chapter 1 it was a bright cold day
in April and The Clocks Were Striking 13 Winston Smith his chin nuzzled into his
breast in an effort to escape the vile wind slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions though not
quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him the hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and
Old Rag mats at one end of it a colored poster too large for indoor display had
been tacked to the wall it depicted simply an enormous face more than a meter wide the face of a man of about 45
with a heavy black mustache and ruggedly handsome features Winston made for the
stairs it was no use trying the lift even at the best of times it was seldom
working and at present the electric current was cut off during daylight hours it was part of the economy drive
in preparation for hate week the flat was seven flights up and Winston who was
39 and had a varicose ulcer above his right ankle went slowly resting several
times on the way on each Landing opposite the lift shaft the poster with
the enormous face gazed from the wall it was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about
when you move Big Brother Is Watching You the caption beneath it ran inside the flat a
fruity voice was reading out a list of figures which had something to do with the production of pig iron The Voice
came from an oblong metal plaque like a dulled mirror which formed part of the surface of the right hand wall Winston
turned a switch and the voice sank somewhat though the words were still distinguishable the instrument the
telescreen it was called could be dimmed but there was no way of shutting it off completely he moved over to the window a
smallish frail figure the meagerness of his body merely emphasized by the blue
overalls which were the uniform of the party his hair was very fair his face
naturally sanguin his skin roughened by coarse soap and blunt razor blades and
and the cold of the winter that had just ended outside even through the shut window pane the world looked cold down
in the street little edies of wind were whirling dust and torn paper into Spirals and though the Sun was shining
and the sky a harsh blue there seemed to be no color in anything except the
posters that were plastered everywhere the black mustachioed face gazed down
from every commanding corner there was one on the house front immediately opposite Big Brother Is Watching You the
caption said while the dark eyes look deep into Winston Zone down at street
level another poster torn at one corner flapped fitfully In The Wind alternately
covering and uncovering the single word in esok in the far distance a helicopter
skimmed down between the roofs hovered for an instant like a blue bottle and darted away again with a curving flight
it was the police patrol snooping into people's windows the patrols did not matter however only the thought police
mattered behind Winston's back the voice from the telescreen was still babbling away about pig iron and the over
fulfillment of the ninth three-year plan the telescreen received and transmitted
simultaneously any sound that Winston made above the level of a very low whisper would be picked up by it
moreover so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded he could be seen as
well as heard there was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment how often or
on what system the thought police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork it was even conceivable that
they watched everybody all the time but at any rate they could plug in your wire
whenever they wanted to you had to live did live from habit that became Instinct
in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard and except in darkness every movement
scrutinized Winston kept his back turned to the telescreen it was safer though as
he well knew even a back can be revealing a kilometer away the ministry
of Truth his place of work towered vast and white above the grimy landscape this
he thought with a sort of vague distaste this was London Chief city of airstrip 1
itself the Third third most populous of the provinces of Oceania he tried to squeeze out some childhood memory that
should tell him whether London had always been quite like this were there always these vistas of rotting 19th
century houses their sides shored up with bulks of Timber their Windows
patched with cardboard and their roofs with corrugated iron their crazy Garden
walls sagging in all directions and the bombed sights where the plaster dust SW
swirled in the air and The Willow herbs straggled over the heaps of rubble and the places where the bombs had cleared a
larger patch and there had sprung up sorted colonies of wooden dwellings like chicken houses but it was no use he