It was a bright, cold day in April and the clocks were strikingthirteen. Winston Smith hurried home to Victory Mansions withhis head down to escape the terrible wind. A cloud of dust blewinside 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 anenormous face, more than a metre wide: the face of a handsomeman of about forty-five, with a large, black moustache. The man'seyes seemed to follow Winston as he moved. Below the face werethe words BIG BROTHER IS WATCHIN G YOU .
Winston went up the stairs. He did not even try the lift. Itrarely worked and at the moment the electricity was switched offduring the day to save money for Hate Week. The flat was on theseventh floor and Winston, who was thirty-nine and had a badknee, went slowly, resting several times on the way. Winston was asmall man and looked even smaller in the blue overalls of theParty. His hair was fair and the skin on his face, which used to bepink, was red and rough from cheap soap, old razor blades andthe cold of the winter that had just ended.
Inside his flat, a voice was reading out a list of figures for lastyear's production of iron. The voice came from a metal square, atelescreen, in the right-hand wall. Winston turned it down, butthere 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 andthere seemed to be no colour in anything, except in the postersthat were everywhere. The face with the black moustache lookeddown from every corner. There was one on the house opposite.B IG BROTHER IS WATCHIN G YOU , it said, and the eyeslooked into Winston's.
Behind him the voice from the telescreen was still talking aboutiron. There was now even more iron in Oceania than the NinthThree-Year Plan had demanded. The telescreen had a microphone,so the Thought Police could listen to Winston at any time of theday or night. They could also watch him through the telescreen.Nobody knew how often they actually did that but everybodybehaved correctly all the time because the Thought Police mightbe 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, thebiggest city in this part of Oceania. The nineteenth-centuryhouses were all falling down. There were holes in the streetswhere the bombs had fallen. Had it always been like this? Hetried to think back to the time when he was a boy, but he couldremember nothing.
He stared at the Ministry of Truth, where he worked. It was anenormous white building, three hundred metres high. You couldsee the white roof, high above the houses, even a kilometre away.From Winston's flat it was just possible to see the three slogans ofthe Party written in enormous letters on the side of the building:
W A R IS PEACE
FREEDO M IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
The Ministry of Truth was called Minitrue in Newspeak, thenew language of Oceania. Minitrue, it was said, had more thanthree thousand rooms above the ground and a similar numberbelow. The people there worked mainly on news andentertainment. High above the surrounding buildings, Winstoncould also see the Ministry of Peace, where they worked on war.It was called Minipax in Newspeak. An d the Ministry of Plenty —Miniplenty — which was responsible for the economy. An d hecould see the Ministry of Love — Miniluv — which was responsiblefor law and order.
The Ministry of Love was the really frightening one. Therewere no windows in it. Nobody could get anywhere near itunless they had business there. There were guards with guns inblack uniforms even in the streets half a kilometre away.
Winston turned round quickly. He smiled. It was a good ideato look happy when you were facing the telescreen. He went to hissmall kitchen. He had not had lunch in the canteen before he leftwork, but there was no food there except a piece of dark, hardbread for tomorrow's breakfast. He poured himself a cup ofcolourless, oily gin and drank it down like medicine. It burnedhim inside, but he felt more cheerful afterwards.
