Speaker 1: Section two of nineteen eighty four by George Orwell. This
Speaker 1: lagamous recording may be distributed and adapted freely for any purpose.
Speaker 1: Part one, Chapter two. As he put his hand to
Speaker 1: the door knob, Winston saw that he had left the
Speaker 1: diary open on the table. Down with Big Brother was
Speaker 1: written all over it, in letters almost big enough to
Speaker 1: be legible across the room. It was an inconceivably stupid
Speaker 1: thing to have done, but he realized, even in his panic,
Speaker 1: he had not wanted to smudge the creamy paper by
Speaker 1: shutting the book while the ink was wet. He drew
Speaker 1: in his breath and opened the door. Instantly, a warm
Speaker 1: wave of relief flowed through him. A colorless, crushed looking
Speaker 1: woman with wispy hair and a lined face was standing outside. Oh, comrade,
Speaker 1: she began in a dreary, whining sort of voice. I thought,
Speaker 1: I heard you come in. Do you think you could
Speaker 1: come across and have a look at our kitchen? See
Speaker 1: it's got blocked up? And it was Missus Parsons, the
Speaker 1: wife of a neighbor on the same floor. Missus was
Speaker 1: a word somewhat discountenanced by the party. He was supposed
Speaker 1: to call every one comrade, but with some women one
Speaker 1: used it instinctively. She was a woman of about thirty,
Speaker 1: but looking much older. One had the impression that there
Speaker 1: was dust in the creases of her face. Winston followed
Speaker 1: her down the passage. These amateur repair jobs were an
Speaker 1: almost daily irritation. Victory Mansions were old flats built in
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty or thereabouts, and were falling to pieces. The
Speaker 1: plaster flaked constantly from ceilings and walls. The pipes burst
Speaker 1: in every hard frost. The roof leaked whenever there was snow.
Speaker 1: The heating system was usually running at half steam when
Speaker 1: it was not closed down altogether from motives of economy.
Speaker 1: Repairs except what you could do for yourself, had to
Speaker 1: be sanctioned by remote committees, which were liable to hold
Speaker 1: up even the mending of a window pane for two years.
Speaker 1: Of course, it's only because Tom isn't home, said Missus
Speaker 1: Parsons vaguely. The Parson's flat was bigger than Winston's, and
Speaker 1: dingy in a different way. Everything had a battered, trampled onlook,
Speaker 1: as though the place had just been visited by some
Speaker 1: large violent animal. Games impedimenta hockey sticks, boxing gloves, a
Speaker 1: burst football, a pair of sweaty shorts turned inside out
Speaker 1: lay all over the floor, and on the table. There
Speaker 1: was a litter of dirty dishes, and Doggy had exercise books.
Speaker 1: On the walls were scarlet banners of the Youth League
Speaker 1: and the Spies, and a full sized poster of Big Brother.
Speaker 1: There was the usual boiled cabbage smell common to the
Speaker 1: whole building, but it was shot through by a sharper
Speaker 1: reek of sweat, which one knew this at the first sniff,
Speaker 1: though it was hard to say how was the sweat
Speaker 1: of some person not present at the moment. In another room,
Speaker 1: someone with a comb and a piece of toilet paper
Speaker 1: was trying to keep tune with the military music which
Speaker 1: was still issuing from the telescreen. It's the children, said
Speaker 1: Missus Parsons, casting a half apprehensive glance at the door.
Speaker 1: They haven't been out to day, and of course she
Speaker 1: had a habit of breaking off her sentences. In the middle,
Speaker 1: the kitchen sink was full nearly to the brim with filthy,
Speaker 1: greenish water, which smelt worse than ever of cabbage. Winston
Speaker 1: knelt down and examined the angle joint of the pipe
Speaker 1: he hated using his hands, and he hated bending down,
Speaker 1: which was always liable to start him coughing. Missus Parsons
Speaker 1: looked on helplessly. Of course, if tom was home, he'd
Speaker 1: put it right in a moment, she said. He loves
Speaker 1: anything like that. He's ever so good with his hands.
Speaker 1: Tommy's Parsons was Winston's fellow employee at the Ministry of Truth.
Speaker 1: He was a fattish but active man of paralyzing stupidity,
Speaker 1: a mass of imbecile enthusiasms, one of those completely unquestioning
Speaker 1: devoted drudgers, on whom more even than on the thought Police,
Speaker 1: the stability of the party depended at thirty five year
Speaker 1: had just been unwillingly evicted from the Youth League, and
Speaker 1: before graduating into the Youth League, he had managed to
Speaker 1: stay on in the Spies for a year beyond the
Speaker 1: statutory age. At the Ministry he was employed in some
Speaker 1: subordinate post for which intelligence was not required. But on
Speaker 1: the other hand he was a leading figure on the
Speaker 1: Sports Committee and all the other committees engaged in organizing
Speaker 1: community hikes, spontaneous demonstrations, savings campaigns and voluntary activities. Generally,
Speaker 1: he would inform you with quiet pride between whiffs and
Speaker 1: his pipe that he had put in an appearance at
Speaker 1: the community center every evening for the past four years.
Speaker 1: An overpowering smell of sweat, a sort of unconscious testimony
Speaker 1: to the strenuousness of his life, followed him about wherever
Speaker 1: he went, and even remained behind him after he had gone.
Speaker 1: Have you got a spanner, said Winston, fiddling with the
Speaker 1: nut on the angle joint. A spanner, said Missus Parsons,
Speaker 1: immediately becoming invertebrate. I don't know, I'm sure perhaps the children.
Speaker 1: There was a trampling of boots and another blast on
Speaker 1: the comb. As the children charged into the living room.
Speaker 1: Missus Parsons brought the spanner. Winston let out the water
Speaker 1: and disgustedly removed the clot of human hair that had
Speaker 1: blocked up the pipe. He cleaned his fingers as best
Speaker 1: he could in the cold water from the tap, and
Speaker 1: went back into the other room. Up with your hands,
Speaker 1: yelled a savage voice. A handsome, tough looking boy of
Speaker 1: nine had popped up from behind the table and was
Speaker 1: menacing him with a toy automatic pistol, while his small sister,
Speaker 1: about two years younger, made the same gesture with a
Speaker 1: fragment of wood. Both of them were dressed in the
Speaker 1: blue shorts, gray shirts, and red neckerchiefs which were the
Speaker 1: uniform of the spies. Winston raised his hands above his head,
Speaker 1: but with an uneasy feeling. So vicious was the boy's
Speaker 1: demeanor that it was not altogether a game. You're a traitor,
Speaker 1: yelled the boy. You're a thought criminal, You're a Eurasian spy.
Speaker 1: I'll shoot you, I'll vaporize you, I'll send you to
Speaker 1: the salt mines. Suddenly they were both leaping round him,
Speaker 1: shouting traitor and thought criminal, the little girl imitating her
Speaker 1: brother in every movement. It was somehow slightly frightening, like
Speaker 1: the gamboling of tiger cubs which will soon grow up
Speaker 1: into man eaters. There was a sort of calculating ferocity
Speaker 1: in the boy's eye, a quiet evident desire to hit
Speaker 1: or kick Winston, and a consciousness of being very nearly
Speaker 1: big enough to do so. It was a good job.
Speaker 1: It was not a real pistol he was holding, Winston, thought.
Speaker 1: Missus Parson's eyes flitted nervously from Winston to the children
Speaker 1: and back again. In the better light of the living room,
Speaker 1: he noticed with interest that there actually was dust in
Speaker 1: the creases of her face. They do get so noisy,
Speaker 1: she said. They disappointed because they couldn't go to see
Speaker 1: the hanging. That's what it is. I'm too busy to
Speaker 1: take them, and Tom won't be back from work in time.
Speaker 1: Why can't we go and see the hanging, roared the
Speaker 1: boy in his huge voice. Want to see the hanging,
Speaker 1: Want to see the hanging, chanted the little girl, still
Speaker 1: capering round. Some Eurasian prisoners guilty of war crimes were
Speaker 1: to be hanged in the park that evening. Winston remembered
Speaker 1: this happened about once a month and was a popular spectacle.
Speaker 1: Children always clamored to be taken to see it. He
Speaker 1: took his leave of Missus Parsons and made for the door,
Speaker 1: but he had not gone six steps down the passage
Speaker 1: when something hit the back of his neck, an agonizingly
Speaker 1: painful blow. It was as though a red hot wire
Speaker 1: had been jabbed into him. He spun round just in
Speaker 1: time to see Missus Parsons dragging her son back into
Speaker 1: the doorway while the boy pocketed a catapult gold sign
Speaker 1: bellowed the boy as the door closed on him, but
Speaker 1: What most struck Winston was the look of helpless fright
Speaker 1: on the woman's grayish face. Back in the flat, he
Speaker 1: stepped quickly past the telescreen and sat down at the
Speaker 1: table again, still rubbing his neck. The music from the
Speaker 1: telescreen had stopped. Instead, a clipped military voice was reading
Speaker 1: out with a sort of brutal relish, a description of
Speaker 1: the armaments of the new floating fortress which had just
Speaker 1: been anchored between Iceland and the Pharaohe Islands. With those children,
Speaker 1: he thought that wretched women must lead a life of terror.
Speaker 1: Another year, two years, and they would be watching her
Speaker 1: night and day for symptoms of unorthodoxy. Nearly all children
Speaker 1: nowadays were horrible. What was the worst of all was that,
Speaker 1: by means of such organizations as the Spies, there were
Speaker 1: systematically turned into ungovernable little savages. And yet this produced
Speaker 1: in them no tendency whatever to rebel against the discipline
Speaker 1: of the party. On the contrary, they adored the Party
Speaker 1: and everything connected with it. The songs, the processions, the banners,
Speaker 1: the hiking, the drilling with dummy rifles, the yelling of slogans,
Speaker 1: the worship of Big Brother. It was all a sort
Speaker 1: of glorious game to them. All their ferocity was turned
Speaker 1: outwards against the enemies of the state, against foreigners, traitors, subboteurs,
Speaker 1: thought criminals. It was almost normal for people over thirty
Speaker 1: to be frightened of their own children, and with good reason.
Speaker 1: For hardly a week past in which the Times did
Speaker 1: not carry a paragraph describing how some eavesdropping little sneak
Speaker 1: child hero was the phrase generally used, had overheard some
Speaker 1: compromising remark and denounced its parents to the thought police.
Speaker 1: The sting of the catapult bullet had worn off. He
Speaker 1: picked up his pen half heartedly, wondering whether he could
Speaker 1: find something more to write in the diary. Suddenly he
Speaker 1: began thinking of O'Brien again. Years ago. How long was
Speaker 1: it seven years? It must be. He had dreamed that
Speaker 1: he was walking through a pitch dark room, and some
Speaker 1: one sitting to one side of him had said, as
Speaker 1: he passed, we shall meet in the place where there
Speaker 1: is no darkness. It was said very quietly, almost casually,
Speaker 1: a statement, not a command. He had walked on without pausing.
Speaker 1: What was curious was that at the time in the
Speaker 1: dream the words had not made much impression on him.
Speaker 1: It was only later and by degrees that they had
Speaker 1: seemed to take on significance. He could not now remember
Speaker 1: whether it was before or after having the dream that
Speaker 1: he had seen O'Brien for the first time, nor could
Speaker 1: he remember when he had first identified the voice as O'Brien's,
Speaker 1: but at any rate, the identification existed. It was O'Brien
Speaker 1: who had spoken to him out of the dark. Winston
Speaker 1: had never been able to feel sure. Even after this
Speaker 1: morning's flash of the eyes, it was still impossible to
Speaker 1: be sure whether O'Brien was a friend or an enemy,
Speaker 1: Nor did it even seem to matter greatly. There was
Speaker 1: a link of understanding between them, more important than affection
Speaker 1: or partisanship. We shall meet in the place where there
Speaker 1: is no darkness, he had said. Winston did not know
Speaker 1: what it meant, only that in some way or another,
Speaker 1: it would come true. The voice from the tele screen paused.
Speaker 1: A trumpet call clear and beautiful floated into the stagnant air.
Speaker 1: The voice continued, raspingly, Attention, your attention, please, a news flash.
Speaker 1: Has this moment arrived from the Malabar Front. Our forces
Speaker 1: in South India have won a glorious victory. I am
Speaker 1: authorized to say that the action we are now reporting
Speaker 1: may well bring the war within measurable distance of its end.
Speaker 1: Here is the news flash, bad news coming, thought Winston,
Speaker 1: and sure enough, following on a gory description of the
Speaker 1: annihilation of a Eurasian army with stupendous figures of killed
Speaker 1: and prisoners, came the announcement that, as from next week,
Speaker 1: the chocolate ration would be reduced from thirty grams to twenty.
Speaker 1: Winston belched again. The gin was wearing off, leaving a
Speaker 1: deflated feeling. The telescreen, perhaps to celebrate the victory, perhaps
Speaker 1: to drown the memory of the lost chocolate, crashed into
Speaker 1: Oceania Tis for THEE. You are supposed to stand to attention. However,
Speaker 1: in his present position he was invisible. Oceaniatis for THEE
Speaker 1: gave way to lighter music. Winston walked over to the window,
Speaker 1: keeping his back to the tele screen. The day was
Speaker 1: still cold and clear. Somewhere far away, a rocket bomb
Speaker 1: exploded with a dull, reverberating roar. About twenty or thirty
Speaker 1: of them a week were falling on London at present.
Speaker 1: Down in the street, the wind flapped the torn poster
Speaker 1: to and fro, and the word ingsock fitfully appeared and
Speaker 1: vanished Ingsock, the sacred principles of Ingsock, new speak, doublethink,
Speaker 1: the mutability of the past. He felt as though he
Speaker 1: were wandering in the forests of the sea bottom, lost
Speaker 1: in a monstrous world where he himself was the monster.
Speaker 1: He was alone, The past was dead, the future was unimaginable.
Speaker 1: What certainty had he that a single human creature, now
Speaker 1: living was on his side? And what way of knowing
Speaker 1: that the dominion of the party would not endure forever?
Speaker 1: Like an answer, the three slogans on the white face
Speaker 1: of the Ministry of Truth came back to him. War
Speaker 1: is peace, freedom is slavery, Ignorance is strength. He took
Speaker 1: a twenty five cent piece out of his pocket. There too,
Speaker 1: in tiny, clear lettering, the same slogans were inscribed, and
Speaker 1: on the other face of the coin the head of
Speaker 1: Big Brother. Even from the coin. The eyes pursued you
Speaker 1: on coins, on stamps, on the covers of books, on banners,
Speaker 1: on posters, and on the wrappings of a cigarette packet. Everywhere,
Speaker 1: always the eyes watching you, and the voice enveloping you,
Speaker 1: asleep or awake, working or eating, indoors or out of doors,
Speaker 1: in the bath, or in bed, no escape. Nothing was
Speaker 1: your own except the few cubic centimeters inside your skull.
Speaker 1: The sun had shifted round, and the myriad windows of
Speaker 1: the Ministry of Truth, with the light no longer shining
Speaker 1: on them, looked grim as the loopholes of a fortress.
Speaker 1: His heart quailed before the enormous pyramidal shape. It was
Speaker 1: too strong. It could not be stormed. A thousand rocket
Speaker 1: bombs would not batter it down. He wondered again for
Speaker 1: whom he was writing the diary for the future, for
Speaker 1: the past, for an age that might be imaginary. And
Speaker 1: in front of him there lay not death but annihilation.
Speaker 1: The diary would be reduced to ashes, and himself to
Speaker 1: vapor Only the thought police would read what he had
Speaker 1: written before they wiped it out of existence and out
Speaker 1: of memory. How could you make appeal to the future
Speaker 1: when not a trace of you, not even an anonymous
Speaker 1: word scribbled on a piece of paper, could physically survive.
Speaker 1: The telescreen struck fourteen. He must leave in ten minutes.
Speaker 1: He had to be back at work by fourteen thirty. Curiously,
Speaker 1: the chiming of the hour seemed to have put new
Speaker 1: heart into him. He was a lonely ghost, uttering a
Speaker 1: truth that nobody would ever hear. But so long as
Speaker 1: he uttered it in some obscure way, the continuity was
Speaker 1: not broken. It was not by making us self heard,
Speaker 1: but by staying sane, that you carried on the human heritage.
Speaker 1: He went back to the table, dipped his pen, and wrote,
Speaker 1: to the future, or to the past, to a time
Speaker 1: when thought is free, when men are different from one
Speaker 1: another and do not live alone, To a time when
Speaker 1: truth exists and what is done cannot be undone. From
Speaker 1: the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude, from
Speaker 1: the age of big brother, from the age of doublethink. Greetings,
Speaker 1: he was already dead, he reflected. It seemed to him
Speaker 1: that it was only now, when he had begun to
Speaker 1: be able to formulate his thoughts, that he had taken
Speaker 1: the decisive step. The consequences of every act are included
Speaker 1: in the act itself, he wrote. Thought crime does not
Speaker 1: entail death. Thought crime is death. Now he had recognized
Speaker 1: himself as a dead man, it became important to stay
Speaker 1: alive as long as possible. Two fingers of his right
Speaker 1: hand were inkstained. It was exactly the kind and of
Speaker 1: detail that might betray you some nosing zealot in the ministry.
Speaker 1: A woman, probably someone like the little sandy haired woman
Speaker 1: or the dark haired girl from the fiction department, might
Speaker 1: start wondering why he had been writing during the lunch interval,
Speaker 1: why he had used an old fashioned pen, what he
Speaker 1: had been writing, and then drop a hint in the
Speaker 1: appropriate quarter. He went to the bathroom and carefully scrubbed
Speaker 1: the ink away with the gritty, dark brown soap, which
Speaker 1: rasped your skin like sand paper, and was therefore well
Speaker 1: adapted for this purpose. He put the diary away in
Speaker 1: the drawer. It was quite useless to think of hiding it,
Speaker 1: but he could at least make sure whether or not
Speaker 1: its existence had been discovered. A hare laid across the
Speaker 1: page ends was too obvious. With the tip of his finger,
Speaker 1: he picked up an identifiable grain of whitish dust and
Speaker 1: deposited it on the corner of the cover, where it
Speaker 1: was bound to be shaken off if the book was moved.
Speaker 1: End of Section two