Chapter 5 4-6

Four Winston looked around at the shabby little house above Mr. Charrington's shop.The monstrous bed by the window had been made, with a worn blanket and a long uncovered pillow.The twelve-hour clock stood on the stove, ticking.On the folding table in the corner, the glass paperweight he bought the last time he came, shone softly in the dim light. In the enclosure was a battered tin kerosene stove, a pan, and two teacups, all of which Mr. Charrington had prepared.Winston lit the stove and brought a pot of water to boil on the stand.He brought an envelope with Victory Coffee and some saccharine tablets.The clock said seven-twenty--it must be nineteen-twenty.She will come at nineteen thirty.

He couldn't stop saying in his heart: How stupid, how stupid, so stupid that he voluntarily, for no reason, so stupid that he wanted to die!Of all the crimes a party member can commit, this one is the most difficult to conceal.In fact, the first time he thought of this idea, it was all because the paperweight reflected on the folded tabletop left a deep impression on him.As expected, Mr. Charrington let the house easily.He was obviously happy to get a few dollars.It was evident that Winston wanted the room for trysts; he was neither surprised nor disgusted by the knowledge.He kept his distance, and his speech was general and floating, so subtle that he seemed to be half-invisible.He said, a clean dwelling is the most precious thing.Everyone wants to have a place where they can spend time by themselves once in a while.When they find such a place, don't tell others if they know about it. Is this the minimum courtesy?He even said that the house has two doors, and one leads to the backyard, leading to an alley.When he said this, it was as if he had disappeared from sight.

Someone was singing at the window, and Winston peeked out from behind the tulle curtains.The sun was still high in June, and in the sunny courtyard below, a large woman, as strong as a Norman column, with strong red arms and a coarse apron tied around her waist, was awkwardly drying herself next to the washtub. Walking up and down the clotheslines, a large pile of white square cloth was hanging out to dry - Winston could see that it was a baby's diapers.Whenever she was not gagged by the clothespin, she sang in her loud contralto: Just hopeless random thoughts, Just like the rush of spring.

Unexpectedly, with a frown and a smile, spring dreams grow, It made me lose my mind and have no idea! This piece has been popular in London for several weeks.A section under the music department produces countless such songs for the proles, and this is one of them.Lyrics are produced by a device called a poetry writer, which requires no human effort at all.But the woman sang beautifully, as if this awful trash had become a melodious song.Winston could hear the woman singing as she scraped her shoes on the flagstones; he could also hear the shouting of street children, the faint din of traffic in the distance, and the strange stillness of the room— There was no telescreen in the house.

How stupid, how stupid, how stupid!Unbelievable, they come here once every few weeks and no one notices.But the lure of having a hideaway of one's true self, in the house and close by, was too much for both of them.After going to the church tower, they couldn't arrange a date for a long time; everywhere was working extra hours for Hate Week.There is still more than a month until Hate Week, but a lot of preparation work is extremely complicated, and everyone needs to do a lot of work to finish.At last they both arranged to rest the same afternoon, and they agreed to go again to the clearing in the woods.They had met on the street the night before.They came together in the crowd; as usual Winston hardly looked at Julia.With just one glance, however, he saw that she was paler than usual.

"It's over," she whispered quickly, seeing that it was all right to speak, "tomorrow, I mean." "what?" "Tomorrow afternoon. I can't come." "Why?" "Cough, it's my period. It's early now." He suddenly became furious.He has known her for a month, and even the nature of his desire for her has changed during this period.At first, there's very little real emotion in it.Make love for the first time, it is better to say because of the impulse of the moment.But after the second time, things are different.The smell of her hair, the taste of her lips, and the feel of her skin seemed to have all entered his body and permeated the air around him.She became a real necessity, something he not only needed but felt entitled to.When she said she couldn't come, he felt cheated by her.But at this moment, people crowded them, and their hands accidentally touched together.She quickly pinched his fingertips, and it seemed that what was aroused was not desire, but a kind of love.Such disappointments must have been normal and frequent in life with a woman; and a deep tenderness, a deep tenderness he had never felt before, suddenly haunted him.I wish they were an old couple who had been married for ten years.I wish they would go shopping in the street like they do now, just openly and naturally, without fear, chatting a few homely things, and buying a few things.And what he hopes more is that they have a place to spend alone for a while, so that they don't always feel like making love is an obligation every time they meet.Not this moment, but the next day, it occurred to him to let Mr. Charrington's house.He raised the idea with Julia, and she readily agreed.They all know that doing so is simply madness, as if deliberately taking a step towards the grave.Now he sat on the edge of the bed waiting for Julia, thinking again of the basement of the Ministry of Care.It's so strange, the horror of fate is appearing and disappearing in his mind from time to time.At some time in the future such horrors must precede death as ninety-nine must precede a hundred.Such an outcome cannot be avoided, perhaps it can only be postponed; but in fact, people always do something voluntarily, causing such an outcome to happen early.

At this moment, there was a sound of hurried footsteps on the stairs, and Julia burst in.She carried a brown canvas bag, which he sometimes saw her carrying to and from get off work at the Ministry.He stepped forward to hug her, but she only gestured hastily -- also because she still had the tool bag in her hand. "Wait a minute," she said. "Look what I've brought. Ghost Victory coffee? I knew you would. Throw it away, we don't want it. Look at this!" She knelt down, opened the tool bag, and took out all the screwdrivers and wrenches stuffed in it.Under the tool, there are several clean paper bags.She handed the first paper packet to Winston, who only found it strange, vaguely familiar.The thing is heavy in the hand, it looks a bit like sand, and when it is touched, it sinks into it softly.

"Candy?" he asked. "Real sugar! Not saccharine, sugar! And a loaf of bread--real white bread, not our kind! A little jar of jam! And a jug of milk--look! Get this thing, That's what makes me so proud! I've got to wrap it in a sackcloth, because..." No need to tell him why.The fragrance permeated the whole room, the strong fragrance seemed to have been passed down from his childhood, and now he can smell it by accident--you can smell it in any corridor when the door is not knocked; On the tumultuous street, one can smell it mysteriously—one smell, and it disappears in an instant.

"Coffee," he murmured, "real coffee." "Coffee for the Inner Party. There's a kilo," she said. "How do you get these things?" "It's all from the Inner Party. Those pigs don't have anything, they have everything! Of course, the waiters and servants can always squeeze in a little bit-look! I also brought a small bag of tea!" Crouching beside her, Winston tore a corner of the packet. "Real tea leaves—not blackberry leaves." "There's been a lot of tea lately! They've taken India or something," she said vaguely. "But listen, honey. I want you to turn around for three minutes. Go, sit on the side of the bed, and don't get too close to the window! I want you to turn around and turn around!"

Winston stared absently out of the window through the tulle curtains.The red-armed woman in the yard was still busy back and forth between the laundry tub and the clothesline.She took two more clothespins from her mouth, and sang affectionately again: People say that time heals wounds, People say that after a long time, you will forget; But I don't know that smiles and tears are too hesitant, Ended up in a world long empty heartbroken! She actually knows this nonsense song very well.The song floated up with the sweet summer air, very beautiful, with a kind of happy melancholy.Look at that posture, if there were endless June evenings and endless laundry, she would be content to stay here with him for a thousand years, drying her diapers and singing her bad songs.Winston found it strange that he had never heard a Party member sing by himself.Doing so is a bit unorthodox, and it's so dangerous that it's like talking to yourself.Perhaps only when you are about to starve to death will you feel that it is time to sing.

"You can turn around!" Julia said. He turned around, barely recognizing her for a moment.Expected to see her naked, but she didn't.The change surprised him more than being naked.She uses makeup on her face. She must have slipped into some little shop in the proletarian district and bought a whole set of cosmetics.Her lips were painted bright red, her cheeks were painted bright, her nose was powdered, and something was put under her eyes to make them look double brighter.Her make-up skills were not high, but Winston's standards were low enough.He has never seen a party woman put makeup on her face, and he can't think of such a thing.It was amazing how much prettier she had become.With just a little trick of makeup and makeup, she not only looks better, but also looks more womanly.Her short hair, her boyish overalls, only add to the impression.He held her in his arms, only to feel the scent of synthetic violets rushing into his nostrils.He thought of the dark basement kitchen, the dark mouth of the toothless old lady.The woman used the same perfume, but at the moment, it doesn't matter. "Perfume!" he said. "Yeah honey, and perfume. You know what I'm going to do next? I'm gonna get him a real girl's dress, no shit pants. I'm gonna be in--stockings! Heels! In this room Li - I want to be a woman! I don't want to be a comrade of the party." They took off their clothes and climbed onto the big wooden bed.For the first time, he stripped naked in front of her.His body was pale and emaciated, with bruised veins in his calves and white spots on his knees. This virtue has always made him feel ashamed of himself.There were no sheets on the bed, but the blankets under them were worn out, and the bed was also big and soft, which made them curious. "Keep the bugs out--whatever!" said Julia.Today, except in the homes of the proletarians, you don't see a double bed anymore.Winston had slept in such a bed as a boy; as for Julia, she had no recollection of enjoying it. So they slept for a little while.When Winston awoke, the hands of the clock were about to advance quietly to nine o'clock.He didn't move, Julia was resting her head in his arms.Most of the powder she put on went to his face and pillow, but the remaining thin layer still made her cheeks look beautiful.The sun was sinking, and the golden light was shining at the foot of the bed, lighting up the fireplace, and the water in the pot was boiling happily.In the courtyard below, the woman no longer sang, but the cries of children on the street could still be faintly heard.He vaguely imagined that in the long-abandoned past, on a cool summer night, a man and a woman took off their clothes and lay on such a big bed, having sex as they liked, chatting as they wanted, no one forced you Get up quickly, might as well lie on the bed and listen to the peaceful voice outside.Perhaps it was quite normal then.Who can tell that such things have never been commonplace?Then Julia woke up, rubbed her eyes, leaned on her elbows, and looked at the kerosene stove. "The water's half boiled," she said. "I'll get up and make coffee. There's an hour left. What time does your apartment close?" "Twenty-three thirty." "It's twenty-three o'clock in the dormitory. But gotta get back early because—hey! Get out, you bastard!" She turned around suddenly, grabbed a shoe from the floor under the bed, and threw it towards the corner of the room.She waved her arms like a boy, just as she had thrown the dictionary at Goldstein that morning during the Two Minute Hate. "What?" He was taken aback. "Mouse. It's got its nose sticking out of the siding. There must be a mouse hole! It's all right, I'll chase it away." "Rats!" murmured Winston. "In the house!" "It's all over the place," said Julia nonchalantly, lying down again. "Our dormitory even has a kitchen. In some places in London, there are so many rats! You know, they bite children! They really bite! In this kind of place, a mother would not dare to leave a child alone for two minutes. Then Big brown rats for that job! That bad thing, they're disgusting, they..." "Stop it!" cried Winston, closing his eyes. "Honey! You're so pale. What's the matter? What's wrong?" "The scariest thing in the world - is the mouse!" She was close to him, wrapping her arms and legs around him, as if she wanted to comfort him with her warmth.He didn't open his eyes right away, and for a moment he felt that he was back in a nightmare, the nightmare that had troubled him all his life.The scene in the dream is often the same: he stands in front of a dark wall, and there is a strange thing on the other side. He can't bear it, and he is too scared to look at it.In his dreams, he always deeply felt a kind of self-deception, because he knew exactly what was behind this dark wall.With a desperate struggle, he'd be able to yank the thing out into the open like a brain.Every time he woke up, he didn't know exactly what it was, but it seemed to have something to do with what Julia had just interrupted. "I'm sorry," he said, "it's all right. I don't like mice. Nothing else." "Don't be afraid, my dear. We won't let these bastards stay here. Before I go, I'll plug up the mouse hole with a cloth. Next time I come, I'll bring some lime and wipe it down." The fear of darkness has long since been half forgotten.Feeling a little shy, he sat up against the head of the bed.Julia was up early, put on her overalls, and made coffee.The smell of coffee in the pot was so strong that they had to close the windows, for fear that someone outside would smell it and ask them this and that.Adding sugar makes the coffee softer and more mellow.After eating saccharine for so many years, Winston had almost forgotten that coffee could be so good.Julia, with the bread and jam in one hand and the other in her pocket, walked about the room.She glanced at the bookshelf, sat down on the armchair to try to feel comfortable, gesticulated and said a few words about how to repair the folding table, and looked helplessly at the strange twelve-hour face of the clock.She took the glass paperweight to the bedside and looked at it by the light.He took the paperweight from her, intoxicated as usual by the rain-soft glass. "What is it, do you think?" Julia asked. "I don't think it's anything—I mean, I'm afraid it's never been of any use to anybody. That's what I like about it. This little piece of history they forgot to change. It's a piece of history from a hundred years ago news—the problem is that we have to know how to read it." "And that painting," she nodded to the etching on the opposite wall, "is it a hundred years old?" "It's still old. Two hundred years, I dare say. No one can tell. You can tell the year and month of what is now." She walked over to have a look. "That's where the hell sticks its nose out," she said, kicking the board below the picture. "Where is this painted? Where have I seen it." "It's a church, or at least it used to be. It's called St. Clement's Dane." Then, remembering a fragment of the song Mr. Charrington taught him, he added, "St. Clement's bell." Say, oranges and lemons!" To his surprise, she went on: "Says the St. Martin's bell, you owe me three coppers! Says the old Belley's bell, When will you return? ... "I forget how to sing next. I remember the last two lines, a candle illuminates you to sleep, and a machete cuts off your head!" It's like a connector code split in two.After "Old Baley's Bell", there is sure to be another sentence.Perhaps, with the right hint, he could get it out of Mr. Charrington's head. "Who taught you?" he asked. "Grandpa. He used to sing to me when I was a little girl. When I was eight, he evaporated—disappeared anyway. I didn't know about lemons," she added indiscriminately. One sentence, "I've seen oranges -- round, yellow fruits with thick skins." "I remember lemons," said Winston. "Back in the fifties, it was still everywhere. The stuff was so sour, you could knock your teeth out if you smelled it!" "There must be bedbugs behind that picture," Julia said. "I'll take it off some day and clean it up. Let's go. I have to get the powder off my face—what a nuisance! Hold on, I'll get the lipstick off your face." Winston remained in bed for a while longer.It was getting dark in the room, and he turned around to catch the light, staring at the glass paperweight.It was not the piece of coral that interested him, but the interior of the glass.It is so deep, but it is as light and transparent as air.The surface of the glass, just like the arched sky, contains a small world, with its complete air.He thought he could walk into the world; in fact he had already walked into it, and the mahogany bed, and the folding table, and the clock, and the etchings, and the paperweight itself.The paperweight was his house, and the coral was his and Julia's life.Their lives, at the center of this crystal ball, also share an eternity. Fives Syme disappeared.One morning he was absent from work; some fools said why he didn't show up.The next day, no one mentioned him again.On the third day, Winston went to the foyer of the General Records Office to look at the notice board. There was a notice listing the members of the Chess Committee, of which Syme was one.The list looked almost exactly as it had always been, and no one's name had been crossed out—yet one person was missing.That's enough.Syme no longer exists - he never existed. It's hot as hell, it's scorching hot.The maze-like interior has no windows, and the air-conditioned rooms are cool enough; outside, the sidewalks burn your feet and the subway stinks to death during rush hour.The preparations for Hate Week went wild, and the staff of all ministries worked overtime and worked as hard as they could.Parades, rallies, parades, reports, waxworks, exhibitions, films, telescreen shows—all had to be prepared; stands were erected, statues were erected, slogans were composed, songs were composed, Rumors were made, photos were made.Julia's department in the General Directorate of Fiction stopped producing even novels, and switched to producing a series of pamphlets on enemy atrocities.In addition to his daily work, Winston still needed a long time every day to rummage through the outdated archives of "The Times" and revise the news quoted in the fake speech.In the middle of the night, crowds of rough proletarians roamed the streets, and the whole city was in a strange frenzy.Rockets landed more often than ever, and sometimes there were deafening explosions in the distance - no one could explain why, only rumors were flying around. The theme song for Hate Week was called The Hate Song, and a new tune was composed and sung endlessly on the telescreen.The rhythm of the song was like the howling of wild animals, it was not music at all, but more like beating a big drum desperately.Hundreds of voices roaring loudly with the marching pace, it sounds really scary.The Proletarians liked this song, and in the middle of the night on the street, it competed with the still-popular "Just Some Hopeless Flirting."The Parsons kids played the tune day and night with a piece of toilet paper and a comb, and it was unbearable.Winston's evening hours were fuller than ever.Parsons organized a group of volunteers to prepare the street for Hate Week.They sewed flags, painted posters, erected flagpoles on roofs, and tied wire in the streets to hang banners.Parsons boasted that the flag hanging from the Victory Building alone was 400 meters long.He is very interested and enjoys himself.The heat, combined with the physical work, gave him an excuse to wear a shirt and shorts at night.He has the ability to be busy everywhere at the same time, pushing and pulling, banging, chattering, and exuding the inexhaustible foul smell of sweat. A new poster suddenly appeared on the streets of London.The poster didn't have any words to describe it. It only drew an indomitable Eurasian soldier, three or four meters high, walking forward on army boots, with a light machine gun on his waist, and his Mongolian face was indifferent and expressionless.No matter from which angle you look at it, the muzzle of the gun seems to be pointing straight at you. Due to the perspective, the muzzle of the gun is drawn too big.Every space on every wall, this poster has to be posted, more than the poster of Big Brother.The proletarians, who were originally indifferent to the war, were aroused for a while to patriotism.As if in keeping with the prevailing mood, the rockets also killed more people than usual.A movie theater in Steiny was crowded with people watching movies; a rocket bomb fell, and hundreds of people were buried in the rubble.All the nearby residents came out and lined up to pay the funeral for the victims. After walking for several hours, it turned into a big demonstration.There was also a bomb, which was falling in a clearing-this was supposed to be a play area, but dozens of children were blown to pieces.This sparked yet another furious demonstration, in which Goldstein's effigy was burned, and hundreds of large posters of Eurasian soldiers were ripped out and added to the fire.During that commotion, many shops were robbed.Then rumors spread that spies were radioing rockets, and that an old couple whose house was suspected of being of foreign origin had been set on fire, and both of them had been suffocated inside. Upstairs in Mr. Charrington's shop, Winston and Julia would open the windows whenever they could go, and lie side by side on the bare bed under the window, naked and cool.The mice didn't come back, but when it was hot, the bedbugs were so ferocious that it was shocking.But this is nothing.Clean or dirty, this room is heaven.Once they're inside, they sprinkle black-market pepper all over the place, strip naked, and have sweaty sex; In June they had trysts four, five, six--seven times.Winston gave up his old habit of sipping gin.He felt no need to drink anymore.He had gained weight, the varicose veins were fading, only a brown patch remained on the skin of his ankles, and his morning cough was gone.Life was no longer unbearable, and there was no urge to make faces at the telescreen or curse at the top of my voice.Now they had a secluded retreat, almost like their home, and it was no big deal if they only saw it occasionally, for an hour or two at a time.The important thing is that the house above the junk shop still exists.Knowing it's unscathed and safe, it's almost like being inside.The room was an isolated world, a preserve of past ages, where extinct animals roamed free.Mr. Charrington was, it seemed to Winston, an extinct animal.He often stopped on his way upstairs to chat for a few minutes with Mr. Charrington.The old man seldom went out, even stayed at home, and almost no customers came to patronize him.Between the dark little shop and the still narrower back kitchen he moved like a ghost.In the kitchen he cooked his own meals; among the groceries, there was an old phonograph in the kitchen with a gigantic loudspeaker.He seemed delighted to have the opportunity to chat.He has a long nose, thick glasses, wears a velvet jacket, walks up and down among the pile of cheap second-hand goods stooped, and looks not like a second-hand dealer, but a collector.With a quiet passion he touched here and there among the rubbish--here a china cork, there the enamelled lid of a battered snuff box, or a gilt locket containing a handful of prematurely dead children leftover hair.He never asked Winston to buy these things, but only asked him to appreciate them.Talking to him is like listening to an old music box tinkling.From the corner of his memory, Winston actually dug up a few words of some old songs that had long been forgotten.There was one about twenty-four crows, one about a cow with a broken horn, and one about the death of poor Kirk Robin.He remembered a sentence and said with a begging smile, "I think you'd be interested." But he never remembered more than a couple of lines of any song. They all knew that such a situation would not last long.In fact, this idea lingers in their hearts all the time.Sometimes the approaching death seemed more real than the bed they were lying on, so they had no choice but to embrace each other tightly with a desperate sensual desire, like a dying person desperately grabbing his only life in the last five minutes. Have a little fun.But there are also times when they fantasize about safety and longevity.They thought that as long as they stayed in this room, there would be no danger to them.The journey to the house was difficult and dangerous, but the house was a refuge.Gazing at the center of the paperweight, Winston always felt that he was entering into a peaceful world where time, too, could stand still.They often indulge in this escapist daydream.They'll be lucky forever, and they'll keep their affair going for a lifetime without being discovered.Either Catherine would die, and Winston and Julia could be married by some clever trick.Either they commit suicide together.Either they disappear, put on plastic surgery, learn the accent of the proletarians, work in factories, and find a peaceful life in the mean streets.However, they knew that all this was meaningless.In fact, they have nowhere to go.Even if it was suicide, the idea seemed feasible, and they didn't want to do it at all.They muddle through, muddle along day by day, trying their best to prolong their hopeless life, as if an instinct that cannot be suppressed, just like having air, the lungs always have to breathe. Sometimes, they also talk about doing something to oppose the party, but they can't figure out what needs to be done first.Even if the illusory brotherhood really existed, it would be difficult to find a way to join it.He told her that there was a strange affinity between him and O'Brien, or at least it seemed to be so.Sometimes, he said, he had a real impulse to go up to O'Brien, tell him that he was an enemy of the party, and ask him for help.Strangely enough, Julia did not find this impractical idea too presumptuous.She was used to judging people by their appearance, and Winston trusted O'Brien just by looking at him, and she felt it was only right.She also assumed that everyone, or nearly everyone, hated the Party at heart and would try to break Party rules if they felt safe.She does not believe, however, that organized opposition is widespread, nor can it exist.According to her, the story about Goldstein and his underground troops was all fabricated by the party for its own purposes, so it had to pretend to believe it.At party rallies, during spontaneous demonstrations, she shouted countless times at the top of her voice that someone should be executed, whose name she had never heard, and whose crime she did not know at all. believe.During the public trial, she stood in the ranks of the Youth League, surrounded the court day and night, and shouted from time to time: "Down with the traitors!" During the two-minute hate, she scolded Goldstein, which was always better than others.Yet who Goldstein was, and what principles he stood for, she knew very little.She grew up only after the revolution, she was too young to remember the struggles on the ideological front in the fifties and sixties.An independent political movement is simply beyond her imagination; no matter what, the party is invincible.The Party will always exist, and the Party will always be like this.Defiance can only be private disobedience, at best isolated terrorism-killing people, bombing places, nothing more. In some respects she was more perceptive than Winston, and less credulous of Party propaganda.Once when he mentioned that there was a war with Eurasia, she casually replied that she did not think there was a war at all--which surprised Winston.The rockets that fell on the City of London every day were probably launched by the Government of Oceania itself, "to frighten the common people."The idea never crossed his mind.She told him that the most difficult thing during the Two Minutes Hate was trying not to laugh, which made him really jealous.But only when the party's teachings affect her life, she will doubt it.She always accepts the myths made up by the authorities, just because in her eyes, what is the difference between truth and falsehood?For example, she believed that the Party invented the airplane, which she learned in school. (Winston remembers that when he was in school in the late 1950s, the party only said it had invented the helicopter; ten years later, when Julia was in school, the party said it had invented the airplane. A generation later, it would would say it invented the steam engine.) He told her that airplanes had existed before he was born, when the revolution was too late, and she was not at all interested in the fact.After all, what does it matter who invented the airplane?What surprised him even more was the occasional chat in which he discovered that she did not remember that four years earlier Oceania had been at war with Eastasia and friendly with Eurasia.True, she felt that the whole war had been made up, but it was obvious that she hadn't noticed the name change of the enemy. "I thought we'd been at war with Eurasia," she mumbled.This actually surprised him a little.Although it was a long time since she was born that the airplane was discovered, it was only four years ago that the war changed her opponent, and she had already grown up by then.He argued with her for half an hour, and at last he managed to get her to remember when it seemed that the enemy was not Eurasia, but Eastasia.But she felt that the topic was irrelevant. "What does it do?" She was impatient. "A ghost war today, a ghost war tomorrow, I know it's all a lie!" Sometimes he mentioned to her the General Office of Records and his brazen forgery work there.She was not shocked by such a thing.Thinking of the lie becoming the truth in this way, she didn't feel that the world was falling apart.He told her about Jones, Aronson, and Rutherford, and told her about the important piece of paper that had been held between his fingers.She didn't respond—in fact, she couldn't grasp the crux of the matter at first. "Are they your friends?" she asked. "No, I don't know them all. They are the Inner Party. Besides, they are much older than me. They belong to the old society, people before the revolution. I just met them." "Then what's your concern? People get killed all the time, don't they?" He tried to make her understand. "This incident is very important. Didn't it mean that someone told them to kill it? Don't you know that starting from yesterday and going forward, the past has been completely wiped out? If the past can still exist, it can only exist in a few real things There is no written description in the things, like that piece of glass lump. We almost don’t know anything about the revolution and before the revolution. They destroyed and falsified all the records, rewritten all the books, and repainted All the paintings, statues, streets and buildings have all been renamed, and the dates have all been changed. This process is carried out every day. History has long since stopped. Except for the endless present, the present that declares that the party is always correct , nothing exists. Of course, I know that the past was tampered with by them, but I can't prove it, even if I set out to tamper with it. When it's done, there is no evidence left. The only proof is in my heart , but I can't be sure that other people can have the same memory as me. In my life, this is the only time that after something happened—after many years, I actually have a solid evidence." "What good is that?" "It's no good. I'll throw it away after a few minutes. But if it happened to me now, I'd keep it." "Hey, I'm not staying!" Julia said. "I'm not afraid to take the risk, but it's worth the risk. A few old newspapers, I'll quit. And if you keep it, what can you do with it?" "Probably can't do much. But it's evidence, and if I dare show it to others, it casts a little doubt. I can't yet think what has become of us in this life. But I can think, where There's a small group of anti-Party people -- a small group of people who get together and grow and keep a little record -- so that the next generation can follow us." "I don't care about the next generation, honey. I only care about ourselves." "You're a rebel from the waist down," he told her. She thought the remark was witty, and threw her arms around him for joy. She was not at all interested in the details of party theory.Whenever he talked about the principles of Ingsoc, doublethink, the variable past, the denial of objective reality, whenever he used Newspeak words, she was so bored that she never paid attention to these things.谁都知道这全是废话，何必为它们闲操心？她只知道何时欢喜何时愁，人该知道的还不就这些？若是他坚持把这个题目说下去，她索性大睡其觉，这习惯真叫他无可奈何。像她那样的人，真是随时随地都能睡着觉。跟她说话，他晓得了一点，便是根本不懂得正统的意义，却装成一个正统派，有何等的轻而易举。不妨说，党的世界观，灌输给那般压根儿没有能力理解这种世界观的人，做得才最成功。他们不惮于接受最公然有悖现实的说法，因为他们还没有懂得，塑造他们的计划何其险恶。他们对公共的事情漠不关心，不留心到底发生了什么事。他们不具备理解力，于是他们心安理得。给他们的东西，他们只知道一口吞；而这样吞下东西，他们却毫发无损，因为根本留不下残渣余滓，诚如一颗谷粒穿过鸟儿的肚子，根本就没有消化。 six 这件事到底发生了--他收到了正盼着的信息。他觉得，他整个一生，都在等着这件事情快发生。 他正在部里长长的走廊上面走。快到朱莉亚把纸条塞给他的地方，他发现有个人，个子比他高，正跟在他的后面。那人轻轻咳了一声，显然要开口说话。温斯顿猛地停脚，转过身去--原来是奥勃良。 他们终于面对了面，仿佛他惟一的冲动便是要逃走。他的心咚咚跳，话也说不出来。可奥勃良还是继续朝前走，一只手友好地把温斯顿的胳膊按一按，他们便并肩走起来。他说话的声音低沉又谦恭，核心党多半可做不到这个样。 "我总想找机会和你谈谈，"他说。"前几天我读了你在《泰晤士报》上的一篇新话文章。我想，你对新话有些学术兴趣，是吧？" 温斯顿找回了一点自信。"谈不上学术，"他说。"只是业余爱好。这不是我的专业。我从没参加过这语言的实际创建。" "可是你写得很漂亮呀，"奥勃良说道。"这还不是我个人的意见。最近我和你的一位朋友谈过，他可是专家呀。我一时记不得他叫什么了。" 温斯顿的心里又是好难受。简直不能想象，他说的不是赛姆，倒是旁的什么人。可赛姆死啦，而且给消灭啦，变了个非人。提到他，准会有丧命的危险。奥勃良的话，明明就是个信号，就是个代码。他们俩共同参与了这个思想罪的小行动；这样做，他便使他俩成了同谋。他们一直在走廊里边慢慢走，这时奥勃良停了下来。他习惯地整整鼻子上的眼镜，这动作煞是奇怪，有一种毫不戒备的友好态度。他接着说道： "其实我想说，在你的文章里，我注意到你用了两个废弃了的词。不过这两个词，最近才刚刚废除掉。你没看过新话词典第十版？" "没有，"温斯顿说。"我想第十版还没出哩。我们记录总局还是在用第九版。" "是呀，第十版得过几个月才出版。不过他们发了几本样书--我也有一本。你有兴趣看看么？" "很有兴趣，"温斯顿立刻明白了他的意思。 "有些新的进展巧妙得很呢。减少动词的数目--我想这一点你准有兴趣。我想想……派个通讯员，把词典送给你？我怕这种事情我老记不住。你能不能有空来我家里取一趟？等等。我给你地址。" 他们就站在个电幕的前面。奥勃良有点心不在焉地摸摸自己的两个口袋，掏出个皮面小笔记本，和一枝金色墨水铅笔。他就在电幕前面龙飞凤舞写好了地址，撕下来递给温斯顿--从他站的地方，电幕另一头的监视者也看得见他写了些什么。 "我晚上一般都在家，"他说。"要是我不在，我的勤务员会把词典交给你。" 于是他走开了，剩下温斯顿拿着那张纸片，这回用不着藏起来啦。然而他还是小心地把纸上的内容记清楚，过了几小时，便把它跟一大堆纸一块儿，丢进了记忆洞。 他们在一起，最多才说了两分钟的话。这件事的含义只能有一个--为了让温斯顿知道奥勃良的住址。这当然必要，因为除去直接问，就没法子弄清旁人住在哪儿。所有的地址簿子，都绝不存在。奥勃良等于跟他说，"要是想来看我，这个地方就能找到我。"没准儿，那词典里就藏着一封信。无论如何，有一点已经完全确定：他梦想的阴谋果真存在，他已经触及了它外层的边缘。 他也清楚，或早或晚，他准得听从奥勃良的召唤。或许就是明天，或许是很久以后--他没法确定。这过程早已经开始，刚才的事情，不过是此一过程的具体实现。第一个阶段是思想，隐秘的、偶然的思想；第二个阶段便是写日记。他这是从思想走到了语言，如今，他又从语言走到了行动。最后的阶段，就得发生在爱护部里啦。他接受这样的结局。开始便包含着结果。然而这毕竟叫人怕；准确地说，恰似预先尝到了死亡的滋味，恰似把寿命减了几天去。甚至当他跟奥勃良说话，当他逐渐弄懂了话里的涵义，全身便冷得不住地发抖。那感觉活像朝着阴湿的坟墓走下去；尽管明知坟墓就在前面等着他，他也没法因此感到多好受。