Speaker 1: Section three of nineteen eighty four by George Orwell. This
Speaker 1: legamous recording may be distributed and adapted freely for any purpose.
Speaker 1: Part one, Chapter three. Winston was dreaming of his mother.
Speaker 1: He must, he thought, have been ten or eleven years
Speaker 1: old when his mother had disappeared. She was a tall, statuesque,
Speaker 1: rather silent woman, with slow movements and magnificent fair hair.
Speaker 1: His father, he remembered, more vaguely, as dark and thin,
Speaker 1: dressed always in neat, dark clothes. Winston remembered especially the
Speaker 1: very thin soles of his father's shoes, and wearing spectacles.
Speaker 1: The two of them must evidently have been swallowed up
Speaker 1: in one of the first great purges of the fifties.
Speaker 1: At this moment, his mother was sitting in some place
Speaker 1: deep down beneath him, with his young sister in her arms.
Speaker 1: He did not remember his sister at all, except as
Speaker 1: a tiny, feeble baby, always silent, with large watchful eyes.
Speaker 1: Both of them were looking up at him. They were
Speaker 1: down in some subterranean place, the bottom of a well,
Speaker 1: for instance, or a very deep grave. But it was
Speaker 1: a place which, already far below him, was itself moving downwards.
Speaker 1: They were in the saloon of a sinking ship looking
Speaker 1: up at him through the darkening water. There was still
Speaker 1: air in the saloon. They could still see him and
Speaker 1: he them, but all the while they were sinking down
Speaker 1: down into the green waters, which in another moment must
Speaker 1: hide them from sight forever. He was out in the
Speaker 1: light and air, while they were being sucked down to death,
Speaker 1: and they were down there because he was up here.
Speaker 1: He knew it, and they knew it, and he could
Speaker 1: see the knowledge in their faces. There was no reproach,
Speaker 1: either in their faces or in their hearts, only the
Speaker 1: knowledge that they must die in order that he might
Speaker 1: remain alive, and that this was part of the unavoidable
Speaker 1: order of things. He could not remember what had happened,
Speaker 1: but he knew in his dream that in some way
Speaker 1: the lives of his mother and his sister had been
Speaker 1: sacrificed to his own. It was one of those dreams which,
Speaker 1: while retaining the characteristic dream scenery, are a continuation of
Speaker 1: one's intellectual life, and in which one becomes aware of
Speaker 1: facts and ideas which still seem new and valuable after
Speaker 1: one is awake. The thing that now suddenly struck Winston
Speaker 1: was that his mother's death nearly thirty years ago had
Speaker 1: been tragic and sorrowful in a way that was no
Speaker 1: longer possible. Tragedy, he perceived, belonged to the ancient time,
Speaker 1: to a time when there was still privacy, love and friendship,
Speaker 1: and when the members of a family stood by one
Speaker 1: another without needing to know the reason. His mother's memory
Speaker 1: tore at his heart, because she had died loving him
Speaker 1: when he was too young and selfish to love her
Speaker 1: in return, and because somehow he did not remember how
Speaker 1: she had sacrificed herself to a conception of loyalty that
Speaker 1: was private and unalterable. Such things he saw or could
Speaker 1: not happen to day to day. There were fear, hatred,
Speaker 1: and pain, but no dignity of emotion, no deep or
Speaker 1: complex sorrows. All this he seemed to see in the
Speaker 1: large eyes of his mother and his sister, looking up
Speaker 1: at him through the green water, hundreds of fathoms down
Speaker 1: and still sinking. Suddenly he was standing on short, springy
Speaker 1: turf on a summer evening, when the slanting rays of
Speaker 1: the sun gilded the ground. The landscape that he was
Speaker 1: looking at recurred so often in his dreams that he
Speaker 1: was never fully certain whether or not he had seen
Speaker 1: it in the real world. In his waking thoughts, he
Speaker 1: called it the Golden Country. It was an old, rabbit
Speaker 1: bitten pasture, with a foot track wandering across it, and
Speaker 1: a mole hill here and there in the ragged hedge
Speaker 1: on the opposite side of the field. The boughs of
Speaker 1: the elm trees were swaying very faintly in the breeze,
Speaker 1: their leaves just stirring in dense masses like women's hair.
Speaker 1: Somewhere near at hand, though out of sight, there was
Speaker 1: a clear, slow moving stream. Where Dace was swimming in
Speaker 1: the pools under the willow trees. The girl with dark
Speaker 1: hair was coming towards them across the field. With what
Speaker 1: seemed a single movement. She tore off her clothes and
Speaker 1: flung them disdainfully aside. Her body was white and smooth,
Speaker 1: but it aroused no desire in him, Indeed, he barely
Speaker 1: looked at it. What overwhelmed him in that instant was
Speaker 1: admiration for the gesture with which she had thrown her
Speaker 1: clothes aside, with its grace and carelessness, it seemed to
Speaker 1: annihilate a whole culture, a whole system of thought, as
Speaker 1: though big Brother, and the Party and the thought police
Speaker 1: could all be swept into nothingness by a single splendid
Speaker 1: movement of the arm. That too, was a gesture belonging
Speaker 1: to the ancient time. Winston woke up with the word
Speaker 1: Shakespeare on his lips. The telescreen was giving forth an
Speaker 1: ear splitting whistle, which continued on the same note for
Speaker 1: thirty seconds. It was nought seven fifteen. Getting up to
Speaker 1: for office workers, Winston wrenched his body out of bed naked.
Speaker 1: For a member of the outer party received only three
Speaker 1: thousand clothing coupons annually, and a suit of pajamas was
Speaker 1: six hundred, and seized a dingy singlet and a pair
Speaker 1: of shorts that were lying across a chair. The physical
Speaker 1: jerks would begin in three minutes. The next moment, he
Speaker 1: was doubled up by a violent coughing fit, which nearly
Speaker 1: always attacked him soon after waking up. It emptied his
Speaker 1: lungs so completely that he could only begin breathing again
Speaker 1: by lying on his back and taking a series of
Speaker 1: deep gasps. His veins had swelled with the effort of
Speaker 1: the cough, and the varicus ulca had started itching. Thirty
Speaker 1: to forty group yapped a piercing female voice, thirty to
Speaker 1: forty group, take your places please, thirties to forties. Winston
Speaker 1: sprang to attention in front of the telescreen, upon which
Speaker 1: the image of a youngish woman, scrawny but muscular, dressed
Speaker 1: in tunic and gym shoes had already appeared, arms bending
Speaker 1: and stretching. She wrapped out, take your time by me
Speaker 1: one two three four, one two three four, Come on, comrades,
Speaker 1: put a bit of life into it. One two three four,
Speaker 1: one two three four. The pain of the coughing fit
Speaker 1: had not quite driven out of Winston's mind. The impression
Speaker 1: made by his dream and the rhythmic movements of the
Speaker 1: exercise restored it somewhat. As he mechanically shot his arms
Speaker 1: back and forth, wearing on his face the look of
Speaker 1: grim enjoyment, which was considered proper during the physical jerks.
Speaker 1: He was struggling to think his way backward into the
Speaker 1: dim period of his early childhood. It was extraordinarily difficult.
Speaker 1: Beyond the late fifties. Everything faded when there were no
Speaker 1: external records that you could refer to. Even the outline
Speaker 1: of your own life lost its sharpness. You remembered huge
Speaker 1: events which had quite probably not happened. You remembered the
Speaker 1: detail of incidents without being able to recapture their atmosphere,
Speaker 1: and there were long blank pearser to which you could
Speaker 1: assign nothing. Everything had been different then, Even the names
Speaker 1: of countries and their shapes on the map had been different.
Speaker 1: Airstrip I, for instance, had not been so called in
Speaker 1: those days. It had been called England or Britain, though London,
Speaker 1: he felt fairly certain, had always been called London. Winston
Speaker 1: could not definitely remember a time when his country had
Speaker 1: not been at war, but it was evident that there
Speaker 1: had been a fairly long interval of peace during his childhood,
Speaker 1: because one of his early memories was of an air
Speaker 1: raid which appeared to take every one by surprise. Perhaps
Speaker 1: it was the time when the atomic bomb had fallen
Speaker 1: on Colchester. He did not remember the raid itself, but
Speaker 1: he did remember his father's hand clutching his own, as
Speaker 1: they hurried down, down, down, into some place deep in
Speaker 1: the earth, round and round a spiral staircase, which rang
Speaker 1: under his feet, and which finally so wearied his legs
Speaker 1: that he began whimpering, and they had to stop and rest.
Speaker 1: His mother in her slow, dreamy way was following a
Speaker 1: long way behind them. She was carrying his baby sister,
Speaker 1: or perhaps it was only a bundle of blankets that
Speaker 1: she was carrying. He was not certain whether his sister
Speaker 1: had been born. Then finally they had emerged into a noisy,
Speaker 1: crowded place, which he had realized to be a tube station.
Speaker 1: There were people sitting all over the stone flagged floor,
Speaker 1: and other people packed tightly together, were sitting on metal bunks,
Speaker 1: one above the other. Winston and his mother and father
Speaker 1: found themselves a place on the floor, and near them,
Speaker 1: an old man and an old woman was sitting side
Speaker 1: by side on a bunk. The old man had on
Speaker 1: a decent dark suit and a black cloth cap pushed
Speaker 1: back from very white hair. His face was scarlet, and
Speaker 1: his eyes were blue and full of tears. He reeked
Speaker 1: of gin. It seemed to breathe out of his skin
Speaker 1: in place of sweat, and one could have fancied that
Speaker 1: the tears welling from his eyes were pure gin. But
Speaker 1: though slightly drunk, he was also suffering under some grief
Speaker 1: that was genuine and unbearable. In his childish way, Winston
Speaker 1: grasps that some terrible thing, something that was beyond forgiveness
Speaker 1: and could never be remedied had just happened. It also
Speaker 1: seemed to him that he knew what it was. Some
Speaker 1: one whom the old man loved, a little grand daughter perhaps,
Speaker 1: had been killed. Every few minutes. The old man kept repeating,
Speaker 1: we didn't ought to have trusted him. I said, so,
Speaker 1: Mar didn't. I that's what comes of trusting him? I said,
Speaker 1: so All along we didn't ought to have trusted the buggers.
Speaker 1: But which buggers they didn't ought to have trusted? Winston
Speaker 1: could not now remember, since about that time war had
Speaker 1: been literally continuous, though strictly speaking it had not always
Speaker 1: been the same war. For several months during his childhood
Speaker 1: there had been confused street fighting in London itself, some
Speaker 1: of which he remembered vividly. But to trace out the
Speaker 1: history of the whole period to say who was fighting
Speaker 1: whom at any given moment would have been utterly possible,
Speaker 1: since no written record and no spoken word ever made
Speaker 1: mention of any other alignment than the existing one at
Speaker 1: this moment. For example, in nineteen eighty four, if it
Speaker 1: was nineteen eighty four, Oceania was at war with Eurasia
Speaker 1: and in alliance with East Asia. In no public or
Speaker 1: private utterance was it ever admitted that the three powers
Speaker 1: had at any time been grouped along different lines. Actually,
Speaker 1: as Winston Well knew, it was only four years since
Speaker 1: Oceania had been at war with Eastasia and in alliance
Speaker 1: with Eurasia. But that was merely a piece of furtive
Speaker 1: knowledge which he happened to possess because his memory was
Speaker 1: not satisfactorily under control. Officially, the change of partners had
Speaker 1: never happened. Oceania was at war with Eurasia. Therefore, Oceania
Speaker 1: had always been at war with Eurasia. The enemy of
Speaker 1: the moment always represented absolute evil, and had followed that
Speaker 1: any past or future agreement with him was impossible. The
Speaker 1: frightening thing he reflected for the ten thousandth time as
Speaker 1: he forced his shoulders painfully backward with hands on hips.
Speaker 1: They were gyrating their bodies from the waist, an exercise
Speaker 1: that was supposed to be good for the back muscles.
Speaker 1: The frightening thing was that it might all be true,
Speaker 1: if the party could thrust its hand into the past
Speaker 1: and say, of this or that event it never happened.
Speaker 1: That surely was more terrifying than mere torture and death.
Speaker 1: The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance
Speaker 1: with Eurasia. He Winston Smith knew that Oceania had been
Speaker 1: an alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four
Speaker 1: years ago. But where did that knowledge exist? Only in
Speaker 1: his own consciousness, which, in any case must soon be annihilated.
Speaker 1: And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed,
Speaker 1: if all records told the same tale, then the lie
Speaker 1: passed into history and became truth. Who controls the past,
Speaker 1: ran the party slogan, controls the future? Who controls the
Speaker 1: present controls the past? And yet the past, though of
Speaker 1: its nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true
Speaker 1: now was true, from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple.
Speaker 1: All that was needed was an unending series of victories
Speaker 1: over your own memory. Reality control. They called it in
Speaker 1: news speak. Doublethink stand easy, barked the instructress. A little
Speaker 1: more genially. Winston sank his arms to his sides and
Speaker 1: slowly refilled his lungs with air. His mind slid away
Speaker 1: into the labyrinthine world of doublethink. To know and not
Speaker 1: to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling
Speaker 1: carefully constructed lies to hold simultaneously two opinions which canceled out,
Speaker 1: knowing them to be contradictory, and believing in both of them.
Speaker 1: To use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying
Speaker 1: claim to it, to believe that the democracy was impossible,
Speaker 1: and that the party was the guardian of democracy. To
Speaker 1: forget whatever it was nest necessary to forget, then to
Speaker 1: draw it back into memory again at the moment when
Speaker 1: it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again.
Speaker 1: And above all, to apply the same process to the
Speaker 1: process itself. That was the ultimate subtlety. Consciously to induce unconsciousness,
Speaker 1: and then once again to become unconscious of the act
Speaker 1: of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the
Speaker 1: word doublethink involved the use of double think. The instructress
Speaker 1: had called them to attention again. And now let's see
Speaker 1: which of us can touch our toes, she said, enthusiastically,
Speaker 1: right over from the hips, please comrades one two, one two.
Speaker 1: Winston loathed this exercise, which sent shooting pains all the
Speaker 1: way from his heels to his buttocks, and often ended
Speaker 1: by bringing on another coughing fit. The half pleasant quality
Speaker 1: went out of his meditations. The past, he reflected, had
Speaker 1: not merely been altered, it had actually been destroyed. For
Speaker 1: how could you establish even the most obvious fact when
Speaker 1: there existed no record outside your own memory. He tried
Speaker 1: to remember in what year he had first heard mention
Speaker 1: of Big Brother. He thought it must have been at
Speaker 1: some time in the sixties, but it was impossible to
Speaker 1: be certain. In the party histories, of course, big Brother
Speaker 1: figured as the leader and guardian of the revolution since
Speaker 1: its very earliest days. His exploits had been gradually pushed
Speaker 1: backwards in time, until already they extended into the fabulous
Speaker 1: world of the forties and the thirties, when the capitalists,
Speaker 1: in their strange cylindrical hats still rode through the streets
Speaker 1: of London in great gleaming motor cars or horse carriages
Speaker 1: with glass sides. There was no knowing how much of
Speaker 1: this legend was true and how much invented. Winston could
Speaker 1: not even remember at what date the Party itself had
Speaker 1: come into existence. He did not believe he had ever
Speaker 1: heard the word ingsock before nineteen sixty, but it was
Speaker 1: possible that, in its old speak form English socialism, that
Speaker 1: is to say, it had been current earlier, everything thing
Speaker 1: melted into mist. Sometimes, indeed, you could put your finger
Speaker 1: on a definite lie. It was not true, For example,
Speaker 1: as was claimed in the Party history books, that the
Speaker 1: Party had invented aeroplanes. He remembered aeroplanes since his earliest childhood.
Speaker 1: But you could prove nothing. There was never any evidence.
Speaker 1: Just once in his whole life he had held in
Speaker 1: his hands unmistakable documentary proof of the falsification of an
Speaker 1: historical fact. And on that occasion Smith screamed the shrewish
Speaker 1: voice from the telescreen six o sevent nine. Smith, w yes,
Speaker 1: you bend lower, please, you can do better than that.
Speaker 1: You're not trying lower, please, that's better, comrade, Now stand
Speaker 1: at ease the whole squad and watch me. A sudden,
Speaker 1: hot sweat had broken out all over Winston's body. His
Speaker 1: face remained completely inscrutable. Never show dismay, never show resentment.
Speaker 1: A single flicker of the eyes could give you away.
Speaker 1: He stood watching while the instructress raised her arms above
Speaker 1: her head, and one could not say gracefully, but with
Speaker 1: remarkable neatness and efficiency, bent over and tucked the first
Speaker 1: joint of her fingers under her toes. There comrades, that's
Speaker 1: how I want to see you doing it. Watch me again.
Speaker 1: I'm thirty nine and I've had four children. Now look
Speaker 1: she bent over again. You see my knees aunt bent.
Speaker 1: You can all do it if you want to, she
Speaker 1: added as she straightened herself up. Any one under forty
Speaker 1: five is perfectly capable of touching his toes. We don't
Speaker 1: all have the privilege of fighting in the front line,
Speaker 1: but at least we can all keep fit. Remember our
Speaker 1: boys on the Malabar Front and the sailors in the
Speaker 1: floating fortresses. Just think what they have to put up with.
Speaker 1: Now try again. That's better, comrade, That's much better, she
Speaker 1: added encouragingly, as Winston, with a violent lunge, succeeded in
Speaker 1: touching his toes with knees unbent for the first time
Speaker 1: in several years. End of Section three.