George Orwell - 1984. Адаптированная книга для чтения на английском языке. Уровень B1

The back of his neck didn't hurt anymore. He picked up his pen without real interest and wondered what he could write in the diary. Suddenly he began thinking of O'Brien again.

Years ago – how long was it? Seven years it must be – he had dreamed that he was walking through a dark room. And someone had said as he passed: «We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness». It was a statement, not a command. He hadn't stopped. At the time, in the dream, the words had not made much impression on him. They became important later. He could not now remember whether it was before or after having the dream that he had seen O'Brien for the first time. He couldn't remember either when he had first recognized the voice as O'Brien's. It was O'Brien who had spoken to him in the dark room.

Winston had never known for sure whether O'Brien was a friend or an enemy. It didn't really matter. «We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness», he had said. Winston did not know what it meant, only that in some way or another it would come true.

The voice from the telescreen paused. After a clear and beautiful trumpet call it continued:

«Attention! Your attention, please! Our forces in South India have won a glorious victory. It may well soon bring the war to the end. Here is the news…»

Bad news coming, thought Winston. After that came the announcement that from next week they would get twenty grammes of chocolate instead of thirty.

The telescreen was now playing «Oceania, it is for you». You were supposed to stand to attention. However, no one could see him where he was now.

After «Oceania, it is for you» there was some lighter music. Winston walked over to the window with his back to the telescreen. The day was still cold and clear. Somewhere far away a bomb exploded. About twenty or thirty of them a week were falling on London now.

Down in the street there was a torn poster with the word INGSOC on it. Ingsoc. The sacred principles of Ingsoc.

Newspeak, doublethink, changing the past. He felt lonely. The past was dead, and one couldn't imagine the future.

How would he know whether anyone was on his side? What if the Party would be there for ever? The three slogans on the Ministry of Truth came back to him like an answer:

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

He took a twenty-five cent piece out of his pocket. The same slogans were written on it, and on the other face of the coin the head of Big Brother. Even from the coin the eyes followed you. On coins, on stamps, on the covers of books, on banners, on posters, and on cigarette packets – everywhere. Always the eyes watching you and the voice everywhere around you. Nothing was your own except what was inside your head.

Now when it was dark the Ministry of Truth looked like a fortress. It was too strong, it could not be stormed. He wondered again for whom he was writing the diary. For the future, for the past – for an imaginary age. He would not just die, he would disappear. The diary would be burnt and he would be vapourized. Only the Thought Police would read what he had written. How could you make talk to the future when you couldn't stay alive?

The telescreen struck fourteen. He must leave in ten minutes. He had to be back at work by fourteen-thirty.

Curiously, he felt better now. Nobody would ever hear the truth that he was saying. It was important for him not to be heard, but to stay sane. He went back to the table and wrote:

To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free, when men are different from one another and do not live alone – to a time when there is truth:

From the age of uniformity, from the age of loneliness, from the age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink – hello!

He was already dead, he thought. He wrote:

Thoughtcrime does not involve death: thoughtcrime IS death.

Now he had recognized himself as a dead man and it became important to stay alive as long as possible. He had ink on two fingers of his right hand. It might betray him. He went to the bathroom and carefully washed the ink away with the dark-brown soap.

He put the diary away. He could not hide it, but he could at least make sure that it would not be discovered too quickly.

Winston was dreaming of his mother.

He was ten or eleven years old when his mother had disappeared. She was a tall, rather silent woman with slow movements and beautiful fair hair. His father was dark and thin, dressed always in dark clothes and wearing spectacles. Winston remembered his mother better than his father. The two of them disappeared in the fifties. A lot of people disappeared during that time.

At this moment his mother was sitting in some place deep down under him, with his young sister in her arms. He did not remember his sister at all. Both of them were looking up at him. They were somewhere under the ground, and this place was moving downwards. They were in a sinking ship, looking up at him through the water. There was still air in the ship, they could still see him and he them. He was out in the light and air, and they were down there because he was up here. He knew it and they knew it, and he could see it in their faces. There was no reproach either in their faces or in their hearts, only the knowledge that they must die so that he was alive.

He could not remember what had happened, but he knew in his dream that his mother and his sister gave their lives for his own. When he woke up, he realized that his mother's death, nearly thirty years ago, had been tragic in a way that was no longer possible. Tragedy belonged to the ancient time, to a time when there was still love and friendship. It was tragic, because his mother had died loving him, when he was too young and selfish to love her in return. Such things, he saw, could not happen today. Today there was fear, hatred, and pain, but no deep sorrows. All this he saw in the large eyes of his mother and his sister, who looked up at him through the green water.

Suddenly he was standing on a pasture, on a summer evening. He saw this landscape in his dreams very often and he was never sure whether or not he had seen it in the real world. He called it the Golden Country.

The girl with dark hair was coming towards him across the field. She tore off her clothes and threw them aside. Her body was white and soft, but he didn't even look at it. He admired the gesture. It was graceful and careless and it also belonged to the ancient time. It seemed to him that she tore off Big Brother, and the Party, and the Thought Police. Winston woke up with the word «Shakespeare» on his lips.

From the telescreen Winston heard a whistle which continued on the same note for thirty seconds. It was nought seven fifteen, time for office workers to get up. Winston slept naked, for a member of the Outer Party received only 3,000 clothing coupons a year, and pyjamas were 600. He took his dirty clothes from a chair. The Physical Jerks would begin in three minutes. The next moment he started coughing. It happened nearly always soon after he woke up. He had to lie down on his back and breathe deeply.

«Take your places, please!» shouted a youngish woman dressed in tunic and gym-shoes from the telescreen. «Take your places, please». One had to look as if one enjoyed the exercise, because was proper during the Physical Jerks. «One, two, three, four! One, two, three, four! Come on, comrades, put a bit of life into it! One, two, three, four! One, two, three, four!.».

The rhythmic movements made Winston remember his dream. He tried to remember his early childhood, but it was very difficult. Everything that happened before the late fifties disappeared. Everything had been different then. Even the names of countries, and their shapes on the map, had been different. Airstrip One had been called England or Britain, though London, he felt fairly certain, had always been called London.