on the floor and flung herself into his
arms. It was more than a week since they had seen one another.
     'I've got the book,' he said as they disentangled themselves.
     'Oh,  you've got it? Good,' she said without much interest, and almost
immediately knelt down beside the oil stove to make the coffee.
     They did not return to the subject until they had been in bed for half
an hour. The evening was just cool enough to make it worth while to pull up
the  counterpane.  From below  came the  familiar sound  of singing and the
scrape  of boots on the flagstones. The brawny red-armed woman whom Winston
had  seen there on  his first visit was almost a fixture in the yard. There
seemed  to  be no  hour of  daylight when she  was not  marching to and fro
between  the washtub and the line, alternately gagging herself with clothes
pegs and breaking forth into lusty song. Julia had settled down on her side
and seemed to be already on the point of falling asleep. He reached out for
the book, which was lying on the floor, and sat up against the bedhead.
     'We  must read  it,' he said. 'You too. All members of the Brotherhood
have to read it.'
     'You read it,' she said with her eyes shut. 'Read it aloud. That's the
best way. Then you can explain it to me as you go.'
     The  clock's hands  said six, meaning eighteen. They had three or four
hours  ahead of  them. He  propped  the book  against his  knees and  began
reading:

        Chapter I.

        Ignorance is Strength.

     Throughout  recorded time, and probably since the end of the Neolithic
Age,  there  have been  three kinds of  people in the  world, the High, the
Middle,  and  the Low.  They have  been subdivided in  many ways, they have
borne  countless  different names,  and their relative  numbers, as well as
their  attitude  towards one another, have  varied from age to age: but the
essential  structure of  society  has never  altered.  Even after  enormous
upheavals  and  seemingly irrevocable changes,  the same pattern has always
reasserted  itself,  just as a  gyroscope will always return to equilibnum,
however far it is pushed one way or the other
     'Julia, are you awake?' said Winston.
     'Yes, my love, I'm listening. Go on. It's marvellous.'
     He continued reading:

     The aims of these three groups are entirely irreconcilable. The aim of
the  High is  to remain where they are.  The aim of the Middle is to change
places  with the High.  The aim of the Low, when they have an aim -- for it
is  an abiding characteristic  of the Low that they are too much crushed by
drudgery to be more than intermittently conscious of anything outside their
daily lives -- is to abolish all distinctions and create a society in which
all  men  shall be equal.  Thus throughout history  a struggle which is the
same  in its main outlines recurs over and over again. For long periods the
High seem to be securely in power, but sooner or later there always comes a
moment  when they  lose either their belief in themselves or their capacity
to govern efficiently, or both. They are then overthrown by the Middle, who
enlist  the Low on  their side by pretending to them that they are fighting
for  liberty and justice. As soon as they have reached their objective, the
Middle  thrust the  Low  back into  their old  position  of servitude,  and
themselves  become  the High. Presently a  new Middle group splits off from
one of the other groups, or from both of them, and the struggle begins over
again.  Of the  three  groups,  only the  Low  are  never even  temporarily
successful in achieving their aims. It would be an exaggeration to say that
throughout  history  there has  been no  progress of  a material kind. Even
today, in a period of decline, the average human being is physically better
off than he was a few centuries ago. But no advance in wealth, no softening
of  manners, no  reform or  revolution has  ever brought  human equality  a
millimetre  nearer.  From the point of  view of the Low, no historic change
has ever meant much more than a change in the name of their masters.
     By  the late  nineteenth century  the recurrence  of this  pattern had
become  obvious to  many observers. There then rose schools of thinkers who
interpreted  history  as  a  cyclical  process and  claimed  to  show  that
inequality was the unalterable law of human life. This doctrine, of course,
had  always  had its adherents, but  in the manner  in which it was now put
forward  there  was a  significant  change.  In the  past  the  need for  a
hierarchical  form of  society had  been the  doctrine specifically  of the
High.  It  had been preached  by kings and  aristocrats and by the priests,
lawyers,  and the like who were parasitical upon them, and it had generally
been  softened by promises of compensation in an imaginary world beyond the
grave.  The Middle, so long as it was struggling for power, had always made
use  of  such terms as freedom,  justice, and fraternity. Now, however, the
concept  of  human brotherhood began to  be assailed by people who were not
yet  in positions of command, but merely hoped to be so before long. In the
past the Middle had made revolutions under the banner of equality, and then
had  established a fresh tyranny as soon as the old one was overthrown. The
new Middle groups in effect proclaimed their tyranny beforehand. Socialism,
a  theory  which appeared in the  early nineteenth century and was the last
link  in a  chain of  thought stretching  back to  the slave  rebellions of
antiquity, was still deeply infected by the Utopianism of past ages. But in
each  variant of Socialism that appeared from about 1900 onwards the aim of
establishing  liberty and  equality was more and more openly abandoned. The
new  movements which appeared in the middle years of the century, Ingsoc in
Oceania,  Neo-Bolshevism  in  Eurasia,  Death-Worship, as  it  is  commonly
called,  in  Eastasia, had the  conscious aim of perpetuating UNfreedom and
INequality.  These  new movements, of course,  grew out of the old ones and
tended  to keep  their names and pay lip-service to their ideology. But the
purpose  of  all of  them was  to arrest  progress and  freeze history at a
chosen  moment.  The familiar pendulum  swing was  to happen once more, and
then  stop.  As usual, the  High were  to be turned  out by the Middle, who
would  then become the High; but this time, by conscious strategy, the High
would be able to maintain their position permanently.
     The  new  doctrines  arose  partly  because  of  the  accumulation  of
historical  knowledge,  and the  growth of the  historical sense, which had
hardly  existed before  the nineteenth  century. The  cyclical movement  of
history  was  now  intelligible, or  appeared  to  be  so;  and if  it  was
intelligible,  then  it was alterable.  But the principal, underlying cause
was  that, as  early  as  the beginning  of  the  twentieth century,  human
equality  had become  technically possible. It was still true that men were
not  equal in their native talents and that functions had to be specialized
in  ways  that favoured some  individuals against  others; but there was no
longer  any  real need for  class distinctions  or for large differences of
wealth.  In  earlier ages, class  distinctions had been not only inevitable
but   desirable.  Inequality  was  the  price  of  civilization.  With  the
development  of machine  production, however, the case was altered. Even if
it  was still necessary  for human beings to do different kinds of work, it
was  no  longer necessary for them  to live at different social or economic
levels. Therefore, from the point of view of the new groups who were on the
point of seizing power, human equality was no longer an ideal to be striven
after,  but a danger to be averted. In more primitive ages, when a just and
peaceful  society was  in fact  not possible,  it had  been fairly  easy to
believe  it. The  idea of  an  earthly paradise  in which  men should  live
together  in a state of brotherhood, without laws and without brute labour,
had  haunted the  human imagination for thousands of years. And this vision
had  had  a certain hold  even on the groups  who actually profited by each
historical   change.  The  heirs  of  the  French,  English,  and  American
revolutions  had  partly believed in their  own phrases about the rights of
man,  freedom  of speech, equality  before the law,  and the like, and have
even  allowed their conduct to be influenced by them to some extent. But by
the  fourth decade  of  the  twentieth century  all  the  main currents  of
political  thought  were  authoritarian.  The  earthly  paradise  had  been
discredited  at exactly  the moment  when it  became realizable.  Every new
political  theory, by whatever name it called itself, led back to hierarchy
and  regimentation.  And in  the general  hardening of  outlook that set in
round  about  1930, practices which had  been long abandoned, in some cases
for  hundreds of  years  --  imprisonment without  trial,  the  use of  war
prisoners as slaves, public executions, torture to extract confessions, the
use  of hostages,  and the  deportation of  whole populations  -- not  only
became  common  again, but were  tolerated and  even defended by people who
considered themselves enlightened and progressive.
     It  was only after a decade of national wars, civil wars, revolutions,
and  counter-revolutions in  all parts  of the  world that  Ingsoc and  its
rivals  emerged  as fully worked-out  political theories. But they had been
foreshadowed  by  the various systems, generally called totalitarian, which
had  appeared  earlier in the  century, and the  main outlines of the world
which  would  emerge from the prevailing  chaos had long been obvious. What
kind  of people  would control this world had been equally obvious. The new
aristocracy  was made  up for  the  most part  of bureaucrats,  scientists,
technicians,   trade-union  organizers,  publicity  experts,  sociologists,
teachers,  journalists,  and professional  politicians. These people, whose
origins  lay in  the salaried  middle  class and  the upper  grades of  the
working  class, had been shaped and brought together by the barren world of
monopoly  industry  and  centralized  government. As  compared  with  their
opposite  numbers in  past ages, they were less avaricious, less tempted by
luxury,  hungrier  for pure power,  and, above  all, more conscious of what
they  were  doing  and  more  intent  on  crushing  opposition.  This  last
difference  was  cardinal. By comparison  with that existing today, all the
tyrannies  of the past were half-hearted and inefficient. The ruling groups
were  always infected  to some extent by liberal ideas, and were content to
leave  loose ends  everywhere,  to regard  only  the overt  act  and to  be
uninterested in what their subjects were thinking. Even the Catholic Church
of the Middle Ages was tolerant by modern standards. Part of the reason for
this  was that in the past no government had the power to keep its citizens
under  constant surveillance.  The  invention of  print,  however, made  it
easier to manipulate public opinion, and the film and the radio carried the
process  further. With  the development  of television,  and the  technical
advance  which  made it possible  to receive and transmit simultaneously on
the  same  instrument, private  life came  to an end.  Every citizen, or at
least  every  citizen important enough to  be worth watching, could be kept
for twentyfour hours a day under the eyes of the police and in the sound of
official  propaganda, with  all other channels of communication closed. The
possibility  of  enforcing not only  complete obedience  to the will of the
State,  but complete uniformity of opinion on all subjects, now existed for
the first time.
     After  the  revolutionary period  of the  fifties and sixties, society
regrouped  itself, as  always, into High, Middle, and Low. But the new High
group,  unlike all its forerunners, did not act upon instinct but knew what
was  needed  to safeguard its position.  It had long been realized that the
only  secure basis  for oligarchy is collectivism. Wealth and privilege are
most  easily  defended  when  they are  possessed  jointly.  The  so-called
'abolition of private property' which took place in the middle years of the
century  meant, in effect, the concentration of property in far fewer hands
than  before:  but with this  difference, that the  new owners were a group
instead of a mass of individuals. Individually, no member of the Party owns
anything,  except  petty personal  belongings. Collectively, the Party owns
everything  in Oceania, because it controls everything, and disposes of the
products  as  it thinks fit.  In the years  following the Revolution it was
able  to  step into this  commanding position almost unopposed, because the
whole  process was represented as an act of collectivization. It had always
been assumed that if the capitalist class were expropriated, Socialism must
follow:   and   unquestionably  the   capitalists  had  been  expropriated.
Factories, mines, land, houses, transport -- everything had been taken away
from  them: and  since these  things were  no longer  private property,  it
followed  that they  must be public property. Ingsoc, which grew out of the
earlier  Socialist movement  and  inherited its  phraseology,  has in  fact
carried  out  the main  item in  the Socialist  programme; with the result,
foreseen  and  intended beforehand, that  economic inequality has been made
permanent.
     But the problems of perpetuating a hierarchical society go deeper than
this. There are only four ways in which a ruling group can fall from power.
Either  it  is conquered from without,  or it governs so inefficiently that
the  masses  are stirred to revolt,  or it allows a strong and discontented
Middle  group  to come into being,  or it loses its own self-confidence and
willingness  to  govern. These causes do  not operate singly, and as a rule
all  four  of them are  present in some degree.  A ruling class which could
guard against all of them would remain in power permanently. Ultimately the
determining factor is the mental attitude of the ruling class itself.
     After  the middle  of the  present century,  the first  danger had  in
reality disappeared. Each of the three powers which now divide the world is
in  fact unconquerable,  and  could only  become  conquerable through  slow
demographic  changes which  a government with wide powers can easily avert.
The second danger, also, is only a theoretical one. The masses never revolt
of  their  own accord,  and  they  never  revolt  merely because  they  are
oppressed.  Indeed, so  long as they are not permitted to have standards of
comparison,  they never  even become  aware  that they  are oppressed.  The
recurrent  economic  crises of past  times were totally unnecessary and are
not  now permitted  to happen, but other and equally large dislocations can
and  do happen without having political results, because there is no way in
which  discontent  can become  articulate.  As  for  the problem  of  over-
production,  which has  been latent in our society since the development of
machine  technique,  it is solved by  the device of continuous warfare (see
Chapter  III), which  is also  useful  in keying  up public  morale to  the
necessary  pitch. From  the point of view of our present rulers, therefore,
the  only  genuine dangers  are the  splitting-off of a  new group of able,
under-employed,  power-hungry  people, and  the  growth  of liberalism  and
scepticism in their own ranks. The problem, that is to say, is educational.
It  is  a problem  of continuously  moulding the  consciousness both of the
directing  group  and of  the larger executive  group that lies immediately
below  it. The consciousness of the masses needs only to be influenced in a
negative way.
     Given  this background,  one  could  infer, if  one  did  not know  it
already,  the general  structure of  Oceanic society.  At the  apex of  the
pyramid  comes Big  Brother. Big  Brother is  infallible and  all-powerful.
Every   success,   every  achievement,   every  victory,  every  scientific
discovery,  all knowledge,  all wisdom, all happiness, all virtue, are held
to issue directly from his leadership and inspiration. Nobody has ever seen
Big  Brother. He is  a face on the hoardings, a voice on the telescreen. We
may  be reasonably  sure  that he  will  never die,  and  there is  already
considerable  uncertainty as  to when he was born. Big Brother is the guise
in  which the Party chooses to exhibit itself to the world. His function is
to  act  as a focusing point  for love, fear, and reverence, emotions which
are  more  easily felt towards  an individual than towards an organization.
Below  Big Brother  comes  the  Inner Party.  Its  numbers  limited to  six
millions,  or something  less than 2 per cent of the population of Oceania.
Below  the Inner Party  comes the Outer Party, which, if the Inner Party is
described  as the  brain of the State,  may be justly likened to the hands.
Below  that come  the  dumb masses  whom  we habitually  refer  to as  'the
proles',  numbering perhaps  85 per cent of the population. In the terms of
our  earlier  classification,  the  proles  are  the  Low:  for  the  slave
population  of  the equatorial lands  who pass constantly from conqueror to
conqueror, are not a permanent or necessary part of the structure.
     In  principle, membership of these three groups is not hereditary. The
child  of Inner  Party parents is in  theory not born into the Inner Party.
Admission to either branch of the Party is by examination, taken at the age
of  sixteen.  Nor  is  there  any  racial  discrimination,  or  any  marked
domination  of  one province by  another. Jews, Negroes, South Americans of
pure  Indian blood  are to be found  in the highest ranks of the Party, and
the  administrators  of any area  are always  drawn from the inhabitants of
that  area. In no  part of Oceania do the inhabitants have the feeling that
they are a colonial population ruled from a distant capital. Oceania has no
capital,  and its  titular head is a person whose whereabouts nobody knows.
Except  that  English is its chief  lingua franca and Newspeak its official
language,  it is  not  centralized in  any  way. Its  rulers  are not  held
together  by  blood-ties but by adherence  to a common doctrine. It is true
that  our  society is stratified,  and very  rigidly stratified, on what at
first  sight  appear to be  hereditary lines.  There is far less to-and-fro
movement  between  the different  groups than  happened under capitalism or
even in the pre-industrial age. Between the two branches of the Party there
is  a certain  amount of interchange, but  only so much as will ensure that
weaklings  are excluded  from the Inner Party and that ambitious members of
the  Outer Party  are made harmless by allowing them to rise. Proletarians,
in  practice,  are not allowed to  graduate into the Party. The most gifted
among  them, who  might possibly  become nuclei  of discontent,  are simply
marked down by the Thought Police and eliminated. But this state of affairs
is not necessarily permanent, nor is it a matter of principle. The Party is
not  a class in  the old sense of the word. It does not aim at transmitting
power  to  its own  children, as  such; and if  there were  no other way of
keeping  the  ablest people at  the top, it  would be perfectly prepared to
recruit  an entire new generation from the ranks of the proletariat. In the
crucial  years,  the fact  that the Party  was not a  hereditary body did a
great  deal to  neutralize opposition. The older kind of Socialist, who had
been  trained  to fight against  something called 'class privilege' assumed
that  what is  not hereditary cannot be  permanent. He did not see that the
continuity  of an  oligarchy need  not  be physical,  nor did  he pause  to
reflect  that hereditary aristocracies have always been shortlived, whereas
adoptive  organizations  such as the  Catholic Church have sometimes lasted
for hundreds or thousands of years. The essence of oligarchical rule is not
father-to-son  inheritance, but the persistence of a certain world-view and
a  certain way of life, imposed by the dead upon the living. A ruling group
is  a ruling group  so long as it can nominate its successors. The Party is
not concerned with perpetuating its blood but with perpetuating itself. Who
wields  power  is not  important, provided  that the hierarchical structure
remains always the same.
     All  the  beliefs, habits,  tastes,  emotions,  mental attitudes  that
characterize  our  time are really designed  to sustain the mystique of the
Party  and  prevent the  true  nature  of  present-day society  from  being
perceived.  Physical  rebellion, or any preliminary move towards rebellion,
is  at present not possible. From the proletarians nothing is to be feared.
Left  to  themselves, they will  continue from generation to generation and
from century to century, working, breeding, and dying, not only without any
impulse to rebel, but without the power of grasping that the world could be
other  than it  is. They  could  only become  dangerous if  the advance  of
industrial  technique  made it necessary  to educate them more highly; but,
since military and commercial rivalry are no longer important, the level of
popular  education is actually declining. What opinions the masses hold, or
do  not hold, is looked on as a matter of indifference. They can be granted
intellectual  liberty because they have no intellect. In a Party member, on
the  other  hand, not  even the  smallest deviation of  opinion on the most
unimportant subject can be tolerated.
     A  Party member lives from birth to death under the eye of the Thought
Police.  Even when  he is  alone he  can never  be sure  that he  is alone.
Wherever  he may be, asleep or awake, working or resting, in his bath or in
bed,  he  can be inspected  without warning and  without knowing that he is
being  inspected. Nothing that he does is indifferent. His friendships, his
relaxations, his behaviour towards his wife and children, the expression of
his  face when  he  is alone,  the  words  he mutters  in  sleep, even  the
characteristic  movements  of his body,  are all jealously scrutinized. Not
only  any actual  misdemeanour, but  any eccentricity,  however small,  any
change  of habits, any nervous mannerism that could possibly be the symptom
of  an  inner struggle,  is certain  to be  detected. He  has no freedom of
choice  in  any direction whatever.  On the other  hand his actions are not
regulated by law or by any clearly formulated code of behaviour. In Oceania
there  is  no law. Thoughts and  actions which, when detected, mean certain
death  are  not  formally  forbidden,  and  the  endless  purges,  arrests,
tortures,  imprisonments, and vaporizations are not inflicted as punishment
for  crimes which  have actually been committed, but are merely the wiping-
out of persons who might perhaps commit a crime at some time in the future.
A  Party  member is required  to have not only  the right opinions, but the
right  instincts.  Many of  the beliefs  and attitudes  demanded of him are
never  plainly stated,  and could  not be  stated without  laying bare  the
contradictions inherent in Ingsoc. If he is a person naturally orthodox (in
Newspeak  a goodthinker), he will in all circumstances know, without taking
thought,  what is the true belief or the desirable emotion. But in any case
an  elaborate  mental training, undergone  in childhood and grouping itself
round  the Newspeak words crimestop, blackwhite, and doublethink, makes him
unwilling and unable to think too deeply on any subject whatever.
     A Party member is expected to have no private emotions and no respites
from enthusiasm. He is supposed to live in a continuous frenzy of hatred of
foreign  enemies  and internal traitors,  triumph over victories, and self-
abasement  before  the power  and  wisdom  of  the Party.  The  discontents
produced  by  his bare, unsatisfying  life are deliberately turned outwards
and   dissipated  by  such  devices  as  the  Two  Minutes  Hate,  and  the
speculations which might possibly induce a sceptical or rebellious attitude
are killed in advance by his early acquired inner discipline. The first and
simplest  stage in  the  discipline,  which can  be  taught  even to  young
children, is called, in Newspeak, crimestop. Crimestop means the faculty of
stopping  short,  as though by instinct,  at the threshold of any dangerous
thought.  It  includes the power  of not  grasping analogies, of failing to
perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they
are  inimical  to Ingsoc,  and of being  bored or repelled  by any train of
thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in
short,  means protective  stupidity. But  stupidity is  not enough.  On the
contrary,  orthodoxy  in the  full sense  demands a  control over one's own
mental  processes  as complete  as that  of a  contortionist over his body.
Oceanic  society  rests  ultimately  on  the belief  that  Big  Brother  is
omnipotent  and that  the Party  is infallible.  But since  in reality  Big
Brother  is  not omnipotent and the  party is not infallible, there is need
for  an unwearying, moment-to-moment flexibility in the treatment of facts.
The  keyword here is blackwhite. Like so many Newspeak words, this word has
two  mutually contradictory  meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the
habit  of impudently  claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the
plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say
that  black is  white when Party discipline demands this. But it means also
the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is
white,  and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary. This demands
a continuous alteration of the past, made possible by the system of thought
which  really embraces  all the  rest, and  which is  known in  Newspeak as
doublethink.
     The  alteration of the past is necessary for two reasons, one of which
is  subsidiary  and, so  to speak, precautionary.  The subsidiary reason is
that   the  Party  member,  like  the  proletarian,  tolerates  present-day
conditions partly because he has no standards of comparison. He must be cut
off  from  the past,  just as  he must  be cut  off from foreign countries,
because  it is necessary  for him to believe that he is better off than his
ancestors  and that  the average  level of  material comfort  is constantly
rising.  But  by far the more  important reason for the readjustment of the
past  is  the need to  safeguard the infallibility of  the Party. It is not
merely  that  speeches, statistics,  and  records  of  every kind  must  be
constantly  brought up to date in order to show that the predictions of the
Party  were in all cases right. It is also that no change in doctrine or in
political alignment can ever be admitted. For to change one's mind, or even
one's  policy,  is a  confession of  weakness. If,  for example, Eurasia or
Eastasia  (whichever it  may be) is the enemy today, then that country must
always  have been the  enemy. And if the facts say otherwise then the facts
must  be  altered. Thus history  is continuously rewritten. This day-to-day
falsification  of  the past,  carried out  by the Ministry  of Truth, is as
necessary  to  the stability  of the  regime as the  work of repression and
espionage carried out by the Ministry of Love.
     The  mutability of  the  past is  the central  tenet  of Ingsoc.  Past
events,  it  is argued,  have no  objective existence,  but survive only in
written records and in human memories. The past is whatever the records and
the  memories  agree upon.  And since the  Party is in  full control of all
records and in equally full control of the minds of its members, it follows
that  the  past is whatever  the Party chooses to  make it. It also follows
that  though the  past  is alterable,  it  never has  been  altered in  any
specific  instance.  For when  it has  been recreated  in whatever shape is
needed  at the moment,  then this new version is the past, and no different
past  can  ever have existed. This  holds good even when, as often happens,
the  same event  has to be altered  out of recognition several times in the
course  of  a year.  At all  times the  Party is  in possession of absolute
truth,  and clearly the absolute can never have been different from what it
is  now. It will  be seen that the control of the past depends above all on
the  training  of memory. To make  sure that all written records agree with
the  orthodoxy  of the  moment is merely  a mechanical act.  But it is also
necessary to remember that events happened in the desired manner. And if it
is necessary to rearrange one's memories or to tamper with written records,
then  it  is necessary to forget  that one has  done so. The trick of doing
this  can be learned  like any other mental technique. It is learned by the
majority of Party members, and certainly by all who are intelligent as well
as orthodox. In Oldspeak it is called, quite frankly, 'reality control'. In
Newspeak  it is  called doublethink, though doublethink comprises much else
as well.
     Doublethink  means  the power of  holding two contradictory beliefs in
one's   mind  simultaneously,   and  accepting  both  of  them.  The  Party
intellectual  knows in  which direction  his memories  must be  altered; he
therefore knows that he is playing tricks with reality; but by the exercise
of  doublethink he also satisfies himself that reality is not violated. The
process has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient
precision,  but it also  has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a
feeling  of falsity  and hence of guilt. Doublethink lies at the very heart
of  Ingsoc, since  the  essential act  of  the Party  is  to use  conscious
deception  while retaining  the firmness of purpose that goes with complete
honesty.  To tell  deliberate lies  while genuinely  believing in  them, to
forget  any  fact that has  become inconvenient,  and then, when it becomes
necessary  again, to  draw it back from  oblivion for just so long as it is
needed,  to  deny the existence  of objective reality  and all the while to
take  account of  the reality which one denies -- all this is indispensably
necessary.  Even in  using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise
doublethink.  For  by using the word  one admits that one is tampering with
reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on
indefinitely,  with the  lie always one leap ahead of the truth. Ultimately
it  is by means of doublethink that the Party has been able -- and may, for
all  we know,  continue to be able  for thousands of years -- to arrest the
course of history.
     All  past  oligarchies have  fallen  from  power either  because  they
ossified or because they grew soft. Either they became stupid and arrogant,
failed to adjust themselves to changing circumstances, and were overthrown;
or they became liberal and cowardly, made concessions when they should have
used  force,  and once  again were  overthrown. They fell,  that is to say,
either   through  consciousness  or  through  unconsciousness.  It  is  the
achievement of the Party to have produced a system of thought in which both
conditions  can exist  simultaneously. And upon no other intellectual basis
could  the dominion of  the Party be made permanent. If one is to rule, and
to continue ruling, one must be able to dislocate the sense of reality. For
the  secret of  rulership is to combine a belief in one's own infallibility
with the Power to learn from past mistakes.
     It  need hardly be said that the subtlest practitioners of doublethink
are  those  who invented doublethink  and know that it  is a vast system of
mental  cheating. In our society, those who have the best knowledge of what
is  happening are  also those who are  furthest from seeing the world as it
is.  In  general, the greater  the understanding, the greater the delusion;
the  more intelligent, the less sane. One clear illustration of this is the
fact  that  war hysteria increases in  intensity as one rises in the social
scale. Those whose attitude towards the war is most nearly rational are the
subject  peoples  of the disputed  territories. To  these people the war is
simply a continuous calamity which sweeps to and fro over their bodies like
a tidal wave. Which side is winning is a matter of complete indifference to
them.  They are  aware that a change of overlordship means simply that they
will be doing the same work as before for new masters who treat them in the
same  manner  as the old  ones. The slightly  more favoured workers whom we
call  'the proles' are only intermittently conscious of the war. When it is
necessary  they  can be prodded into  frenzies of fear and hatred, but when
left to themselves they are capable of forgetting for long periods that the
war  is  happening. It is in  the ranks of the  Party, and above all of the
Inner  Party, that  the true  war  enthusiasm is  found. World-conquest  is
believed  in most  firmly  by those  who  know it  to  be impossible.  This
peculiar   linking-together  of  opposites  --  knowledge  with  ignorance,
cynicism  with  fanaticism -- is  one of  the chief distinguishing marks of
Oceanic  society. The  official ideology  abounds with  contradictions even
when  there  is no practical  reason for them.  Thus, the Party rejects and
vilifies every principle for which the Socialist movement originally stood,
and  it chooses to do this in the name of Socialism. It preaches a contempt
for  the  working class unexampled  for centuries  past, and it dresses its
members  in a uniform  which was at one time peculiar to manual workers and
was adopted for that reason. It systematically undermines the solidarity of
the  family, and it  calls its leader by a name which is a direct appeal to
the  sentiment of  family loyalty. Even the names of the four Ministries by
which  we are  governed exhibit  a sort  of impudence  in their  deliberate
reversal  of the facts. The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the
Ministry  of  Truth with  lies, the  Ministry of Love  with torture and the
Ministry   of   Plenty  with   starvation.  These  contradictions  are  not
accidental, nor do they result from ordinary hypocrisy; they are deliberate
exercises in doublethink. For it is only by reconciling contradictions that
power can be retained indefinitely. In no other way could the ancient cycle
be  broken. If human  equality is to be for ever averted -- if the High, as
we  have called  them, are  to keep  their places  permanently --  then the
prevailing mental condition must be controlled insanity.
     But  there is  one question  which until  this moment  we have  almost
ignored.  It  is; why should human  equality be averted? Supposing that the
mechanics  of  the process have been  rightly described, what is the motive
for  this huge, accurately planned effort to freeze history at a particular
moment of time?
     Here we reach the central secret. As we have seen. the mystique of the
Party,  and  above all  of the  Inner Party,  depends upon doublethink. But
deeper  than  this lies the  original motive, the never-questioned instinct
that first led to the seizure of power and brought doublethink, the Thought
Police,  continuous warfare, and all the other necessary paraphernalia into
existence afterwards. This motive really consists...
     Winston  became aware of silence, as one becomes aware of a new sound.
It seemed to him that Julia had been very still for some time past. She was
lying on her side, naked from the waist upwards, with her cheek pillowed on
her  hand and  one dark lock tumbling  across her eyes. Her breast rose and
fell slowly and regularly.
     'Julia.'
     No answer.
     'Julia, are you awake?'
     No  answer. She was  asleep. He shut the book, put it carefully on the
floor, lay down, and pulled the coverlet over both of them.
     He  had still,  he  reflected,  not learned  the  ultimate secret.  He
understood how; he did not understand why. Chapter I, like Chapter III, had
not  actually  told him  anything  that  he did  not  know,  it had  merely
systematized  the knowledge that he possessed already. But after reading it
he knew better than before that he was not mad. Being in a minority, even a
minority  of one,  did not  make you  mad. There  was truth  and there  was
untruth,  and if  you clung to the  truth even against the whole world, you
were  not  mad. A yellow  beam from the sinking  sun slanted in through the
window  and fell  across the pillow. He  shut his eyes. The sun on his face
and  the  girl's smooth  body touching  his own gave  him a strong, sleepy,
confident  feeling.  He was safe, everything  was all right. He fell asleep
murmuring  'Sanity  is not statistical,'  with the feeling that this remark
contained in it a profound wisdom.



        X

     When  he  woke it  was with the  sensation of having  slept for a long
time,  but  a glance at  the old-fashioned clock told  him that it was only
twenty-thirty.  He lay  dozing  for  a while;  then  the usual  deep-lunged
singing struck up from the yard below:

        It was only an 'opeless fancy,
        It passed like an Ipril dye,
        But a look an' a word an' the dreams they stirred
        They 'ave stolen my 'eart awye!

     The driveling song seemed to have kept its popularity. You still heard
it  all  over the place. It  had outlived the  Hate Song. Julia woke at the
sound, stretched herself luxuriously, and got out of bed.
     'I'm  hungry,' she  said.  'Let's  make some  more  coffee. Damn!  The
stove's  gone out and  the water's cold.' She picked the stove up and shook
it. 'There's no oil in it.'
     'We can get some from old Charrington, I expect.'
     'The  funny  thing is  I made  sure it was  full. I'm  going to put my
clothes on,' she added. 'It seems to have got colder.'
     Winston  also got up and dressed himself. The indefatigable voice sang
on:

        They sye that time 'eals all things,
        They sye you can always forget;
        But the smiles an' the tears acrorss the years
        They twist my 'eart-strings yet!

     As  he  fastened the  belt of  his overalls he  strolled across to the
window.  The sun must  have gone down behind the houses; it was not shining
into  the yard any  longer. The flagstones were wet as though they had just
been  washed, and  he had the feeling  that the sky had been washed too, so
fresh  and pale was the blue between the chimney-pots. Tirelessly the woman
marched  to and  fro, corking  and uncorking  herself, singing  and falling
silent,  and  pegging out more diapers,  and more and yet more. He wondered
whether  she took in washing for a living or was merely the slave of twenty
or  thirty grandchildren.  Julia had come across to his side; together they
gazed  down  with a sort  of fascination at the  sturdy figure below. As he
looked at the woman in her characteristic attitude, her thick arms reaching
up  for the  line, her powerful mare-like buttocks protruded, it struck him
for  the first time that she was beautiful. It had never before occurred to
him  that the body of a woman of fifty, blown up to monstrous dimensions by
childbearing,  then  hardened, roughened by work  till it was coarse in the
grain  like  an over-ripe  turnip, could  be beautiful. But  it was so, and
after  all, he  thought, why not? The solid, contourless body, like a block
of granite, and the rasping red skin, bore the same relation to the body of
a  girl as the  rose-hip to the rose. Why should the fruit be held inferior
to the flower?
     'She's beautiful,' he murmured.
     'She's a metre across the hips, easily,' said Julia.
     'That is her style of beauty,' said Winston.
     He held Julia's supple waist easily encircled by his arm. From the hip
to  the knee her  flank was against his. Out of their bodies no child would
ever  come.  That was the  one thing  they could never  do. Only by word of
mouth,  from  mind to mind,  could they pass on  the secret. The woman down
there  had no  mind, she had only  strong arms, a warm heart, and a fertile
belly.  He wondered  how many  children she  had given  birth to.  It might
easily be fifteen. She had had her momentary flowering, a year, perhaps, of
wild-rose  beauty and then she had suddenly swollen like a fertilized fruit
and  grown hard and  red and coarse, and then her life had been laundering,
scrubbing,  darning,  cooking,  sweeping,  polishing,  mending,  scrubbing,
laundering,  first  for  children,  then  for  grandchildren,  over  thirty
unbroken  years. At  the end  of  it she  was still  singing. The  mystical
reverence  that he felt for her was somehow mixed up with the aspect of the
pale,   cloudless   sky,  stretching  away  behind  the  chimney-pots  into
interminable  distance.  It was curious to  think that the sky was the same
for everybody, in Eurasia or Eastasia as well as here. And the people under
the  sky  were also very  much the same --  everywhere, all over the world,
hundreds of thousands of millions of people just like this, people ignorant
of one another's existence, held apart by walls of hatred and lies, and yet
almost  exactly the  same -- people who  had never learned to think but who
were  storing  up in  their hearts  and bellies and  muscles the power that
would  one day overturn the world. If there was hope, it lay in the proles!
Without  having  read to  the end  of the book,  he knew  that that must be
Goldstein's  final message. The future belonged to the proles. And could he
be  sure that when  their time came the world they constructed would not be
just  as alien  to him,  Winston Smith,  as the  world of  the Party?  Yes,
because at the least it would be a world of sanity. Where there is equality
there can be sanity. Sooner or later it would happen, strength would change
into  consciousness. The  proles were immortal, you could not doubt it when
you  looked at that  valiant figure in the yard. In the end their awakening
would  come. And  until that happened, though it might be a thousand years,
they  would  stay alive against  all the odds,  like birds, passing on from
body to body the vitality which the Party did not share and could not kill.
     'Do  you  remember,' he said, 'the  thrush that sang to us, that first
day, at the edge of the wood?'
     'He  wasn't singing  to us,'  said Julia.  'He was  singing to  please
himself. Not even that. He was just singing.'
     The birds sang, the proles sang. the Party did not sing. All round the
world, in London and New York, in Africa and Brazil, and in the mysterious,
forbidden  lands beyond  the frontiers, in the streets of Paris and Berlin,
in  the villages of  the endless Russian plain, in the bazaars of China and
Japan  --  everywhere  stood  the same  solid  unconquerable  figure,  made
monstrous  by work  and childbearing, toiling from birth to death and still
singing.  Out of those mighty loins a race of conscious beings must one day
come. You were the dead, theirs was the future. But you could share in that
future  if you kept  alive the mind as they kept alive the body, and passed
on the secret doctrine that two plus two make four.
     'We are the dead,' he said.
     'We are the dead,' echoed Julia dutifully.
     'You are the dead,' said an iron voice behind them.
     They  sprang apart. Winston's entrails seemed to have turned into ice.
He  could see the  white all round the irises of Julia's eyes. Her face had
turned  a milky yellow. The smear of rouge that was still on each cheekbone
stood out sharply, almost as though unconnected with the skin beneath.
     'You are the dead,' repeated the iron voice.
     'It was behind the picture,' breathed Julia.
     'It was behind the picture,' said the voice. 'Remain exactly where you
are. Make no movement until you are ordered.'
     It was starting, it was starting at last! They could do nothing except
stand  gazing into  one another's eyes. To  run for life, to get out of the
house  before  it  was too  late  --  no  such  thought occurred  to  them.
Unthinkable  to disobey  the iron voice from  the wall. There was a snap as
though  a  catch had been  turned back, and a  crash of breaking glass. The
picture had fallen to the floor uncovering the telescreen behind it.
     'Now they can see us,' said Julia.
     'Now  we can see you,' said the voice. 'Stand out in the middle of the
room.  Stand back to back. Clasp your hands behind your heads. Do not touch
one another.'
     They  were not  touching, but  it  seemed to  him that  he could  feel
Julia's  body shaking. Or  perhaps it was merely the shaking of his own. He
could  just  stop his teeth from  chattering, but his knees were beyond his
control.  There was  a sound of trampling boots below, inside the house and
outside.  The  yard seemed to  be full of  men. Something was being dragged
across  the  stones. The woman's singing  had stopped abruptly. There was a
long,  rolling clang, as though the washtub had been flung across the yard,
and then a confusion of angry shouts which ended in a yell of pain.
     'The house is surrounded,' said Winston.
     'The house is surrounded,' said the voice.
     He  heard Julia snap her teeth together. 'I suppose we may as well say
good-bye,' she said.
     'You may as well say good-bye,' said the voice. And then another quite
different  voice, a thin, cultivated voice which Winston had the impression
of  having  heard before, struck in;  'And by the  way, while we are on the
subject,  Here comes a  candle to light you to bed, here comes a chopper to
chop off your head!'
     Something  crashed on  to the bed behind Winston's back. The head of a
ladder  had been  thrust through  the window  and had  burst in  the frame.
Someone  was climbing  through the window. There was a stampede of boots up
the  stairs. The  room was full of  solid men in black uniforms, with iron-
shod boots on their feet and truncheons in their hands.
     Winston  was not  trembling any longer. Even his eyes he barely moved.
One thing alone mattered; to keep still, to keep still and not give them an
excuse  to hit  you! A man with  a smooth prize-fighter's jowl in which the
mouth  was  only  a  slit  paused  opposite  him  balancing  his  truncheon
meditatively  between  thumb and  forefinger.  Winston  met his  eyes.  The
feeling of nakedness, with one's hands behind one's head and one's face and
body  all  exposed, was almost  unbearable. The man  protruded the tip of a
white  tongue,  licked the place where  his lips should have been, and then
passed  on. There  was  another  crash. Someone  had  picked  up the  glass
paperweight from the table and smashed it to pieces on the hearth-stone.
     The  fragment  of coral, a  tiny crinkle of  pink like a sugar rosebud
from  a cake,  rolled across the mat. How small, thought Winston, how small
it  always was! There  was a gasp and a thump behind him, and he received a
violent  kick on  the ankle which nearly  flung him off his balance. One of
the  men  had smashed his  fist into Julia's  solar plexus, doubling her up
like  a  pocket ruler. She  was thrashing about  on the floor, fighting for
breath. Winston dared not turn his head even by a millimetre, but sometimes
her  livid, gasping  face came within the  angle of his vision. Even in his
terror  it was as though he could feel the pain in his own body, the deadly
pain  which nevertheless  was less urgent than the struggle to get back her
breath.  He  knew what it was  like; the terrible, agonizing pain which was
there  all the while but could not be suffered yet, because before all else
it  was necessary to be able to breathe. Then two of the men hoisted her up
by  knees and  shoulders, and  carried her  out of  the room  like a  sack.
Winston  had a glimpse of her face, upside down, yellow and contorted, with
the  eyes shut,  and still with a  smear of rouge on either cheek; and that
was the last he saw of her.
     He  stood dead  still. No one had  hit him yet. Thoughts which came of
their own accord but seemed totally uninteresting began to flit through his
mind.  He  wondered whether they had  got Mr. Charrington. He wondered what
they  had done to the woman in the yard. He noticed that he badly wanted to
urinate,  and  felt a  faint surprise, because  he had done  so only two or
three  hours  ago. He noticed that  the clock on the mantelpiece said nine,
meaning twenty-one. But the light seemed too strong. Would not the light be
fading  at twenty-one hours on an August evening? He wondered whether after
all  he  and Julia had mistaken  the time --  had slept the clock round and
thought  it was twenty-thirty when really it was nought eight-thirty on the
following  morning.  But he did not  pursue the thought further. It was not
interesting.
     There  ws  another, lighter step  in the passage. Mr. Charrington came
into  the  room. The  demeanour of the  black-uniformed men suddenly became
more  subdued. Something  had also changed in Mr. Charrington's appearance.
His eye fell on the fragments of the glass paperweight.
     'Pick up those pieces,' he said sharply.
     A  man  stooped to  obey. The cockney  accent had disappeared; Winston
suddenly realized whose voice it was that he had heard a few moments ago on
the  telescreen.  Mr. Charrington was  still wearing his old velvet jacket,
but  his hair,  which had been almost  white, had turned black. Also he was
not  wearing his  spectacles. He  gave Winston  a single  sharp glance,  as
though  verifying his  identity, and then paid no more attention to him. He
was still recognizable, but he was not the same person any longer. His body
had  straightened, and  seemed to have grown bigger. His face had undergone
only  tiny changes  that had nevertheless worked a complete transformation.
The black eyebrows were less bushy, the wrinkles were gone, the whole lines
of  the face  seemed to have altered;  even the nose seemed shorter. It was
the  alert,  cold face  of a  man of about  five-and-thirty. It occurred to
Winston that for the first time in his life he was looking, with knowledge,
at a member of the Thought Police.

        * * * 



        PART III

        I

     He  did  not know where  he was. Presumably he  was in the Ministry of
Love,  but there  was no way of  making certain. He was in a high-ceilinged
windowless  cell with  walls of glittering white porcelain. Concealed lamps
flooded it with cold light, and there was a low, steady humming sound which
he  supposed  had something to  do with the air  supply. A bench, or shelf,
just wide enough to sit on ran round the wall, broken only by the door and,
at  the  end opposite the  door, a lavatory pan  with no wooden seat. There
were four telescreens, one in each wall.
     There  was  a dull aching  in his belly. It  had been there ever since
they  had bundled  him into the closed  van and driven him away. But he was
also  hungry, with  a  gnawing, unwholesome  kind of  hunger.  It might  be
twenty-four  hours since he had eaten, it might be thirty-six. He still did
not know, probably never would know, whether it had been morning or evening
when they arrested him. Since he was arrested he had not been fed.
     He  sat as  still as  he could  on the  narrow bench,  with his  hands
crossed  on  his knee.  He had  already learned  to sit  still. If you made
unexpected  movements they  yelled  at  you from  the  telescreen. But  the
craving  for food was  growing upon him. What he longed for above all was a
piece  of  bread. He had an  idea that there  were a few breadcrumbs in the
pocket  of  his overalls. It  was even possible  -- he thought this because
from time to time something seemed to tickle his leg -- that there might be
a  sizeable bit  of crust  there. In  the end  the temptation  to find  out
overcame his fear; he slipped a hand into his pocket.
     'Smith!'  yelled a voice from the telescreen. '6079 Smith W! Hands out
of pockets in the cells!'
     He  sat still  again,  his hands  crossed on  his  knee. Before  being
brought  here  he had been  taken to another place  which must have been an
ordinary prison or a temporary lock-up used by the patrols. He did not know
how  long he had  been there; some hours at any rate; with no clocks and no
daylight  it was  hard to  gauge the  time. It  was a  noisy, evil-smelling
place.  They had put  him into a cell similar to the one he was now in, but
filthily  dirty and  at all  times crowded  by ten  or fifteen  people. The
majority  of  them were  common criminals,  but there  were a few political
prisoners  among them. He had sat silent against the wall, jostled by dirty
bodies,  too  preoccupied by  fear and the  pain in his  belly to take much
interest in his surroundings, but still noticing the astonishing difference
in  demeanour  between  the  Party  prisoners and  the  others.  The  Party
prisoners  were always  silent and  terrified, but  the ordinary  criminals
seemed  to  care nothing  for anybody.  They yelled  insults at the guards,
fought  back  fiercely when their  belongings were impounded, wrote obscene
words  on the  floor, ate smuggled food which they produced from mysterious
hiding-places  in their  clothes, and even shouted down the telescreen when
it  tried to restore  order. On the other hand some of them seemed to be on
good  terms with the guards, called them by nicknames, and tried to wheedle
cigarettes  through  the spyhole in the  door. The guards, too, treated the
common  criminals with  a certain forbearance, even when they had to handle
them  roughly.  There was much talk  about the forced-labour camps to which
most of the prisoners expected to be sent. It was 'all right' in the camps,
he gathered, so long as you had good contacts and knew the ropes. There was
bribery,   favouritism,  and   racketeering  of   every  kind,   there  was
homosexuality  and  prostitution, there  was even illicit alcohol distilled
from  potatoes. The  positions  of  trust were  given  only  to the  common
criminals, especially the gangsters and the murderers, who formed a sort of
aristocracy. All the dirty jobs were done by the politicals.
     There  was  a constant come-and-go  of prisoners of every description:
drug-peddlers,  thieves,  bandits, black-marketeers,  drunks,  prostitutes.
Some  of the drunks were so violent that the other prisoners had to combine
to  suppress  them. An  enormous wreck  of a woman,  aged about sixty, with
great tumbling breasts and thick coils of white hair which had come down in
her  struggles,  was carried in, kicking  and shouting, by four guards, who
had  hold of her one at each corner. They wrenched off the boots with which
she had been trying to kick them, and dumped her down across Winston's lap,
almost  breaking his  thigh-bones. The  woman hoisted  herself upright  and
followed  them  out with a yell  of 'F-- bastards!' Then, noticing that she
was  sitting  on something uneven,  she slid off  Winston's knees on to the
bench.
     'Beg  pardon,  dearie,' she said. 'I  wouldn't 'a sat on you, only the
buggers  put me there. They dono 'ow to treat a lady, do they?' She paused,
patted  her breast,  and  belched.  'Pardon,' she  said,  'I ain't  meself,
quite.'
     She leant forward and vomited copiously on the floor.
     'Thass  better,' she  said, leaning back with closed eyes. 'Never keep
it  down,  thass what I  say. Get  it up while  it's fresh on your stomach,
like.'
     She  revived,  turned to  have  another  look  at Winston  and  seemed
immediately  to take a  fancy to him. She put a vast arm round his shoulder
and drew him towards her, breathing beer and vomit into his face.
     'Wass your name, dearie?' she said.
     'Smith,' said Winston.
     'Smith?'  said the woman. 'Thass funny. My name's Smith too. Why,' she
added sentimentally, 'I might be your mother!'
     She might, thought Winston, be his mother. She was about the right age
and physique, and it was probable that people changed somewhat after twenty
years in a forced-labour camp.
     No  one  else had spoken  to him. To  a surprising extent the ordinary
criminals ignored the Party prisoners. 'The polits,' they called them, with
a  sort  of uninterested contempt.  The Party prisoners seemed terrified of
speaking  to anybody,  and above all of speaking to one another. Only once,
when  two  Party members,  both women,  were pressed  close together on the
bench, he overheard amid the din of voices a few hurriedly-whispered words;
and  in particular a reference to something called 'room one-oh-one', which
he did not understand.
     It might be two or three hours ago that they had brought him here. The
dull  pain in  his belly never went  away, but sometimes it grew better and
sometimes  worse, and his thoughts expanded or contracted accordingly. When
it  grew  worse he thought only  of the pain  itself, and of his desire for
food.  When it grew better, panic took hold of him. There were moments when
he foresaw the things that would happen to him with such actuality that his
heart  galloped and  his breath stopped. He felt the smash of truncheons on
his  elbows and  iron-shod boots on his shins; he saw himself grovelling on
the  floor, screaming  for mercy through broken teeth. He hardly thought of
Julia.  He could not fix his mind on her. He loved her and would not betray
her; but that was only a fact, known as he knew the rules of arithmetic. He
felt  no  love for her,  and he hardly even  wondered what was happening to
her.  He thought  oftener of O'Brien, with a flickering hope. O'Brien might
know  that he  had been arrested. The Brotherhood, he had said, never tried
to  save  its members. But  there was the razor  blade; they would send the
razor  blade if  they could. There would be perhaps five seconds before the
guard  could rush into  the cell. The blade would bite into him with a sort
of  burning coldness, and even the fingers that held it would be cut to the
bone.  Everything  came back to his  sick body, which shrank trembling from
the  smallest  pain. He was  not certain that he  would use the razor blade
even  if  he got the  chance. It  was more natural  to exist from moment to
moment,  accepting  another ten minutes"  life even with the certainty that
there was torture at the end of it.
     Sometimes  he tried to calculate the number of porcelain bricks in the
walls  of the  cell. It should have  been easy, but he always lost count at
some  point or another.  More often he wondered where he was, and what time
of  day  it was. At one  moment he felt  certain that it was broad daylight
outside,  and  at the next  equally certain that  it was pitch darkness. In
this place, he knew instinctively, the lights would never be turned out. It
was  the place  with no  darkness: he  saw now  why O'Brien  had seemed  to
recognize  the allusion. In the Ministry of Love there were no windows. His
cell  might be  at the heart of  the building or against its outer wall; it
might  be  ten floors  below ground,  or thirty above  it. He moved himself
mentally  from place to place, and tried to determine by the feeling of his
body whether he was perched high in the air or buried deep underground.
     There  was  a sound of  marching boots  outside. The steel door opened
with  a clang. A young officer, a trim black-uniformed figure who seemed to
glitter  all over  with polished leather, and whose pale, straight-featured
face  was like a wax mask, stepped smartly through the doorway. He motioned
to  the guards outside to bring in the prisoner they were leading. The poet
Ampleforth shambled into the cell. The door clanged shut again.
     Ampleforth  made one  or two uncertain movements from side to side, as
though  having some idea that there was another door to go out of, and then
began  to  wander up  and down the  cell. He had  not yet noticed Winston's
presence. His troubled eyes were gazing at the wall about a metre above the
level  of Winston's  head. He was shoeless; large, dirty toes were sticking
out  of the holes in his socks. He was also several days away from a shave.
A  scrubby beard  covered his face to  the cheekbones, giving him an air of
ruffianism that went oddly with his large weak frame and nervous movements.
     Winston  roused hirnself  a little from his lethargy. He must speak to
Ampleforth,  and risk the yell from the telescreen. It was even conceivable
that Ampleforth was the bearer of the razor blade.
     'Ampleforth,' he said.
     There  was no  yell  from the  telescreen.  Ampleforth paused,  mildly
startled. His eyes focused themselves slowly on Winston.
     'Ah, Smith!' he said. 'You too!'
     'What are you in for?'
     'To  tell you  the  truth --.'  He  sat down  awkwardly  on the  bench
opposite Winston. 'There is only one offence, is there not?' he said.
     'And have you committed it?'
     'Apparently I have.'
     He put a hand to his forehead and pressed his temples for a moment, as
though trying to remember something.
     'These  things happen,'  he began vaguely. 'I have been able to recall
one  instance --  a possible instance. It was an indiscretion, undoubtedly.
We  were producing  a definitive edition of the poems of Kipling. I allowed
the  word  "God" to remain at  the end of a  line. I could not help it!' he
added  almost  indignantly, raising  his face  to look  at Winston. 'It was
impossible  to  change the line.  The rhyme was  "rod". Do you realize that
there  are only  twelve rhymes to "rod"  in the entire language? For days I
had racked my brains. There was no other rhyme.'
     The expression on his face changed. The annoyance passed out of it and
for  a moment  he looked almost pleased. A sort of intellectual warmth, the
joy  of the  pedant who has found  out some useless fact, shone through the
dirt and scrubby hair.
     'Has  it  ever occurred to  you,' he said,  'that the whole history of
English  poetry  has been determined by  the fact that the English language
lacks rhymes?'
     No, that particular thought had never occurred to Winston. Nor, in the
circumstances, did it strike him as very important or interesting.
     'Do you know what time of day it is?' he said.
     Ampleforth looked startled again. 'I had hardly thought about it. They
arrested me -- it could be two days ago -- perhaps three.' His eyes flitted
round  the  walls, as though  he half expected  to find a window somewhere.
'There  is no difference  between night and day in this place. I do not see
how one can calculate the time.'
     They  talked  desultorily for  some  minutes,  then, without  apparent
reason,  a yell  from  the  telescreen bade  them  be  silent. Winston  sat
quietly,  his hands crossed. Ampleforth, too large to sit in comfort on the
narrow  bench,  fidgeted from side  to side,  clasping his lank hands first
round  one knee, then round the other. The telescreen barked at him to keep
still.  Time passed.  Twenty minutes, an hour -- it was difficult to judge.
Once   more  there  was  a  sound  of  boots  outside.  Winston's  entrails
contracted.  Soon, very  soon, perhaps  in five  minutes, perhaps  now, the
tramp of boots would mean that his own turn had come.
     The  door opened.  The cold-faced young officer stepped into the cell.
With a brief movement of the hand he indicated Ampleforth.
     'Room 101,' he said.
     Ampleforth  marched clumsily  out between the guards, his face vaguely
perturbed, but uncomprehending.
     What  seemed like  a long time passed. The pain in Winston's belly had
revived.  His  mind sagged round  and round on the  same trick, like a ball
falling  again  and again  into the same  series of slots.  He had only six
thoughts.  The pain  in his  belly; a  piece of  bread; the  blood and  the
screaming;  O'Brien; Julia; the razor blade. There was another spasm in his
entrails, the heavy boots were approaching. As the door opened, the wave of
air  that  it created  brought in  a powerful smell  of cold sweat. Parsons
walked into the cell. He was wearing khaki shorts and a sports-shirt.
     This time Winston was startled into self-forgetfulness.
     'You here!' he said.
     Parsons  gave Winston a glance in which there was neither interest nor
surprise,  but only misery. He began walking jerkily up and down, evidently
unable  to  keep still.  Each time  he straightened his  pudgy knees it was
apparent  that they were trembling. His eyes had a wide-open, staring look,
as  though  he could  not prevent  himself from gazing  at something in the
middle distance.
     'What are you in for?' said Winston.
     'Thoughtcrime!' said Parsons, almost blubbering. The tone of his voice
implied at once a complete admission of his guilt and a sort of incredulous
horror  that  such a word  could be applied  to himself. He paused opposite
Winston  and began eagerly appealing to him: 'You don't think they'll shoot
me,  do  you, old chap?  They don't shoot you  if you haven't actually done
anything  --  only thoughts, which  you can't help? I  know they give you a
fair  hearing.  Oh, I  trust them  for that! They'll  know my record, won't
they?  You  know what  kind of chap  I was. Not  a bad  chap in my way. Not
brainy, of course, but keen. I tried to do my best for the Party, didn't I?
I'll  get off  with five years, don't  you think? Or even ten years? A chap
like  me  could make himself pretty  useful in a labour-camp. They wouldn't
shoot me for going off the rails just once?'
     'Are you guilty?' said Winston.
     'Of  course  I'm guilty!' cried  Parsons with  a servile glance at the
telescreen.  'You  don't think the  Party would  arrest an innocent man, do
you?'  His  frog-like  face  grew  calmer, and  even  took  on  a  slightly
sanctimonious  expression. 'Thoughtcrime  is a dreadful thing, old man,' he
said  sententiously.  'It's insidious. It can  get hold of you without your
even  knowing  it. Do  you know how  it got  hold of me?  In my sleep! Yes,
that's a fact. There I was, working away, trying to do my bit -- never knew
I  had  any bad stuff in  my mind at all.  And then I started talking in my
sleep. Do you know what they heard me saying?'
     He  sank his voice, like someone who is obliged for medical reasons to
utter an obscenity.
     '"Down  with  Big Brother!"  Yes, I  said that! Said  it over and over
again,  it seems. Between  you and me, old man, I'm glad they got me before
it went any further. Do you know what I'm going to say to them when I go up
before  the tribunal?  "Thank you," I'm going to say, "thank you for saving
me before it was too late."'
     'Who denounced you?' said Winston.
     'It  was my  little daughter,'  said Parsons  with a  sort of  doleful
pride.  'She  listened at the keyhole.  Heard what I was saying, and nipped
off  to the patrols  the very next day. Pretty smart for a nipper of seven,
eh?  I don't bear her any grudge for it. In fact I'm proud of her. It shows
I brought her up in the right spirit, anyway.'
     He made a few more jerky movements up and down, several times, casting
a  longing  glance at  the lavatory  pan. Then he  suddenly ripped down his
shorts.
     'Excuse me, old man,' he said. 'I can't help it. It's the waiting.'
     He  plumped his large posterior into the lavatory pan. Winston covered
his face with his hands.
     'Smith!'  yelled the voice from the telescreen. '6079 Smith W! Uncover
your face. No faces covered in the cells.'
     Winston  uncovered his  face. Parsons  used the  lavatory, loudly  and
abundantly.  It  then turned out  that the plug  was defective and the cell
stank abominably for hours afterwards.
     Parsons  was removed. More prisoners came and went, mysteriously. One,
a  woman, was  consigned to  'Room 101',  and, Winston  noticed, seemed  to
shrivel  and turn a  different colour when she heard the words. A time came
when,  if it  had  been morning  when  he  was brought  here,  it would  be
afternoon;  or  if it had been  afternoon, then it would be midnight. There
were six prisoners in the cell, men and women. All sat very still. Opposite
Winston  there sat a  man with a chinless, toothy face exactly like that of
some large, harmless rodent. His fat, mottled cheeks were so pouched at the
bottom  that it  was difficult not to  believe that he had little stores of
food  tucked away there. His pale-grey eyes flitted timorously from face to
face and turned quickly away again when he caught anyone's eye.
     The  door opened, and another prisoner was brought in whose appearance
sent  a momentary chill through Winston. He was a commonplace, mean-looking
man  who might  have been an engineer  or technician of some kind. But what
was  startling was the emaciation of his face. It was like a skull. Because
of its thinness the mouth and eyes looked disproportionately large, and the
eyes  seemed  filled with  a murderous, unappeasable  hatred of somebody or
something.
     The  man sat  down on  the bench  at a  little distance  from Winston.
Winston  did not  look at him again, but the tormented, skull-like face was
as  vivid in his  mind as though it had been straight in front of his eyes.
Suddenly  he realized what was the matter. The man was dying of starvation.
The  same thought  seemed to occur almost simultaneously to everyone in the
cell. There was a very faint stirring all the way round the bench. The eyes
of the chinless man kept flitting towards the skull-faced man, then turning
guiltily  away, then  being  dragged back  by  an irresistible  attraction.
Presently  he  began to  fidget on his  seat. At last  he stood up, waddled
clumsily  across  the cell, dug down  into the pocket of his overalls, and,
with  an  abashed air, held  out a grimy piece  of bread to the skull-faced
man.
     There  was a furious, deafening roar from the telescreen. The chinless
man  jumped in his tracks. The skull-faced man had quickly thrust his hands
behind  his back,  as though demonstrating to all the world that he refused
the gift.
     'Bumstead!' roared the voice. '2713 Bumstead J! Let fall that piece of
bread!'
     The chinless man dropped the piece of bread on the floor.
     'Remain  standing where you are,' said the voice. 'Face the door. Make
no movement.'
     The  chinless  man obeyed.  His  large  pouchy cheeks  were  quivering
uncontrollably.  The  door clanged  open. As the  young officer entered and
stepped  aside,  there emerged  from behind  him a  short stumpy guard with
enormous  arms and  shoulders. He took his stand opposite the chinless man,
and then, at a signal from the officer, let free a frightful blow, with all
the  weight  of his body  behind it, full in  the chinless man's mouth. The
force  of  it seemed almost to  knock him clear  of the floor. His body was
flung across the cell and fetched up against the base of the lavatory seat.
For  a  moment he  lay as though  stunned, with dark  blood oozing from his
mouth  and  nose.  A  very  faint whimpering  or  squeaking,  which  seemed
unconscious,  came out  of  him. Then  he rolled  over  and raised  himself
unsteadily  on hands and  knees. Amid a stream of blood and saliva, the two
halves of a dental plate fell out of his mouth.
     The  prisoners sat very still, their hands crossed on their knees. The
chinless  man  climbed back into  his place. Down one  side of his face the
flesh was darkening. His mouth had swollen into a shapeless cherry-coloured
mass with a black hole in the middle of it.
     From  time  to time  a little  blood dripped  on to  the breast of his
overalls. His grey eyes still flitted from face to face, more guiltily than
ever, as though he were trying to discover how much the others despised him
for his humiliation.
     The door opened. With a small gesture the officer indicated the skull-
faced man.
     'Room 101,' he said.
     There  was a gasp and a flurry at Winston's side. The man had actually
flung himself on his knees on the floor, with his hand clasped together.
     'Comrade!  Officer!' he  cried. 'You  don't have  to take  me to  that
place!  Haven't I told  you everything already? What else is it you want to
know?  There's nothing I wouldn't confess, nothing! Just tell me what it is
and  I'll confess straight off. Write it down and I'll sign it -- anything!
Not room 101!'
     'Room 101,' said the officer.
     The  man's face,  already very pale, turned a colour Winston would not
have believed possible. It was definitely, unmistakably, a shade of green.
     'Do  anything  to me!' he yelled.  'You've been starving me for weeks.
Finish it off and let me die. Shoot me. Hang me. Sentence me to twenty-five
years.  Is there somebody else you want me to give away? Just say who it is
and  I'll tell you anything you want. I don't care who it is or what you do
to  them. I've got a wife and three children. The biggest of them isn't six
years  old.  You can take  the whole  lot of them  and cut their throats in
front of my eyes, and I'll stand by and watch it. But not Room 101!'
     'Room 101,' said the officer.
     The  man  looked frantically  round at the  other prisoners, as though
with  some idea that he could put another victim in his own place. His eyes
settled on the smashed face of the chinless man. He flung out a lean arm.
     'That's  the  one you  ought to  be taking, not  me!' he shouted. 'You
didn't hear what he was saying after they bashed his face. Give me a chance
and  I'll tell you every word of it. He's the one that's against the Party,
not me.' The guards stepped forward. The man's voice rose to a shriek. 'You
didn't  hear him!'  he repeated. 'Something went wrong with the telescreen.
He's the one you want. Take him, not me!'
     The two sturdy guards had stooped to take him by the arms. But just at
this  moment he flung  himself across the floor of the cell and grabbed one
of  the iron  legs that  supported  the bench.  He  had set  up a  wordless
howling,  like an animal.  The guards took hold of him to wrench him loose,
but  he clung on with astonishing strength. For perhaps twenty seconds they
were  hauling at him. The prisoners sat quiet, their hands crossed on their
knees,  looking straight in front of them. The howling stopped; the man had
no  breath left  for anything except hanging on. Then there was a different
kind  of cry.  A kick from a guard's  boot had broken the fingers of one of
his hands. They dragged him to his feet.
     'Room 101,' said the officer.
     The man was led out, walking unsteadily, with head sunken, nursing his
crushed hand, all the fight had gone out of him.
     A  long time  passed. If it had been midnight when the skull-faced man
was  taken away,  it was morning: if morning, it was afternoon. Winston was
alone,  and  had been  alone for hours.  The pain of  sitting on the narrow
bench  was  such that often  he got up and  walked about, unreproved by the
telescreen. The piece of bread still lay where the chinless man had dropped
it.  At the  beginning it  needed a  hard  effort not  to look  at it,  but
presently hunger gave way to thirst. His mouth was sticky and evil-tasting.
The  humming  sound  and  the  unvarying white  light  induced  a  sort  of
faintness,  an  empty feeling inside his  head. He would get up because the
ache  in  his bones was  no longer bearable, and  then would sit down again
almost  at  once because he  was too  dizzy to make  sure of staying on his
feet.  Whenever his  physical sensations  were a  little under  control the
terror returned. Sometimes with a fading hope he thought of O'Brien and the
razor  blade. It  was thinkable that the razor blade might arrive concealed
in his food, if he were ever fed. More dimly he thought of Julia. Somewhere
or  other  she was  suffering  perhaps  far worse  than  he.  She might  be
screaming  with pain at  this moment. He thought: 'If I could save Julia by
doubling  my own pain, would I do it? Yes, I would.' But that was merely an
intellectual  decision, taken  because he knew that he ought to take it. He
did not feel it. In this place you could not feel anything, except pain and
foreknowledge  of  pain. Besides,  was it possible,  when you were actually
suffering  it,  to wish for any  reason that your own pain should increase?
But that question was not answerable yet.
     The boots were approaching again. The door opened. O'Brien came in.
     Winston  started  to his feet.  The shock of  the sight had driven all
caution out of him. For the first time in many years he forgot the presence
of the telescreen.
     'They've got you too!' he cried.
     'They  got me  a long  time  ago,' said  O'Brien with  a mild,  almost
regretful  irony. He  stepped aside. From behind him there emerged a broad-
chested guard with a long black truncheon in his hand.
     'You  know this,  Winston,' said O'Brien. 'Don't deceive yourself. You
did know it -- you have always known it.'
     Yes,  he  saw now, he  had always  known it. But  there was no time to
think  of that. All  he had eyes for was the truncheon in the guard's hand.
It  might fall anywhere;  on the crown, on the tip of the ear, on the upper
arm, on the elbow--
     The elbow! He had slumped to his knees, almost paralysed, clasping the
stricken  elbow  with his  other hand. Everything  had exploded into yellow
light.  Inconceivable,  inconceivable that one  blow could cause such pain!
The  light cleared and  he could see the other two looking down at him. The
guard  was laughing  at  his  contortions. One  question  at  any rate  was
answered. Never, for any reason on earth, could you wish for an increase of
pain.  Of pain you  could wish only one thing: that it should stop. Nothing
in  the world was so bad as physical pain. In the face of pain there are no
heroes,  no  heroes, he thought  over and over as  he writhed on the floor,
clutching uselessly at his disabled left arm.



        II

     He  was lying  on something that felt  like a camp bed, except that it
was higher off the ground and that he was fixed down in some way so that he
could  not  move. Light that seemed  stronger than usual was falling on his
face.  O'Brien  was standing at his  side, looking down at him intently. At
the  other  side of him stood  a man in  a white coat, holding a hypodermic
syringe.
     Even  after his  eyes  were  open he  took  in  his surroundings  only
gradually.  He  had the impression of  swimming up into this room from some
quite  different world, a sort of underwater world far beneath it. How long
he had been down there he did not know. Since the moment when they arrested
him  he  had not seen darkness  or daylight. Besides, his memories were not
continuous.  There had  been times  when  consciousness, even  the sort  of
consciousness  that  one has in  sleep, had  stopped dead and started again
after  a blank interval. But whether the intervals were of days or weeks or
only seconds, there was no way of knowing.
     With  that first blow on the elbow the nightmare had started. Later he
was  to  realize that  all that  then happened was  merely a preliminary, a
routine  interrogation to  which nearly all prisoners were subjected. There
was a long range of crimes -- espionage, sabotage, and the like -- to which
everyone  had to  confess  as a  matter  of course.  The  confession was  a
formality,  though the torture was real. How many times he had been beaten,
how  long  the beatings had continued,  he could not remember. Always there
were  five or six men in black uniforms at him simultaneously. Sometimes it
was  fists, sometimes  it  was  truncheons, sometimes  it  was steel  rods,
sometimes it was boots. There were times when he rolled about the floor, as
shameless  as an animal, writhing his body this way and that in an endless,
hopeless  effort to  dodge the kicks, and simply inviting more and yet more
kicks,  in  his ribs,  in his  belly, on his  elbows, on  his shins, in his
groin,  in his testicles,  on the bone at the base of his spine. There were
times  when  it went on and  on until the cruel, wicked, unforgivable thing
seemed  to him not  that the guards continued to beat him but that he could
not  force  hirnself into  losing consciousness. There  were times when his
nerve  so forsook  him that  he began  shouting for  mercy even  before the
beating  began,  when the mere  sight of  a fist drawn  back for a blow was
enough  to  make him pour forth  a confession of real and imaginary crimes.
There  were other  times when he started out with the resolve of confessing
nothing, when every word had to be forced out of him between gasps of pain,
and  there were  times when he feebly  tried to compromise, when he said to
himself:  'I will  confess, but  not yet.  I must  hold out  till the  pain
becomes  unbearable. Three more kicks, two more kicks, and then I will tell
them  what they  want.' Sometimes he was beaten till he could hardly stand,
then flung like a sack of potatoes on to the stone floor of a cell, left to
recuperate for a few hours, and then taken out and beaten again. There were
also  longer  periods of  recovery. He remembered  them dimly, because they
were  spent chiefly  in sleep or stupor.  He remembered a cell with a plank
bed,  a sort of shelf sticking out from the wall, and a tin wash-basin, and
meals  of  hot soup and  bread and sometimes  coffee. He remembered a surly
barber  arriving  to scrape his  chin and  crop his hair, and businesslike,
unsympathetic  men in  white coats feeling his pulse, tapping his reflexes,
turning up his eyelids, running harsh fingers over him in search for broken
bones, and shooting needles into his arm to make him sleep.
     The  beatings grew less frequent, and became mainly a threat, a horror
to  which he  could  be sent  back  at  any moment  when  his answers  were
unsatisfactory. His questioners now were not ruffians in black uniforms but
Party  intellectuals,  little rotund men  with quick movements and flashing
spectacles,  who  worked on him  in relays over  periods which lasted -- he
thought,  he could  not be sure --  ten or twelve hours at a stretch. These
other questioners saw to it that he was in constant slight pain, but it was
not  chiefly  pain that  they relied  on. They slapped  his face, wrung his
ears.  pulled  his hair,  made him stand  on one leg,  refused him leave to
urinate,  shone  glaring lights in his  face until his eyes ran with water;
but  the aim  of this was simply  to humiliate him and destroy his power of
arguing and reasoning. Their real weapon was the merciless questioning that
went  on  and on, hour  after hour, tripping him  up, laying traps for him,
twisting  everything that he said, convicting him at every step of lies and
self-contradiction  until he  began  weeping  as much  from  shame as  from
nervous  fatigue  Sometimes he  would weep  half a dozen  times in a single
session.  Most  of the  time they  screamed abuse at  him and threatened at
every  hesitation  to deliver him  over to  the guards again; but sometimes
they  would suddenly  change their tune, call him comrade, appeal to him in
the  name  of Ingsoc and Big  Brother, and ask him sorrowfully whether even
now  he had  not enough loyalty to the  Party left to make him wish to undo
the  evil  he had  done.  When  his nerves  were  in  rags after  hours  of
questioning,  even this appeal could reduce him to snivelling tears. In the
end  the  nagging voices broke him  down more completely than the boots and
fists  of  the guards. He  became simply a mouth  that uttered, a hand that
signed, whatever was demanded of him. His sole concern was to find out what
they  wanted him  to  confess,  and then  confess  it  quickly, before  the
bullying  started anew.  He confessed to the assassination of eminent Party
members,  the  distribution of  seditious pamphlets, embezzlement of public
funds,  sale of military secrets, sabotage of every kind. He confessed that
he  had  been a spy in  the pay of the  Eastasian government as far back as
1968.  He  confessed that  he  was  a  religious  believer, an  admirer  of
capitalism,  and  a sexual pervert.  He confessed  that he had murdered his
wife,  although he knew, and his questioners must have known, that his wife
was  still alive. He confessed that for years he had been in personal touch
with  Goldstein and  had been a member of an underground organization which
had  included almost every  human being he had ever known. It was easier to
confess  everything and implicate everybody. Besides, in a sense it was all
true.  It was true that he had been the enemy of the Party, and in the eyes
of the Party there was no distinction between the thought and the deed.
     There  were also  memories of another kind. They stood out in his mind
disconnectedly, like pictures with blackness all round them.
     He  was in a  cell which might have been either dark or light, because
he  could  see nothing  except a  pair of eyes.  Near at  hand some kind of
instrument  was ticking slowly and regularly. The eyes grew larger and more
luminous. Suddenly he floated out of his seat, dived into the eyes, and was
swallowed up.
     He  was strapped  into a  chair  surrounded by  dials, under  dazzling
lights.  A man in  a white coat was reading the dials. There was a tramp of
heavy boots outside. The door clanged open. The waxed-faced officer marched
in, followed by two guards.
     'Room 101,' said the officer.
     The  man  in the  white coat  did not turn  round. He  did not look at
Winston either; he was looking only at the dials.
     He  was rolling  down a  mighty corridor,  a kilometre  wide, full  of
glorious,  golden light, roaring with laughter and shouting out confessions
at  the top of  his voice. He was confessing everything, even the things he
had succeeded in holding back under the torture. He was relating the entire
history  of his life  to an audience who knew it already. With him were the
guards,  the other  questioners, the men in white coats, O'Brien, Julia, Mr
Charrington,  all rolling  down  the corridor  together  and shouting  with
laughter.  Some  dreadful thing which  had lain  embedded in the future had
somehow  been skipped  over and had not happened. Everything was all right,
there  was no  more  pain, the  last  detail  of his  life  was laid  bare,
understood, forgiven.
     He  was  starting up from the  plank bed in the half-certainty that he
had  heard O'Brien's  voice. All through his interrogation, although he had
never  seen him, he had had the feeling that O'Brien was at his elbow, just
out  of sight.  It was O'Brien who  was directing everything. It was he who
set  the guards  on to Winston and  who prevented them from killing him. It
was  he  who decided when  Winston should scream  with pain, when he should
have a respite, when he should be fed, when he should sleep, when the drugs
should  be pumped  into his  arm. It  was he  who asked  the questions  and
suggested  the answers.  He was the tormentor, he was the protector, he was
the  inquisitor, he  was the friend. And once -- Winston could not remember
whether it was in drugged sleep, or in normal sleep, or even in a moment of
wakefulness  -- a voice murmured in his ear: 'Don't worry, Winston; you are
in  my keeping.  For seven years I  have watched over you. Now the turning-
point  has  come. I shall save  you, I shall  make you perfect.' He was not
sure  whether  it was O'Brien's  voice; but it was  the same voice that had
said  to him,  'We shall meet in  the place where there is no darkness,' in
that other dream, seven years ago.
     He  did not  remember any  ending to  his interrogation.  There was  a
period  of  blackness and then the  cell, or room,  in which he now was had
gradually  materialized round  him. He  was almost  flat on  his back,  and
unable  to move. His  body was held down at every essential point. Even the
back  of his  head was gripped in  some manner. O'Brien was looking down at
him  gravely and rather sadly. His face, seen from below, looked coarse and
worn, with pouches under the eyes and tired lines from nose to chin. He was
older  than  Winston had thought him;  he was perhaps forty-eight or fifty.
Under  his  hand there was a  dial with a  lever on top and figures running
round the face.
     'I told you,' said O'Brien, 'that if we met again it would be here.'
     'Yes,' said Winston.
     Without any warning except a slight movement of O'Brien's hand, a wave
of  pain flooded his  body. It was a frightening pain, because he could not
see  what was happening, and he had the feeling that some mortal injury was
being  done to him. He did not know whether the thing was really happening,
or  whether  the effect was  electrically produced;  but his body was being
wrenched  out  of shape, the joints  were being slowly torn apart. Although
the  pain had  brought the sweat out  on his forehead, the worst of all was
the fear that his backbone was about to snap. He set his teeth and breathed
hard through his nose, trying to keep silent as long as possible.
     'You  are  afraid,' said O'Brien,  watching his face, 'that in another
moment  something is going  to break. Your especial fear is that it will be
your  backbone.  You have a vivid  mental picture of the vertebrae snapping
apart  and  the spinal  fluid dripping  out of  them. That  is what you are
thinking, is it not, Winston?'
     Winston  did not  answer. O'Brien drew back the lever on the dial. The
wave of pain receded almost as quickly as it had come.
     'That  was forty,' said O'Brien. 'You can see that the numbers on this
dial  run  up to  a  hundred.  Will  you  please remember,  throughout  our
conversation,  that  I have it  in my  power to inflict  pain on you at any
moment and to whatever degree I choose? If you tell me any lies, or attempt
to  prevaricate  in  any way,  or  even  fall  below  your usual  level  of
intelligence,  you will  cry out  with pain,  instantly. Do  you understand
that?'
     'Yes,' said Winston.
     O'Brien's  manner  became less  severe.  He  resettled his  spectacles
thoughtfully,  and took a  pace or two up and down. When he spoke his voice
was  gentle  and patient.  He had  the air of  a doctor,  a teacher, even a
priest, anxious to explain and persuade rather than to punish.
     'I  am  taking trouble with  you, Winston,'  he said, 'because you are
worth  trouble.  You know perfectly  well what is  the matter with you. You
have  known it for years, though you have fought against the knowledge. You
are  mentally deranged.  You suffer from a defective memory. You are unable
to  remember real  events and you persuade yourself that you remember other
events  which never  happened. Fortunately  it is  curable. You  have never
cured  yourself  of it,  because you did  not choose to.  There was a small
effort  of  the will that you  were not ready to  make. Even now, I am well
aware,  you are clinging  to your disease under the impression that it is a
virtue. Now we will take an example. At this moment, which power is Oceania
at war with?'
     'When I was arrested, Oceania was at war with Eastasia.'
     'With  Eastasia.  Good.  And  Oceania  has always  been  at  war  with
Eastasia, has it not?'
     Winston  drew in his breath. He opened his mouth to speak and then did
not speak. He could not take his eyes away from the dial.
     'The  truth,  please, Winston. Your truth.  Tell me what you think you
remember.'
     'I  remember that until only a week before I was arrested, we were not
at  war  with Eastasia at all.  We were in  alliance with them. The war was
against Eurasia. That had lasted for four years. Before that--'
     O'Brien stopped him with a movement of the hand.
     'Another  example,'  he said. 'Some  years ago  you had a very serious
delusion  indeed. You believed that three men, three one-time Party members
named  Jones, Aaronson,  and Rutherford men who were executed for treachery
and  sabotage after  making the  fullest  possible confession  -- were  not
guilty of the crimes they were charged with. You believed that you had seen
unmistakable  documentary  evidence  proving that  their  confessions  were
false.  There was a certain photograph about which you had a hallucination.
You  believed that  you  had actually  held  it  in your  hands.  It was  a
photograph something like this.'
     An  oblong  slip of newspaper  had appeared between O'Brien's fingers.
For  perhaps  five seconds it was  within the angle of Winston's vision. It
was  a  photograph, and there  was no question of  its identity. It was THE
photograph.  It was  another copy of the photograph of Jones, Aaronson, and
Rutherford  at  the party function  in New York,  which he had chanced upon
eleven  years ago and promptly destroyed. For only an instant it was before
his   eyes,  then  it  was  out  of  sight  again.  But  he  had  seen  it,
unquestionably  he  had seen it!  He made  a desperate, agonizing effort to
wrench  the top half of his body free. It was impossible to move so much as
a  centimetre  in any direction.  For the moment  he had even forgotten the
dial.  All he wanted was to hold the photograph in his fingers again, or at
least to see it.
     'It exists!' he cried.
     'No,' said O'Brien.
     He  stepped  across the room. There  was a memory hole in the opposite
wall.  O'Brien lifted  the grating.  Unseen, the  frail slip  of paper  was
whirling  away on  the current of warm  air; it was vanishing in a flash of
flame. O'Brien turned away from the wall.
     'Ashes,'  he said.  'Not even  identifiable ashes.  Dust. It  does not
exist. It never existed.'
     'But  it did exist! It does exist! It exists in memory. I remember it.
You remember it.'
     'I do not remember it,' said O'Brien.
     Winston's heart sank. That was doublethink. He had a feeling of deadly
helplessness.  If  he could  have been  certain that  O'Brien was lying, it
would not have seemed to matter. But it was perfectly possible that O'Brien
had  really forgotten the photograph. And if so, then already he would have
forgotten   his  denial  of  remembering  it,  and  forgotten  the  act  of
forgetting. How could one be sure that it was simple trickery? Perhaps that
lunatic  dislocation in  the mind could really happen: that was the thought
that defeated him.
     O'Brien  was looking  down at him speculatively. More than ever he had
the air of a teacher taking pains with a wayward but promising child.
     'There  is  a Party slogan  dealing with the  control of the past,' he
said. 'Repeat it, if you please.'
     '"Who  controls the past controls the future: who controls the present
controls the past,"' repeated Winston obediently.
     "'Who  controls the present controls the past,"' said O'Brien, nodding
his  head  with slow approval. 'Is  it your opinion, Winston, that the past
has real existence?'
     Again  the  feeling of  helplessness descended  upon Winston. His eyes
flitted  towards the  dial. He not only  did not know whether 'yes' or 'no'
was  the answer  that would save him  from pain; he did not even know which
answer he believed to be the true one.
     O'Brien  smiled faintly. 'You are no metaphysician, Winston,' he said.
'Until  this moment  you had never considered what is meant by existence. I
will  put  it more precisely. Does  the past exist concretely, in space? Is
there  somewhere or other a place, a world of solid objects, where the past
is still happening?'
     'No.'
     'Then where does the past exist, if at all?'
     'In records. It is written down.'
     'In records. And--?'
     'In the mind. In human memories.'
     'In  memory. Very  well, then. We, the Party, control all records, and
we control all memories. Then we control the past, do we not?'
     'But  how can you stop people remembering things?' cried Winston again
momentarily forgetting the dial. 'It is involuntary. It is outside oneself.
How can you control memory? You have not controlled mine!'
     O'Brien's manner grew stern again. He laid his hand on the dial.
     'On  the contrary,' he said, 'you have not controlled it. That is what
has  brought you here. You are here because you have failed in humility, in
self-discipline.  You  would not  make the  act of  submission which is the
price of sanity. You preferred to be a lunatic, a minority of one. Only the
disciplined  mind can  see reality,  Winston. You  believe that  reality is
something  objective, external, existing in its own right. You also believe
that  the nature  of reality is self-evident. When you delude yourself into
thinking  that  you see something,  you assume  that everyone else sees the
same  thing as you.  But I tell you, Winston, that reality is not external.
Reality  exists in  the human mind, and nowhere else. Not in the individual
mind,  which can make  mistakes, and in any case soon perishes: only in the
mind  of  the Party, which  is collective  and immortal. Whatever the Party
holds  to be the truth, is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by
looking  through the eyes  of the Party. That is the fact that you have got
to  relearn, Winston. It needs an act of self-destruction, an effort of the
will. You must humble yourself before you can become sane.'
     He  paused  for a  few moments,  as though  to allow  what he had been
saying to sink in.
     'Do you remember,' he went on, 'writing in your diary, "Freedom is the
freedom to say that two plus two make four"?'
     'Yes,' said Winston.
     O'Brien  held  up his  left hand,  its back  towards Winston, with the
thumb hidden and the four fingers extended.
     'How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?'
     'Four.'
     'And if the party says that it is not four but five -- then how many?'
     'Four.'
     The  word ended in  a gasp of pain. The needle of the dial had shot up
to  fifty-five.  The sweat had sprung  out all over Winston's body. The air
tore into his lungs and issued again in deep groans which even by clenching
his  teeth  he could not stop.  O'Brien watched him, the four fingers still
extended.  He  drew back  the lever.  This time the  pain was only slightly
eased.
     'How many fingers, Winston?'
     'Four.'
     The needle went up to sixty.
     'How many fingers, Winston?'
     'Four! Four! What else can I say? Four!'
     The  needle  must have  risen again,  but he  did not  look at it. The
heavy, stern face and the four fingers filled his vision. The fingers stood
up  before his eyes like pillars, enormous, blurry, and seeming to vibrate,
but unmistakably four.
     'How many fingers, Winston?'
     'Four! Stop it, stop it! How can you go on? Four! Four!'
     'How many fingers, Winston?'
     'Five! Five! Five!'
     'No, Winston, that is no use. You are lying. You still think there are
four. How many fingers, please?'
     'Four! five! Four! Anything you like. Only stop it, stop the pain!'
     Abruptly  he was sitting up with O'Brien's arm round his shoulders. He
had  perhaps lost  consciousness for a few seconds. The bonds that had held
his   body  down   were  loosened.  He  felt  very  cold,  he  was  shaking
uncontrollably,  his teeth were chattering, the tears were rolling down his
cheeks.  For a  moment he clung to O'Brien like a baby, curiously comforted
by  the heavy arm  round his shoulders. He had the feeling that O'Brien was
his  protector,  that the pain  was something  that came from outside, from
some other source, and that it was O'Brien who would save him from it.
     'You are a slow learner, Winston,' said O'Brien gently.
     'How  can I help  it?' he blubbered. 'How can I help seeing what is in
front of my eyes? Two and two are four.'
     'Sometimes,  Winston.  Sometimes they  are  five.  Sometimes they  are
three.  Sometimes they are  all of them at once. You must try harder. It is
not easy to become sane.'
     He  laid Winston  down on  the bed.  The grip  of his  limbs tightened
again,  but the  pain had ebbed away and the trembling had stopped, leaving
him  merely weak and cold. O'Brien motioned with his head to the man in the
white  coat, who  had stood immobile throughout the proceedings. The man in
the  white coat  bent down and looked closely into Winston's eyes, felt his
pulse, laid an ear against his chest, tapped here and there, then he nodded
to O'Brien.
     'Again,' said O'Brien.
     The  pain  flowed into Winston's body.  The needle must be at seventy,
seventy-five. He had shut his eyes this time. He knew that the fingers were
still  there,  and still four. All  that mattered was somehow to stay alive
until the spasm was over. He had ceased to notice whether he was crying out
or not. The pain lessened again. He opened his eyes. O'Brien had drawn back
the lever.
     'How many fingers, Winston?'
     'Four.  I  suppose there are four.  I would see  five if I could. I am
trying to see five.'
     'Which do you wish: to persuade me that you see five, or really to see
them?'
     'Really to see them.'
     'Again,' said O'Brien.
     Perhaps   the   needle  was  eighty   --  ninety.  Winston  could  not
intermittently  remember why  the pain was happening. Behind his screwed-up
eyelids a forest of fingers seemed to be moving in a sort of dance, weaving
in  and out,  disappearing behind one another and reappearing again. He was
trying  to count them,  he could not remember why. He knew only that it was
impossible  to count  them, and that this was somehow due to the mysterious
identity  between  five and four. The  pain died down again. When he opened
his  eyes  it  was to  find  that  he  was  still seeing  the  same  thing.
Innumerable fingers, like moving trees, were still streaming past in either
direction, crossing and recrossing. He shut his eyes again.
     'How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?'
     'I  don't know.  I don't know. You  will kill me if you do that again.
Four, five, six -- in all honesty I don't know.'
     'Better,' said O'Brien.
     A  needle slid  into  Winston's  arm. Almost  in  the  same instant  a
blissful,  healing warmth spread all through his body. The pain was already
half-forgotten.  He opened his eyes and looked up gratefully at O'Brien. At
sight  of the  heavy, lined  face, so  ugly and  so intelligent,  his heart
seemed  to turn over.  If he could have moved he would have stretched out a
hand  and  laid it on O'Brien  arm. He had never  loved him so deeply as at
this  moment, and  not merely  because  he had  stopped the  pain. The  old
feeling,  that at bottom  it did not matter whether O'Brien was a friend or
an  enemy,  had come  back. O'Brien  was a  person who  could be talked to.
Perhaps  one did not  want to be loved so much as to be understood. O'Brien
had  tortured  him to  the edge  of lunacy, and  in a  little while, it was
certain,  he  would send him  to his death. It  made no difference. In some
sense  that went  deeper than friendship, they were intimates: somewhere or
other,  although the  actual words might never be spoken, there was a place
where  they  could meet and  talk. O'Brien was looking  down at him with an
expression  which suggested that the same thought might be in his own mind.
When he spoke it was in an easy, conversational tone.
     'Do you know where you are, Winston?' he said.
     'I don't know. I can guess. In the Ministry of Love.'
     'Do you know how long you have been here?'
     'I don't know. Days, weeks, months -- I think it is months.'
     'And why do you imagine that we bring people to this place?'
     'To make them confess.'
     'No, that is not the reason. Try again.'
     'To punish them.'
     'No!'  exclaimed  O'Brien. His  voice had changed extraordinarily, and
his  face  had suddenly become both  stern and animated. 'No! Not merely to
extract  your confession,  not to punish you.  Shall I tell you why we have
brought  you here?  To cure  you! To  make you  sane! Will  you understand,
Winston,  that  no one  whom we bring  to this place  ever leaves our hands
uncured?  We are  not  interested  in those  stupid  crimes  that you  have
committed. The Party is not interested in the overt act: the thought is all
we care about. We do not merely destroy our enemies, we change them. Do you
understand what I mean by that?'
     He  was bending  over Winston. His face looked enormous because of its
nearness,  and  hideously ugly because it  was seen from below. Moreover it
was  filled with a sort of exaltation, a lunatic intensity. Again Winston's
heart shrank. If it had been possible he would have cowered deeper into the
bed.  He felt certain that O'Brien was about to twist the dial out of sheer
wantonness. At this moment, however, O'Brien turned away. He took a pace or
two up and down. Then he continued less vehemently:
     'The first thing for you to understand is that in this place there are
no  martyrdoms. You have read of the religious persecutions of the past. In
the  Middle Ages there was the Inquisitlon. It was a failure. It set out to
eradicate heresy, and ended by perpetuating it. For every heretic it burned
at  the stake,  thousands of  others  rose up.  Why was  that? Because  the
Inquisition killed its enemies in the open, and killed them while they were
still  unrepentant: in  fact, it killed them because they were unrepentant.
Men were dying because they would not abandon their true beliefs. Naturally
all  the glory  belonged to the victim  and all the shame to the Inquisitor
who   burned  him.   Later,  in  the  twentieth  century,  there  were  the
totalitarians,  as  they were called.  There were  the German Nazis and the
Russian  Communists.  The Russians persecuted  heresy more cruelly than the
Inquisition  had  done. And  they imagined  that they  had learned from the
mistakes  of the  past; they  knew, at  any rate,  that one  must not  make
martyrs.   Before  they   exposed  their  victims  to  public  trial,  they
deliberately  set themselves  to destroy their dignity. They wore them down
by  torture and  solitude until  they were  despicable, cringing  wretches,
confessing  whatever  was put  into their  mouths, covering themselves with
abuse,  accusing  and sheltering behind  one another, whimpering for mercy.
And  yet after only a few years the same thing had happened over again. The
dead  men had  become martyrs  and  their degradation  was forgotten.  Once
again,  why  was it? In the  first place, because the confessions that they
had  made  were obviously extorted  and untrue. We  do not make mistakes of
that kind. All the confessions that are uttered here are true. We make them
true.  And  above all we do  not allow the dead  to rise up against us. You
must  stop imagining  that posterity will vindicate you, Winston. Posterity
will  never  hear of you. You  will be lifted  clean out from the stream of
history.  We  shall turn you  into gas and  pour you into the stratosphere.
Nothing  will  remain of you, not  a name in a  register, not a memory in a
living brain. You will be annihilated in the past as well as in the future.
You will never have existed.'
     Then  why bother  to torture  me?  thought Winston,  with a  momentary
bitterness.  O'Brien checked  his step  as though  Winston had  uttered the
thought  aloud.  His large  ugly face  came nearer, with  the eyes a little
narrowed.
     'You  are  thinking,' he  said, 'that  since we  intend to destroy you
utterly,  so  that  nothing that  you  say  or  do  can make  the  smallest
difference  -- in  that case, why do  we go to the trouble of interrogating
you first? That is what you were thinking, was it not?'
     'Yes,' said Winston.
     O'Brien  smiled slightly. 'You are a flaw in the pattern, Winston. You
are a stain that must be wiped out. Did I not tell you just now that we are
different  from the  persecutors  of  the past?  We  are  not content  with
negative  obedience, nor even with the most abject submission. When finally
you  surrender to  us, it must be of  your own free will. We do not destroy
the  heretic because  he resists  us: so  long as  he resists  us we  never
destroy  him. We convert him, we capture his inner mind, we reshape him. We
burn  all evil and  all illusion out of him; we bring him over to our side,
not  in appearance,  but genuinely,  heart  and soul.  We make  him one  of
ourselves  before  we kill him.  It is intolerable  to us that an erroneous
thought should exist anywhere in the world, however secret and powerless it
may be. Even in the instant of death we cannot permit any deviation. In the
old  days the  heretic walked to the stake still a heretic, proclaiming his
heresy,  exulting in  it. Even the victim of the Russian purges could carry
rebellion  locked up in his skull as he walked down the passage waiting for
the  bullet. But  we make  the brain  perfect before  we blow  it out.  The
command  of  the old  despotisms was  "Thou shalt not".  The command of the
totalitarians  was "Thou  shalt". Our command is "Thou art". No one whom we
bring  to this  place ever stands out against us. Everyone is washed clean.
Even those three miserable traitors in whose innocence you once believed --
Jones,  Aaronson, and  Rutherford -- in the  end we broke them down. I took
part  in  their interrogation  myself.  I  saw  them gradually  worn  down,
whimpering,  grovelling, weeping --  and in the end it was not with pain or
fear,  only with penitence. By the time we had finished with them they were
only  the shells  of men. There was  nothing left in them except sorrow for
what  they  had done, and love  of Big Brother.  It was touching to see how
they  loved  him. They  begged to be  shot quickly, so  that they could die
while their minds were still clean.'
     His  voice  had  grown  almost dreamy.  The  exaltation,  the  lunatic
enthusiasm,  was still  in his face. He is not pretending, thought Winston,
he  is not a hypocrite, he believes every word he says. What most oppressed
him  was the  consciousness of his own intellectual inferiority. He watched
the  heavy yet graceful  form strolling to and fro, in and out of the range
of  his vision. O'Brien  was a being in all ways larger than himself. There
was  no idea that he had ever had, or could have, that O'Brien had not long
ago  known, examined,  and rejected. His mind contained Winston's mind. But
in  that  case how could  it be true  that O'Brien was  mad? It must be he,
Winston,  who was mad. O'Brien halted and looked down at him. His voice had
grown stern again.
     'Do  not  imagine  that  you  will  save  yourself,  Winston,  however
completely  you  surrender to us.  No one who has  once gone astray is ever
spared.  And even if  we chose to let you live out the natural term of your
life, still you would never escape from us. What happens to you here is for
ever. Understand that in advance. We shall crush you down to the point from
which  there  is no coming  back. Things will happen  to you from which you
could  not recover, if  you lived a thousand years. Never again will you be
capable  of ordinary  human feeling.  Everything will  be dead  inside you.
Never  again will you  be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living,
or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be hollow. We
shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves.'
     He  paused and signed  to the man in the white coat. Winston was aware
of  some heavy  piece of apparatus being pushed into place behind his head.
O'Brien had sat down beside the bed, so that his face was almost on a level
with Winston's.
     'Three  thousand,' he said, speaking over Winston's head to the man in
the white coat.
     Two  soft pads,  which felt slightly moist, clamped themselves against
Winston's  temples. He  quailed. There was pain coming, a new kind of pain.
O'Brien laid a hand reassuringly, almost kindly, on his.
     'This time it will not hurt,' he said. 'Keep your eyes fixed on mine.'
     At  this moment there was a devastating explosion, or what seemed like
an  explosion, though it was not certain whether there was any noise. There
was  undoubtedly a  blinding flash  of light.  Winston was  not hurt,  only
prostrated.  Although he  had already been lying on his back when the thing
happened,  he had  a curious  feeling that  he had  been knocked  into that
position.  A  terrific painless blow  had flattened him out. Also something
had  happened  inside  his  head.  As his  eyes  regained  their  focus  he
remembered  who he was,  and where he was, and recognized the face that was
gazing  into  his own;  but somewhere or  other there was  a large patch of
emptiness, as though a piece had been taken out of his brain.
     'It  will not  last,' said O'Brien. 'Look me in the eyes. What country
is Oceania at war with?'
     Winston thought. He knew what was meant by Oceania and that he himself
was  a citizen of Oceania. He also remembered Eurasia and Eastasia; but who
was  at war  with whom he did not  know. In fact he had not been aware that
there was any war.
     'I don't remember.'
     'Oceania is at war with Eastasia. Do you remember that now?'
     'Yes.'
     'Oceania  has always been at war with Eastasia. Since the beginning of
your  life, since  the  beginning  of the  Party,  since  the beginning  of
history, the war has continued without a break, always the same war. Do you
remember that?'
     'Yes.'
     'Eleven  years  ago you created a  legend about three men who had been
condemned  to death  for treachery. You pretended that you had seen a piece
of  paper which  proved them innocent. No such piece of paper ever existed.
You  invented it, and later you grew to believe in it. You remember now the
very moment at which you first invented it. Do you remember that?'
     'Yes.'
     'Just  now I  held up  the fingers  of my  hand to  you. You  saw five
fingers. Do you remember that?'
     'Yes.'
     O'Brien  held  up  the  fingers  of his  left  hand,  with  the  thumb
concealed.
     'There are five fingers there. Do you see five fingers?'
     'Yes.'
     And he did see them, for a fleeting instant, before the scenery of his
mind  changed. He  saw  five  fingers, and  there  was  no deformity.  Then
everything  was  normal again,  and  the  old  fear,  the hatred,  and  the
bewilderment  came  crowding back again. But  there had been a moment -- he
did  not  know how long, thirty  seconds, perhaps -- of luminous certainty,
when  each  new suggestion of O'Brien's  had filled up a patch of emptiness
and  become absolute  truth, and when two  and two could have been three as
easily  as  five, if  that were  what was  needed. It  had faded but before
O'Brien  had  dropped his  hand; but  though he could  not recapture it, he
could  remember  it, as one remembers  a vivid experience at some period of
one's life when one was in effect a different person.
     'You see now,' said O'Brien, 'that it is at any rate possible.'
     'Yes,' said Winston.
     O'Brien  stood  up with a satisfied  air. Over to his left Winston saw
the  man in the  white coat break an ampoule and draw back the plunger of a
syringe.  O'Brien turned  to Winston with a smile. In almost the old manner
he resettled his spectacles on his nose.
     'Do  you  remember writing in  your diary,' he  said, 'that it did not
matter  whether I  was a friend or an  enemy, since I was at least a person
who  understood you and could be talked to? You were right. I enjoy talking
to  you. Your mind  appeals to me. It resembles my own mind except that you
happen to be insane. Before we bring the session to an end you can ask me a
few questions, if you choose.'
     'Any question I like?'
     'Anything.'  He  saw that  Winston's eyes  were upon  the dial. 'It is
switched off. What is your first question?'
     'What have you done with Julia?' said Winston.
     O'Brien   smiled  again.  'She  betrayed  you,  Winston.  Immediately-
unreservedly.  I  have seldom seen anyone  come over to us so promptly. You
would  hardly  recognize her  if you  saw her.  All her rebelliousness, her
deceit,  her folly,  her dirty-mindedness -- everything has been burned out
of her. It was a perfect conversion, a textbook case.'
     'You tortured her?'
     O'Brien left this unanswered. 'Next question,' he said.
     'Does Big Brother exist?'
     'Of  course he exists. The Party exists. Big Brother is the embodiment
of the Party.'
     'Does he exist in the same way as I exist?'
     'You do not exist,' said O'Brien.
     Once  again  the sense  of helplessness  assailed him.  He knew, or he
could  imagine,  the arguments which  proved his own nonexistence; but they
were  nonsense, they were only a play on words. Did not the statement, 'You
do  not exist', contain a logical absurdity? But what use was it to say so?
His  mind shrivelled  as he thought of the unanswerable, mad arguments with
which O'Brien would demolish him.
     'I  think  I exist,'  he  said  wearily. 'I  am  conscious  of my  own
identity.  I  was born and  I shall die.  I have arms  and legs. I occupy a
particular  point in space. No other solid object can occupy the same point
simultaneously. In that sense, does Big Brother exist?'
     'It is of no importance. He exists.'
     'Will Big Brother ever die?'
     'Of course not. How could he die? Next question.'
     'Does the Brotherhood exist?'
     'That, Winston, you will never know. If we choose to set you free when
we  have finished  with you, and if  you live to be ninety years old, still
you  will never learn  whether the answer to that question is Yes or No. As
long as you live it will be an unsolved riddle in your mind.'
     Winston lay silent. His breast rose and fell a little faster. He still
had  not asked  the question that had  come into his mind the first. He had
got  to  ask it, and  yet it was  as though his  tongue would not utter it.
There  was a  trace of  amusement in  O'Brien's face.  Even his  spectacles
seemed  to  wear an ironical gleam.  He knows, thought Winston suddenly, he
knows what I am going to ask! At the thought the words burst out of him:
     'What is in Room 101?'
     The expression on O'Brien's face did not change. He answered drily:
     'You know what is in Room 101, Winston. Everyone knows what is in Room
101.'
     He raised a finger to the man in the white coat. Evidently the session
was at an end. A needle jerked into Winston's arm. He sank almost instantly
into deep sleep.



        III

     'There  are three  stages in your reintegration,' said O'Brien. 'There
is  learning,  there is understanding, and  there is acceptance. It is time
for you to enter upon the second stage.'
     As  always, Winston was  lying flat on his back. But of late his bonds
were  looser. They still held him to the bed, but he could move his knees a
little  and could  turn his head from  side to side and raise his arms from
the elbow. The dial, also, had grown to be less of a terror. He could evade
its  pangs  if he  was quick-witted  enough: it was  chiefly when he showed
stupidity that O'Brien pulled the lever. Sometimes they got through a whole
session  without  use of the dial.  He could not remember how many sessions
there  had been.  The whole  process  seemed to  stretch out  over a  long,
indefinite  time  -- weeks,  possibly  --  and  the intervals  between  the
sessions might sometimes have been days, sometimes only an hour or two.
     'As you lie there,' said O'Brien, 'you have often wondered -- you have
even  asked me  -- why the Ministry  of Love should expend so much time and
trouble  on you.  And when  you  were free  you  were puzzled  by what  was
essentially the same question. You could grasp the mechanics of the Society
you  lived  in, but not its  underlying motives. Do you remember writing in
your  diary, "I  understand how: I do  not understand why"? It was when you
thought  about  "why" that you  doubted your own  sanity. You have read the
book,  Goldstein's book, or parts of it, at least. Did it tell you anything
that you did not know already?'
     'You have read it?' said Winston.
     'I  wrote it. That is to say, I collaborated in writing it. No book is
produced individually, as you know.'
     'Is it true, what it says?'
     'A  description, yes.  The programme  it sets  forth is  nonsense. The
secret  accumulation  of knowledge --  a gradual spread of enlightenment --
ultimately  a proletarian  rebellion --  the  overthrow of  the Party.  You
foresaw  yourself that that  was what it would say. It is all nonsense. The
proletarians  will never revolt, not in a thousand years or a million. They
cannot.  I do not  have to tell you the reason: you know it already. If you
have  ever  cherished any dreams  of violent insurrection, you must abandon
them. There is no way in which the Party can be overthrown. The rule of the
Party is for ever. Make that the starting-point of your thoughts.'
     He  came closer  to the bed. 'For  ever!' he repeated. 'And now let us
get back to the question of "how" and "why". You understand well enough how
the  Party  maintains itself in  power. Now tell me  why we cling to power.
What  is our  motive? Why should we  want power? Go on, speak,' he added as
Winston remained silent.
     Nevertheless  Winston did  not  speak  for another  moment  or two.  A
feeling  of  weariness  had  overwhelmed  him.  The  faint,  mad  gleam  of
enthusiasm  had come  back into  O'Brien's face.  He knew  in advance  what
O'Brien  would say. That the Party did not seek power for its own ends, but
only  for the good of the majority. That it sought power because men in the
mass were frail cowardly creatures who could not endure liberty or face the
truth,  and  must be ruled  over and  systematically deceived by others who
were  stronger than  themselves. That  the choice  for mankind  lay between
freedom  and happiness,  and that, for the great bulk of mankind, happiness
was  better.  That the  party  was  the eternal  guardian  of  the weak,  a
dedicated  sect  doing evil  that  good  might  come, sacrificing  its  own
happiness  to that  of others.  The  terrible thing,  thought Winston,  the
terrible  thing  was that when  O'Brien said this  he would believe it. You
could  see it in his face. O'Brien knew everything. A thousand times better
than  Winston  he knew what the  world was really like, in what degradation
the  mass of human  beings lived and by what lies and barbarities the Party
kept  them there. He  had understood it all, weighed it all, and it made no
difference:  all  was justified by  the ultimate  purpose. What can you do,
thought Winston, against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself,
who  gives  your arguments a  fair hearing and  then simply persists in his
lunacy?
     'You  are ruling  over us  for  our own  good,' he  said feebly.  'You
believe   that  human   beings  are  not  fit  to  govern  themselves,  and
therefore--'
     He  started and almost  cried out. A pang of pain had shot through his
body. O'Brien had pushed the lever of the dial up to thirty-five.
     'That  was stupid,  Winston, stupid!' he said. 'You should know better
than to say a thing like that.'
     He pulled the lever back and continued:
     'Now  I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party
seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of
others;  we  are interested solely  in power. Not  wealth or luxury or long
life  or happiness:  only power, pure power. What pure power means you will
understand  presently. We  are different  from all  the oligarchies  of the
past,  in  that we know what  we are doing.  All the others, even those who
resembled  ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the
Russian  Communists came  very close to us in their methods, but they never
had  the  courage to  recognize their own  motives. They pretended, perhaps
they  even believed,  that  they had  seized power  unwillingly  and for  a
limited  time,  and that just  round the corner  there lay a paradise where
human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no
one  ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not
a  means, it  is an end. One  does not establish a dictatorship in order to
safeguard  a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the
dictatorship.  The object  of  persecution is  persecution.  The object  of
torture  is  torture. The  object of  power is  power. Now  do you begin to
understand me?'
     Winston  was struck, as he had been struck before, by the tiredness of
O'Brien's  face. It  was  strong and  fleshy  and brutal,  it  was full  of
intelligence  and a sort of controlled passion before which he felt himself
helpless;  but  it was tired.  There were pouches  under the eyes, the skin
sagged  from the cheekbones. O'Brien leaned over him, deliberately bringing
the worn face nearer.
     'You  are thinking,' he  said, 'that my face is old and tired. You are
thinking  that I  talk of power, and yet  I am not even able to prevent the
decay  of my own body. Can you not understand, Winston, that the individual
is only a cell? The weariness of the cell is the vigour of the organism. Do
you die when you cut your fingernails?'
     He turned away from the bed and began strolling up and down again, one
hand in his pocket.
     'We  are the priests of power,' he said. 'God is power. But at present
power  is  only a word so  far as you are  concerned. It is time for you to
gather  some idea of  what power means. The first thing you must realize is
that  power  is collective. The  individual only has power  in so far as he
ceases  to  be an  individual.  You  know  the  Party slogan:  "Freedom  is
Slavery".  Has  it ever occurred  to you that  it is reversible? Slavery is
freedom.  Alone --  free -- the human  being is always defeated. It must be
so,  because every  human being is doomed  to die, which is the greatest of
all  failures.  But if  he can  make complete, utter  submission, if he can
escape  from his identity,  if he can merge himself in the Party so that he
is  the  Party, then he is  all-powerful and immortal. The second thing for
you to realize is that power is power over human beings. Over the body but,
above  all,  over the mind.  Power over matter  -- external reality, as you
would  call it  -- is  not important.  Already our  control over  matter is
absolute.'
     For  a  moment Winston ignored  the dial. He  made a violent effort to
raise  himself  into a sitting  position, and merely succeeded in wrenching
his body painfully.
     'But  how can  you  control matter?'  he burst  out.  'You don't  even
control  the  climate or the  law of gravity.  And there are disease, pain,
death--'
     O'Brien  silenced  him by a  movement of  his hand. 'We control matter
because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull. You will learn by
degrees,  Winston. There  is nothing  that we  could not  do. Invisibility,
levitation  -- anything. I could float off this floor like a soap bubble if
I  wish to. I  do not wish to, because the Party does not wish it. You must
get rid of those nineteenth-century ideas about the laws of Nature. We make
the laws of Nature.'
     'But  you do not!  You are not even masters of this planet. What about
Eurasia and Eastasia? You have not conquered them yet.'
     'Unimportant.  We  shall conquer them when  it suits us. And if we did
not,  what  difference would  it make?  We can shut  them out of existence.
Oceania is the world.'
     'But  the world  itself is  only  a speck  of  dust. And  man is  tiny
helpless!  How  long has  he been  in existence? For  millions of years the
earth was uninhabited.'
     'Nonsense.  The earth  is as old as  we are, no older. How could it be
older? Nothing exists except through human consciousness.'
     'But  the  rocks are full of  the bones of extinct animals -- mammoths
and  mastodons  and enormous reptiles which  lived here long before man was
ever heard of.'
     'Have  you ever  seen those bones, Winston? Of course not. Nineteenth-
century  biologists invented them. Before man there was nothing. After man,
if  he could  come to an end,  there would be nothing. Outside man there is
nothing.'
     'But the whole universe is outside us. Look at the stars! Some of them
are a million light-years away. They are out of our reach for ever.'
     'What  are  the stars?' said  O'Brien indifferently. 'They are bits of
fire  a  few kilometres away.  We could  reach them if  we wanted to. Or we
could  blot them out.  The earth is the centre of the universe. The sun and
the stars go round it.'
     Winston  made  another convulsive  movement. This time  he did not say
anything. O'Brien continued as though answering a spoken objection:
     'For  certain purposes,  of course, that is not true. When we navigate
the  ocean, or  when we predict an  eclipse, we often find it convenient to
assume  that the  earth goes round the  sun and that the stars are millions
upon  millions  of kilometres  away. But what  of it? Do  you suppose it is
beyond  us to produce  a dual system of astronomy? The stars can be near or
distant,  according as  we need them. Do you suppose our mathematicians are
unequal to that? Have you forgotten doublethink?'
     Winston  shrank back  upon the bed. Whatever he said, the swift answer
crushed  him like a  bludgeon. And yet he knew, he knew, that he was in the
right. The belief that nothing exists outside your own mind -- surely there
must  be some  way of  demonstrating that  it was  false? Had  it not  been
exposed  long ago as  a fallacy? There was even a name for it, which he had
forgotten.  A  faint smile  twitched the  corners of  O'Brien's mouth as he
looked down at him.
     'I  told you,  Winston,' he said, 'that metaphysics is not your strong
point.  The word  you are  trying to  think of  is solipsism.  But you  are
mistaken.  This  is not  solipsism. Collective solipsism,  if you like. But
that  is  a different  thing: in  fact, the  opposite thing.  All this is a
digression,'  he  added in a different  tone. 'The real power, the power we
have  to fight for  night and day, is not power over things, but over men.'
He  paused, and  for  a moment  assumed  again his  air  of a  schoolmaster
questioning  a  promising pupil:  'How does  one man  assert his power over
another, Winston?'
     Winston thought. 'By making him suffer,' he said.
     'Exactly.  By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is
suffering,  how  can you be sure  that he is  obeying your will and not his
own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human
minds  to pieces and  putting them together again in new shapes of your own
choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It
is  the exact  opposite  of  the stupid  hedonistic  Utopias  that the  old
reformers  imagined.  A world of fear  and treachery is torment, a world of
trampling  and  being trampled upon,  a world which  will grow not less but
MORE merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress
towards  more pain. The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on
love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no
emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we
shall  destroy  -- everything. Already  we are  breaking down the habits of
thought  which  have survived from  before the  Revolution. We have cut the
links  between  child and parent, and  between man and man, and between man
and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer. But
in the future there will be no wives and no friends. Children will be taken
from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from a hen. The sex instinct
will  be eradicated.  Procreation  will  be an  annual  formality like  the
renewal of a ration card. We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are
at  work upon it  now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the
Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be
no  laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will
be  no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent we shall have
no  more  need of science. There  will be no distinction between beauty and
ugliness.  There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life.
All  competing  pleasures will  be destroyed.  But always  -- do not forget
this, Winston -- always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly
increasing  and constantly  growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there
will  be the thrill  of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who
is  helpless. If you  want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping
on a human face -- for ever.'
     He paused as though he expected Winston to speak. Winston had tried to
shrink  back into the  surface of the bed again. He could not say anything.
His heart seemed to be frozen. O'Brien went on:
     'And remember that it is for ever. The face will always be there to be
stamped  upon. The  heretic, the enemy of society, will always be there, so
that he can be defeated and humiliated over again. Everything that you have
undergone  since you have  been in our hands -- all that will continue, and
worse.  The  espionage,  the  betrayals, the  arrests,  the  tortures,  the
executions,  the  disappearances will  never cease.  It will  be a world of
terror  as much as  a world of triumph. The more the Party is powerful, the
less  it will  be  tolerant: the  weaker the  opposition,  the tighter  the
despotism.  Goldstein  and his heresies  will live  for ever. Every day, at
every  moment, they will be defeated, discredited, ridiculed, spat upon and
yet  they will  always survive. This drama  that I have played out with you
during  seven years will be played out over and over again generation after
generation,  always in subtler forms. Always we shall have the heretic here
at  our  mercy, screaming with pain,  broken up, contemptible -- and in the
end  utterly penitent,  saved from himself, crawling to our feet of his own
accord.  That is  the world  that  we are  preparing, Winston.  A world  of
victory  after victory,  triumph after  triumph after  triumph: an  endless
pressing,  pressing, pressing upon the nerve of power. You are beginning, I
can  see, to realize  what that world will be like. But in the end you will
do  more than understand it. You will accept it, welcome it, become part of
it.'
     Winston  had recovered  himself sufficiently to speak. 'You can't!' he
said weakly.
     'What do you mean by that remark, Winston?'
     'You could not create such a world as you have just described. It is a
dream. It is impossible.'
     'Why?'
     'It  is impossible  to found  a civilization  on fear  and hatred  and
cruelty. It would never endure.'
     'Why not?'
     'It  would  have no  vitality. It would  disintegrate. It would commit
suicide.'
     'Nonsense. You are under the impression that hatred is more exhausting
than  love.  Why should it  be? And if it  were, what difference would that
make?  Suppose that we choose to wear ourselves out faster. Suppose that we
quicken  the tempo of  human life till men are senile at thirty. Still what
difference  would  it make?  Can you  not understand that  the death of the
individual is not death? The party is immortal.'
     As  usual, the  voice had battered Winston into helplessness. Moreover
he  was  in dread  that if  he persisted in  his disagreement O'Brien would
twist  the  dial again. And  yet he could  not keep silent. Feebly, without
arguments,  with  nothing to support  him except his inarticulate horror of
what O'Brien had said, he returned to the attack.
     'I  don't know  -- I don't care. Somehow you will fail. Something will
defeat you. Life will defeat you.'
     'We  control life,  Winston, at all its levels. You are imagining that
there is something called human nature which will be outraged by what we do
and  will  turn against us. But  we create human nature. Men are infinitely
malleable.  Or  perhaps  you  have  returned to  your  old  idea  that  the
proletarians  or the slaves will arise and overthrow us. Put it out of your
mind.  They are  helpless, like  the animals.  Humanity is  the Party.  The
others are outside -- irrelevant.'
     'I  don't  care. In the  end they will beat  you. Sooner or later they
will see you for what you are, and then they will tear you to pieces.'
     'Do  you see any evidence that that is happening? Or any reason why it
should?'
     'No.  I believe  it. I know that  you will fail. There is something in
the  universe -- I don't know, some spirit, some principle -- that you will
never overcome.'
     'Do you believe in God, Winston?'
     'No.'
     'Then what is it, this principle that will defeat us?'
     'I don't know. The spirit of Man.'
     'And do you consider yourself a man?.'
     'Yes.'
     'If  you are  a man,  Winston,  you are  the  last man.  Your kind  is
extinct;  we are  the inheritors. Do you understand that you are alone? You
are  outside history, you are non-existent.' His manner changed and he said
more  harshly: 'And  you consider yourself morally superior to us, with our
lies and our cruelty?'
     'Yes, I consider myself superior.'
     O'Brien  did not speak. Two other voices were speaking. After a moment
Winston  recognized  one of  them as his  own. It was  a sound-track of the
conversation  he  had had with  O'Brien, on the  night when he had enrolled
himself in the Brotherhood. He heard himself promising to lie, to steal, to
forge, to murder, to encourage drug-taking and prostitution, to disseminate
venereal diseases, to throw vitriol in a child's face. O'Brien made a small
impatient gesture, as though to say that the demonstration was hardly worth
making. Then he turned a switch and the voices stopped.
     'Get up from that bed,' he said.
     The  bonds had  loosened themselves.  Winston lowered  himself to  the
floor and stood up unsteadily.
     'You  are  the last man,'  said O'Brien. 'You  are the guardian of the
human spirit. You shall see yourself as you are. Take off your clothes.'
     Winston  undid the  bit of string that held his overalls together. The
zip  fastener had  long  since been  wrenched  out of  them.  He could  not
remember  whether  at any  time since his  arrest he had  taken off all his
clothes  at one  time. Beneath the overalls his body was looped with filthy
yellowish  rags,  just recognizable as  the remnants of underclothes. As he
slid  them to the  ground he saw that there was a three-sided mirror at the
far  end of  the room. He approached it, then stopped short. An involuntary
cry had broken out of him.
     'Go  on,'  said O'Brien. 'Stand  between the  wings of the mirror. You
shall see the side view as well.'
     He  had stopped  because he  was frightened.  A bowed,  grey-coloured,
skeleton-like  thing was  coming  towards him.  Its  actual appearance  was
frightening,  and  not merely  the fact that  he knew it  to be himself. He
moved  closer  to the  glass. The  creature's face  seemed to be protruded,
because  of its  bent carriage.  A forlorn,  jailbird's face  with a  nobby
forehead  running  back into  a bald  scalp, a  crooked nose, and battered-
looking  cheekbones above  which his  eyes  were fierce  and watchful.  The
cheeks were seamed, the mouth had a drawn-in look. Certainly it was his own
face,  but  it seemed to him  that it had  changed more than he had changed
inside.  The  emotions it  registered would  be different  from the ones he
felt.  He had gone partially bald. For the first moment he had thought that
he  had gone grey  as well, but it was only the scalp that was grey. Except
for  his  hands and a circle  of his face, his  body was grey all over with
ancient,  ingrained dirt.  Here and there under the dirt there were the red
scars of wounds, and near the ankle the varicose ulcer was an inflamed mass
with flakes of skin peeling off it. But the truly frightening thing was the
emaciation  of his body.  The barrel of the ribs was as narrow as that of a
skeleton:  the legs  had shrunk  so that  the knees  were thicker  than the
thighs.  He saw now  what O'Brien had meant about seeing the side view. The
curvature  of  the spine  was astonishing. The  thin shoulders were hunched
forward  so as to make a cavity of the chest, the scraggy neck seemed to be
bending double under the weight of the skull. At a guess he would have said
that  it  was the  body of  a man  of sixty,  suffering from some malignant
disease.
     'You  have thought sometimes,' said O'Brien, 'that my face -- the face
of  a member of the Inner Party -- looks old and worn. What do you think of
your own face?'
     He  seized Winston's shoulder and spun him round so that he was facing
him.
     'Look  at  the condition  you are  in!' he said.  'Look at this filthy
grime  all over your body. Look at the dirt between your toes. Look at that
disgusting  running  sore on  your leg. Do  you know that  you stink like a
goat?  Probably  you have ceased to  notice it. Look at your emaciation. Do
you  see? I can make my thumb and forefinger meet round your bicep. I could
snap  your neck  like a carrot. Do  you know that you have lost twenty-five
kilograms since you have been in our hands? Even your hair is coming out in
handfuls.  Look!'  He plucked at Winston's  head and brought away a tuft of
hair. 'Open your mouth. Nine, ten, eleven teeth left. How many had you when
you  came to  us? And the few you  have left are dropping out of your head.
Look here!'
     He  seized one of Winston's remaining front teeth between his powerful
thumb  and forefinger. A twinge of pain shot through Winston's jaw. O'Brien
had  wrenched  the loose  tooth out by  the roots. He  tossed it across the
cell.
     'You  are rotting away,' he said; 'you are falling to pieces. What are
you?  A bag  of filth. Now turn  around and look into that mirror again. Do
you see that thing facing you? That is the last man. If you are human, that
is humanity. Now put your clothes on again.'
     Winston began to dress himself with slow stiff movements. Until now he
had not seemed to notice how thin and weak he was. Only one thought stirred
in  his mind:  that he  must have  been in  this place  longer than  he had
imagined.  Then  suddenly as  he fixed  the miserable  rags round himself a
feeling  of pity  for his ruined body  overcame him. Before he knew what he
was  doing he  had collapsed on to  a small stool that stood beside the bed
and  burst  into tears. He was  aware of his ugliness, his gracelessness, a
bundle  of bones  in filthy underclothes sitting weeping in the harsh white
light:  but he could not stop himself. O'Brien laid a hand on his shoulder,
almost kindly.
     'It will not last for ever,' he said. 'You can escape from it whenever
you choose. Everything depends on yourself.'
     'You did it!' sobbed Winston. 'You reduced me to this state.'
     'No,  Winston,  you reduced yourself to  it. This is what you accepted
when  you set  yourself up against the  Party. It was all contained in that
first act. Nothing has happened that you did not foresee.'
     He paused, and then went on:
     'We  have  beaten you, Winston.  We have broken  you up. You have seen
what  your  body is like.  Your mind is  in the same  state. I do not think
there  can be much  pride left in you. You have been kicked and flogged and
insulted, you have screamed with pain, you have rolled on the floor in your
own  blood and  vomit.  You have  whimpered for  mercy,  you have  betrayed
everybody  and  everything. Can you think  of a single degradation that has
not happened to you?'
     Winston had stopped weeping, though the tears were still oozing out of
his eyes. He looked up at O'Brien.
     'I have not betrayed Julia,' he said.
     O'Brien  looked down  at him thoughtfully. 'No,' he said; 'no; that is
perfectly true. You have not betrayed Julia.'
     The  peculiar reverence  for  O'Brien, which  nothing  seemed able  to
destroy,  flooded  Winston's heart again.  How intelligent, he thought, how
intelligent!  Never  did O'Brien fail  to understand  what was said to him.
Anyone  else  on earth  would have  answered promptly  that he had betrayed
Julia.  For what  was there that they  had not screwed out of him under the
torture?  He  had told them  everything he knew  about her, her habits, her
character,  her past  life; he  had confessed  in the  most trivial  detail
everything that had happened at their meetings, all that he had said to her
and  she  to him,  their black-market meals,  their adulteries, their vague
plottings  against the  Party -- everything. And yet, in the sense in which
he  intended the  word, he had not  betrayed her. He had not stopped loving
her;  his feelings towards her had remained the same. O'Brien had seen what
he meant without the need for explanation.
     'Tell me,' he said, 'how soon will they shoot me?'
     'It  might  be a long time,'  said O'Brien. 'You are a difficult case.
But  don't give  up hope. Everyone is  cured sooner or later. In the end we
shall shoot you.'



        IV

     He  was much  better. He was growing fatter and stronger every day, if
it was proper to speak of days.
     The  white light and  the humming sound were the same as ever, but the
cell  was a  little more comfortable than  the others he had been in. There
was  a pillow and  a mattress on the plank bed, and a stool to sit on. They
had  given  him  a bath,  and  they  allowed  him  to wash  himself  fairly
frequently in a tin basin. They even gave him warm water to wash with. They
had  given him  new underclothes  and a  clean suit  of overalls.  They had
dressed  his varicose ulcer with soothing ointment. They had pulled out the
remnants of his teeth and given him a new set of dentures.
     Weeks  or months  must have passed. It would have been possible now to
keep count of the passage of time, if he had felt any interest in doing so,
since  he  was being fed  at what appeared to  be regular intervals. He was
getting,  he judged,  three meals  in the  twenty-four hours;  sometimes he
wondered dimly whether he was getting them by night or by day. The food was
surprisingly  good,  with meat at  every third meal.  Once there was even a
packet  of cigarettes.  He had no matches, but the never-speaking guard who
brought  his food would  give him a light. The first time he tried to smoke
it  made  him sick, but he  persevered, and spun  the packet out for a long
time, smoking half a cigarette after each meal.
     They  had given  him a white slate  with a stump of pencil tied to the
corner.  At  first he  made no  use of  it. Even  when he  was awake he was
completely  torpid.  Often he  would lie  from one meal  to the next almost
without stirring, sometimes asleep, sometimes waking into vague reveries in
which  it was too  much trouble to open his eyes. He had long grown used to
sleeping  with a strong light on his face. It seemed to make no difference,
except  that  one's dreams were more  coherent. He dreamed a great deal all
through  this time, and they were always happy dreams. He was in the Golden
Country,  or he was sitting among enormous glorious, sunlit ruins, with his
mother,  with Julia,  with O'Brien -- not doing anything, merely sitting in
the  sun, talking  of peaceful things. Such  thoughts as he had when he was
awake  were  mostly about his  dreams. He seemed to  have lost the power of
intellectual effort, now that the stimulus of pain had been removed. He was
not  bored, he  had no desire for conversation or distraction. Merely to be
alone,  not  to be beaten or  questioned, to have  enough to eat, and to be
clean all over, was completely satisfying.
     By  degrees he came  to spend less time in sleep, but he still felt no
impulse  to get off the bed. All he cared for was to lie quiet and feel the
strength  gathering  in his body.  He would  finger himself here and there,
trying  to  make sure  that it  was not  an illusion  that his muscles were
growing  rounder  and his skin tauter.  Finally it was established beyond a
doubt  that  he was growing fatter;  his thighs were now definitely thicker
than  his knees.  After that,  reluctantly  at first,  he began  exercising
himself  regularly. In  a  little  while he  could  walk three  kilometres,
measured  by  pacing  the  cell,  and  his  bowed  shoulders  were  growing
straighter.  He attempted  more elaborate exercises, and was astonished and
humiliated  to find what things he could not do. He could not move out of a
walk,  he could not  hold his stool out at arm's length, he could not stand
on  one leg without  falling over. He squatted down on his heels, and found
that with agonizing pains in thigh and calf he could just lift himself to a
standing position. He lay flat on his belly and tried to lift his weight by
his  hands.  It was hopeless, he  could not raise himself a centimetre. But
after  a few  more days  -- a  few  more mealtimes  -- even  that feat  was
accomplished.  A time came  when he could do it six times running. He began
to  grow actually  proud of his body, and to cherish an intermittent belief
that  his face also was growing back to normal. Only when he chanced to put
his hand on his bald scalp did he remember the seamed, ruined face that had
looked back at him out of the mirror.
     His  mind  grew more  active. He sat  down on the  plank bed, his back
against  the wall and  the slate on his knees, and set to work deliberately
at the task of re-educating himself.
     He had capitulated, that was agreed. In reality, as he saw now, he had
been  ready  to capitulate long before  he had taken the decision. From the
moment  when  he was  inside the Ministry  of Love --  and yes, even during
those  minutes  when he and  Julia had stood  helpless while the iron voice
from  the telescreen told  them what to do -- he had grasped the frivolity,
the  shallowness of his  attempt to set himself up against the power of the
Party.  He knew now that for seven years the Thought police had watched him
like  a beetle under a magnifying glass. There was no physical act, no word
spoken  aloud, that they had not noticed, no train of thought that they had
not  been able to infer. Even the speck of whitish dust on the cover of his
diary  they  had carefully  replaced. They had  played sound-tracks to him,
shown  him photographs. Some of them were photographs of Julia and himself.
Yes,  even... He could not fight against the Party any longer. Besides, the
Party  was in the  right. It must be so; how could the immortal, collective
brain   be  mistaken?  By  what  external  standard  could  you  check  its
judgements? Sanity was statistical. It was merely a question of learning to
think as they thought. Only--!
     The  pencil  felt thick and awkward  in his fingers. He began to write
down  the thoughts that  came into his head. He wrote first in large clumsy
capitals:

        FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

     Then almost without a pause he wrote beneath it:

        TWO AND TWO MAKE FIVE

     But  then there came  a sort of check. His mind, as though shying away
from  something,  seemed unable to  concentrate. He  knew that he knew what
came  next, but  for the moment he  could not recall it. When he did recall
it,  it was  only by consciously reasoning  out what it must be: it did not
come of its own accord. He wrote:

        GOD IS POWER

     He  accepted  everything. The  past was alterable.  The past never had
been  altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at
war  with Eastasia.  Jones, Aaronson,  and  Rutherford were  guilty of  the
crimes  they were  charged  with. He  had never  seen  the photograph  that
disproved  their guilt.  It  had  never existed,  he  had  invented it.  He
remembered  remembering contrary  things,  but those  were false  memories,
products  of self-deception.  How  easy  it all  was!  Only surrender,  and
everything else followed. It was like swimming against a current that swept
you  backwards  however hard  you struggled, and  then suddenly deciding to
turn  round  and go  with the  current instead of  opposing it. Nothing had
changed  except  your own  attitude: the predestined  thing happened in any
case.  He hardly  knew  why  he had  ever  rebelled.  Everything was  easy,
except--!
     Anything  could  be true. The  so-called laws of Nature were nonsense.
The  law of gravity was nonsense. 'If I wished,' O'Brien had said, 'I could
float  off  this floor like  a soap bubble.' Winston  worked it out. 'If he
thinks  he floats off the floor, and if I simultaneously think I see him do
it,  then  the thing happens.' Suddenly,  like a lump of submerged wreckage
breaking the surface of water, the thought burst into his mind: 'It doesn't
really  happen. We  imagine it. It is hallucination.' He pushed the thought
under  instantly. The fallacy was obvious. It presupposed that somewhere or
other,  outside oneself,  there  was  a 'real'  world  where 'real'  things
happened.  But how  could there be such  a world? What knowledge have we of
anything,  save through  our own  minds? All  happenings are  in the  mind.
Whatever happens in all minds, truly happens.
     He  had  no difficulty in  disposing of the fallacy,  and he was in no
danger  of succumbing to it. He realized, nevertheless, that it ought never
to  have occurred  to him. The mind  should develop a blind spot whenever a
dangerous  thought  presented  itself.  The process  should  be  automatic,
instinctive. Crimestop, they called it in Newspeak.
     He  set to work to exercise himself in crimestop. He presented himself
with  propositions  -- 'the Party says  the earth is flat', 'the party says
that ice is heavier than water' -- and trained himself in not seeing or not
understanding  the  arguments that  contradicted them. It  was not easy. It
needed  great  powers  of  reasoning and  improvisation.  The  arithmetical
problems  raised,  for instance, by  such a statement  as 'two and two make
five'  were  beyond his  intellectual  grasp.  It  needed  also a  sort  of
athleticism of mind, an ability at one moment to make the most delicate use
of  logic and at  the next to be unconscious of the crudest logical errors.
Stupidity was as necessary as intelligence, and as difficult to attain.
     All  the while,  with one part of  his mind, he wondered how soon they
would shoot him. 'Everything depends on yourself,' O'Brien had said; but he
knew  that there was no conscious act by which he could bring it nearer. It
might  be ten minutes hence, or ten years. They might keep him for years in
solitary  confinement, they  might send  him to  a labour-camp,  they might
release  him for  a while, as they sometimes did. It was perfectly possible
that  before  he was shot  the whole drama  of his arrest and interrogation
would be enacted all over again. The one certain thing was that death never
came  at an  expected  moment.  The tradition  --  the unspoken  tradition:
somehow  you knew it,  though you never heard it said -- was that they shot
you  from behind;  always in the back  of the head, without warning, as you
walked down a corridor from cell to cell.
     One  day --  but  'one day'  was  not the  right  expression; just  as
probably it was in the middle of the night: once -- he fell into a strange,
blissful reverie. He was walking down the corridor, waiting for the bullet.
He  knew that  it was  coming in  another moment.  Everything was  settled,
smoothed  out, reconciled. There were no more doubts, no more arguments, no
more pain, no more fear. His body was healthy and strong. He walked easily,
with  a joy  of movement and with  a feeling of walking in sunlight. He was
not  any longer  in the narrow white  corridors in the Ministry of Love, he
was  in  the enormous sunlit  passage, a kilometre  wide, down which he had
seemed  to  walk in  the delirium  induced by  drugs. He  was in the Golden
Country, following the foot-track across the old rabbit-cropped pasture. He
could feel the short springy turf under his feet and the gentle sunshine on
his  face. At  the edge of the  field were the elm trees, faintly stirring,
and  somewhere beyond  that was the stream  where the dace lay in the green
pools under the willows.
     Suddenly  he started up with a shock of horror. The sweat broke out on
his backbone. He had heard himself cry aloud:
     'Julia! Julia! Julia, my love! Julia!'
     For a moment he had had an overwhelming hallucination of her presence.
She  had seemed to be not merely with him, but inside him. It was as though
she  had got into  the texture of his skin. In that moment he had loved her
far  more than  he had ever done  when they were together and free. Also he
knew that somewhere or other she was still alive and needed his help.
     He lay back on the bed and tried to compose himself. What had he done?
How many years had he added to his servitude by that moment of weakness?
     In another moment he would hear the tramp of boots outside. They could
not  let such  an outburst go unpunished.  They would know now, if they had
not known before, that he was breaking the agreement he had made with them.
He  obeyed the Party,  but he still hated the Party. In the old days he had
hidden  a  heretical mind beneath  an appearance  of conformity. Now he had
retreated  a step further: in the mind he had surrendered, but he had hoped
to keep the inner heart inviolate. He knew that he was in the wrong, but he
preferred  to be  in the wrong. They would understand that -- O'Brien would
understand it. It was all confessed in that single foolish cry.
     He  would have to  start all over again. It might take years. He ran a
hand over his face, trying to familiarize himself with the new shape. There
were  deep furrows  in  the cheeks,  the cheekbones  felt  sharp, the  nose
flattened.  Besides,  since last  seeing himself  in the  glass he had been
given   a  complete  new  set  of  teeth.  It  was  not  easy  to  preserve
inscrutability  when  you did not  know what your  face looked like. In any
case,  mere control  of the features was  not enough. For the first time he
perceived  that  if you want  to keep  a secret you  must also hide it from
yourself.  You  must know all the  while that it  is there, but until it is
needed  you  must never let it  emerge into your consciousness in any shape
that  could be given a name. From now onwards he must not only think right;
he  must feel right, dream right. And all the while he must keep his hatred
locked  up inside  him like a ball  of matter which was part of himself and
yet unconnected with the rest of him, a kind of cyst.
     One  day  they would decide  to shoot him. You  could not tell when it
would  happen, but a few seconds beforehand it should be possible to guess.
It  was  always from behind, walking  down a corridor. Ten seconds would be
enough.  In that  time  the world  inside  him could  turn  over. And  then
suddenly,  without a word uttered, without a check in his step, without the
changing of a line in his face -- suddenly the camouflage would be down and
bang!  would go the  batteries of his hatred. Hatred would fill him like an
enormous  roaring flame.  And almost in the same instant bang! would go the
bullet,  too late, or  too early. They would have blown his brain to pieces
before  they  could reclaim it.  The heretical thought would be unpunished,
unrepented,  out of  their reach for ever.  They would have blown a hole in
their own perfection. To die hating them, that was freedom.
     He shut his eyes. It was more difficult than accepting an intellectual
discipline.  It was a question of degrading himself, mutilating himself. He
had  got to plunge into the filthiest of filth. What was the most horrible,
sickening  thing of  all?  He thought  of Big  Brother.  The enormous  face
(because  of  constantly seeing  it on  posters he always  thought of it as
being  a metre  wide), with  its heavy  black moustache  and the  eyes that
followed  you to and  fro, seemed to float into his mind of its own accord.
What were his true feelings towards Big Brother?
     There  was a heavy tramp of boots in the passage. The steel door swung
open with a clang. O'Brien walked into the cell. Behind him were the waxen-
faced officer and the black-uniformed guards.
     'Get up,' said O'Brien. 'Come here.'
     Winston  stood  opposite him. O'Brien took Winston's shoulders between
his strong hands and looked at him closely.
     'You  have  had thoughts of deceiving  me,' he said. 'That was stupid.
Stand up straighter. Look me in the face.'
     He paused, and went on in a gentler tone:
     'You  are  improving. Intellectually  there is  very little wrong with
you. It is only emotionally that you have failed to make progress. Tell me,
Winston  -- and remember, no lies: you know that I am always able to detect
a lie -- tell me, what are your true feelings towards Big Brother?'
     'I hate him.'
     'You  hate him. Good.  Then the time has come for you to take the last
step.  You  must love Big Brother.  It is not  enough to obey him: you must
love him.'
     He released Winston with a little push towards the guards.
     'Room 101,' he said.



        V

     At  each  stage of his  imprisonment he had  known, or seemed to know,
whereabouts  he was  in the windowless building. Possibly there were slight
differences  in the air pressure. The cells where the guards had beaten him
were below ground level. The room where he had been interrogated by O'Brien
was  high up near the roof. This place was many metres underground, as deep
down as it was possible to go.
     It  was  bigger than most of  the cells he  had been in. But he hardly
noticed  his  surroundings. All  he noticed  was that  there were two small
tables  straight  in front of  him, each covered  with green baize. One was
only a metre or two from him, the other was further away, near the door. He
was strapped upright in a chair, so tightly that he could move nothing, not
even  his head. A  sort of pad gripped his head from behind, forcing him to
look straight in front of him.
     For a moment he was alone, then the door opened and O'Brien came in.
     'You  asked me once,'  said O'Brien, 'what was in Room 101. I told you
that  you knew the  answer already. Everyone knows it. The thing that is in
Room 101 is the worst thing in the world.'
     The  door  opened again. A  guard came  in, carrying something made of
wire,  a box  or basket of some kind.  He set it down on the further table.
Because  of  the position in which  O'Brien was standing. Winston could not
see what the thing was.
     'The  worst thing in the world,' said O'Brien, 'varies from individual
to individual. It may be burial alive, or death by fire, or by drowning, or
by  impalement,  or fifty  other deaths.  There are cases  where it is some
quite trivial thing, not even fatal.'
     He  had moved a  little to one side, so that Winston had a better view
of  the thing on the table. It was an oblong wire cage with a handle on top
for carrying it by. Fixed to the front of it was something that looked like
a  fencing  mask, with the concave  side outwards. Although it was three or
four  metres  away  from him,  he  could  see  that  the cage  was  divided
lengthways  into two compartments, and that there was some kind of creature
in each. They were rats.
     'In your case,' said O'Brien, 'the worst thing in the world happens to
be rats.'
     A  sort of premonitory  tremor, a fear of he was not certain what, had
passed  through Winston as soon as he caught his first glimpse of the cage.
But  at this moment  the meaning of the mask-like attachment in front of it
suddenly sank into him. His bowels seemed to turn to water.
     'You  can't do  that!' he  cried  out in  a high  cracked voice.  'You
couldn't, you couldn't! It's impossible.'
     'Do  you  remember,' said O'Brien,  'the moment  of panic that used to
occur  in your dreams? There was a wall of blackness in front of you, and a
roaring  sound in your ears. There was something terrible on the other side
of  the wall. You knew that you knew what it was, but you dared not drag it
into the open. It was the rats that were on the other side of the wall.'
     'O'Brien!'  said Winston,  making an effort to control his voice. 'You
know this is not necessary. What is it that you want me to do?'
     O'Brien   made  no  direct  answer.  When  he  spoke  it  was  in  the
schoolmasterish  manner  that he sometimes affected. He looked thoughtfully
into  the distance,  as though  he  were addressing  an audience  somewhere
behind Winston's back.
     'By  itself,' he said, 'pain is not always enough. There are occasions
when a human being will stand out against pain, even to the point of death.
But for everyone there is something unendurable -- something that cannot be
contemplated.  Courage  and cowardice are  not involved. If you are falling
from  a height it  is not cowardly to clutch at a rope. If you have come up
from  deep  water it  is not  cowardly to fill  your lungs  with air. It is
merely an instinct which cannot be destroyed. It is the same with the rats.
For  you, they are unendurable. They are a form of pressure that you cannot
withstand. even if you wished to. You will do what is required of you.
     'But  what is it, what  is it? How can I do it if I don't know what it
is?'
     O'Brien  picked up the cage and brought it across to the nearer table.
He  set it down  carefully on the baize cloth. Winston could hear the blood
singing  in his ears. He had the feeling of sitting in utter loneliness. He
was  in  the middle  of a  great empty  plain, a  flat desert drenched with
sunlight, across which all sounds came to him out of immense distances. Yet
the cage with the rats was not two metres away from him. They were enormous
rats.  They were at  the age when a rat's muzzle grows blunt and fierce and
his fur brown instead of grey.
     'The  rat,' said  O'Brien,  still addressing  his invisible  audience,
'although  a  rodent, is carnivorous. You  are aware of that. You will have
heard  of the things that happen in the poor quarters of this town. In some
streets  a woman dare  not leave her baby alone in the house, even for five
minutes.  The rats are certain to attack it. Within quite a small time they
will  strip  it to the  bones. They also attack  sick or dying people. They
show astonishing intelligence in knowing when a human being is helpless.'
     There  was  an outburst of  squeals from the  cage. It seemed to reach
Winston  from far away.  The rats were fighting; they were trying to get at
each  other  through the partition. He  heard also a deep groan of despair.
That, too, seemed to come from outside himself.
     O'Brien  picked  up the cage, and,  as he did so, pressed something in
it.  There was a sharp click. Winston made a frantic effort to tear himself
loose  from the  chair. It was hopeless;  every part of him, even his head,
was held immovably. O'Brien moved the cage nearer. It was less than a metre
from Winston's face.
     'I  have  pressed the first  lever,' said O'Brien. 'You understand the
construction  of  this cage. The  mask will fit  over your head, leaving no
exit.  When I  press this other lever,  the door of the cage will slide up.
These starving brutes will shoot out of it like bullets. Have you ever seen
a  rat leap  through the  air? They  will  leap on  to your  face and  bore
straight  into it.  Sometimes they  attack the  eyes first.  Sometimes they
burrow through the cheeks and devour the tongue.'
     The  cage was nearer; it was closing in. Winston heard a succession of
shrill  cries which appeared to be occurring in the air above his head. But
he  fought  furiously against  his panic.  To think, to  think, even with a
split  second left  -- to think was  the only hope. Suddenly the foul musty
odour  of the brutes struck his nostrils. There was a violent convulsion of
nausea  inside  him, and he  almost lost consciousness. Everything had gone
black. For an instant he was insane, a screaming animal. Yet he came out of
the  blackness  clutching an idea.  There was one and  only one way to save
himself.  He must  interpose another human being, the body of another human
being, between himself and the rats.
     The  circle of the mask was large enough now to shut out the vision of
anything  else. The wire door was a couple of hand-spans from his face. The
rats  knew  what was coming now.  One of them  was leaping up and down, the
other,  an  old scaly  grandfather of  the sewers, stood  up, with his pink
hands against the bars, and fiercely sniffed the air. Winston could see the
whiskers  and the yellow  teeth. Again the black panic took hold of him. He
was blind, helpless, mindless.
     'It  was a  common  punishment  in Imperial  China,'  said O'Brien  as
didactically as ever.
     The mask was closing on his face. The wire brushed his cheek. And then
--  no,  it was not relief,  only hope, a  tiny fragment of hope. Too late,
perhaps  too  late. But he had  suddenly understood that in the whole world
there  was just one  person to whom he could transfer his punishment -- one
body that he could thrust between himself and the rats. And he was shouting
frantically, over and over.
     'Do  it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia! I don't care what you
do  to her.  Tear her face off, strip  her to the bones. Not me! Julia! Not
me!'
     He was falling backwards, into enormous depths, away from the rats. He
was  still strapped  in the  chair, but  he had  fallen through  the floor,
through  the walls  of the building, through the earth, through the oceans,
through  the atmosphere, into outer space, into the gulfs between the stars
--  always away, away,  away from the rats. He was light years distant, but
O'Brien  was still standing  at his side. There was still the cold touch of
wire  against  his cheek.  But through  the darkness  that enveloped him he
heard  another metallic click, and knew that the cage door had clicked shut
and not open.



        VI

     The Chestnut Tree was almost empty. A ray of sunlight slanting through
a  window  fell on dusty  table-tops. It was the  lonely hour of fifteen. A
tinny music trickled from the telescreens.
     Winston  sat in  his usual corner, gazing into an empty glass. Now and
again  he glanced up  at a vast face which eyed him from the opposite wall.
BIG  BROTHER IS  WATCHING YOU the caption said. Unbidden, a waiter came and
filled  his  glass up  with Victory Gin,  shaking into it  a few drops from
another  bottle with  a quill through the cork. It was saccharine flavoured
with cloves, the speciality of the cafe.
     Winston  was  listening to  the telescreen. At  present only music was
coming  out  of it,  but there was  a possibility that  at any moment there
might  be a special  bulletin from the Ministry of Peace. The news from the
African  front was  disquieting in  the  extreme. On  and off  he had  been
worrying  about it  all  day. A  Eurasian  army (Oceania  was  at war  with
Eurasia:  Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia) was moving southward
at  terrifying  speed. The mid-day  bulletin had not mentioned any definite
area,  but it  was probable  that  already the  mouth  of the  Congo was  a
battlefield.  Brazzaville and Leopoldville were in danger. One did not have
to  look at  the map to see what  it meant. It was not merely a question of
losing  Central Africa:  for the first time in the whole war, the territory
of Oceania itself was menaced.
     A  violent  emotion, not  fear exactly but  a sort of undifferentiated
excitement,  flared up  in him, then faded again. He stopped thinking about
the  war. In these  days he could never fix his mind on any one subject for
more than a few moments at a time. He picked up his glass and drained it at
a  gulp. As  always, the gin made  him shudder and even retch slightly. The
stuff was horrible. The cloves and saccharine, themselves disgusting enough
in  their sickly way,  could not disguise the flat oily smell; and what was
worst of all was that the smell of gin, which dwelt with him night and day,
was inextricably mixed up in his mind with the smell of those--
     He  never named  them, even  in his  thoughts, and  so far  as it  was
possible  he  never visualized them. They  were something that he was half-
aware  of, hovering close  to his face, a smell that clung to his nostrils.
As  the gin rose in him he belched through purple lips. He had grown fatter
since  they  released him, and had  regained his old colour -- indeed, more
than  regained  it. His  features  had  thickened,  the  skin on  nose  and
cheekbones  was  coarsely red, even  the bald scalp was  too deep a pink. A
waiter, again unbidden, brought the chessboard and the current issue of the
Times,  with  the page turned down  at the chess problem. Then, seeing that
Winston's  glass was  empty, he brought the gin bottle and filled it. There
was no need to give orders. They knew his habits. The chessboard was always
waiting  for him, his corner table was always reserved; even when the place
was  full he  had it to himself,  since nobody cared to be seen sitting too
close  to  him. He  never even  bothered to count  his drinks. At irregular
intervals they presented him with a dirty slip of paper which they said was
the  bill, but  he had the impression that they always undercharged him. It
would  have made  no difference if it  had been the other way about. He had
always  plenty of  money nowadays.  He  even had  a job,  a sinecure,  more
highly-paid than his old job had been.
     The  music from  the telescreen stopped and a voice took over. Winston
raised  his  head to listen.  No bulletins from  the front, however. It was
merely  a brief  announcement from the Ministry of Plenty. In the preceding
quarter,  it appeared,  the Tenth Three-Year Plan's quota for bootlaces had
been overfulfilled by 98 per cent.
     He  examined the chess problem and set out the pieces. It was a tricky
ending,  involving a  couple of  knights. 'White  to play  and mate  in two
moves.'  Winston  looked up  at the  portrait of  Big Brother. White always
mates,  he  thought  with  a  sort of  cloudy  mysticism.  Always,  without
exception,  it  is so arranged. In  no chess problem since the beginning of
the  world has  black ever won. Did it not symbolize the eternal, unvarying
triumph  of Good  over Evil? The huge  face gazed back at him, full of calm
power. White always mates.
     The voice from the telescreen paused and added in a different and much
graver  tone: 'You  are warned to stand by for an important announcement at
fifteen-thirty.  Fifteen-thirty! This  is news  of the  highest importance.
Take  care  not to  miss it.  Fifteen-thirty!' The  tinking music struck up
again.
     Winston's  heart  stirred.  That  was the  bulletin  from  the  front;
instinct  told  him that  it was  bad news  that was  coming. All day, with
little spurts of excitement, the thought of a smashing defeat in Africa had
been  in and  out of his mind.  He seemed actually to see the Eurasian army
swarming  across the never-broken frontier and pouring down into the tip of
Africa like a column of ants. Why had it not been possible to outflank them
in some way? The outline of the West African coast stood out vividly in his
mind.  He picked  up the white knight  and moved it across the board. There
was  the proper spot. Even while he saw the black horde racing southward he
saw  another force, mysteriously assembled, suddenly planted in their rear,
cutting  their comunications by land and sea. He felt that by willing it he
was  bringing that  other force into existence. But it was necessary to act
quickly.  If  they could  get control of  the whole of  Africa, if they had
airfields  and submarine bases at the Cape, it would cut Oceania in two. It
might  mean  anything: defeat, breakdown,  the redivision of the world, the
destruction of the Party! He drew a deep breath. An extraordinary medley of
feeling  -- but  it was  not a  medley, exactly;  rather it  was successive
layers  of feeling, in which one could not say which layer was undermost --
struggled inside him.
     The  spasm passed. He  put the white knight back in its place, but for
the  moment he could not settle down to serious study of the chess problem.
His thoughts wandered again. Almost unconsciously he traced with his finger
in the dust on the table:

        2 + 2 = 5

     'They  can't get  inside you,' she had said. But they could get inside
you.  'What happens to  you here is for ever,' O'Brien had said. That was a
true  word.  There were things,  your own acts,  from which you could never
recover. Something was killed in your breast: burnt out, cauterized out.
     He had seen her; he had even spoken to her. There was no danger in it.
He  knew  as though instinctively that  they now took almost no interest in
his  doings. He could  have arranged to meet her a second time if either of
them  had wanted to. Actually it was by chance that they had met. It was in
the  Park, on a vile, biting day in March, when the earth was like iron and
all  the  grass seemed dead and  there was not  a bud anywhere except a few
crocuses  which had  pushed themselves up to be dismembered by the wind. He
was  hurrying along with frozen hands and watering eyes when he saw her not
ten  metres  away from him. It  struck him at  once that she had changed in
some  ill-defined way.  They almost passed one another without a sign, then
he  turned  and followed her,  not very eagerly. He  knew that there was no
danger,  nobody would  take any  interest in  him. She  did not  speak. She
walked  obliquely away across the grass as though trying to get rid of him,
then  seemed  to resign herself  to having him  at her side. Presently they
were  in among  a  clump  of ragged  leafless  shrubs,  useless either  for
concealment  or  as protection  from the  wind. They  halted. It was vilely
cold.  The wind  whistled through  the  twigs and  fretted the  occasional,
dirty-looking crocuses. He put his arm round her waist.
     There  was  no  telescreen,  but there  must  be  hidden  microphones:
besides,  they  could be  seen. It  did not  matter, nothing mattered. They
could have lain down on the ground and done that if they had wanted to. His
flesh froze with horror at the thought of it. She made no response whatever
to the clasp of his arm; she did not even try to disengage herself. He knew
now  what had  changed in her. Her  face was sallower, and there was a long
scar,  partly hidden  by the hair, across her forehead and temple; but that
was  not  the change. It  was that  her waist had  grown thicker, and, in a
surprising  way, had stiffened. He remembered how once, after the explosion
of a rocket bomb, he had helped to drag a corpse out of some ruins, and had
been  astonished not only by the incredible weight of the thing, but by its
rigidity and awkwardness to handle, which made it seem more like stone than
flesh.  Her body felt like that. It occurred to him that the texture of her
skin would be quite different from what it had once been.
     He  did  not attempt to  kiss her, nor did  they speak. As they walked
back  across the  grass, she looked directly  at him for the first time. It
was  only  a momentary  glance, full  of contempt  and dislike. He wondered
whether it was a dislike that came purely out of the past or whether it was
inspired  also  by his  bloated  face  and the  water  that  the wind  kept
squeezing from his eyes. They sat down on two iron chairs, side by side but
not  too close together.  He saw that she was about to speak. She moved her
clumsy  shoe  a few centimetres  and deliberately  crushed a twig. Her feet
seemed to have grown broader, he noticed.
     'I betrayed you,' she said baldly.
     'I betrayed you,' he said.
     She gave him another quick look of dislike.
     'Sometimes,' she said, 'they threaten you with something something you
can't  stand up to,  can't even think about. And then you say, "Don't do it
to  me, do it  to somebody else, do it to so-and-so." And perhaps you might
pretend,  afterwards, that it was only a trick and that you just said it to
make  them stop and didn't really mean it. But that isn't true. At the time
when  it happens  you do mean it.  You think there's no other way of saving
yourself,  and you're quite ready to save yourself that way. You want it to
happen to the other person. You don't give a damn what they suffer. All you
care about is yourself.'
     'All you care about is yourself,' he echoed.
     'And  after that, you don't feel the same towards the other person any
longer.'
     'No,' he said, 'you don't feel the same.'
     There  did  not seem  to be  anything more to  say. The wind plastered
their  thin  overalls  against  their  bodies. Almost  at  once  it  became
embarrassing  to  sit there  in silence:  besides, it was  too cold to keep
still. She said something about catching her Tube and stood up to go.
     'We must meet again,' he said.
     'Yes,' she said, 'we must meet again.'
     He  followed  irresolutely for  a little distance,  half a pace behind
her.  They did not  speak again. She did not actually try to shake him off,
but  walked at just  such a speed as to prevent his keeping abreast of her.
He  had  made up his  mind that he  would accompany her  as far as the Tube
station,  but  suddenly this process  of trailing  along in the cold seemed
pointless and unbearable. He was overwhelmed by a desire not so much to get
away  from Julia as  to get back to the Chestnut Tree Cafe, which had never
seemed  so attractive  as at this moment.  He had a nostalgic vision of his
corner  table,  with the newspaper  and the chessboard and the ever-flowing
gin.  Above all, it would be warm in there. The next moment, not altogether
by  accident,  he allowed himself  to become separated  from her by a small
knot  of  people. He  made a  halfhearted attempt to  catch up, then slowed
down,  turned,  and made  off in  the opposite direction.  When he had gone
fifty  metres  he looked back.  The street was  not crowded, but already he
could  not distinguish  her. Any one of a dozen hurrying figures might have
been hers. Perhaps her thickened, stiffened body was no longer recognizable
from behind.
     'At  the time when it happens,' she had said, 'you do mean it.' He had
meant  it. He had  not merely said it, he had wished it. He had wished that
she and not he should be delivered over to the--
     Something  changed  in the music  that trickled from the telescreen. A
cracked  and jeering note, a yellow note, came into it. And then -- perhaps
it  was not happening, perhaps it was only a memory taking on the semblance
of sound -- a voice was singing:

        Under the spreading chestnut tree
        I sold you and you sold me--

     The  tears  welled up in  his eyes. A  passing waiter noticed that his
glass was empty and came back with the gin bottle.
     He  took up  his glass and sniffed  at it. The stuff grew not less but
more  horrible with  every mouthful he drank. But it had become the element
he  swam in.  It was his life,  his death, and his resurrection. It was gin
that  sank him  into stupor  every night,  and gin  that revived  him every
morning. When he woke, seldom before eleven hundred, with gummed-up eyelids
and  fiery  mouth and a back  that seemed to  be broken, it would have been
impossible  even  to rise  from the horizontal  if it had  not been for the
bottle and teacup placed beside the bed overnight. Through the midday hours
he  sat  with glazed face,  the bottle  handy, listening to the telescreen.
From  fifteen to closing-time he was a fixture in the Chestnut Tree. No one
cared what he did any longer, no whistle woke him, no telescreen admonished
him.  Occasionally,  perhaps twice a  week, he  went to a dusty, forgotten-
looking  office in the Ministry of Truth and did a little work, or what was
called  work.  He had been appointed  to a sub-committee of a sub-committee
which  had sprouted  from one  of the  innumerable committees  dealing with
minor difficulties that arose in the compilation of the Eleventh Edition of
the Newspeak Dictionary. They were engaged in producing something called an
Interim  Report, but  what it was that  they were reporting on he had never
definitely  found out.  It was something to do with the question of whether
commas should be placed inside brackets, or outside. There were four others
on  the committee,  all of them persons similar to himself. There were days
when they assembled and then promptly dispersed again, frankly admitting to
one  another that there  was not really anything to be done. But there were
other  days  when they settled down  to their work almost eagerly, making a
tremendous  show  of entering up  their minutes and drafting long memoranda
which  were never  finished  -- when  the  argument as  to  what they  were
supposedly  arguing  about grew extraordinarily involved and abstruse, with
subtle   haggling  over  definitions,  enormous  digressions,  quarrels  --
threats,  even,  to appeal to higher  authority. And then suddenly the life
would  go  out of them  and they  would sit round  the table looking at one
another with extinct eyes, like ghosts fading at cock-crow.
     The telescreen was silent for a moment. Winston raised his head again.
The  bulletin! But no,  they were merely changing the music. He had the map
of  Africa behind his  eyelids. The movement of the armies was a diagram: a
black  arrow  tearing vertically southward,  and a white arrow horizontally
eastward, across the tail of the first. As though for reassurance he looked
up  at the  imperturbable face in the portrait. Was it conceivable that the
second arrow did not even exist?
     His  interest flagged  again. He drank another mouthful of gin, picked
up  the white knight and made a tentative move. Check. But it was evidently
not the right move, because--
     Uncalled,  a  memory floated into  his mind.  He saw a candle-lit room
with  a  vast white-counterpaned  bed, and  himself, a boy  of nine or ten,
sitting  on the  floor, shaking  a  dice-box, and  laughing excitedly.  His
mother was sitting opposite him and also laughing.
     It  must have  been about  a month  before she  disappeared. It  was a
moment  of  reconciliation,  when  the  nagging hunger  in  his  belly  was
forgotten  and  his earlier  affection for her  had temporarily revived. He
remembered  the day  well, a pelting, drenching day when the water streamed
down  the  window-pane and the  light indoors was too  dull to read by. The
boredom of the two children in the dark, cramped bedroom became unbearable.
Winston  whined  and grizzled, made  futile demands for food, fretted about
the  room pulling everything out of place and kicking the wainscoting until
the  neighbours  banged  on  the  wall,  while  the  younger  child  wailed
intermittently.  In the end his mother said, 'Now be good, and I'Il buy you
a  toy. A  lovely toy -- you'll love  it'; and then she had gone out in the
rain,  to  a little general shop  which was still sporadically open nearby,
and  came back  with a  cardboard box  containing an  outfit of  Snakes and
Ladders.  He could still remember the smell of the damp cardboard. It was a
miserable  outfit.  The board was cracked  and the tiny wooden dice were so
ill-cut  that  they would hardly lie  on their sides. Winston looked at the
thing  sulkily  and without  interest. But  then his mother  lit a piece of
candle  and they sat  down on the floor to play. Soon he was wildly excited
and  shouting  with laughter  as the tiddly-winks  climbed hopefully up the
ladders  and then  came slithering  down the  snakes again,  almost to  the
starting-point.  They  played eight  games,  winning  four each.  His  tiny
sister, too young to understand what the game was about, had sat propped up
against  a bolster,  laughing because the others were laughing. For a whole
afternoon they had all been happy together, as in his earlier childhood.
     He  pushed the picture  out of his mind. It was a false memory. He was
troubled by false memories occasionally. They did not matter so long as one
knew  them  for what  they were.  Some things had  happened, others had not
happened.  He turned  back to the chessboard and picked up the white knight
again.  Almost in  the same  instant  it dropped  on  to the  board with  a
clatter. He had started as though a pin had run into him.
     A  shrill trumpet-call  had  pierced  the air.  It  was the  bulletin!
Victory!  It always  meant victory when a trumpet-call preceded the news. A
sort  of electric  drill ran through the cafe. Even the waiters had started
and pricked up their ears.
     The trumpet-call had let loose an enormous volume of noise. Already an
excited  voice was  gabbling from the telescreen, but even as it started it
was  almost  drowned by a  roar of cheering from  outside. The news had run
round the streets like magic. He could hear just enough of what was issuing
from  the  telescreen to  realize  that  it had  all  happened,  as he  had
foreseen;  a  vast seaborne armada had  secretly assembled a sudden blow in
the  enemy's  rear, the white  arrow tearing across  the tail of the black.
Fragments  of  triumphant phrases pushed  themselves through the din: 'Vast
strategic  manoeuvre --  perfect  co-ordination  -- utter  rout  -- half  a
million  prisoners  -- complete  demoralization -- control  of the whole of
Africa  --  bring the war within  measurable distance of its end victory --
greatest victory in human history -- victory, victory, victory!'
     Under  the table  Winston's feet made convulsive movements. He had not
stirred  from his seat, but in his mind he was running, swiftly running, he
was  with the  crowds outside, cheering himself deaf. He looked up again at
the portrait of Big Brother. The colossus that bestrode the world! The rock
against  which the hordes of Asia dashed themselves in vain! He thought how
ten  minutes  ago  --  yes,  only  ten minutes  --  there  had  still  been
equivocation  in  his heart as he  wondered whether the news from the front
would  be of  victory or defeat. Ah,  it was more than a Eurasian army that
had  perished! Much had changed in him since that first day in the Ministry
of  Love, but  the final, indispensable, healing change had never happened,
until this moment.
     The  voice  from the  telescreen was  still pouring  forth its tale of
prisoners and booty and slaughter, but the shouting outside had died down a
little. The waiters were turning back to their work. One of them approached
with  the  gin bottle.  Winston,  sitting  in  a  blissful dream,  paid  no
attention  as his  glass was filled up.  He was not running or cheering any
longer.  He was back in the Ministry of Love, with everything forgiven, his
soul  white as  snow. He  was in  the public  dock, confessing  everything,
implicating  everybody. He  was walking down the white-tiled corridor, with
the  feeling  of walking in  sunlight, and an armed  guard at his back. The
longhoped-for bullet was entering his brain.
     He  gazed  up at  the enormous face.  Forty years it  had taken him to
learn  what  kind of smile was  hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel,
needless  misunderstanding!  O stubborn,  self-willed exile from the loving
breast!  Two gin-scented  tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it
was  all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had
won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.

        1949


        THE END



        Appendix

        THE PRINCIPLES OF NEWSPEAK

     Newspeak  was the official language of Oceania and had been devised to
meet  the  ideological needs of  Ingsoc, or  English Socialism. In the year
1984  there  was not as yet  anyone who used  Newspeak as his sole means of
communication,  either  in speech  or writing. The  leading articles in the
Times  were written in it, but this was a tour de force which could only be
carried  out by  a specialist.  It was  expected that  Newspeak would  have
finally  superseded Oldspeak (or Standard English, as we should call it) by
about the year 2050. Meanwhile it gained ground steadily, all Party members
tending  to use  Newspeak words and grammatical constructions more and more
in  their everyday speech.  The version in use in 1984, and embodied in the
Ninth and Tenth Editions of the Newspeak Dictionary, was a provisional one,
and  contained many superfluous words and archaic formations which were due
to  be suppressed  later.  It  is with  the  final,  perfected version,  as
embodied  in the  Eleventh Edition of the Dictionary, that we are concerned
here.
     The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression
for  the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but
to  make  all other modes of  thought impossible. It was intended that when
Newspeak  had been  adopted  once and  for all  and  Oldspeak forgotten,  a
heretical  thought  -- that is, a  thought diverging from the principles of
Ingsoc  --  should be literally unthinkable,  at least so far as thought is
dependent  on words. Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and
often  very  subtle expression to  every meaning  that a Party member could
properly  wish to  express, while excluding all other meanings and also the
possibility  of arriving  at them by indirect methods. This was done partly
by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words
and  by stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far
as  possible of  all secondary meanings whatever. To give a single example.
The  word free still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be used in such
statements  as  'This dog  is free from  lice' or 'This  field is free from
weeds'.  It  could not  be used in  its old sense  of 'politically free' or
'intellectually  free'  since political  and intellectual freedom no longer
existed  even as  concepts, and were therefore of necessity nameless. Quite
apart  from the  suppression of  definitely heretical  words, reduction  of
vocabulary  was  regarded as  an end in  itself, and no  word that could be
dispensed  with was allowed to survive. Newspeak was designed not to extend
but  to diminish  the range  of thought,  and this  purpose was  indirectly
assisted by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum.
     Newspeak was founded on the English language as we now know it, though
many  Newspeak sentences,  even  when not  containing newly-created  words,
would be barely intelligible to an English-speaker of our own day. Newspeak
words  were divided into three distinct classes, known as the A vocabulary,
the  B  vocabulary (also called  compound words),  and the C vocabulary. It
will  be simpler  to discuss  each  class separately,  but the  grammatical
peculiarities  of the  language can be dealt with in the section devoted to
the A vocabulary, since the same rules held good for all three categories.

     The  A vocabulary.  The A vocabulary consisted of the words needed for
the  business of  everyday life  -- for  such things  as eating,  drinking,
working,  putting  on one's  clothes, going  up and  down stairs, riding in
vehicles, gardening, cooking, and the like. It was composed almost entirely
of  words  that we already  possess words like  hit, run, dog, tree, sugar,
house,  field --  but in comparison with the present-day English vocabulary
their  number was  extremely  small,  while their  meanings  were far  more
rigidly  defined. All ambiguities and shades of meaning had been purged out
of  them. So far as it could be achieved, a Newspeak word of this class was
simply a staccato sound expressing one clearly understood concept. It would
have been quite impossible to use the A vocabulary for literary purposes or
for  political or philosophical discussion. It was intended only to express
simple,  purposive thoughts, usually involving concrete objects or physical
actions.
     The  grammar of  Newspeak had two outstanding peculiarities. The first
of  these was an almost complete interchangeability between different parts
of speech. Any word in the language (in principle this applied even to very
abstract  words  such as  if or when)  could be used  either as verb, noun,
adjective, or adverb. Between the verb and the noun form, when they were of
the same root, there was never any variation, this rule of itself involving
the  destruction of  many archaic forms. The word thought, for example, did
not  exist  in Newspeak. Its  place was taken by  think, which did duty for
both  noun  and verb. No etymological  principle was followed here: in some
cases  it  was the  original noun  that was chosen  for retention, in other
cases  the  verb. Even  where a noun  and verb of  kindred meaning were not
etymologically  connected, one  or other of them was frequently suppressed.
There was, for example, no such word as cut, its meaning being sufficiently
covered by the noun-verb knife. Adjectives were formed by adding the suffix
-ful  to the  noun-verb, and  adverbs by  adding -wise.  Thus for  example,
speedful  meant  'rapid' and  speedwise  meant  'quickly'. Certain  of  our
present-day  adjectives,  such as  good,  strong,  big, black,  soft,  were
retained,  but their total number was very small. There was little need for
them,  since almost  any adjectival meaning could be arrived at by adding -
ful  to a  noun-verb. None of the now-existing adverbs was retained, except
for  a  very  few  already  ending in  -wise:  the  -wise  termination  was
invariable. The word well, for example, was replaced by goodwise.
     In addition, any word -- this again applied in principle to every word
in  the language -- could be negatived by adding the affix un-, or could be
strengthened   by  the   affix  plus-,  or,  for  still  greater  emphasis,
doubleplus-.  Thus,  for example,  uncold meant  'warm', while pluscold and
doublepluscold  meant,  respectively, 'very cold' and 'superlatively cold'.
It  was also  possible, as in present-day English, to modify the meaning of
almost  any word by prepositional affixes such as ante-, post-, up-, down-,
etc.  By such  methods it  was found  possible to  bring about  an enormous
diminution  of vocabulary. Given, for instance, the word good, there was no
need for such a word as bad, since the required meaning was equally well --
indeed,  better -- expressed by ungood. All that was necessary, in any case
where  two words formed a natural pair of opposites, was to decide which of
them to suppress. Dark, for example, could be replaced by unlight, or light
by undark, according to preference.
     The second distinguishing mark of Newspeak grammar was its regularity.
Subject  to a  few  exceptions  which are  mentioned  below all  inflexions
followed  the  same rules.  Thus, in  all verbs the  preterite and the past
participle  were the  same and  ended in  -ed. The  preterite of  steal was
stealed,  the preterite  of think  was thinked,  and so  on throughout  the
language,  all such forms as swam, gave, brought, spoke, taken, etc., being
abolished.  All plurals were made by adding -s or -es as the case might be.
The  plurals of  man,  ox,  life, were  mans,  oxes,  lifes. Comparison  of
adjectives was invariably made by adding -er, -est (good, gooder, goodest),
irregular forms and the more, most formation being suppressed.
     The  only  classes  of  words  that  were  still  allowed  to  inflect
irregularly were the pronouns, the relatives, the demonstrative adjectives,
and  the auxiliary verbs. All of these followed their ancient usage, except
that  whom  had been scrapped as  unnecessary, and the shall, should tenses
had  been  dropped, all their  uses being covered  by will and would. There
were  also certain irregularities in word-formation arising out of the need
for  rapid  and easy  speech. A word  which was difficult  to utter, or was
liable  to  be incorrectly  heard, was  held to  be ipso  facto a bad word:
occasionally  therefore,  for  the  sake of  euphony,  extra  letters  were
inserted  into  a word or an  archaic formation was retained. But this need
made  itself felt  chiefly in connexion with the B vocabulary. Why so great
an  importance  was attached  to ease  of pronunciation  will be made clear
later in this essay.

     The  B vocabulary.  The B vocabulary consisted of words which had been
deliberately  constructed  for political  purposes: words,  that is to say,
which not only had in every case a political implication, but were intended
to impose a desirable mental attitude upon the person using them. Without a
full  understanding  of the  principles of  Ingsoc it  was difficult to use
these  words  correctly.  In  some  cases they  could  be  translated  into
Oldspeak,  or even into words taken from the A vocabulary, but this usually
demanded  a  long  paraphrase  and  always involved  the  loss  of  certain
overtones. The B words were a sort of verbal shorthand, often packing whole
ranges  of ideas  into a few syllables,  and at the same time more accurate
and forcible than ordinary language.
     The B words were in all cases compound words[2]. They consisted of two
or  more  words,  or  portions  of words,  welded  together  in  an  easily
pronounceable  form. The  resulting  amalgam was  always  a noun-verb,  and
inflected  according  to the ordinary rules.  To take a single example: the
word  goodthink,  meaning, very  roughly, 'orthodoxy', or,  if one chose to
regard  it as  a verb, 'to think  in an orthodox manner'. This inflected as
follows: noun-verb, goodthink; past tense and past participle, goodthinked;
present   participle,   goodthinking;  adjective,   goodthinkful;   adverb,
goodthinkwise; verbal noun, goodthinker.
     The  B words  were not constructed on any etymological plan. The words
of  which  they were  made up  could be any  parts of  speech, and could be
placed  in any  order and  mutilated in  any way  which made  them easy  to
pronounce  while  indicating  their  derivation.  In  the  word  crimethink
(thoughtcrime),  for  instance, the think  came second, whereas in thinkpol
(Thought  Police) it came first, and in the latter word police had lost its
second  syllable. Because  of  the great  difficulty  in securing  euphony,
irregular  formations were  commoner  in the  B vocabulary  than  in the  A
vocabulary.  For example,  the adjective  forms of  Minitrue, Minipax,  and
Miniluv  were, respectively,  Minitruthful,  Minipeaceful, and  Minilovely,
simply  because  -trueful, -paxful, and  -loveful were sliightly awkward to
pronounce.  In principle,  however,  all  B words  could  inflect, and  all
inflected in exactly the same way.
     Some   of   the  B  words   had  highly  subtilized  meanings,  barely
intelligible  to anyone  who  had not  mastered the  language  as a  whole.
Consider, for example, such a typical sentence from a Times leading article
as  Oldthinkers  unbellyfeel Ingsoc. The  shortest rendering that one could
make  of  this in Oldspeak would  be: 'Those whose ideas were formed before
the Revolution cannot have a full emotional understanding of the principles
of  English  Socialism.' But this is  not an adequate translation. To begin
with,  in  order to grasp the  full meaning of the Newspeak sentence quoted
above,  one would have to have a clear idea of what is meant by Ingsoc. And
in  addition, only  a person thoroughly grounded in Ingsoc could appreciate
the  full force  of the word bellyfeel, which implied a blind, enthusiastic
acceptance  difficult to  imagine today; or of the word oldthink, which was
inextricably  mixed  up with the idea  of wickedness and decadence. But the
special  function of certain Newspeak words, of which oldthink was one, was
not  so  much  to  express  meanings  as  to  destroy  them.  These  words,
necessarily  few in  number, had  had  their meanings  extended until  they
contained  within  themselves whole batteries  of words which, as they were
sufficiently  covered by a single comprehensive term, could now be scrapped
and forgotten. The greatest difficulty facing the compilers of the Newspeak
Dictionary  was not to invent new words, but, having invented them, to make
sure  what they  meant: to make sure,  that is to say, what ranges of words
they cancelled by their existence.
     As  we have already seen in the case of the word free, words which had
once  borne  a heretical  meaning were  sometimes retained  for the sake of
convenience,  but  only with  the undesirable meanings  purged out of them.
Countless  other words such as honour, justice, morality, internationalism,
democracy,  science, and religion had simply ceased to exist. A few blanket
words  covered them,  and,  in  covering them,  abolished  them. All  words
grouping  themselves  round  the  concepts of  liberty  and  equality,  for
instance,  were  contained in  the single word  crimethink, while all words
grouping  themselves round the concepts of objectivity and rationalism were
contained  in  the single word  oldthink. Greater precision would have been
dangerous.  What  was required in a  Party member was an outlook similar to
that  of  the ancient Hebrew who  knew, without knowing much else, that all
nations other than his own worshipped 'false gods'. He did not need to know
that  these gods were called Baal, Osiris, Moloch, Ashtaroth, and the like:
probably  the less he knew about them the better for his orthodoxy. He knew
Jehovah  and the commandments of Jehovah: he knew, therefore, that all gods
with  other names or other attributes were false gods. In somewhat the same
way,  the  party  member  knew  what  constituted  right  conduct,  and  in
exceedingly  vague, generalized  terms he knew what kinds of departure from
it  were possible.  His sexual life, for example, was entirely regulated by
the two Newspeak words sexcrime (sexual immorality) and goodsex (chastity).
Sexcrime  covered all  sexual  misdeeds whatever.  It covered  fornication,
adultery,  homosexuality,  and other  perversions, and, in addition, normal
intercourse practised for its own sake. There was no need to enumerate them
separately,  since  they were all  equally culpable, and, in principle, all
punishable by death. In the C vocabulary, which consisted of scientific and
technical words, it might be necessary to give specialized names to certain
sexual  aberrations, but  the ordinary citizen had no need of them. He knew
what was meant by goodsex -- that is to say, normal intercourse between man
and  wife, for the sole purpose of begetting children, and without physical
pleasure  on the  part of the woman:  all else was sexcrime. In Newspeak it
was  seldom  possible  to  follow  a heretical  thought  further  than  the
perception  that  it was  heretical: beyond that  point the necessary words
were nonexistent.
     No  word  in the B vocabulary  was ideologically neutral. A great many
were  euphemisms. Such words, for instance, as joycamp (forced-labour camp)
or Minipax (Ministry of Peace, i.e. Ministry of War) meant almost the exact
opposite  of  what they  appeared to  mean. Some words,  on the other hand,
displayed  a frank  and contemptuous  understanding of  the real  nature of
Oceanic   society.  An   example  was   prolefeed,  meaning   the  rubbishy
entertainment  and spurious  news which the Party handed out to the masses.
Other  words,  again, were  ambivalent, having  the connotation 'good' when
applied to the Party and 'bad' when applied to its enemies. But in addition
there  were great numbers of words which at first sight appeared to be mere
abbreviations  and  which derived  their ideological  colour not from their
meaning, but from their structure.
     So  far  as it could  be contrived, everything  that had or might have
political  significance  of any kind was  fitted into the B vocabulary. The
name  of every organization, or body of people, or doctrine, or country, or
institution,  or public building, was invariably cut down into the familiar
shape; that is, a single easily pronounced word with the smallest number of
syllables  that would  preserve the original derivation. In the Ministry of
Truth,  for example, the Records Department, in which Winston Smith worked,
was   called  Recdep,   the  Fiction  Department  was  called  Ficdep,  the
Teleprogrammes  Department was called Teledep, and so on. This was not done
solely  with  the object of  saving time. Even in  the early decades of the
twentieth  century,  telescoped words  and  phrases  had  been one  of  the
characteristic features of political language; and it had been noticed that
the  tendency  to  use  abbreviations  of this  kind  was  most  marked  in
totalitarian  countries  and totalitarian organizations. Examples were such
words  as  Nazi, Gestapo, Comintern,  Inprecorr, Agitprop. In the beginning
the  practice had been adopted as it were instinctively, but in Newspeak it
was  used  with  a  conscious  purpose.  It  was  perceived  that  in  thus
abbreviating a name one narrowed and subtly altered its meaning, by cutting
out  most  of the associations that  would otherwise cling to it. The words
Communist  International, for  instance,  call up  a  composite picture  of
universal  human brotherhood,  red flags,  barricades, Karl  Marx, and  the
Paris  Commune.  The word Comintern,  on the  other hand, suggests merely a
tightly-knit organization and a well-defined body of doctrine. It refers to
something  almost  as easily  recognized, and  as limited  in purpose, as a
chair  or a  table. Comintern is a  word that can be uttered almost without
taking  thought, whereas Communist International is a phrase over which one
is   obliged  to  linger  at  least  momentarily.  In  the  same  way,  the
associations  called  up  by  a  word like  Minitrue  are  fewer  and  more
controllable  than those called up by Ministry of Truth. This accounted not
only  for  the habit  of abbreviating  whenever possible,  but also for the
almost   exaggerated  care  that  was  taken  to  make  every  word  easily
pronounceable.
     In   Newspeak,  euphony  outweighed  every  consideration  other  than
exactitude  of  meaning. Regularity of  grammar was always sacrificed to it
when  it  seemed necessary. And rightly  so, since what was required, above
all for political purposes, was short clipped words of unmistakable meaning
which  could  be uttered rapidly and  which roused the minimum of echoes in
the speaker's mind. The words of the B vocabulary even gained in force from
the  fact  that nearly all of  them were very much alike. Almost invariably
these  words  -- goodthink,  Minipax, prolefeed, sexcrime, joycamp, Ingsoc,
bellyfeel,  thinkpol,  and countless others  -- were  words of two or three
syllables,  with the  stress distributed equally between the first syllable
and  the  last. The use  of them encouraged a  gabbling style of speech, at
once  staccato and  monotonous. And this was exactly what was aimed at. The
intention  was  to make  speech, and  especially speech  on any subject not
ideologically  neutral, as nearly as possible independent of consciousness.
For  the purposes  of everyday life it was no doubt necessary, or sometimes
necessary,  to  reflect before speaking, but  a Party member called upon to
make  a  political or ethical  judgement should be  able to spray forth the
correct  opinions as automatically as a machine gun spraying forth bullets.
His  training fitted  him  to do  this,  the language  gave  him an  almost
foolproof  instrument, and the texture of the words, with their harsh sound
and  a certain  wilful ugliness  which  was in  accord with  the spirit  of
Ingsoc, assisted the process still further.
     So  did the fact  of having very few words to choose from. Relative to
our own, the Newspeak vocabulary was tiny, and new ways of reducing it were
constantly  being  devised. Newspeak, indeed,  differed from most all other
languages in that its vocabulary grew smaller instead of larger every year.
Each  reduction was  a gain,  since  the smaller  the area  of choice,  the
smaller  the  temptation to take  thought. Ultimately  it was hoped to make
articulate  speech issue from the larynx without involving the higher brain
centres  at  all. This  aim  was  frankly  admitted  in the  Newspeak  word
duckspeak,  meaning 'to quack like a duck'. Like various other words in the
B  vocabulary,  duckspeak was  ambivalent  in  meaning. Provided  that  the
opinions  which were quacked out were orthodox ones, it implied nothing but
praise, and when the Times referred to one of the orators of the Party as a
doubleplusgood duckspeaker it was paying a warm and valued compliment.

     The C vocabulary. The C vocabulary was supplementary to the others and
consisted  entirely of  scientific and technical terms. These resembled the
scientific  terms  in use today, and  were constructed from the same roots,
but  the  usual care  was taken  to define  them rigidly  and strip them of
undesirable meanings. They followed the same grammatical rules as the words
in  the  other two vocabularies.  Very few of the  C words had any currency
either  in everyday speech or in political speech. Any scientific worker or
technician  could find  all the words he  needed in the list devoted to his
own  speciality, but  he seldom  had more  than a  smattering of  the words
occurring  in  the other  lists. Only a  very few words  were common to all
lists,  and there was no vocabulary expressing the function of Science as a
habit  of mind,  or a  method of  thought, irrespective  of its  particular
branches.  There  was, indeed, no  word for  'Science', any meaning that it
could possibly bear being already sufficiently covered by the word Ingsoc.
     From  the foregoing  account  it will  be seen  that  in Newspeak  the
expression  of  unorthodox opinions, above  a very low level, was well-nigh
impossible.  It  was of course  possible to utter  heresies of a very crude
kind,  a species of blasphemy. It would have been possible, for example, to
say  Big  Brother is ungood.  But this statement,  which to an orthodox ear
merely  conveyed a self-evident absurdity, could not have been sustained by
reasoned  argument,  because the necessary  words were not available. Ideas
inimical  to Ingsoc could only be entertained in a vague wordless form, and
could only be named in very broad terms which lumped together and condemned
whole  groups of  heresies without defining them in doing so. One could, in
fact,   only   use  Newspeak  for  unorthodox  purposes  by  illegitimately
translating some of the words back into Oldspeak. For example, All mans are
equal was a possible Newspeak sentence, but only in the same sense in which
All men are redhaired is a possible Oldspeak sentence. It did not contain a
grammatical error, but it expressed a palpable untruth -- i.e. that all men
are  of equal  size, weight, or strength. The concept of political equality
no  longer existed,  and this secondary meaning had accordingly been purged
out of the word equal. In 1984, when Oldspeak was still the normal means of
communication,  the danger  theoretically  existed that  in using  Newspeak
words  one  might remember their original  meanings. In practice it was not
difficult  for any person well grounded in doublethink to avoid doing this,
but  within  a couple of  generations even the  possibility of such a lapse
would  have vaished. A person growing up with Newspeak as his sole language
would  no more  know  that equal  had  once had  the  secondary meaning  of
'politically  equal',  or that  free had  once meant 'intellectually free',
than  for instance, a person who had never heard of chess would be aware of
the  secondary  meanings attaching to  queen and  rook. There would be many
crimes  and  errors which  it would  be beyond his  power to commit, simply
because  they  were nameless and  therefore unimaginable.  And it was to be
foreseen  that with  the passage of time the distinguishing characteristics
of  Newspeak  would become  more and  more pronounced  -- its words growing
fewer  and  fewer, their  meanings more  and more rigid,  and the chance of
putting them to improper uses always diminishing.
     When Oldspeak had been once and for all superseded, the last link with
the  past would  have been severed. History had already been rewritten, but
fragments   of  the  literature  of  the  past  survived  here  and  there,
imperfectly  censored, and  so  long  as one  retained  one's knowledge  of
Oldspeak  it was  possible to read them. In the future such fragments, even
if  they chanced to survive, would be unintelligible and untranslatable. It
was impossible to translate any passage of Oldspeak into Newspeak unless it
either  referred to  some technical  process or  some very  simple everyday
action,  or  was  already  orthodox (goodthinkful  would  be  the  Newspeak
expression) in tendency. In practice this meant that no book written before
approximately  1960  could  be  translated as  a  whole.  Pre-revolutionary
literature  could only  be subjected to ideological translation -- that is,
alteration  in  sense as well as  language. Take for example the well-known
passage from the Declaration of Independence:

        We  hold these  truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal,  that they  are endowed  by their  creator with  certain inalienable
rights,  that among  these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving
their  powers  from the consent of  the governed. That whenever any form of
Government becomes destructive of those ends, it is the right of the People
to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government...

     It would have been quite impossible to render this into Newspeak while
keeping  to the sense  of the original. The nearest one could come to doing
so  would be to swallow the whole passage up in the single word crimethink.
A  full  translation could  only  be  an ideological  translation,  whereby
Jefferson's words would be changed into a panegyric on absolute government.
     A  good deal  of the literature of the past was, indeed, already being
transformed  in  this way. Considerations  of prestige made it desirable to
preserve  the memory  of certain historical figures, while at the same time
bringing  their  achievements into  line  with  the philosophy  of  Ingsoc.
Various  writers,  such as Shakespeare,  Milton, Swift, Byron, Dickens, and
some  others  were therefore in  process of  translation: when the task had
been completed, their original writings, with all else that survived of the
literature  of the past, would be destroyed. These translations were a slow
and difficult business, and it was not expected that they would be finished
before  the first  or second decade of the twenty-first century. There were
also  large quantities  of merely  utilitarian literature  -- indispensable
technical  manuals, and the like -- that had to be treated in the same way.
It  was  chiefly  in order  to  allow  time  for  the preliminary  work  of
translation  that the final adoption of Newspeak had been fixed for so late
a date as 2050.

        1949

________
[1]  Newspeak  was the official language  of Oceania. For an account of its
structure and etymology see Appendix.
[2]  Compound words such as speakwrite, were of course to be found in the A
vocabulary,  but these  were  merely convenient  abbreviations  and had  no
special ideologcal colour.


        THE END