Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
By George Orwell
I t was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were strik-
ing thirteen. 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 enter-
ing along with him.
The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats. At
one end of it a coloured poster, too large for indoor display,
had been tacked to the wall. It depicted simply an enor-
mous face, more than a metre wide: the face of a man of
about forty-five, with a heavy black moustache and rugged-
ly handsome features. Winston made for the stairs. It was
no use trying the lift. Even at the best of times it was sel-
dom 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 thirty-nine 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 fig-
WAR IS PEACE
‘ We can come here once again,’ said Julia. ‘It’s generally safe
to use any hide-out twice. But not for another month or
two, of course.’
put in two hours for the Junior Anti-Sex League, handing
out leaflets, or something. Isn’t it bloody? Give me a brush-
down, would you? Have I got any twigs in my hair? Are you
As soon as she woke up her demeanour had changed. She sure? Then good-bye, my love, good-bye!’
became alert and business-like, put her clothes on, knot- She flung herself into his arms, kissed him almost vi-
ted the scarlet sash about her waist, and began arranging olently, and a moment later pushed her way through the
the details of the journey home. It seemed natural to leave saplings and disappeared into the wood with very little
this to her. She obviously had a practical cunning which noise. Even now he had not found out her surname or her
Winston lacked, and she seemed also to have an exhaus- address. However, it made no difference, for it was incon-
tive knowledge of the countryside round London, stored ceivable that they could ever meet indoors or exchange any
away from innumerable community hikes. The route she kind of written communication.
gave him was quite different from the one by which he had As it happened, they never went back to the clearing in
come, and brought him out at a different railway station. the wood. During the month of May there was only one
‘Never go home the same way as you went out,’ she said, as further occasion on which they actually succeeded in mak-
though enunciating an important general principle. She ing love. That was in another hidlng-place known to Julia,
would leave first, and Winston was to wait half an hour be- the belfry of a ruinous church in an almost-deserted stretch
fore following her. of country where an atomic bomb had fallen thirty years
She had named a place where they could meet after work, earlier. It was a good hiding-place when once you got there,
four evenings hence. It was a street in one of the poorer but the getting there was very dangerous. For the rest they
quarters, where there was an open market which was gener- could meet only in the streets, in a different place every eve-
ally crowded and noisy. She would be hanging about among ning and never for more than half an hour at a time. In the
the stalls, pretending to be in search of shoelaces or sewing- street it was usually possible to talk, after a fashion. As they
thread. If she judged that the coast was clear she would blow drifted down the crowded pavements, not quite abreast
her nose when he approached; otherwise he was to walk and never looking at one another, they carried on a curi-