1984. Джордж Оруэлл
all, was itself only a single branch of the Ministry of Truth, whose primary job was not to supply the citizens of Oceania with newspapers, films, textbooks, telescreen programmes, plays, novels. Here were produced newspapers containing almost nothing except sport, crime and astrology, sensational five-cent novelettes, films oozing with sex, and sentimental songs which were composed entirely by mechanical means. There was even a whole section—Pornosec—engaged in producing the lowest kind of pornography.
Three messages had slid out of the pneumatic tube while Winston was working, but they were simple matters, and he had disposed of them before the Two Minutes Hate interrupted him. When the Hate was over he returned to his cubicle, took the Newspeak dictionary from the shelf, pushed the speakwrite to one side, cleaned his spectacles, and settled down to his main job of the morning.
Winston’s greatest pleasure in life was in his work. Most of it was a tedious routine, but included in it there were also jobs so difficult and intricate that you could lose yourself in them as in the depths of a mathematical problem—delicate pieces of forgery. Winston was good at this kind of thing.
Winston read through the article. Big Brother’s Order for the Day, was about praising the work of an organization known as FFCC, which supplied cigarettes and other comforts to the sailors. A certain Comrade Withers, a prominent member of the Inner Party, had been singled out for special mention and awarded a decoration, the Order of Conspicuous Merit, Second Class.
Three months later FFCC had suddenly been dissolved with no reasons given. Withers and his associates were now in disgrace, but there had been no report of the matter in the Press or on the telescreen. There was no clue as to what had happened to them.
Winston did not know why Withers had been disgraced. Perhaps it was for corruption or incompetence. Perhaps Big Brother was merely getting rid of a too-popular subordinate. Perhaps Withers or someone close to him had been suspected of heretical tendencies. Or perhaps—what was likeliest of all—the thing had simply happened because purges and vaporizations were a necessary part of the mechanics of government.
Winston thought for a moment, then pulled the speakwrite towards him and began dictating in Big Brother’s familiar style: a style at once military and pedantic, and, because of a trick of asking questions and then promptly answering them (“What lessons do we learn from this fact, comrades? The lesson—which is also one of the fundamental principles of Ingsoc—that,” etc., etc.), easy to imitate.
Chapter 5
The lunch queue moved slowly forward. The room was already very full and noisy.
“Just the man I was looking for,” said a voice at Winston’s back.
He turned round. It was his friend Syme, who worked in the Research Department. Perhaps “friend” was not exactly the right word. You did not have friends nowadays, you had comrades: but there were some comrades whose society was pleasanter than that of others. Syme was a philologist, a specialist in Newspeak.
“I wanted to ask you whether you’d got any razor blades,” he said.
“Not one!” said Winston with a sort of guilty haste. “I’ve tried all over the place. They don’t exist any longer. I’ve been using the same blade for six weeks.”
The queue gave another jerk forward.
“Did you go and see the prisoners hanged yesterday?” said Syme.
“I was working,” said Winston indifferently.
“It was a good hanging,” said Syme. “I think it spoils it when they tie their feet together. I like to see them kicking. And above all, at the end, the tongue sticking right out, and blue—a quite bright blue. That’s the detail that appeals to me.”
“Next”, please!” yelled the prole with the ladle.
Winston and Syme pushed their trays and got their lunch—a stew, a hunk of bread, a cube of cheese, a mug of milkless Victory Coffee, and one saccharine tablet.
“There’s a table over there, under that telescreen,” said Syme. “Let’s pick up a gin on the way.”
The gin was served out to them in handleless china mugs. They walked to the metal table, sat down, and began eating.
“How is the Dictionary getting on?” said Winston.
“Slowly,” said Syme. “I’m on the adjectives. It’s fascinating.”
He had brightened up immediately at the mention of Newspeak.
“The Eleventh Edition is the definitive edition,” he said. “We’re getting the language into its final shape—the shape it’s going to have when nobody speaks anything else. When we’ve finished with it, people like you will have to learn it all over again.”
He bit hungrily into his bread, then continued speaking.
“It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Take “good”, for instance. If you have a word like “good”, what need is there for a word like “bad”? “Ungood” will do just as well—better, because it’s an exact opposite, which the other is not. Or again, if you want a stronger version of “good”, what sense is there in having a whole string of vague useless words like “excellent” and all the rest of them? “Plusgood” covers the meaning. Don’t you see the beauty of that, Winston?”
A sort of vapid eagerness showed on Winston’s face. Syme immediately detected the lack of enthusiasm.
“You haven’t a real appreciation of Newspeak, Winston,” he said almost sadly. “Even when you write it you’re still thinking in Oldspeak. I’ve read some of those pieces that you write in “The Times” occasionally. They’re good enough, but they’re translations. Do you know that Newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year?”
Winston did know that, of course.
“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?”
“Except—” began Winston doubtfully, and he stopped.
It had been on the tip of his tongue to say “Except the proles,” but he stopped himself.
One of these days, thought Winston with sudden deep conviction, Syme will be vaporized. He is too intelligent. He sees too clearly and speaks too plainly. The Party does not like such people. One day he will disappear. It is written in his face.
Winston had finished his bread and cheese. Syme had fallen silent for a moment.
“There is a word in Newspeak,” said Syme, “I don’t know whether you know it: DUCKSPEAK, to quack like a duck. It is one of those interesting words that have two contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it is abuse, applied to someone you agree with, it is praise.”
Unquestionably Syme will be vaporized, Winston thought again. He thought it with a kind of sadness. There was something subtly wrong with Syme. There was something that he lacked: discretion, aloofness, a sort of saving stupidity. You could not say that he was unorthodox. He believed in the principles of Ingsoc, he loved the Big Brother, he rejoiced over victories, he hated heretics. Yet said things that would have been better unsaid, he had read too many books.
Syme looked up. “Here comes Parsons,” he said.
Parsons, Winston’s fellow-tenant at Victory Mansions, was in fact walking across the room—a middle-sized man with fair hair and a froglike face. He greeted them both with a “Hullo, hullo!” and sat down at the table, giving off an intense smell of sweat.
“Smith, old boy, I’ll tell you why I’m chasing you. It’s that sub you forgot to give me.”
“Which sub is that?” said Winston, automatically feeling for money.
“For Hate Week. You know—the house-by-house fund. I’m treasurer