WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.480 --> 00:00:04.480 Section five of nineteen eighty four by George Orwell. This 2 00:00:04.639 --> 00:00:08.359 legamous recording may be distributed and adapted freely for any purpose. 3 00:00:09.839 --> 00:00:15.679 Part one, Chapter five. In the low ceilinged canteen deep underground, 4 00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:19.960 the lunch que jerked slowly forward. The room was already 5 00:00:20.079 --> 00:00:23.760 very full and deafeningly noisy. From the grille at the counter, 6 00:00:23.839 --> 00:00:26.719 the steam of stew came pouring forth, with a sour 7 00:00:26.760 --> 00:00:29.480 metallic smell which did not quite overcome the fumes of 8 00:00:29.519 --> 00:00:32.920 victory gin. On the far side of the room there 9 00:00:32.960 --> 00:00:34.920 was a small bar, a mere hole in the wall, 10 00:00:35.159 --> 00:00:37.679 where gin could be bought at ten cents. The large nip. 11 00:00:39.799 --> 00:00:41.560 Just the man I was looking for, said a voice 12 00:00:41.600 --> 00:00:46.039 at Winston's back. He turned round. It was his friend, Sime, 13 00:00:46.079 --> 00:00:49.479 who worked in the research department. Perhaps friend was not 14 00:00:49.560 --> 00:00:52.840 exactly the right word. You did not have friends nowadays. 15 00:00:52.960 --> 00:00:56.280 You had comrades. But there were some comrades whose society 16 00:00:56.359 --> 00:00:59.960 was pleasanter than that of others. Sime was a philologist, 17 00:01:00.200 --> 00:01:03.600 a specialist in news speak. Indeed, he was one of 18 00:01:03.600 --> 00:01:06.400 the enormous team of experts now engaged in compiling the 19 00:01:06.439 --> 00:01:10.040 eleventh edition of the New Speak Dictionary. He was a 20 00:01:10.079 --> 00:01:13.359 tiny creature, smaller than Winston, with dark hair and large, 21 00:01:13.359 --> 00:01:17.680 protuberant eyes, at once mournful and derisive, which seemed to 22 00:01:17.680 --> 00:01:19.959 search your face closely while he was speaking to you. 23 00:01:22.079 --> 00:01:24.400 I wanted to ask you whether you'd got any razor blades, 24 00:01:24.400 --> 00:01:27.519 he said, not one, said Winston, with a sort of 25 00:01:27.560 --> 00:01:30.560 guilty haste. I've tried all over the place that don't 26 00:01:30.560 --> 00:01:35.920 exist any longer. Every One kept asking you for razor blades. Actually, 27 00:01:35.920 --> 00:01:38.439 he had two unused ones which he was hoarding up. 28 00:01:39.000 --> 00:01:41.120 There had been a famine of them for months past. 29 00:01:41.799 --> 00:01:44.400 At any given moment, there was some necessary article which 30 00:01:44.439 --> 00:01:48.480 the party shops were unable to supply. Sometimes it was buttons, 31 00:01:48.640 --> 00:01:52.480 sometimes it was darning wool, Sometimes it was shoelacers. At 32 00:01:52.480 --> 00:01:55.280 present it was razor blades. You could only get hold 33 00:01:55.280 --> 00:01:57.599 of them, if at all, by scrounging more or less 34 00:01:57.640 --> 00:02:01.680 furtively on the free market. I have been using the 35 00:02:01.719 --> 00:02:06.000 same blade for six weeks, he added, untruthfully. The cue 36 00:02:06.040 --> 00:02:09.080 gave another jerk forward. As they halted. He turned and 37 00:02:09.120 --> 00:02:12.439 faced sim again. Each of them took a greasy metal 38 00:02:12.439 --> 00:02:14.199 tray from a pile at the end of the counter. 39 00:02:16.280 --> 00:02:18.960 Did you go and see the prisoners hanged yesterday, said Sime. 40 00:02:19.840 --> 00:02:23.000 I was working, said Winston, indifferently. I shall see it 41 00:02:23.039 --> 00:02:27.199 on the flicks. I suppose a very inadequate substitute, said Sime. 42 00:02:28.400 --> 00:02:32.360 His mocking eyes roved over Winston's face. I know you, 43 00:02:32.520 --> 00:02:35.759 The eyes seemed to say, I see through you. I 44 00:02:35.840 --> 00:02:37.719 know very well why you didn't go to see those 45 00:02:37.759 --> 00:02:42.759 prisoners hanged. In an intellectual way, Sime was venomously orthodox. 46 00:02:43.680 --> 00:02:47.080 He would talk with a disagreeable, gloating satisfaction of helicopter 47 00:02:47.159 --> 00:02:51.280 raids on enemy villages, and trials and confessions of thought criminals, 48 00:02:51.319 --> 00:02:53.680 the executions in the cellars of the Ministry of Love. 49 00:02:54.719 --> 00:02:56.879 Talking to him was largely a matter of getting him 50 00:02:56.879 --> 00:03:00.159 away from such subjects and entangling him, if possible, in 51 00:03:00.240 --> 00:03:03.639 the technicalities of news speak, on which he was authoritative 52 00:03:03.639 --> 00:03:07.280 and interesting. Winston turned his head a little aside to 53 00:03:07.319 --> 00:03:11.680 avoid the scrutiny of the large dark eyes. It was 54 00:03:11.719 --> 00:03:15.120 a good hanging, said Sime, reminiscently. I think it spoils 55 00:03:15.159 --> 00:03:17.599 it when they tie their feet together. I like to 56 00:03:17.599 --> 00:03:20.360 see them kicking. And above all, at the end, the 57 00:03:20.439 --> 00:03:23.800 tongue sticking right out, and blue, quite a bright blue. 58 00:03:24.199 --> 00:03:28.919 That's the detail that appeals to me. Next, please, yelled 59 00:03:28.919 --> 00:03:33.159 the white aproned proll. With the ladle, Winston and Sime 60 00:03:33.199 --> 00:03:35.960 pushed their trays beneath the grill on to each was 61 00:03:36.039 --> 00:03:39.879 dumped swiftly the regulation lunch, a metal pannikin of pinkish 62 00:03:39.879 --> 00:03:43.520 gray stew, a hunk of bread, a cube of cheese, 63 00:03:43.759 --> 00:03:46.960 a mug of milkless Victory coffee, and one sacran tablet. 64 00:03:48.599 --> 00:03:51.280 There's a table over there under that telescreen, said Sime. 65 00:03:51.400 --> 00:03:54.800 Let's pick up a gin. On the way, the gin 66 00:03:54.919 --> 00:03:57.159 was served out to them in handle as china mugs. 67 00:03:57.800 --> 00:03:59.919 They threaded their way across the crowded room and un 68 00:04:00.080 --> 00:04:02.879 packed their trays onto the metal topped table. On one 69 00:04:02.919 --> 00:04:05.000 corner of which some one had left a pool of stew, 70 00:04:05.319 --> 00:04:07.919 a filthy liquid mess that had the appearance of vomit. 71 00:04:09.199 --> 00:04:11.639 Winston took up his mug of gin, paused for an 72 00:04:11.680 --> 00:04:14.960 instant to collect his nerve, and gulped the oily tasting 73 00:04:14.960 --> 00:04:18.360 stuff down. When he had winked the tears out of 74 00:04:18.399 --> 00:04:21.959 his eyes, he suddenly discovered that he was hungry. He 75 00:04:22.040 --> 00:04:25.240 began swallowing spoonfuls of the stew, which, in among its 76 00:04:25.279 --> 00:04:29.079 general sloppiness, had cubes of spongy, pinkish stuff, which was 77 00:04:29.120 --> 00:04:33.360 probably a preparation of meat. Neither of them spoke again 78 00:04:33.399 --> 00:04:37.279 till they had emptied their pannikins from the table. At 79 00:04:37.279 --> 00:04:40.439 Winston's left, a little behind his back, some one was 80 00:04:40.480 --> 00:04:43.720 talking rapidly and continuously, a harsh gabble, almost like the 81 00:04:43.800 --> 00:04:46.720 quacking of a duck, which pierced the general uproar of 82 00:04:46.720 --> 00:04:51.000 the room. How is the dictionary getting on? Said Winston, 83 00:04:51.120 --> 00:04:55.040 raising his voice to overcome the noise, slowly said sim 84 00:04:55.319 --> 00:05:00.160 I'm on the adjectives. It's fascinating. He had brightened up 85 00:05:00.199 --> 00:05:03.120 immediately at the mention of news speak. He pushed his 86 00:05:03.120 --> 00:05:05.319 panic and aside, took up his hunk of bread in 87 00:05:05.360 --> 00:05:07.879 one delicate hand and his cheese in the other, and 88 00:05:08.000 --> 00:05:09.839 leaned across the table so as to be able to 89 00:05:09.839 --> 00:05:14.480 speak without shouting. The eleventh edition is the definitive edition, 90 00:05:14.560 --> 00:05:17.439 he said. We're getting the language into its final shape, 91 00:05:17.639 --> 00:05:20.160 the shape it's going to have when nobody speaks anything else. 92 00:05:20.920 --> 00:05:22.920 When we've finished with it, people like you will have 93 00:05:22.959 --> 00:05:25.879 to learn it all over again. You think I dare 94 00:05:25.879 --> 00:05:28.360 say that our chief job is inventing new words? But 95 00:05:28.480 --> 00:05:31.399 not a bit of it. We're destroying words, scores of them, 96 00:05:31.480 --> 00:05:34.519 hundreds of them every day. We're cutting the language down 97 00:05:34.560 --> 00:05:37.360 to the bone. The eleventh edition won't contain a single 98 00:05:37.360 --> 00:05:40.000 word that will become obsolete before the year twenty fifty. 99 00:05:41.920 --> 00:05:44.279 He bit hungrily into his bread and swallowed a couple 100 00:05:44.360 --> 00:05:47.480 of mouthfuls, then continued speaking with a sort of pedant's passion. 101 00:05:48.720 --> 00:05:51.600 His thin, dark face had become animated, his eyes had 102 00:05:51.639 --> 00:05:55.879 lost their mocking expression and grown almost dreamy. It's a 103 00:05:55.920 --> 00:05:59.000 beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course, the great 104 00:05:59.000 --> 00:06:01.480 wastage is in the verb and adjectives, but there are 105 00:06:01.560 --> 00:06:03.680 hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. 106 00:06:04.600 --> 00:06:07.720 It isn't only the synonyms. There are also the antonyms. 107 00:06:08.519 --> 00:06:10.839 After all, what justification is there for a word which 108 00:06:10.879 --> 00:06:13.720 is simply the opposite of some other word? A word 109 00:06:13.759 --> 00:06:17.800 contains its opposite in itself. Take good, for instance. If 110 00:06:17.800 --> 00:06:20.000 you have a word like good, what need is there 111 00:06:20.000 --> 00:06:22.879 for a word like bad? Unngood will do just as 112 00:06:22.920 --> 00:06:26.079 well better, because it's an exact opposite which the other 113 00:06:26.199 --> 00:06:29.160 is not. Or again, if you want a stronger version 114 00:06:29.199 --> 00:06:31.120 of good, what sense is there in having a whole 115 00:06:31.160 --> 00:06:34.040 string of vague, useless words like excellent and splendid and 116 00:06:34.079 --> 00:06:37.199 all the rest of them. Plus good covers the meaning 117 00:06:37.319 --> 00:06:39.639 or double plus good if you want something stronger. Still, 118 00:06:40.639 --> 00:06:43.079 of course we use those forms already, But in the 119 00:06:43.120 --> 00:06:46.639 final version of news Speak, there'll be nothing else. In 120 00:06:46.680 --> 00:06:48.959 the end, the whole notion of goodness and badness will 121 00:06:48.959 --> 00:06:52.480 be covered by only six words, in reality, only one word. 122 00:06:52.920 --> 00:06:55.600 Don't you see the beauty of that? Winston? It was B. 123 00:06:55.600 --> 00:06:58.319 B's idea originally, of course, he added, as an afterthought. 124 00:07:00.079 --> 00:07:02.839 A sort of vapid eagerness flitted across Winston's face at 125 00:07:02.879 --> 00:07:06.959 the mention of big brother. Nevertheless, Sime immediately detected a 126 00:07:06.959 --> 00:07:11.560 certain lack of enthusiasm. You haven't a real appreciation of 127 00:07:11.600 --> 00:07:14.959 new speak, Winston, he said, almost sadly. Even when you 128 00:07:14.959 --> 00:07:18.000 write it, you're still thinking in old speak. I've read 129 00:07:18.040 --> 00:07:20.040 some of those pieces that you write in the Times. 130 00:07:20.079 --> 00:07:24.639 Occasionally they're good enough, but they're translations. In your heart, 131 00:07:24.680 --> 00:07:26.600 you'd prefer to stick to old speak, with all its 132 00:07:26.720 --> 00:07:30.560 vagueness and its useless shades of meaning. You don't grasp 133 00:07:30.639 --> 00:07:33.439 the beauty of the destruction of words. Do you know 134 00:07:33.519 --> 00:07:35.480 that news Speaker is the only language in the world 135 00:07:35.519 --> 00:07:40.120 whose vocabulary gets smaller every year. Winston did know that, 136 00:07:40.240 --> 00:07:44.120 of course, he smiled sympathetically, he hoped, not trusting himself 137 00:07:44.160 --> 00:07:47.279 to speak. Sime bit off another fragment of the dark 138 00:07:47.319 --> 00:07:51.199 colored bread, chewed it briefly, and went on, don't you 139 00:07:51.240 --> 00:07:53.000 see that the whole aim of news Speaker is to 140 00:07:53.079 --> 00:07:55.959 narrow the range of thought. In the end, we shall 141 00:07:55.959 --> 00:07:58.959 make thought crime literally impossible, because there will be no 142 00:07:59.000 --> 00:08:02.360 words in which to express. Every concept that can ever 143 00:08:02.360 --> 00:08:05.480 be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with 144 00:08:05.560 --> 00:08:09.040 its meaning rigidly defined, and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed 145 00:08:09.079 --> 00:08:12.560 out and forgotten. Already in the eleventh edition, we're not 146 00:08:12.600 --> 00:08:15.600 far from that point, but the process will still be 147 00:08:15.600 --> 00:08:18.920 continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year, 148 00:08:19.000 --> 00:08:22.040 fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always 149 00:08:22.040 --> 00:08:25.360 a little smaller even now. Of course, there's no reason 150 00:08:25.439 --> 00:08:28.319 or excuse for committing thought crime. It's merely a question 151 00:08:28.399 --> 00:08:31.720 of self discipline, reality control. But in the end there 152 00:08:31.720 --> 00:08:34.679 won't be any need even for that. The revolution will 153 00:08:34.720 --> 00:08:38.200 be complete when the language is perfect. New speak is ingsok, 154 00:08:38.320 --> 00:08:40.840 and ingsock is news speak. He added, with a sort 155 00:08:40.840 --> 00:08:44.399 of mystical satisfaction. Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, 156 00:08:44.480 --> 00:08:46.639 that by the year twenty fifty, at the very latest, 157 00:08:47.159 --> 00:08:49.279 not a single human being will be alive. Who could 158 00:08:49.320 --> 00:08:53.799 understand such a conversation as we are having now? Except? 159 00:08:54.120 --> 00:08:57.799 Began Winston doubtfully, and he stopped. It had been on 160 00:08:57.840 --> 00:09:00.080 the tip of his tongue to say, except the prole 161 00:09:00.279 --> 00:09:03.080 But he checked himself, not feeling fully certain that this 162 00:09:03.159 --> 00:09:07.120 remark was not in some way unorthodox. Sime, however, had 163 00:09:07.159 --> 00:09:10.759 divined what he was about to say. The prolls are 164 00:09:10.799 --> 00:09:14.720 not human beings, he said carelessly. By twenty fifty earlier, 165 00:09:14.759 --> 00:09:17.879 probably all real knowledge of old speak will have disappeared. 166 00:09:18.399 --> 00:09:22.399 The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare, 167 00:09:22.440 --> 00:09:26.039 Milton Byron. They'll exist only in new speak versions, not 168 00:09:26.159 --> 00:09:29.440 merely changed into something different, but actually changed into something 169 00:09:29.440 --> 00:09:32.799 contradictory of what they used to be. Even the literature 170 00:09:32.799 --> 00:09:36.279 of the party will change. Even the slogans will change. 171 00:09:36.759 --> 00:09:39.159 How could you have a slogan like freedom is slavery? 172 00:09:39.480 --> 00:09:43.000 When the concept of freedom has been abolished. The whole 173 00:09:43.039 --> 00:09:45.960 climate of thought will be different. In fact, there will 174 00:09:46.000 --> 00:09:49.799 be no thought. As we understand it now, Orthodoxy means 175 00:09:49.840 --> 00:09:56.240 not thinking, not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness. One 176 00:09:56.240 --> 00:09:59.240 of these days, thought Winston, with sudden, deep conviction, Sime 177 00:09:59.279 --> 00:10:02.840 will be vaporiz. He is too intelligent, he sees too 178 00:10:02.879 --> 00:10:06.000 clearly and speaks too plainly. The party does not like 179 00:10:06.039 --> 00:10:09.440 such people. One day he will disappear. It is written 180 00:10:09.440 --> 00:10:13.440 in his face. Winston had finished his bread and cheese. 181 00:10:13.919 --> 00:10:15.960 He turned a little sideways in his chair to drink 182 00:10:15.960 --> 00:10:18.919 his mug of coffee. At the table on his left, 183 00:10:18.960 --> 00:10:22.200 the man with a strident voice was still talking remorselessly away. 184 00:10:23.279 --> 00:10:25.440 A young woman who was perhaps his secretary, and who 185 00:10:25.519 --> 00:10:27.840 was sitting with her back to Winston, was listening to 186 00:10:27.919 --> 00:10:30.279 him and seemed to be eagerly agreeing with everything that 187 00:10:30.320 --> 00:10:34.639 he said. From time to time, Winston caught some such remarkers, 188 00:10:34.960 --> 00:10:37.200 I think you're so right. I do so agree with you, 189 00:10:37.600 --> 00:10:41.080 uttered in a youthful and rather silly feminine voice. But 190 00:10:41.159 --> 00:10:43.480 the other voice never stopped for an instant even when 191 00:10:43.480 --> 00:10:46.759 the girl was speaking. Winston knew the man by sight, 192 00:10:47.080 --> 00:10:48.879 though he knew no more about him than that he 193 00:10:48.879 --> 00:10:52.399 held some important post in the fiction department. He was 194 00:10:52.440 --> 00:10:54.639 a man of about thirty, with a muscular throat and 195 00:10:54.679 --> 00:10:58.279 a large mobile mouth. His head was thrown back a little, 196 00:10:58.440 --> 00:11:00.360 and because of the angle at which he was sitting, 197 00:11:00.559 --> 00:11:03.240 his spectacles caught the light and presented to Winston two 198 00:11:03.240 --> 00:11:07.360 blank disks instead of eyes. What was slightly horrible was 199 00:11:07.399 --> 00:11:09.559 that from the stream of sound that poured out of 200 00:11:09.600 --> 00:11:13.120 his mouth, it was almost impossible to distinguish a single word. 201 00:11:14.519 --> 00:11:17.919 Just once Winston caught a phrase, complete and final elimination 202 00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:21.679 of Goldsteinism jerked out very rapidly, and as it seemed, 203 00:11:21.720 --> 00:11:24.519 all in one piece, like a line of type cast solid. 204 00:11:25.480 --> 00:11:27.279 For the rest it was just a noise, a quack 205 00:11:27.360 --> 00:11:31.240 quack quacking. And yet though you could not actually hear 206 00:11:31.279 --> 00:11:33.399 what the man was saying, you could not be in 207 00:11:33.440 --> 00:11:37.080 any doubt about its general nature. He might be denouncing 208 00:11:37.159 --> 00:11:41.120 Goldstein and demanding sterner measures against thought criminals and saboteurs. 209 00:11:41.639 --> 00:11:44.840 He might be fulminating against the atrocities of the Eurasian Army. 210 00:11:45.120 --> 00:11:47.159 He might be praising Big Brother or the heroes on 211 00:11:47.200 --> 00:11:51.159 the Malabar front. It made no difference. Whatever it was, 212 00:11:51.440 --> 00:11:53.159 you could be certain that every word of it was 213 00:11:53.240 --> 00:11:57.879 pure Orthodoxy, pure insock As he watched the eyeless face 214 00:11:57.919 --> 00:12:00.840 with the jaw moving rapidly up and down, Winston had 215 00:12:00.840 --> 00:12:03.240 a curious feeling that this was not a real human being, 216 00:12:03.279 --> 00:12:06.240 but some kind of dummy. It was not the man's 217 00:12:06.240 --> 00:12:09.200 brain that was speaking, It was his larynx. The stuff 218 00:12:09.240 --> 00:12:11.559 that was coming out of him consisted of words, but 219 00:12:11.679 --> 00:12:14.039 it was not speech in the true sense. It was 220 00:12:14.080 --> 00:12:17.240 a noise uttered in unconsciousness, like the quacking of a duck. 221 00:12:19.120 --> 00:12:21.679 Sime had fallen silent for a moment, and with the 222 00:12:21.720 --> 00:12:24.000 handle of his spoon, was tracing patterns in the puddle 223 00:12:24.039 --> 00:12:27.759 of stew. The voice from the other table quacked rapidly on, 224 00:12:27.960 --> 00:12:32.600 easily audible in spite of the surrounding din There is 225 00:12:32.600 --> 00:12:35.039 a word in new speak, said Sime. I don't know 226 00:12:35.080 --> 00:12:38.360 whether you know it, duck speak to quack like a duck. 227 00:12:39.039 --> 00:12:41.039 It is one of those interesting words that have two 228 00:12:41.080 --> 00:12:45.240 contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it is abuse applied 229 00:12:45.240 --> 00:12:50.120 to some one you agree with, it is praise. Unquestionably, 230 00:12:50.159 --> 00:12:53.320 Sime will be vaporized, Winston thought again. He thought it 231 00:12:53.360 --> 00:12:56.159 with a kind of sadness, although well knowing that Sime 232 00:12:56.240 --> 00:12:59.480 despised him and slightly disliked him, and was fully capable 233 00:12:59.480 --> 00:13:01.600 of denancing him as a thought criminal if he saw 234 00:13:01.639 --> 00:13:05.120 any reason for doing so. There was something subtly wrong 235 00:13:05.159 --> 00:13:09.120 with Sime. There was something that he lacked discretion, aloofness, 236 00:13:09.159 --> 00:13:12.240 a sort of saving stupidity. You could not say that 237 00:13:12.279 --> 00:13:15.320 he was unorthodox. He believed in the principles of ingsok. 238 00:13:15.639 --> 00:13:19.440 He venerated Big Brother. He rejoiced over victories. He hated heretics, 239 00:13:19.960 --> 00:13:22.480 not merely with sincerity, but with a sort of restless 240 00:13:22.600 --> 00:13:25.919 zeal an up to dateness of information which the ordinary 241 00:13:25.960 --> 00:13:29.399 party member did not approach. Yet a faint air of 242 00:13:29.399 --> 00:13:33.159 disreputability always clung to him. He said things that would 243 00:13:33.159 --> 00:13:36.200 have been better unsaid. He had read too many books. 244 00:13:36.399 --> 00:13:40.440 He frequented the Chestnut Tree Cafe, haunt of painters and musicians. 245 00:13:41.000 --> 00:13:43.360 There was no law, not even an unwritten law, against 246 00:13:43.399 --> 00:13:46.600 frequenting the Chestnut Tree Cafe. Yet the place was somehow 247 00:13:46.679 --> 00:13:50.320 ill omened. The old, discredited leaders of the party had 248 00:13:50.360 --> 00:13:52.840 been used to gather there before they were finally purged. 249 00:13:53.759 --> 00:13:56.639 Goldstein himself, it was said, had sometimes been seen there 250 00:13:56.840 --> 00:14:01.279 years and decades ago. Sime's fate was not difficult to foresee. 251 00:14:02.120 --> 00:14:04.120 And yet it was a fact that if Sime grasped 252 00:14:04.159 --> 00:14:07.679 even for three seconds the nature of his Winston's secret opinions, 253 00:14:07.960 --> 00:14:11.279 he would betray him instantly to the thought police. So 254 00:14:11.320 --> 00:14:13.759 would anybody else for that matter. But Sime, more than 255 00:14:13.840 --> 00:14:20.720 most zeal was not enough. Orthodoxy was unconsciousness. Sime looked up. 256 00:14:21.279 --> 00:14:25.000 Here comes Parsons. He said, something in the tone of 257 00:14:25.000 --> 00:14:29.039 his voice seemed to add that bloody fool. Parsons, Winston's 258 00:14:29.039 --> 00:14:31.960 fellow tenant at Victory Mansions, was in fact threading his 259 00:14:32.039 --> 00:14:34.960 way across the room. A tubby, middle sized man with 260 00:14:35.080 --> 00:14:38.440 fair hair and a frog like face. At thirty five, 261 00:14:38.519 --> 00:14:40.639 he was already putting on rolls of fat at neck 262 00:14:40.679 --> 00:14:43.440 and waist line. But his movements were brisk and boyish. 263 00:14:44.360 --> 00:14:46.879 His whole appearance was that of a little boy grown large, 264 00:14:47.279 --> 00:14:50.519 so much so that although he was wearing the regulation overalls, 265 00:14:50.720 --> 00:14:52.840 it was almost impossible not to think of him as 266 00:14:52.840 --> 00:14:55.799 being dressed in the blue shorts, gray shirt, and red 267 00:14:55.840 --> 00:15:00.039 Neckerchief of the Spies. In visualizing him, one always I 268 00:15:00.039 --> 00:15:02.720 saw a picture of dimpled knees and sleeves rolled back 269 00:15:02.759 --> 00:15:07.639 from pudgy forearms. Parsons did indeed invariably revert to shorts 270 00:15:07.679 --> 00:15:10.279 when a community hike or any other physical activity gave 271 00:15:10.360 --> 00:15:13.679 him an excuse for doing so. He greeted them both 272 00:15:13.679 --> 00:15:16.919 with a cheery Hullo hallo, and sat down at the table, 273 00:15:16.960 --> 00:15:20.559 giving off an intense smell of sweat. Beads of moisture 274 00:15:20.559 --> 00:15:23.360 stood out all over his pink face. His powers of 275 00:15:23.360 --> 00:15:27.000 sweating were extraordinary. At the community center, you could always 276 00:15:27.039 --> 00:15:29.039 tell when he had been playing table tennis by the 277 00:15:29.120 --> 00:15:32.799 dampness of the bat handle. Sime had produced a strip 278 00:15:32.840 --> 00:15:35.200 of paper on which there was a long column of words, 279 00:15:35.480 --> 00:15:38.720 and was studying it with an ink pencil between his fingers. 280 00:15:39.639 --> 00:15:42.320 Look at him working away in the lunch hour, said Parsons, 281 00:15:42.440 --> 00:15:46.720 nudging Winston. Keenness, Eh, what's such you've got there, old boy? 282 00:15:47.240 --> 00:15:50.279 Something a bit too brainy for me, I expect smith, 283 00:15:50.360 --> 00:15:53.559 Old boy, I'll tell you why I'm chasing you. It's 284 00:15:53.559 --> 00:15:56.879 that sub you forgot to give me. Which sub is that? 285 00:15:57.039 --> 00:16:00.720 Said Winston, automatically, feeling for money. About a quarter of 286 00:16:00.759 --> 00:16:03.559 one's salary had to be here marked for voluntary subscriptions, 287 00:16:03.799 --> 00:16:05.919 which were so numerous that it was difficult to keep 288 00:16:05.960 --> 00:16:09.799 track of them. For hate week. You know the house 289 00:16:09.799 --> 00:16:13.720 by house fund. I'm treasurer for our block. We're making 290 00:16:13.759 --> 00:16:16.639 an all out effort, going to put on a tremendous show. 291 00:16:17.200 --> 00:16:18.919 I tell you it won't be my fault if Old 292 00:16:19.000 --> 00:16:21.480 Victory Mansions doesn't have the biggest outfit of flags in 293 00:16:21.480 --> 00:16:26.159 the whole street. Two dollars, you promised me. Winston found 294 00:16:26.159 --> 00:16:29.000 and handed over two crist and filthy notes, which Parsons 295 00:16:29.120 --> 00:16:31.559 entered in a small note book in the neat handwriting 296 00:16:31.600 --> 00:16:35.399 of the illiterate. By the way, old boy, he said, 297 00:16:35.679 --> 00:16:37.559 I hear that little beggar of mine let fly at 298 00:16:37.600 --> 00:16:40.000 you with his catapult yesterday. I gave him a good 299 00:16:40.080 --> 00:16:42.399 dressing down for it. In fact, I told him I'd 300 00:16:42.440 --> 00:16:45.559 take the catapult away if he does it again. I 301 00:16:45.559 --> 00:16:47.200 think it was a little upset at not going to 302 00:16:47.240 --> 00:16:51.759 the execution, said Winston. Ah, well, what I mean to say? 303 00:16:51.960 --> 00:16:55.360 That shows the right spirit, doesn't it. Mischievous little beggars 304 00:16:55.399 --> 00:16:58.480 they are, both of them, but talk about keenness. All 305 00:16:58.519 --> 00:17:01.000 they think about is the Spies, the war. Of course, 306 00:17:01.799 --> 00:17:03.320 do you know what that little girl of mine did 307 00:17:03.399 --> 00:17:05.720 last Saturday when her troop was on a hike at 308 00:17:05.759 --> 00:17:09.200 Berkhamstead Way, she got two other girls to go with her, 309 00:17:09.240 --> 00:17:11.839 slipped off from the hike and spent the whole afternoon 310 00:17:11.880 --> 00:17:14.799 following a strange man. They kept on his tail for 311 00:17:14.880 --> 00:17:17.319 two hours, right through the woods, and then when they 312 00:17:17.319 --> 00:17:20.759 got into Amersham handed him over to the patrols. What 313 00:17:20.880 --> 00:17:23.680 did they do that for, said Winston, somewhat taken aback. 314 00:17:24.839 --> 00:17:28.400 Parsons went on triumphantly. My kid made sure he was 315 00:17:28.440 --> 00:17:31.559 some kind of enemy agent. Might have been dropped by parachute, 316 00:17:31.559 --> 00:17:34.759 for instance. But here's the point, old boy, what do 317 00:17:34.799 --> 00:17:36.440 you think put her on to him in the first place? 318 00:17:37.279 --> 00:17:39.599 She spotted he was wearing a funny kind of shoes, 319 00:17:40.160 --> 00:17:42.759 said she'd never seen any one wearing shoes like that before, 320 00:17:43.279 --> 00:17:46.160 so the chances were he was a foreigner. Pretty smart 321 00:17:46.160 --> 00:17:49.839 for a nipper of seven. Eh. What happened to the man? 322 00:17:49.880 --> 00:17:53.160 Said Winston. Ah that I couldn't say, of course, but 323 00:17:53.200 --> 00:17:56.640 I wouldn't be altogether surprised if Parsons made the motion 324 00:17:56.720 --> 00:18:01.440 of aiming a rifle and clicked his tongue for the explosion, good, 325 00:18:01.519 --> 00:18:04.480 said sim abstractedly, without looking up from his strip of paper. 326 00:18:06.000 --> 00:18:08.519 Of course, we can't afford to take chances, agreed Winston 327 00:18:08.599 --> 00:18:11.839 dutifully what I mean to say. There is a war 328 00:18:11.880 --> 00:18:15.440 on said Parsons, as though in confirmation of this, a 329 00:18:15.480 --> 00:18:19.839 trumpet call floated from the telescreen just above their heads. However, 330 00:18:19.880 --> 00:18:22.720 it was not the proclamation of a military victory this time, 331 00:18:22.880 --> 00:18:27.160 but merely an announcement from the Ministry of Plenty. Comrades, 332 00:18:27.240 --> 00:18:31.039 cried an eager, youthful voice. Attention, comrades, we have glorious 333 00:18:31.079 --> 00:18:33.559 news for you. We have won the battle for production. 334 00:18:34.319 --> 00:18:36.880 Returns now completed of the output of all classes of 335 00:18:36.920 --> 00:18:40.079 consumption goods show that the standard of living has risen 336 00:18:40.119 --> 00:18:42.440 by no less than twenty percent over the past year. 337 00:18:43.519 --> 00:18:47.680 All over Oceania this morning there were irrepressible, spontaneous demonstrations 338 00:18:47.720 --> 00:18:50.880 when workers marched out of factories and officers and paraded 339 00:18:50.880 --> 00:18:53.400 through the streets with banners voicing their gratitude to Big 340 00:18:53.440 --> 00:18:56.640 Brother for the new happy life which his wise leadership 341 00:18:56.640 --> 00:18:59.519 has bestowed upon us. Here are some of the completed 342 00:18:59.559 --> 00:19:04.839 figures food stuffs. The phrase our new happy life recurred 343 00:19:04.880 --> 00:19:07.559 several times. It had been a favorite of late with 344 00:19:07.559 --> 00:19:11.240 the Ministry of Plenty. Parsons, his attention caught by the 345 00:19:11.240 --> 00:19:14.680 trumpet call, sat listening with a sort of gaping solemnity, 346 00:19:14.960 --> 00:19:18.519 a sort of edified boredom. He could not follow the figures, 347 00:19:18.519 --> 00:19:20.119 but he was aware that they were in some way 348 00:19:20.160 --> 00:19:23.400 a cause for satisfaction. He had lugged out a huge 349 00:19:23.400 --> 00:19:26.319 and filthy pipe, which was already half full of charred tobacco. 350 00:19:27.480 --> 00:19:29.720 With the tobacco ration at a hundred grams a week, 351 00:19:29.920 --> 00:19:32.240 it was seldom possible to fill a pipe to the top. 352 00:19:33.240 --> 00:19:36.720 Winston was smoking a Victory cigarette, which he held carefully horizontal. 353 00:19:37.680 --> 00:19:39.599 The new ration did not start till to morrow, and 354 00:19:39.680 --> 00:19:42.720 he had only four cigarettes left for the moment. He 355 00:19:42.759 --> 00:19:44.960 had shut his ears to the remoter noises and was 356 00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:47.359 listening to the stuff that streamed out of the telescreen. 357 00:19:48.759 --> 00:19:51.200 It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank 358 00:19:51.240 --> 00:19:53.799 Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grams 359 00:19:53.799 --> 00:19:57.359 a week, and only yesterday, he reflected, it had been 360 00:19:57.400 --> 00:19:59.720 announced that the ration was to be reduced to twenty 361 00:19:59.759 --> 00:20:03.119 grads week. Was it possible that they could swallow that 362 00:20:03.599 --> 00:20:08.000 after only twenty four hours. Yes, they swallowed it. Parsons 363 00:20:08.039 --> 00:20:11.240 swallowed it easily, with the stupidity of an animal. The 364 00:20:11.279 --> 00:20:14.599 eyeless creature at the other table swallowed it fanatically, passionately, 365 00:20:14.960 --> 00:20:18.640 with a furious desire to track down, denounce, and vaporize 366 00:20:18.640 --> 00:20:21.319 anyone who should suggest that last week the ration had 367 00:20:21.359 --> 00:20:25.839 been thirty grams. Sime too, in some more complex way, 368 00:20:25.880 --> 00:20:29.960 involving doublethink. Sime swallowed it. Was he then alone, in 369 00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:34.880 the possession of a memory. The fabulous statistics continued to 370 00:20:34.880 --> 00:20:38.000 pour out of the telescreen. As compared with the last year, 371 00:20:38.039 --> 00:20:41.799 there was more food, more clothes, more houses, more furniture, 372 00:20:42.039 --> 00:20:46.519 more cooking pots, more fuel, more ships, more helicopters, more books, 373 00:20:46.599 --> 00:20:50.519 more babies, more of everything except disease, crime, and insanity. 374 00:20:51.519 --> 00:20:54.960 Year by year, and minute by minute, everybody and everything 375 00:20:55.079 --> 00:20:59.000 was whizzing rapidly upwards, as Sime had done earlier. Winston 376 00:20:59.039 --> 00:21:01.599 had taken up his spoon and was dabbling in the 377 00:21:01.640 --> 00:21:05.039 pale colored gravy that dribbled across the table, drawing a 378 00:21:05.039 --> 00:21:08.359 long streak of it out into a pattern. He meditated 379 00:21:08.400 --> 00:21:11.720 resentfully on the physical texture of life. Had it always 380 00:21:11.759 --> 00:21:15.559 been like this? Had food always tasted like this? He 381 00:21:15.599 --> 00:21:19.880 looked round the canteen, a low ceilinged, crowded room, its 382 00:21:19.920 --> 00:21:23.880 walls grimy from the contact of innumerable bodies, battered, metal 383 00:21:23.960 --> 00:21:27.240 tables and chairs placed so close together that you sat 384 00:21:27.279 --> 00:21:32.119 with elbows touching, bent spoons, dented trays, coarse white mugs, 385 00:21:32.559 --> 00:21:36.440 all surfaces, greasy grime in every crack, and a sourish 386 00:21:36.519 --> 00:21:39.880 composite smell of bad gin and bad coffee, and metallic stew, 387 00:21:39.960 --> 00:21:43.759 and dirty clothes. Always in your stomach and in your skin. 388 00:21:43.799 --> 00:21:46.359 There was a sort of protest, a feeling that you 389 00:21:46.400 --> 00:21:48.440 had been cheated of something that you had a right to. 390 00:21:49.279 --> 00:21:51.559 It was true that he had no memories of anything 391 00:21:51.559 --> 00:21:55.079 greatly different in any time that he could accurately remember. 392 00:21:55.400 --> 00:21:57.559 There had never been quite enough to eat. One had 393 00:21:57.559 --> 00:22:00.000 never had socks or underclothes that were not full of holes. 394 00:22:00.880 --> 00:22:05.519 Furniture had always been battered and rickety rooms, underheated, tube trains, 395 00:22:05.559 --> 00:22:11.119 crowded houses falling to pieces bread, dark colored tea, rarity, coffee, 396 00:22:11.119 --> 00:22:16.119 filthy tasting cigarettes, insufficient, nothing cheap and plentiful except synthetic gin. 397 00:22:17.400 --> 00:22:19.839 And though of course it grew worse as one's body aged, 398 00:22:20.359 --> 00:22:22.119 was it not a sign that this was not the 399 00:22:22.200 --> 00:22:24.880 natural order of things? If one's heart sickened at the 400 00:22:24.920 --> 00:22:29.440 discomfort and dirt and scarcity, the interminable winters, the stickiness 401 00:22:29.440 --> 00:22:32.960