3

typical PR reaction they never Winston stopped writing partly
because he was suffering from cramp he did not know what had made him pour out this stream of rubbish but the Curious
Thing was that while he was doing so a totally different memory had clarified itself in his mind to the point where he
almost felt equal to writing it down it was he now realized because of this
other incident that he had suddenly decided to come home and begin the diary today it had happened that morning at
the ministry if anything so nebulous could be said to happen it was nearly 1,00 and in the records department where
Winston worked they were dragging the chairs out of the cubicles and grouping them in the center of the hall opposite
the big telescreen in preparation for the 2 minutes hate Winston was just
taking his place in one of the middle rows when two people whom he knew by sight but had never spoken to came
unexpectedly into the room one of them was a girl whom he often passed in the corridors he did not know her name but
he knew that she worked in the fiction Department presumably since he had sometimes seen her with oily hands and
carrying a spanner she had some mechanical job on one of the novel writing machines she was a bold looking
girl girl of about 27 with thick hair a freckled face and Swift athletic
movements a narrow Scarlet sash emblem of the Junior anti-sex League was wound
several times round the waist of her overalls just tightly enough to bring out the shapeliness of her hips Winston
had disliked her from the very first moment of seeing her he knew the reason it was because of the atmosphere of
hockey fields and cold baths and Community hikes and general clean mindedness which she managed to carry
about with her he disliked nearly all women and especially the young and pretty ones it was always the women and
above all the young ones who were the most bigoted adherents of the party the swallowers of slogans the amateur spies
and noses out of unorthodoxy but this particular girl gave him the impression of being more
dangerous than most once when they passed in the corridor she gave him a quick sidelong glance which seemed to
pierce right into him and for a moment had filled him with Black Terror the
idea had even crossed his mind that she might be an agent of the thought police
that it was true was very unlikely still he continued to feel a peculiar
uneasiness which had fear mixed up in it as well as hostility whenever she was
anywhere near him the other person was a man named O'Brien a member of the inner
party and holder of some post so important and remote that Winston had only a dim idea of its nature a
momentary hush passed over the group of people around the chairs as they saw the black overalls of an inner party member
approaching obrien was a large Burly man with a thick neck and a coarse humorous
brutal face in spite of his formidable appearance he had a certain charm of
manner he had a trick of resettling his Spectacles on his nose which was curiously disarming in some indefinable
way curiously civilized it was a gesture which if anyone had still thought in
such terms might have recalled an 18th century nobleman offering his snuffbox
Winston had seen O'Brien perhaps a dozen times in almost as many years he felt
deeply drawn to him and not solely because he was intrigued by the contrast between O'Brien's Urbane Manner and his
prize Fighters physique much more it was because of a secretly held belief or
perhaps not even a belief merely a hope that O'Brien's political Orthodoxy was
not perfect something in his face suggested it irresistibly and again
perhaps it was not even unorthodoxy that was written in his face but simply intelligence but at any rate he had the
appearance of being a person that you could talk to if somehow you could cheat the telescreen and get him alone Winston
had never made the smallest effort to verify this guess indeed there was no way of doing so at this
moment obrien glanced at his wristwatch saw that it was nearly 1,00 and
evidently decided to stay in the records department until the 2 minutes hate was
over he took a chair in the same row as Winston a couple of places away a small
sandy-haired woman who worked in the next cubicle to Winston was between them the girl with dark hair was sitting
immediately behind the next moment a hideous grinding Screech as of some
monstrous machine running without oil burst from the big telescreen at the end of the room it was a noise that set
one's teeth on edge and bristled the hair at the back of one's neck the hate had started as usual the face of Emanuel
Goldstein the enemy of the people had flashed onto the screen there were hisses here and there among the audience
the little sandy-haired woman gave a squeak of mingled fear and dis gust Goldstein was the Renegade and
backslider who once long ago how long ago nobody quite remembered had been one
of the leading figures of the party almost on a level with big brother himself and then had engaged in
counterrevolutionary activities had been condemned to death and had mysteriously
escaped and disappeared the programs of the 2 minutes hate varied from day to day but
there was none in which Goldstein was not the principal figure he was the Primal traitor the earliest defiler of
the party's Purity all subsequent crimes against the party all treacheries acts
of sabotage heresies deviations sprang directly out of his teaching somewhere
or other he was still alive and hatching his conspiracies perhaps Somewhere Beyond the Sea Under the protection of
his foreign pay masters perhaps even so it was occasionally rumored in some
hiding place in Oceania itself when Winston's diaphragm was constricted he
could never see the face of Goldstein without a painful mixture of emotions it was a lean Jewish face with a great
fuzzy oral of white hair and a small goaty beard a clever face and yet
somehow inherently despicable with a kind of scile silliness in the long thin
nose near the end of which a pair of spectacles was perched it resembled the
face of a sheep and the voice too had a sheeplike quality quity Goldstein was
delivering his usual venomous attack upon the doctrines of the party an attack so exaggerated and perverse that
a child should have been able to see through it and yet just plausible enough to fill one with an alarmed feeling that
other people less levelheaded than oneself might be taken in by it he was
abusing big brother he was denouncing the dictatorship of the party he was demanding the immediate conclusion of
peace with Eurasia he was advocating freedom of speech freedom of the press
freedom of assembly freedom of thought he was crying hysterically that the revolution had been betrayed and all
this in Rapid polycab speech which was a sort of parody of the habitual style of
the orators of the party and even contained news Peak words more news Peak
words indeed than any party member would normally use in real life and all the
while lest one should be in any doubt as as to the reality which goldstein's specious clap trap covered behind his
head on the telescreen there marched the endless Columns of the Eurasian Army row
after row of solid looking men with expressionless Asiatic faces who swam up
to the surface of the screen and vanished to be replaced by others exactly similar the dull rhythmic
of the solders boots formed the background to goldstein's bleeting voice
before the hate had proceeded for 30 seconds seconds uncontrollable exclamations of Rage were breaking out
from half the people in the room the self-satisfied sheeplike face on the screen and the terrifying power of the
Eurasian Army behind it were too much to be borne besides the sight or even the
thought of Goldstein produced fear and anger automatically he was an object of
hatred more constant than either Eurasia or East Asia since when Oceania was at
war with one of these Powers it was generally at at peace with the other but what was strange was that although
Goldstein was hated and despised by everybody although every day and a thousand times a day on platforms on the
telescreen in newspapers in books his theories were refuted smashed ridiculed
held up to the general gaze for the pitiful rubbish that they were in spite of all this his influence never seemed
to grow less always there were fresh dupes waiting to be seduced by him a day
never passed when spies and sabur acting under his directions were not unmasked
by the thought police he was the commander of a vast shadowy Army an underground network of conspirators
dedicated to the overthrow of the state the Brotherhood its name was supposed to be there were also whispered stories of
a terrible book a compendium of all the heresies of which Goldstein was the author and which circulated
clandestinely here and there it was a a book without a title people referred to
it if at all simply as the book but one knew of such things only through vague
rumors neither the Brotherhood nor the book was a subject that any ordinary party member would mention if there was
a way of avoiding it in its second minute the hate Rose to a frenzy people
were leaping up and down in their places and shouting at the tops of their voices in an effort to drown the maddening
bleeting voice that came from the screen the little sandy-haired woman had turned bright pink and her mouth was opening
and shutting like that of a landed fish even O'Brien's heavy face was flushed he
was sitting very straight in his chair his powerful chest swelling and quivering as though he were standing up
to the assault of a wave the darkhaired girl behind Winston had begun crying out
swine swine swine and suddenly she picked up a heavy