1984

It  was  a  bright,  cold  day  in  April,  and  the  clocks  were  striking  13.  Winston  Smith  hurried  home  to  Victory  Mansions  with  his  head  down  to  escape  the  terrible  wind.  A  cloud  of  dust  blew  inside  with  him,  and  the  hall  smelled  of  dust  and  yesterday's  food.  At  the  end  of  the  hall,  a  poster  covered  one  wall.  It  showed  an  enormous  face,  more  than  a  meter  wide.

It  the  face  of  a  handsome  man  of  about  45,  with  a  large  black  mustache.  The  man's  eyes  seemed  to  follow  Winston  as  he  moved.  Below  the  face  were  the  words  big  Brother  is  watching  you.  Winston  went  up  the  stairs.  He  did  not  even  try  the  lift.

It  rarely  worked,  and  at  the  moment  the  electricity  was  switched  off  during  the  day  to  save  money  for  hate  Wheat.  The  flat  was  on  the  7th  floor,  and  Winston,  who  was  39  and  had  a  bad  knee,  went  slowly,  resting  several  times  on  the  way.  Winston  was  a  small  man  and  looked  even  smaller  in  the  blue  overalls  of  the  Party.  His  hair  was  fair  and  the  skin  on  his  face,  which  used  to  be  pink,  was  red  and  rough  from  cheap  soap,  old  razor  blades  and  the  cold  of  the  winter  that  had  just  ended.  Inside  his  flat,  a  voice  was  reading  out  a  list  of  figures  for  last  year's  production  of  Iron.

The  voice  came  from  a  metal  square,  a  telescreen  in  the  right  hand  wall.  Winston  turned  it  down,  but  there  was  no  way  of  turning  it  off  completely.  He  moved  to  the  window.  Outside,  the  world  looked  cold.  The  wind  blew  dust  and  bits  of  paper  around  in  the  street,  and  there  seemed  to  be  no  color  in  anything  except  in  the  posters  that  were  everywhere.

The  face  with  the  black  mustache  looked  down  from  every  corner.  There  was  one  on  the  house  opposite.  Big  Brother  is  watching  you,  it  said,  and  the  eyes  looked  into  Winston's.  Behind  him,  the  voice  from  the  telescreen  was  still  talking  about  Iron.  There  was  now  even  more  iron  in  Oceania  than  the  9th  Three  Year  Plan  had  demanded.

The  telescreen  had  a  microphone  so  the  Thought  Police  could  listen  to  Winston  at  any  time  of  the  day  or  night.  They  could  also  watch  him  through  the  telescreen.  Nobody  knew  how  often  they  actually  did  that,  but  everybody  behaved  correctly  all  the  time  because  the  Thought  Police  might  be  watching  and  listening.  Winston  kept  his  back  to  the  telescreen.  It  was  safer  that  way.

They  couldn't  see  your  face.  He  looked  out  over  London,  the  biggest  city  in  this  part  of  Oceania.  The  19th  century.  Houses  were  all  falling  down.  There  were  holes  in  the  streets  where  the  bombs  had  fallen.

Had  it  always  been  like  this?  He  tried  to  think  back  to  the  time  when  he  was  a  boy,  but  he  could  remember  nothing.  He  stared  at  the  Ministry  of  Truth,  where  he  worked.  It  was  an  enormous  white  building,  300  meters  high.  You  could  see  the  white  roof  high  above  the  houses.

Even  away  from  Winston's  flat,  it  was  just  possible  to  see  the  three  slogans  of  the  Party  written  in  enormous  letters  on  the  side  of  the  building.  War  is  peace.  Freedom  is  slavery.  Ignorance  is  strength.