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

Winston thought for a moment whether he should award Comrade Ogilvy the Order of Conspicuous Merit, but he decided against. It would make it too complicated.

Once again he looked at Tillotson in the opposite cubicle. Winston was sure that Tillotson was busy on the same job as himself. He couldn't know whose job would be chosen as a final version, but he felt that it would be his own. Comrade Ogilvy was now a fact. Winston found it curious that you could create dead men but not living ones. Comrade Ogilvy, who had never existed in the present, now existed in the past. When the act of falsification was forgotten, he would exist just as Charlemagne [3] Карл I Великий – франкский король в 768–814 гг. (император с 800 г.) из династии Каролингов (751–987). Основал огромную империю в Западной Европе, в которую входили Северная Испания, Франция, Германия, Северная и Центральная Италия. or Julius Caesar [4] Гай Юлий Цезарь. existed.

The canteen with its low ceiling was full and it was very noisy. People were waiting in line for their meal and Victory Gin.

«There you are», said a voice at Winston's back.

He turned round. It was his friend Syme, who worked in the Research Department. Perhaps «friend» was not the right word. You did not have friends anymore, you had comrades: but there were some comrades who you liked more than others. Syme was a specialist in Newspeak. He was now working on the Eleventh Edition of the Newspeak Dictionary. He was smaller than Winston, with dark hair and large eyes. It seemed that his eyes searched your face, when he spoke to you.

«Have you got any razor blades?» he asked.

«Not one!» said Winston quickly. «I've tried everywhere. They don't exist any longer».

Everyone kept asking you for razor blades. Actually he had two unused ones which he was keeping for himself. There were no razor blades anywhere for months past. There was always something that you couldn't find in the Party shops. Sometimes it was buttons, sometimes it was shoelaces; right now it was razor blades. You could only get them, if at all, by asking for them more or less secretly on the «free» market.

«I've been using the same blade for six weeks», he lied.

The queue moved forward. As they stopped he turned to Syme again. Each of them took a dirty metal tray from the counter.

«Did you go and see the prisoners hanged yesterday?» said Syme.

«I was working», said Winston. «I shall see the film, I suppose».

«It's not the same at all», said Syme.

His eyes searched Winston's face. «I know you», the eyes seemed to say, «I know very well why you didn't go». Syme was very orthodox. It was very interesting to talk to him about Newspeak, but you first had to get him away from such subjects as helicopter raids on enemy villages, and trials of thoughtcriminals. Winston turned his head a little aside to avoid the large dark eyes.

«It was a good hanging», said Syme. «I don't like it when they tie their feet together. I like to see them kicking. And above all, at the end, the bright blue tongue. That's the detail that I like».

«Nex', please!» yelled the prole behind the counter.

Winston and Syme each got their lunch – pinkish-grey stew, a large piece of bread, a cube of cheese, a mug of Victory Coffee without milk, and one saccharine tablet.

«There's a table over there, under that telescreen», said Syme. «Let's get a gin on the way».

The gin was served in china mugs with no handles. They went across the crowded room to one of the tables and put their trays on it. On one corner of the table, there was stew. It looked like vomit. Winston took up his mug of gin, paused for a moment, and drank all at once. He suddenly discovered that he was hungry. Winston and Syme didn't speak again until they finished their stew. The pinkish cubes in it were probably meat. From the table at Winston's left, a little behind his back, someone was talking and in the general noise of the room it sounded like the quacking of a duck.

«How is the Dictionary getting on?» said Winston loudly so that Syme could hear him.

«Slowly», said Syme. Winston could see he was happy to talk about Newspeak. «I'm on the adjectives».

Syme took up his bread in one hand and his cheese in the other, and leaned across the table so that he could speak without shouting.

«We're getting the language into its final shape», he said, «the shape it's going to have when nobody speaks anything else. When we've finished with it, people like you will have to learn it all over again. We do not invent new words. We're destroying words – hundreds of them, every day. The Eleventh Edition won't contain any words that will be out of use before the year 2050».

He bit into his bread and continued speaking passionately. His thin dark face had become happy; his eyes weren't searching Winston's face anymore.

«It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. We get rid mostly of the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be destroyed as well. It isn't only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms. After all, why do you need a word which is simply the opposite of some other word? Take ‘good', for example. If you have a word like ‘good', what need is there for a word like ‘bad'? ‘Ungood' is better, because it's an exact opposite, and ‘bad' is not. Or again, if you want a stronger version of ‘good', you just have to say ‘plusgood' or ‘doubleplusgood' if you want something stronger still. Of course we use those words already. But in the final version of Newspeak there'll be nothing else. There will only be six words to express goodness and badness – in reality, only one word. Don't you see the beauty of that, Winston? It was B. B.'s idea, of course», he added.

Syme saw that Winston was not really interested.

«You don't understand the importance of Newspeak, Winston», he said almost sadly. «Even when you write it you're still thinking in Oldspeak. I've read some of those pieces that you write in the Times from time to time. They're good enough, but they're translations. In your heart you prefer Oldspeak. You don't see the beauty of the destruction of words. Do you know that Newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year?»

Winston did know that, of course. He smiled, but didn't speak. Syme bit off another piece of the dark-coloured bread, and went on:

«Don't you see that thoughtcrime will be impossible in the end because of Newspeak? There will be no words in which to express it. It narrows the range of thought. Every word will only have one meaning. Already, in the Eleventh Edition, we're not far from it. But the process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and less and less thoughtcrime. Even now, of course, there's no reason or excuse for thoughtcrime. It's just a question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in the end there won't be any need even for that. The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect. Newspeak is Ingsoc and Ingsoc is Newspeak», he added. «Can you imagine, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, there won't be a single human who could understand our conversation?»

«Except…» began Winston in doubt, and he stopped.

He almost said, «Except the proles», but he wasn't sure that this was not unorthodox. Syme, however, had guessed what he wanted to say.

«The proles are not humans», he said. «By 2050 – earlier, probably – all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared. There will be no literature of the past. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron – they'll exist only in Newspeak versions. But they will be changed into something quite opposite. Even the literature of the Party will change. Even the slogans will change. How could you have a slogan like ‘freedom is slavery' when there's no idea of freedom? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking – not needing to think».