pink_freud©®

An old, closebitten pasture, with a
footpath wandering across it and a molehill here and there. In the ragged
hedge on the opposite side the boughs of the elm trees swayed just
perceptibly in the breeze, and their leaves stirred faintly in dense masses
like women's hair. Surely somewhere nearby, but out of sight, there must be
a stream with green pools where dace were swimming?
'Isn't there a stream somewhere near here?' he whispered.
'That's right, there is a stream. It's at the edge of the next field,
actually. There are fish in it, great big ones. You can watch them lying in
the pools under the willow trees, waving their tails.'
'It's the Golden Country -- almost,' he murmured.
'The Golden Country?'
'It's nothing, really. A landscape I've seen sometimes in a dream.'
'Look!' whispered Julia.
A thrush had alighted on a bough not five metres away, almost at the
level of their faces. Perhaps it had not seen them. It was in the sun, they
in the shade. It spread out its wings, fitted them carefully into place
again, ducked its head for a moment, as though making a sort of obeisance
to the sun, and then began to pour forth a torrent of song. In the
afternoon hush the volume of sound was startling. Winston and Julia clung
together, fascinated. The music went on and on, minute after minute, with
astonishing variations, never once repeating itself, almost as though the
bird were deliberately showing off its virtuosity. Sometimes it stopped for
a few seconds, spread out and resettled its wings, then swelled its
speckled breast and again burst into song. Winston watched it with a sort
of vague reverence. For whom, for what, was that bird singing? No mate, no
rival was watching it. What made it sit

pink_freud©®

An old, closebitten pasture, with a
footpath wandering across it and a molehill here and there. In the ragged
hedge on the opposite side the boughs of the elm trees swayed just
perceptibly in the breeze, and their leaves stirred faintly in dense masses
like women's hair. Surely somewhere nearby, but out of sight, there must be
a stream with green pools where dace were swimming?
'Isn't there a stream somewhere near here?' he whispered.
'That's right, there is a stream. It's at the edge of the next field,
actually. There are fish in it, great big ones. You can watch them lying in
the pools under the willow trees, waving their tails.'
'It's the Golden Country -- almost,' he murmured.
'The Golden Country?'
'It's nothing, really. A landscape I've seen sometimes in a dream.'
'Look!' whispered Julia.
A thrush had alighted on a bough not five metres away, almost at the
level of their faces. Perhaps it had not seen them. It was in the sun, they
in the shade. It spread out its wings, fitted them carefully into place
again, ducked its head for a moment, as though making a sort of obeisance
to the sun, and then began to pour forth a torrent of song. In the
afternoon hush the volume of sound was startling. Winston and Julia clung
together, fascinated. The music went on and on, minute after minute, with
astonishing variations, never once repeating itself, almost as though the
bird were deliberately showing off its virtuosity. Sometimes it stopped for
a few seconds, spread out and resettled its wings, then swelled its
speckled breast and again burst into song. Winston watched it with a sort
of vague reverence. For whom, for what, was that bird singing? No mate, no
rival was watching it. What made it sit

pink_freud©®

horrify
her. She did not feel the abyss opening beneath her feet at the thought of
lies becoming truths. He told her the story of Jones, Aaronson, and
Rutherford and the momentous slip of paper which he had once held between
his fingers. It did not make much impression on her. At first, indeed, she
failed to grasp the point of the story.
'Were they friends of yours?' she said.
'No, I never knew them. They were Inner Party members. Besides, they
were far older men than I was. They belonged to the old days, before the
Revolution. I barely knew them by sight.'
'Then what was there to worry about? People are being killed off all
the time, aren't they?'
He tried to make her understand. 'This was an exceptional case. It
wasn't just a question of somebody being killed. Do you realize that the
past, starting from yesterday, has been actually abolished? If it survives
anywhere, it's in a few solid objects with no words attached to them, like
that lump of glass there. Already we know almost literally nothing about
the Revolution and the years before the Revolution. Every record has been


every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day by day and
minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless
present in which the Party is always right. I know, of course, that the
past is falsified, but it would never be possible for me to prove it, even
when I did the falsification myself. After the thing is done, no evidence
ever remains. The only evidence is inside my own mind, and I don't know
with any certainty that any other human being shares my memories. Just in
that one instance, in my whole life, I did possess actual concrete evidence
after the event -- years after it.'
'And what good was that?'
'It was no good, beca