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Winston had woken up with his eyes full of tears. Julia rolled sleepily against him, murmuring something that might have been ‘What’s the matter?’
‘I dreamt —’ he began, and stopped short. It was too complex to be put into words. There was the dream itself, and there was a memory connected with it that had swum into his mind in the few seconds after waking.
He lay back with his eyes shut, still sodden1 in the atmosphere of the dream. It was a vast, luminous2 dream in which his whole life seemed to stretch out before him like a landscape on a summer evening after rain. It had all occurred inside the glass paperweight, but the surface of the glass was the dome3 of the sky, and inside the dome everything was flooded with clear soft light in which one could see into interminable distances. The dream had also been comprehended by — indeed, in some sense it had consisted in — a gesture of the arm made by his mother, and made again thirty years later by the Jewish woman he had seen on the news film, trying to shelter the small boy from the bullets, before the helicopter blew them both to pieces.
‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘that until this moment I believed I had murdered my mother?’
‘Why did you murder her?’ said Julia, almost asleep.
‘I didn’t murder her. Not physically4.’
In the dream he had remembered his last glimpse of his mother, and within a few moments of waking the cluster of small events surrounding it had all come back. It was a memory that he must have deliberately5 pushed out of his consciousness over many years. He was not certain of the date, but he could not have been less than ten years old, possibly twelve, when it had happened.
His father had disappeared some time earlier, how much earlier he could not remember. He remembered better the rackety, uneasy circumstances of the time: the periodical panics about air-raids and the sheltering in Tube stations, the piles of rubble6 everywhere, the unintelligible7 proclamations posted at street corners, the gangs of youths in shirts all the same colour, the enormous queues outside the bakeries, the intermittent8 machine-gun fire in the distance — above all, the fact that there was never enough to eat. He remembered long afternoons spent with other boys in scrounging round dustbins and rubbish heaps, picking out the ribs9 of cabbage leaves, potato peelings, sometimes even scraps10 of stale breadcrust from which they carefully scraped away the cinders11; and also in waiting for the passing of trucks which travelled over a certain route and were known to carry cattle feed, and which, when they jolted12 over the bad patches in the road, sometimes spilt a few fragments of oil-cake.
When his father disappeared, his mother did not show any surprise or any violent grief, but a sudden change came over her. She seemed to have become completely spiritless. It was evident even to Winston that she was waiting for something that she knew must happen. She did everything that was needed — cooked, washed, mended, made the bed, swept the floor, dusted the mantelpiece — always very slowly and with a curious lack of superfluous13 motion, like an artist’s lay-figure moving of its own accord. Her large shapely body seemed to relapse naturally into stillness. For hours at a time she would sit almost immobile on the bed, nursing his young sister, a tiny, ailing14, very silent child of two or three, with a face made simian15 by thinness. Very occasionally she would take Winston in her arms and press him against her for a long time without saying anything. He was aware, in spite of his youthfulness and selfishness, that this was somehow connected with the never-mentioned thing that was about to happen.
He remembered the room where they lived, a dark, close-smelling room that seemed half filled by a bed with a white counterpane. There was a gas ring in the fender, and a shelf where food was kept, and on the landing outside there was a brown earthenware16 sink, common to several rooms. He remembered his mother’s statuesque body bending over the gas ring to stir at something in a saucepan. Above all he remembered his continuous hunger, and the fierce sordid17 battles at mealtimes. He would ask his mother naggingly19, over and over again, why there was not more food, he would shout and storm at her (he even remembered the tones of his voice, which was beginning to break prematurely20 and sometimes boomed in a peculiar21 way), or he would attempt a snivelling note of pathos22 in his efforts to get more than his share. His mother was quite ready to give him more than his share. She took it for granted that he, ‘the boy’, should have the biggest portion; but however much she gave him he invariably demanded more. At every meal she would beseech23 him not to be selfish and to remember that his little sister was sick and also needed food, but it was no use. He would cry out with rage when she stopped ladling, he would try to wrench24 the saucepan and spoon out of her hands, he would grab bits from his sister’s plate. He knew that he was starving the other two, but he could not help it; he even felt that he had a right to do it. The clamorous25 hunger in his belly26 seemed to justify27 him. Between meals, if his mother did not stand guard, he was constantly pilfering28 at the wretched store of food on the shelf.
One day a chocolate ration29 was issued. There had been no such issue for weeks or months past. He remembered quite clearly that precious little morsel30 of chocolate. It was a two-ounce slab31 (they still talked about ounces in those days) between the three of them. It was obvious that it ought to be divided into three equal parts. Suddenly, as though he were listening to somebody else, Winston heard himself demanding in a loud booming voice that he should be given the whole piece. His mother told him not to be greedy. There was a long, nagging18 argument that went round and round, with shouts, whines32, tears, remonstrances33, bargainings. His tiny sister, clinging to her mother with both hands, exactly like a baby monkey, sat looking over her shoulder at him with large, mournful eyes. In the end his mother broke off three-quarters of the chocolate and gave it to Winston, giving the other quarter to his sister. The little girl took hold of it and looked at it dully, perhaps not knowing what it was. Winston stood watching her for a moment. Then with a sudden swift spring he had snatched the piece of chocolate out of his sister’s hand and was fleeing for the door.
‘Winston, Winston!’ his mother called after him. ‘Come back! Give your sister back her chocolate!’
He stopped, but did not come back. His mother’s anxious eyes were fixed34 on his face. Even now he was thinking about the thing, he did not know what it was that was on the point of happening. His sister, conscious of having been robbed of something, had set up a feeble wail35. His mother drew her arm round the child and pressed its face against her breast. Something in the gesture told him that his sister was dying. He turned and fled down the stairs, with the chocolate growing sticky in his hand.
He never saw his mother again. After he had devoured36 the chocolate he felt somewhat ashamed of himself and hung about in the streets for several hours, until hunger drove him home. When he came back his mother had disappeared. This was already becoming normal at that time. Nothing was gone from the room except his mother and his sister. They had not taken any clothes, not even his mother’s overcoat. To this day he did not know with any certainty that his mother was dead. It was perfectly37 possible that she had merely been sent to a forced-labour camp. As for his sister, she might have been removed, like Winston himself, to one of the colonies for homeless children (Reclamation Centres, they were called) which had grown up as a result of the civil war, or she might have been sent to the labour camp along with his mother, or simply left somewhere or other to die.
The dream was still vivid in his mind, especially the enveloping39 protecting gesture of the arm in which its whole meaning seemed to be contained. His mind went back to another dream of two months ago. Exactly as his mother had sat on the dingy40 white-quilted bed, with the child clinging to her, so she had sat in the sunken ship, far underneath41 him, and drowning deeper every minute, but still looking up at him through the darkening water.
He told Julia the story of his mother’s disappearance42. Without opening her eyes she rolled over and settled herself into a more comfortable position.
‘I expect you were a beastly little swine in those days,’ she said indistinctly. ‘All children are swine.’
‘Yes. But the real point of the story ——’
From her breathing it was evident that she was going off to sleep again. He would have liked to continue talking about his mother. He did not suppose, from what he could remember of her, that she had been an unusual woman, still less an intelligent one; and yet she had possessed43 a kind of nobility, a kind of purity, simply because the standards that she obeyed were private ones. Her feelings were her own, and could not be altered from outside. It would not have occurred to her that an action which is ineffectual thereby44 becomes meaningless. If you loved someone, you loved him, and when you had nothing else to give, you still gave him love. When the last of the chocolate was gone, his mother had clasped the child in her arms. It was no use, it changed nothing, it did not produce more chocolate, it did not avert45 the child’s death or her own; but it seemed natural to her to do it. The refugee woman in the boat had also covered the little boy with her arm, which was no more use against the bullets than a sheet of paper. The terrible thing that the Party had done was to persuade you that mere38 impulses, mere feelings, were of no account, while at the same time robbing you of all power over the material world. When once you were in the grip of the Party, what you felt or did not feel, what you did or refrained from doing, made literally46 no difference. Whatever happened you vanished, and neither you nor your actions were ever heard of again. You were lifted clean out of the stream of history. And yet to the people of only two generations ago this would not have seemed all-important, because they were not attempting to alter history. They were governed by private loyalties47 which they did not question. What mattered were individual relationships, and a completely helpless gesture, an embrace, a tear, a word spoken to a dying man, could have value in itself. The proles, it suddenly occurred to him, had remained in this condition. They were not loyal to a party or a country or an idea, they were loyal to one another. For the first time in his life he did not despise the proles or think of them merely as an inert48 force which would one day spring to life and regenerate49 the world. The proles had stayed human. They had not become hardened inside. They had held on to the primitive50 emotions which he himself had to re-learn by conscious effort. And in thinking this he remembered, without apparent relevance51, how a few weeks ago he had seen a severed52 hand lying on the pavement and had kicked it into the gutter53 as though it had been a cabbage-stalk.
‘The proles are human beings,’ he said aloud. ‘We are not human.’
‘Why not?’ said Julia, who had woken up again.
He thought for a little while. ‘Has it ever occurred to you,’ he said, ‘that the best thing for us to do would be simply to walk out of here before it’s too late, and never see each other again?’
‘Yes, dear, it has occurred to me, several times. But I’m not going to do it, all the same.’
‘We’ve been lucky,’ he said ‘but it can’t last much longer. You’re young. You look normal and innocent. If you keep clear of people like me, you might stay alive for another fifty years.’
‘No. I’ve thought it all out. What you do, I’m going to do. And don’t be too downhearted. I’m rather good at staying alive.’
‘We may be together for another six months — a year — there’s no knowing. At the end we’re certain to be apart. Do you realize how utterly54 alone we shall be? When once they get hold of us there will be nothing, literally nothing, that either of us can do for the other. If I confess, they’ll shoot you, and if I refuse to confess, they’ll shoot you just the same. Nothing that I can do or say, or stop myself from saying, will put off your death for as much as five minutes. Neither of us will even know whether the other is alive or dead. We shall be utterly without power of any kind. The one thing that matters is that we shouldn’t betray one another, although even that can’t make the slightest difference.’
‘If you mean confessing,’ she said, ‘we shall do that, right enough. Everybody always confesses. You can’t help it. They torture you.’
‘I don’t mean confessing. Confession55 is not betrayal. What you say or do doesn’t matter: only feelings matter. If they could make me stop loving you — that would be the real betrayal.’
She thought it over. ‘They can’t do that,’ she said finally. ‘It’s the one thing they can’t do. They can make you say anything — ANYTHING— but they can’t make you believe it. They can’t get inside you.’
‘No,’ he said a little more hopefully, ‘no; that’s quite true. They can’t get inside you. If you can FEEL that staying human is worth while, even when it can’t have any result whatever, you’ve beaten them.’
He thought of the telescreen with its never-sleeping ear. They could spy upon you night and day, but if you kept your head you could still outwit them. With all their cleverness they had never mastered the secret of finding out what another human being was thinking. Perhaps that was less true when you were actually in their hands. One did not know what happened inside the Ministry56 of Love, but it was possible to guess: tortures, drugs, delicate instruments that registered your nervous reactions, gradual wearing-down by sleeplessness57 and solitude58 and persistent59 questioning. Facts, at any rate, could not be kept hidden. They could be tracked down by enquiry, they could be squeezed out of you by torture. But if the object was not to stay alive but to stay human, what difference did it ultimately make? They could not alter your feelings: for that matter you could not alter them yourself, even if you wanted to. They could lay bare in the utmost detail everything that you had done or said or thought; but the inner heart, whose workings were mysterious even to yourself, remained impregnable.
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1
sodden
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| adj.浑身湿透的；v.使浸透；使呆头呆脑 | |
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luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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3
dome
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| n.圆屋顶，拱顶 | |
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physically
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| adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律 | |
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5
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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6
rubble
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| n.（一堆）碎石，瓦砾 | |
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7
unintelligible
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| adj.无法了解的，难解的，莫明其妙的 | |
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8
intermittent
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| adj.间歇的，断断续续的 | |
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9
ribs
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| n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 )；（船或屋顶等的）肋拱；肋骨状的东西；（织物的）凸条花纹 | |
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10
scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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11
cinders
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| n.煤渣( cinder的名词复数 )；炭渣；煤渣路；煤渣跑道 | |
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12
jolted
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| （使）摇动， （使）震惊( jolt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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13
superfluous
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| adj.过多的，过剩的，多余的 | |
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14
ailing
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| v.生病 | |
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15
simian
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| adj.似猿猴的；n.类人猿，猴 | |
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16
earthenware
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| n.土器，陶器 | |
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17
sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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18
nagging
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| adj.唠叨的，挑剔的；使人不得安宁的v.不断地挑剔或批评（某人）( nag的现在分词 )；不断地烦扰或伤害（某人）；无休止地抱怨；不断指责 | |
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19
naggingly
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| 唠叨的，挑剔的； 使人不得安宁的 | |
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20
prematurely
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| adv.过早地，贸然地 | |
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21
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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22
pathos
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| n.哀婉，悲怆 | |
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23
beseech
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| v.祈求，恳求 | |
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24
wrench
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| v.猛拧；挣脱；使扭伤；n.扳手；痛苦，难受 | |
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25
clamorous
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| adj.吵闹的，喧哗的 | |
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26
belly
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| n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛 | |
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27
justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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28
pilfering
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| v.偷窃（小东西），小偷( pilfer的现在分词 )；偷窃（一般指小偷小摸） | |
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29
ration
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| n.定量(pl.)给养，口粮；vt.定量供应 | |
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30
morsel
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| n.一口，一点点 | |
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31
slab
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| n.平板，厚的切片；v.切成厚板，以平板盖上 | |
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32
whines
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| n.悲嗥声( whine的名词复数 )；哀鸣者v.哀号( whine的第三人称单数 )；哀诉，诉怨 | |
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33
remonstrances
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| n.抱怨，抗议( remonstrance的名词复数 ) | |
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34
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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35
wail
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| vt./vi.大声哀号，恸哭；呼啸，尖啸 | |
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36
devoured
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| 吞没( devour的过去式和过去分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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37
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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38
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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39
enveloping
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| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的现在分词 ) | |
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40
dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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41
underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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42
disappearance
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| n.消失，消散，失踪 | |
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43
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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44
thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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45
avert
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| v.防止，避免；转移(目光、注意力等) | |
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46
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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47
loyalties
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| n.忠诚( loyalty的名词复数 )；忠心；忠于…感情；要忠于…的强烈感情 | |
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48
inert
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| adj.无活动能力的，惰性的；迟钝的 | |
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49
regenerate
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| vt.使恢复，使新生；vi.恢复，再生；adj.恢复的 | |
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50
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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51
relevance
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| n.中肯，适当，关联，相关性 | |
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52
severed
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| v.切断，断绝( sever的过去式和过去分词 )；断，裂 | |
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53
gutter
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| n.沟，街沟，水槽，檐槽，贫民窟 | |
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54
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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55
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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56
ministry
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| n.(政府的)部；牧师 | |
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57
sleeplessness
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| n.失眠，警觉 | |
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58
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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59
persistent
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| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
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